Adam the Alien's Blog
Sep. 5, 2008 at 4:31pm
Calling all filmmakers, videographers
New film/video production group to have first meeting today
A new group for Tacoma-area folk interested in making movies - short, long or waffle-shaped - is meeting for the first time tonight at 7pm. The group is currently set up as a Yahoo group under the name Tacoma Video. Here's a word from the founder:
Summer distractions are behind us. It's time to make art.Tacoma Video will hold its first meeting Friday, Sept 5, 7pm at One Heart Cafe, right next to the Grand Cinema.
Come to discuss your projects or just to help on a production. Four different area groups are being accessed to form this local group; Indie League, Film 101, Seattle Film & Video Production Network and interested members of prior Tacoma Film Festivals. Feel free to pass this on to anyone that may be interested in helping out on a production.
- Charles Ames
If you don't know who Charles is, he's also the founder of the Tacoma/Lakewood-area improv troupe, The Tokens. Watchful Feedtacoma denizens may also remember his portrayal as The Producer in my short mockumentary, Destiny of the Gnome.
I know it's pretty short notice to be posting this here, but I would encourage anyone who can make it to come. Madcap hijinks are bound to ensue.If you can't make it, there will be future meetings, so mark it down on your calendar.
| Date: | Friday September 5, 2008 | |
| Time: | 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm | |
| Repeats: | This event repeats every month on the first Friday. | |
| Location: | One Heart Cafe, 604 Fawcett Ave, Tacoma | |
| Street: | 604 Fawcett Ave | |
| Notes: | Right next door to the Grand Cinema. |
If you're not familiar with either Charles or myself, just watch for a crazy-looking guy in a white hat. That's me.
Thanks for taking this photo, Darkain. I love it!
May. 13, 2008 at 2:25pm
The closing of Gringo de Loco
From a weekly delivery guy's perspective.
For those that haven't read it on the Spew, or on Kevin's blog, Gringo de Loco - the "blues-inspired" Mexican restaurant on Pacific Avenue - is closing.
Honestly, it doesn't really surprise me...I've been watching the number of unread Stranger copies I have to carry back to the delivery van increase more and more (for those who don't know, I assist a man named Christian in delivering a free publication called The Stranger around Tacoma - related video blogs here and here). The statement on the site is correct - the old management may have had a small draw, but it got smaller. Under the old management, they'd go through about a bundle (25 copies) of The Stranger every week. When the old managers vanished, I was carrying most of that bundle back to the van every week. We cut them down to 15 copies a few weeks back, and I was still carrying most of it back.
It is kind of sad, given the circumstances. Not only did the new owners take on management of a Titanic-esque situation, but they found themselves between a rock and a hard place in terms of customers. They seemed to be having a hard time drawing new customers - possibly because many people still saw it as they did upon first entering La Costa: a dump. A new paint job and new signage on the front, unfortunately, doesn't make enough people look at a spot without thinking of what used to be there. In the meantime, though, their changes made the existing customer base pretty much vanish.
I think they may have fared at least a little better, even in spite of the sinking ship they took on, if there had been more of an obvious switch-over. As it was, delivering there every week, it never felt like, "Okay, La Costa has closed and this new place is here." It just felt like, "Eh, the sign changed. Whatever." I was in the premises every single week, and I never felt tempted by the changes to give it a chance - and I'm a guy who's tempted by a lot of the places I stop at.
I regularly eat at a number of places I deliver to because I liked the feel, the smell and the people during my brief moments inside. And I have to confess, I was more tempted by the people (though not the feel or the smell) of La Costa's old regime than Gringo de Loco. I always had a warm, friendly greeting from them, even though I wasn't there to eat. After the management switch (and, admittedly, the moving of the free publication racks to a crappy place under a counter where they were harder to see) I no longer felt like I should give the place a try due to the friendly nature of the people running it. I'm sure the new management was friendly, too...but I never met them.
I didn't feel, to me, like a new place...but it didn't feel like the old place, either. In light of that, they never really had a chance.
May. 6, 2008 at 9:53pm
Destiny of the Gnome - the 72 Hour Film Festival's missing film
Edward A. Murphy, Jr. strikes again...
This last weekend, I participated in the 72 hour film contest. I completed a film. On time. It did not, however, ever make it down to the Grand Cinema to be turned in. The first half of the following video is the film itself...the second half explains the rest.
CAST (in alphabetical order)
The Producer: Charles Ames
R.R. Anderson: R.R. Anderson (scenes deleted - watch for the extended cut!)
Bubbles: Hillary Barzilla
Bob Gasse: Paul Ford
Steve Buck: Gadsby Glasrud
Sid O. Koo: Nathe Lawver (scenes deleted - watch for the extended cut!)
Delouise DeLuise: Andrea Trenbeath Lowen
William Power: Adam J. Manley
Constance Lee Gasse: Kristie Worthey
CREW (in no particular order)
Adam J. Manley: Director/Producer/Editor
Charles Ames: Assistant Director, Cookie Corraling
Kristie Worthey: Cookie Continuity
Hillary Barzilla: Cookie Crumbling
Paul Ford: Cookie Consuming
Andrea Trenbeath Lowen: Bubble Blower
Nathe Lawver: Narrator
The solemn music at the end is "Everything is Going to Be Okay" by Sad Music for Happy Humans. Check SMfHH out at www.happyhumans.org or at myspace.com/sadmusicforhappyhumans. The music that interrupts it is a generic royalty-free sample loop.
Apr. 27, 2008 at 12:14am
Frost Park: Where the Sidewalk Ends
Video from the first week of the chalk competition
So, I was looking for something to title my video from a few weeks back, of the first Frost Park chalk contest. "Frost in Chalk" wasn't cutting it, nor was any variation on the tired old "chalk it up" phrase - especially as that had been used already in this very blogosphere.
It wasn't until I found a familiar poem that I knew I'd found the perfect match.
There is a place where the sidewalk endsAnd before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.
Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.
Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.
- "Where the Sidewalk Ends" by Shel Silverstein
As far as I'm concerned? For at least one hour every Friday, Frost Park is where the sidewalk ends.
If you go to the YouTube page and click "view in higher resolution" you can get significantly better quality - I haven't uploaded it anywhere else yet, though. I know, I know...I should.
More videos to come, in no promised timeline; the video blog is something I do in between other projects, as a way of relaxing. As such, I refuse to let this pressure me, too. Especially when I was having just so much bloody fun with this one.