Another Movie

#5452 from Drew Smith on Vimeo.


There's a long story behind this I should probably tell. Should.

because it was too long to tweet

What are we to make of the fact that Moneyball (set in 2002) prominently features a character performing a song released in 2008? Is this secretly a time travel story? Did that girl write the song, and then somebody else recorded it several years later (or does she grow up to be Australian singer/songwriter Lenka*? Is this film actually set in an alternate timeline, where the song was released a half-decade earlier? Is Sorkin a huge Back to the Future Fan? Is there a trope for this**?

*Why yes, I did have to look that up.
**There are two.

Illusion'd

Can anybody else see this or did just waste a half hour making this stupid .gif?

[edit: it seems to work if you click/double-click on it]
...

This is possibly the stupidest thing I've ever posted, and I once did a blog about sad trombone.

OK here are the other movies I made and then we're done witht this

"Through the Windshield":


This is technically a photography project, though some weird framerate issue makes it impossible to see the photos. Whatever.

"The Universe" (best viewed in HD)


A big reason why I didn't post much over the last two months. This is the longest film anyone has shot in the history of the class by like five minutes.

"Fortunate Son (Demo)"

...because if you put "Demo" in the name, no one will complain about the poor recording quality. More words...tomorrow?

Update 2 Days Later: I wish I could say my inspiration behind this was strictly political, and that I didn't come up with the idea after hearing it on Sons of Anarchy. I probably wouldn't have gone through the trouble of recording it and posting it if I wasn't such a Communist, though (see previous post).

This song is obviously very similar to "Testify" in that both are really vocal-driven (though here the guitar is used more harmonically, where there it was used more for rhythm and dynamics), and in that both, at least to me, update older protest songs for modern-day issues even though the words aren't changed. "Fortunate Son," while it's rooted very much in Vietnam and the anti-war movement, is pretty easy to translate because it's basically about power and privilege and how wealth tends to set in and fester and slowly decay everything around it. No wait, that's plaque*. Anyway those are universal themes that never go away, they just change to suit the times, like the Endless.

So anyway I was practicing the song, insert "know way do you practice" joke here, and noticed the sort of bluesy sound I was getting from the tuning (it's the same key as the original, but tuned down two steps so you're playing the A/G/D/E chord shapes instead of G/F/C/D). Some versions I tried to do used a lot of seventh chords and switching from the major to seventh chord, but it was too ornate to play easily, and it sort of gets overwhelmed by the vocal anyway. A few sevenths snuck in, on the D chords in the chorus. Similarly I'm sure a full-band version of this is possible, but that would probably be too hard to play distract from what I'm saying trying to say.

I've always had this theory that I could sing, in the same way that I could run a marathon or be elected Dictator-for-Life or get a steady, well-paying job: it was technically possible but highly unlikely. I think I'm getting closer, and didn't expect to get a better take then this one, so decided to use it, but I wouldn't say I'm quite there yet. Also, how do you not breathe into a microphone if it's the built-in microphone? I've had this computer for three years and have taken it apart completely to replace the screen (one of the reasons I didn't blog anything this summer), and I don't even know where the microphone is.

I still have no idea if I'm going to post anything next week.

*I had dental surgery last week.

Tags: ecomonics, Irish people, wankers

This is actually probably the most concise, accurate description of what went down I've ever heard:

"End of the Universe"

Don't read too much into this...I made it as a joke for a class project...we'll see...possibly more later...

But seriously watch it

Wait how did I not know about this?

Photoblag: Pumpkins!

Yeah I was a little late with this...

250, Untititled

[In the interest of transp[arency, I've left all spelling and typing error s intact for this post]

See, this is why I shouldn't bother with things like this. You make big promises and then you get busy with school and writers block and you could have posted like ten blogs but NOOOOOOOOOO it had to be a song. I'm a dummass.

Anyway here are some movies I made a while ago, which at least contain music. I fininshed another movie last week but the file might be a little to big to post until I can figure out how to shrink it.