Toe Tag Monologues – Freelance Project
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Cameras: Sony DSR-250 (x2) Editor: Premiere Pro CS4 |
Preface: This is a freelance project I received through AV Vegas. The content is a school play called the Toe Tag Monologues (website), a production of Vision Theatrical Foundation in Las Vegas. This video is a highlights reel blend of interviews and show footage. The biggest challenge for this project was audio capture. There was no way to record house audio, and covering the entire stage was a challenge with the four mics I did have. All things considered, this project turned out well, and the clients were satisfied with the product I delivered.
Lifetime Achievement Award
Courtesy: Nate "Igor" Smith, Photographer.
For some it was a forgotten past-time - the discipline of being able to eat massive amounts of hotdogs in one minute. For me, it was life. There had to be a way to break the current record of 68 dogs per minute. I was determined.
Like anyone, I failed a number of times. No one could eat that much on the first try. So I learned from practice, and though the failures discouraged and depressed me, I kept on trying. That Joey Chestnut has nothing on me.
It took years of training to get where I am today. I have a style, a technique, and most importantly, the passion, stronger than ever. And today is the most critical day of the year: Nathan's Famous hot dog eating contest, also known as America's birthday. This year, I claim victory.
In trial runs, I downed between 71 and 73 dogs. That's including the bun. Things were looking up, and confidence was the only emotion I could feel as I entered the stage.
Platters of processed meat and bread lay before me. The countdown began, and the nationally televised audience cheered us gluttons on.
Peek at the clock - half way done. Forty consumed! This is going better than planned. There's the mid-way gas bubble rising out of my gut to make room for more.
Ten seconds left, and I've already passed the world record! The crowd is going wild. The clock is winding down to zero, and my competitors are gagging on their final franks.
It ends with a buzzer, music, fanfare, and hot dog shaped confetti raining from the sky. I made it. After all this time and practice, the many nights worshiping the porcelain god after exceeding my stomach's capacity to increase it, I made it. And it was so worth it.
I was escorted to the winner's platform by two thin, beautiful women (the likes of whom ironically never eat such foods as grilled meat.) The nation congratulated me, and I received my trophy. It was perfect.
As I raised the icon of achievement above my head, I felt a pinch in my abdomen. Then pain and burning. The acid from my combined with the force of 80 servings of wiener started to rip through the lining of my stomach. I keeled over. The trophy shattered on the stage, and I vomited on the debris. Cheering turned to silence. Music turned to sirens. I was going to die by hot dog. I felt the mashed meat find it's way through my belly, and cradling my midsection only made it worse.
This past-time. Forgotten by some and celebrated by others... For me it was life. And death.
The Black and White
There are an alarming number of people who come to college and become completely disinterested with the amount of resources and information available to them. Going to every class is a chore rather than an experience. Instead of being excited, some choose to be bored. They feel like there is something better they could be doing. Well, I wish to assure them there isn't.
Imagine life without having obligations to attend class and complete assignments. Most people would probably do what I tended to do over the summer when I had such a schedule: nothing. There was no compelling reason for me to do anything with my time. Despite vowing to not waste this summer, great though it was, I failed in that regard.
NAU photography instructor Sam Minkler gets it. "Think about how much time in life you enjoy," he said during class this morning. "This 90 seconds [of exposure]," he suggested, is an incredible amount of time. It was his way of telling the several groups of people who spent the entire class texting, sighing and watching the broken clock: Look at how amazing this shit is. You are using light, paper and plastic to make god damn beautiful pictures, and all you care to do is not care.
Now that NAZ Today has started up again for the semester (watch the shows here), my days are typically 8-13 hours long, and I come home with far more energy than I should, bugging the hell out of my roommate. But that's good. It's very good. Compare the lifestyle of video editing, making black and white photos, directing a live newscast, watching classic films, and meeting new people then making new things to the one where I plant my ass on the sofa and catch the afternoon daypart on cable television.
The careless students around here, probably riding on scholarship or parents' money, are as black and white as the photographs Minkler inspired me to try to make today. (For the curious: The contact sheet looks ok, but the enlargement I tried had extremely low contrast, and is therefore unsatisfactory.)
I use TextEdit to write the drafts of pretty much anything. It's my favorite word processor for Mac. This morning, I took a much closer look at the application's icon, and this is what it said: "Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The revels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. you can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify them or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things."
And that's what I wish everyone could be.
