STANDUP: Matt Mira’s Day Off @ Meltdown Comics 7/3/11

Here's another standup set.  I was less prepared, but I did okay.  It was a mix of jokes I like to tell and things that I think could be good jokes later.

On a content note, I can't believe the Camp Manatoc classic worked.  Now I'm going to be hauling that out all over the place.

On a production note, I trimmed the head and tail of my recording in FCPX again, so the only part you hear is about me, and then I thought I'd edit the set - since I kind of set up the desert thing twice, I was going to get rid of one of those, and then it sounded weird and didn't work so I put it back, but I couldn't figure out how to accomplish a common technique in my editing arsenal:  Determining the time code of a point in one clip, and then finding that same time in a second clip.  It would easily produce a seamless edit, if it were possible.  Also, I found avid frustrating recently because it didn't have a working 'match frame' command that did what I expected from FCP, and now FCP doesn't either.  So that's kind of disappointing.

STANDUP: Matt Mira's Day Off @ Meltdown Comics 6/26/11

My second set at this particular show. It's the first time I've done this bit on stage in over a year.  Felt pretty good.  So I'm sharing:

PS: This audio clip is my first production made in FCPX.  A rousing success!  How will it stand up to additional experiments, with picture?  Stay tuned!

Winner of the Apple Design Award

What a day!

So I'm getting ready this morning for MaxFunCon (3D!) and what happens?  The delivery truck shows up with my Apple Design Award!  They brought it on a flatbed, so all the neighbors knew what it was pretty much immediately. Once the movers left, I had to go grab my camera to show you guys:

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Giving my award a hug:

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Unfortunately, because there's a step to enter the house, the movers had to leave it outside.  Something about their contract. It's bloody heavy.

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Actually, I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to get it into the house.

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I'm in a hurry this morning, to do airport runs and then get everyone out to the 'Con, so I'll just have to figure it out when I get back, I guess.  I hope my roommates aren't going to be mad.  I had to just put it on a cinder block so it doesn't kill as much of the lawn.

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Hypothetical film project

Apparently, one of my hobbies lately has been writing most of a new post and then saving it and then not finishing it at all.  But what I wish my hobby had been lately is... Polluting bittorrent trackers with copies of films that are indistinguishable from the original.  Except that I've gone through and replaced any existing titles with virtually identical titles that match in content and size, motion, function, etc.  And they're in some asinine typeface like Mead Bold.

I'd sneak my way on to trackers under a variety of addresses and accounts, seed my copies of popular movies, and vanish into the night!

This would work especially well on movies where the title doesn't display until the very end of the film.  It'd be hard to check for, and make a lot of piratey people swear.

inception

aladdin

the killer

APES! - 04 - Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes.avi-1

enfants terribles

new jack city.avi

I can't quite decide if it's better on a serious movie or a ridiculous movie:

russian ark

I like the laziness of this one:

The Jazz Singer(1927) 970 96 Black and Whiite ByTheDoors

And I suppose this was a given:

helvetica-2

Now all I need is the maniacal fanbase that can spread out and do my evil bidding for me...

Youngstown.

Youngstown, Ohio is a standing set of a city.  Built for 200,000 and home to 60,000, it would remind you of the cliche facade towns of the old westerns, if it weren't so desolate as to be distracting. I've spent a couple of weeks there shooting movies - specifically My Soul To Take (a religious horror) and My Soul To Take 2 (a buffy-esque martial arts actioner).  Neither is the Wes Craven version, and neither has seen the light of day, as far as I know.

The films shot nights, meaning the crew woke up around 5pm and went to work as the sun was setting, and by the time the sun was rising again, those of us who weren't headed over to a third-shifters' bar for a few hours were headed back to the hotel for the free hot breakfast.  Ordinarily, you've got a handful of guests and patrons wandering downstairs over the course of a couple hours, stumbling towards coffee and perhaps sustaining some powdered eggs as a kind of collateral damage, but for a few weeks five years ago, one Holiday Inn (or something) was beset by two dozen filmmakers cleaning out the breakfast buffet as fast as the staff could refill it.

Today, I'm on set in a real Hollywood soundstage, and there's no make-your-own-waffle station.  What gives?