153. Blue Horizons Continued: Posting of "World's Easiest Catch: Zen of Rock Crab" from Youtube

I have two versions of the rock crab film because one version has better audio and higher resolution than the second one (which was unfortunately the first video I uploaded to Youtube).

I guess this is an anti-climactic moment in my life. A climax-anti-climax moment. Two parallel universes in one real moment. At that time, upon completion of the rock crab film, my mind was in a state of desperation. It saw no future. It lived and thrived for the moment and did things without analyzing consequences. It was living in this moment until August 24, 2007. And then? I finished the rock crab film. Maybe you'd think this would be the end, but it was only the beginning. This is when I slowly started to see a longer-term future. This is when I started to have hope in the university and have sincere desire to return. Through the process of film, my entire mind is engaged and exercised. I no longer feel trapped in my mind. And to be surrounded by professors who support the systematic explorations of science communications? This would be the closest thing to my definition of "heaven."

It's funny to think that it took me so long to get to the point to post my rock crab film. So many layers of learning and writing and trial and error, just to get a decent 7.5 minute film? Well, it's worth it. Creating great films require lots of experiences and lots of writing. Period.

I am glad I reflected upon the Blue Horizons experience, for two reasons. First off, since it is the first year of the program, we students are the living human "guinea pig" crop of test subjects. What if some researcher from an education department finds value in our guinea-pigged-ness? Then this blog would have immense value. Secondly, I feel this experience is finally the "baseline" that I want to work with for the rest of my life experiences. I'm finally standing on the "right foot," or mostly so.

I want a sense of "completion" of a project, but I hardly feel that way. I still have future environmental multi-media blogs to post related to post-Blue Horizons issues, such as marketing and distribution of the student films. In addition, the last six months between now (March 2008) and the end of the Blue Horizons program (August 2007) has been like living the "Sixth Sense," in terms of how you have been living a certain life a certain way with a certain amount of knowledge and later you learn something crucially new that ultimately impacts the way how you interpret your experiences during a given amount of time. So, there's lots to write about.

Storytelling as a time-dependent multi-layer matrix. The time-dependency of experience and story-telling: your whole life is like a scientific experiment, some kind of fractal of mathematical thought. What you do today depends on what you did yesterday. What you will do tomorrow depends on what you will do today.

151. Blue Horizons Continued: "World's Easiest Catch: Zen of Rock Crab:" Turned in Final Project (mini DV and DVD) to Michael Hanrahan

I remember Friday morning at the UC Irvine lab. Friday. August 24, 2007. Matt Olzewski bid me farewell the evening before as I headed toward the 24/7 engineering computer lab for the final stretch. I had everything... finally. The narration, the music, the images. Now it's time to put it together. And suddenly all these fragments laying around, bit-by-bit, started to form a coherent piece. Basically a film is a time-dependent matrix of multiple brain-stimulation variables (mostly visual and acoustic), like a butterfly effect: the end result is a product of the initial premises. Very fractal like.

Before I move on, Dr. George Legrady (Media Arts Technology Department) asked me an interesting question. He asked about the classic chicken-or-the-egg syndrome in film: what came first? It is truly a tough question. This seven minute film ultimately represents 7 years of layers and layers of thinking and philosophy and writing and art... etc, but in a proximal level... first came filming (25 hours of tape), then when it came down to a week left, I decided on the narration, then I filmed ANY VISUAL GAPS that I did not film that was needed for the narration, then I did the MUSIC (composing, mastering, etcetera), then I had all the pieces, and I laid down the skeleton: the narration + the music. And then from my visual-right-brain memory, I went straight to the images my mind consistently flashed to, and then? The film became ONE PIECE. Whoa.

It was all a very interesting and "organic" process. It's a feedback of multiple layers of knowledge. One thing though that stands very true is that ONCE YOU HAVE THE NARRATION (and music, when appropriate), YOU HAVE THE FILM, it's just a matter of resurrecting all the other layers. I guess that's why films start with screenwriting. DUH. But for my mind to go through this process and realize it on its own, that is the most important thing. The first time doing anything is most difficult and I managed to pull it off.

Two things I remember that were accidentally good: (1) The music matched so well with the narration, it was UNCANNY amazingly n-sync. I hardly had to edit. I think something in my mind was subliminally just streamlined at that time. (2) The end of the film was unintentional, I plopped in by accident the whole piece of my munching on the rock crab cakes, AND THE MUSIC ENDED A DOZEN SECONDS BEFORE MY SARCASTIC COMMENT, "You know what. This is really good." And the timing was just so great, the speed, the climax, the build-up, the tension, and then? The comic release. Totally an accident. Oh my god. I was operating like I was being struck by lightning with the luck of my own creativity during those hours of Thursday and Friday night. Geez. I will never cram like that ever again (ya right).

Then from 9am to 12-noon I suffered because I was trying to burn a mini DV tape and DVD at UCI. I tried probably like 5-6 times, each with a failed attempt. Burning these tapes and DVDs are actually quite time consuming. I gave up in the end, and at this point in time it was legal to cuss "fxck it," and I had to leave. I drove up to UCSB. I was so tired driving. I also remember having a very heavy weight until a surprise call from Keith Boynton. He was really concerned and wanted to make sure I was all right--not to mention I owed him my famous camera D "Charlie." Keith said in a sensitive, soothing voice, "We were all wondering were you were! We are all concerned." I told Keith with renewed excitement, "I'm coming up! I have the camera! I'm off Lost Hills Road." (Ironically, Lost Hills Road off the 101 is were my cousin Mike and I had a birthday party photoshoot a few months back). I got off the freeway so I could talk to Keith. I continued, "I'm sorry I was gone. I had very high anxiety and I panicked and I couldn't function being around lots of people so I went to UC Irvine to work." Keith said, to my surprise, "I understand. My wife is like that sometimes. Sometimes you need your space." After the phone call, my pre-existing oppressive pressure in my heart lifted to some degree. It was nice that someone in the world (other than my parents and my sister and other immediate family) cared about me after all.

If people were really concerned about my well-being the last week, they would have called me. They would have even emailed me. The only people who contacted me were Dulce, Maria, and Keith. Did they really know I was at UC Irvine or not? Did they really think I was gone or not? It doesn't matter. The whole thing is stupid to think or fuss about in the end. This whole issue is now resolved. It is a result of miscommunication and misunderstanding, and lack of following through with certain protocols through the Disabilities Program on my behalf. In the end, everything is resolved... emotionally, logically. Administratively, the grade changes haven't been addressed yet through the Summer Sessions office. Then again, what is Administrative versus what is Logical are two entirely separate matters. I can attest to that since the day I set foot on the university.

All a person had to do was give me a gxdxm camera and a computer with final cut pro... and some peers to gripe to. And I hit the ground running.

150. Blue Horizons Continued: "World's Easiest Catch: Zen of Rock Crab:" Plasma Lamp Image Collection Plus ADHD Art

So, here's my second plasma lamp slideshow. Earlier this morning I had "ADHD" and was having a hard time sitting down and focusing. So, I ended up making some ADHD Art. I overlaid 5 plasma lamps and their random connections to portray how your mind operates when you are experience ADHD: chaotic. I took time to choose the weirdest looking plasma lamp images I snapped (I guess I must mention that I know I took over 500 images). They are in raw image form, but when the time comes up, I can work with the images to create something very elaborate!

148. Blue Horizons Continued: "World's Easiest Catch: Zen of Rock Crab:" THE FRANTIC FINAL-ISH SCRIPT FOR 7.5. MINUTE VERSION

Link to the FRANTIC SKETCH FINAL SCRIPT FOR THE 7.5 MINUTE VERSION OF WORLD'S EASIEST CATCH:
http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/finalscriptSKETCHzenrockcrab.pdf

Link to the FINAL SCRIPT RANDOM SCRAP for World's Easiest Catch: http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/finalscriptideasworldseasiestcatchRA.pdf

A week before the projects was due, I remember being in the parking lot of Denny's off Patterson, and that night I constructed in the car, the narration for the main 4.5 minute version, or at least the draft version. Quite poetic, indeed. Poetry can sometimes come from times of desperation! Later, while I was in the Orange County area, I "finalized" the script... or basically delt with what I had. My time in Orange County and Riverside that week was strange. Very strange. Every night I probably got 3-4 hours of sleep. I was operating like a rapid robot. Or as rapidly as I could go. My mind was in this state of zen. Writing the script requires good sleep and conscious thinking. But I can only methodically create art and music and edit under a zen mode of lack of sleep. My god, this is going to be the adrenaline rush of next quarter? I was in a dream state that entire week.

I also remember crashing at Matt's house, my new random friend who works at the 24-7 engineering computer labs at UC Irvine. He was so kind to let me use his password and work on the Macs and Final Cut Pro. A few days later he offered that I could crash on the couch at his place, which was practically across the street from the UC Irvine campus and the in-and-out. He and his friend were my "social pill" for the week. What amazing support! But then again, it was all a dream, and the entire time I was in a state of artistic delusion. It's like you can place your selt into a state of drugged trance through behavior modification (no sleep, no eating, no exercise) ... the issue is that it takes a couple of days to get into that kind of mode. If you consume a certain "drug-like" substance, I am assuming you can achieve an instant gratification mode of altered Reality.

145. Blue Horizons Continued: "World's Easies Catch: Zen of Rock Crab" Sample Letter for Permission to Film at Lazy Acres Market in Santa Barbara

Below is a pdf file of the above letter to "Jason," the manager of Lazy Acres Market in Santa Barbara, California.

http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/lazyacresreleaseform.pdf

Early today I wrote a fragmented essay on the philosophy of grocery stores and food in general... as well as more specific background on the situation with Lazy Acres. But my attention span at this moment is quite low, so I will focus on writing this short monologue-ish essay in a future blog.

ONE MESSAGE FOR NOW: If you think you are switching majors and fields so that you can avoid lag time and waiting time to get "PERMITS," I'm sorry, but that AIN'T going to happen. Permits are everywhere. They are a plague to individual flow of thought and action. Whether I am an ecologist or earth scientist... or now... a film-person, I have to deal with PERMITS! Some basic rules with permits: (1) if you want to muck around with living vertebrates, good luck, you'll have to wait for 6 months to 6 ice-age-hot-house cycles (2) if you want to muck around with rocks, the lag time is much shorter (3) the larger the organization you have to deal with, the longer the time you will have to wait to get your project done, simply because people have to go through capillary action up the corporate ladder.

In the circumstance of Lazy Acres, the store used to be a local, independent operation, but I think they recently merged with "Foster Farms"? I might be mistaken. Hence, I had a week lag time before I received approval from Jason the manager to go ahead and film inside the store.

Other ideas I'll share at a later time! :-)

144. Blue Horizons Continued: "World's Easiest Catch: Zen of Rock Crab" Sample Shotlog Developed from Keith Boynton's Example

On a previous post, I included a shotlog that Keith Boynton gave me, which was a great baseline to start with. I modified it a little bit to the shotlog above. I created this shotlog in a frantic state, one week before the film was due. When I started writing notes, it was very strange to feel "confined" by this Shotlog. My true, instinctive desire was to write on a blank sheet of paper any random rock-crab associated idea I had. I guess it's that same feeling I always had when I tried to use those pre-organized school-and-calendar-planners you buy at the store.

At age 19, in the beginning of spring quarter of 2001, my mind tweaked such that I started using a white "blank" sheet of paper for notes (instead of lined paper or paper with pre-existing marks). All my ideas come out random and spur-of-the-moment, and if I create a structure or organizational matrix for these random ideas, it is always retroactively.

I think the first step to any project is to allow infinite mental freedom and unstructured outpourof ideas to come out. Then structures can be implemented the next rount. It's like those school planners and their grids are already placing your mind into an arbitrary prison: the manufacturers organization of reality rather than exploring your own!

143. Blue Horizons Continued: "World's Easiest Catch: Zen of Rock Crab" Revised Treatment and Michael Hanrahan's Response

Below is a link to the pdf file of a "successful" A-treatment.

http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/worldseasiestcatchzenrockcrabfinal.pdf

I was able to cram the most essential information in two pages. As remarked by Michael Hanrahan above: "Similar to the Treatment for 'What the Bleep...' Will be a tough film to illustrate, I think. But prove me wrong!" I have two responses to this: (1) I didn't know for about 4 months what exactly was "What the Bleep" until finally I found out it was a movie, and about ten people asked me to watch it. It's philosophically intriguing, but some of the facts and data are distorted to a state of "pseudoscience." Lisa Angle--a marketing agent for channels 17 and 21 in Santa Barbara, let me borrow her copy of 'What the Bleep' and I still need to return it to her! and (2) In response to the "difficult to illustrate" comment, I had been receiving this all along the summer. I would explain to people with immense enthusiasm what I wanted to do and how my film would look like and people would stare at me as if I were a freak. By the end of summer sessions, I was just fed up with the "talking" and stop explaining to people "what I'm going to do" but JUST DO IT! Which I did!

After three quarters of being involved in film, I have come to notice that most of film production seems to be "yap yap yap" mode rather than just-do-it mode. I think I'm over the yapping, and I'm in this just-do-it-mode, either writing or filming.

One more thought. It is really difficult to simultaneously film and create a preproduction package at the same time. Because things are changing, evolving on both ends. The writing and filming co-evolves, and if things are changing beneath your feet, it's very difficult to just say STOP and quarantine and reflect upon all this change in one seating! And if you do this, the writing becomes obsolete the very next moment!

142. Blue Horizons Continued: "World's Easiest Catch: Zen of Rock Crab": Failed First Attempt at Treatment

Below is the link to the above "treatment attempt" for World's Easiest Catch.

http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/hanrahanfirststreatmenttoomuchdetail.pdf

In class, Michael Hanrahan explained to us that a "treatment" for a film is a one-to-two page summary of the film project. A short-and-sweet pitch that can grab attention *snap* like that! In terms of the structure, I'm assuming within the first 1-3 sentences you would have a very catchy, summarized hook to get the reader into the document (and as a cheating mechanism, I would stamp the treatment with some form of catchy, prominent logo, as I did with my pre-production package). I would answer in a nutshell the four primary questions every single human being wants to know when trying to grab one's attention: (1) What's this about? (2) Why should I care? (3) Why should I believe you? Either (a) I have pre-existing credentials, so believe me like a subgod... or (b) The data and evidence I am presenting speaks for itself (4) And now that I'm hooked, but with a diminishing attention span to lengthy, repetitive stimuli, what are you going to do to sustain my long-term interest in this project/system?

I guess in question (4), you would go into unique and quirky technique and content that would pulse the entire story with originality.

It's really important that you keep treatments short. Like a "pitch." You may have to pitch a project at any time, any place, when you least expect it. I remember Michael saying that you may run into some notable executive in an elevator, and you do indeed have 15 seconds of his time, as the doors rapidly slide closed... slide open... and out he steps. It is as quarantined an environment you can get! The closest to a long road trip in a car! What will you do to prick his information-bombarded ear? It's best to write treatments like this. More like an extended abstract for scientific papers, except you have the license to creative verbage and visualization, not to mention the license to stimulate emotion beside rational thought. But don't overdo emotions at the sacrifice of accuracy: this is called sensationalization. And don't underdo it either, because then your treatment truly becomes an "abstract" of a boring scientific paper!

Michael gave several sample treatments (as I have posted in a previous blog), but they had various different structures, some more consistent than others. Yet the above conclusions are what seem to be more humanly universal.

So, what happened? What went wrong with the above treatment? By the time I was required to write the treatment, I was very much embedded and involved in my rock crab project. No one else in the class even STARTED their film, except for me. In this circumstance, the students had an advantage because a short, one-page summary of a project would be easy to bullshxt. For me, I struggled tremendously because I knew too much, and everything I knew was disorganized in my brain! I ended up adding too much detail. I ended up creating a document that's like a hybrid between a treatment and a preproduction package. Oh dear. This is a case when working too hard and knowing too much actually backfires. I received a "B" on this work.

I was determined to do the treatment right, so on my own, I rewrote the treatment (next blog) and was able to marginally get it down to two pages. I submitted the treatment to Michael, just to get some constructive feedback, and I actually had my treatment returned with a grade of "A"! This was most certainly not expected... and I take it Michael appreciated that I went out of my way to repeat concocting a treatment until I did it right.

141. Blue Horizons: "World's Easiest Catch, Zen of Rock Crab" Continued: Sketch Diagrams of Regional Rock Crab Ecology

Finally, after all this time, stress, and anxiety... I can return to reflecting and building upon the components of "World's Easiest Catch: Zen of Rock Crab." Above is a "cartoon" sketch of the regional ecology of rock crab, documenting where the rock crab comes from and who takes care of what and interacts with who in terms of rock crab distribution and end source. I included these diagrams in my treatment for WEC-ZORC (pronounced as "wek-zork"). Fortunately the acronym for my film came out marginally cool.

138. Blue Horizons Continued: A View of Maria de Oca's Santa Barbara Sustainable Seafood Film Project

The first time I was ever exposed to "Seafood Watch" was actually through Yasmin and Mickey von Dassow (I witnessed their marriage up in Washington state). Yasmin and Mickey actually first met and hit it off at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. So, one day Yasmin passed out all these Seafood Watch cards around the Earth Sciences Department (the west coast "2006" guide). I didn't think much of them upon first exposure, but I started to see these cards circulate all over the place. Like they were becoming common currency... or your "ocean action" trading cards instead of those video game action figure Pokemon trading cards that kids like to trade. We've got fish on our cards instead of Pokemon or Pikachu!

Hence, on the last day of lecture in Ben Halpern's marine conservation course, he brought in his wife, Kim Selkoe (at that time, I didn't know they were married and had a kid, and they both work at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), very very small world). Kim an employee at the Ty-Warner Sea Center teamed up to write a grant at Patagonia to help start the Santa Barbara Sustainable Seafood Program, or essentially transfer the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch Program down to the Santa Barbara region. They both are involved in networking with local seafood serving restaurants in terms of raising awareness of the seafood they purchase and serve to customers. In addition, they are raising seafood awareness among consumers. Maria de Oca, my classmate, had the opportunity to document the innerworkings of this budding program, and she did a great job. I like her style a lot: a very fun news report style. She also used great music--from some French band, I believe. I remember Maria working so hard trying to contact the agents of these musicians just so she can have the rights to use the music on her film... just so she can submit the film to the Santa Barbara Ocean Film Festival! I didn't think music rights would be such a hassle. I guess that's why it pays off to create your own music. You are simplifying your life: instead of waiting five days to get music rights, you use 5 days or less to compose your own whacky music!

I think Maria's film is the favorite of my class because it was short, to the point, entertaining, light-hearted, informative, and NOT distorting the viewpoints of the people interviewed. There were one or two films in the class I felt were badly edited and greatly skewed the point of view of the individual interviewed, and since I knew the people very well, it actually pissed me off greatly. I probably already talked about this before, but I think one of the most horrible parts about film is poor representation of the persons interviewed. That is partly why I like making my films as "dig into my head" films... Why? Because I acknowledge from the beginning that the only person I truly know and can accurately represent is myself and that when I include other people, it is not necessarily them but MY perception of them. If I have this approach to film, then I can NEVER go wrong. And no one can pin me to the wall for misrepresentation. On a rare occasion, I feel just a little bit clever, and this is one situation.

Back to the Seafood Watch cards. I don't know whether they serve their duty or purpose. I am not sure whether these cards are really of any help or use. It just creates the same problem of instant gratification with information. It's just people telling other people what to do and think rather than the individual consumer taking time out to think and do and explore and ask questions (not that anyone has TIME to do that, but it's a nice idea). The individual consumer not only being a consumer of seafood but a consumer of seafood watch information. The card does not ask the consumer to be his or her own investigative sleuth. I guess that's where my philosophy differs here. As I have said a bazillion times, the only goal I have in "teaching" is to teach people to teach themselves. If you skip over that step, then there's no point in anything.

So, Seafood Watch is another situation of INSTANT GRATIFICATION ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION. Then again, these cards are better than NO information at all. Maybe I'm just being a cynic this morning. When looking at these cards again, I couldn't help to think that publishing these cards involved killing trees to save fish. I just noticed "recycled paper" in small font. Didn't say 100%. So, I'm suspicious. Twisted Environmentalism comes back to hit us over the head again!

I had the pleasure of helping Maria on this film. On the first day we went over to Elements Restaurant... Maria was totally on top of things... and I just enjoyed taking pictures of her, Kim Selkoe, and the chef of Elements. It was the best photoshoot I had that summer!

Right now, Maria is out and about with interviews for graduate school. She applied to SEVEN graduate schools. Maria is very determined to get a masters degree and work on research involved marine ecology in the Arctic. Very specific, I'd say, but determined and visionary. I like, I like very much.

137. Blue Horizons Continued: Summer 2007 Kickoff with Santa Barbara Writer's Conference

On the first week of Blue Horizons, I managed to catch a glimpse of the Santa Barbara Writers' Conference ... on the very last day of it. I managed to get a little bit lost on my way down to "Fess Double Tree Resort," off of Cabrillo Blvd., right along the beach.... By this point of the conference, there were not many people left. All the "great ol' wise ones" (aka Ray Bradbury types) already had their talks early on... and the agents and editors day already passed... so now there's just leftovers for the main conference go-ers. Technically I was supposed to pay $10 to get in to a few talks, but the nice ladies in the front let me go in as soon as they found out I was a graduate student. By the time I got to the hotel, the last talk remaining was a panel of women writers. One I vividly remember was a lady who was on the writing team for Sex and the City and she wrote a book about the pains and horrors of teenage "love," however you define love at such a meaningless early age. I also remember another young girl from Ireland who wrote about her depression and had her book published through a small publishing company. She was a do-it-herself type of person in terms of booking guest talks and doing presentations. And finally, last but not least, I had the opportunity to meet Marlise Elizabeth Kast, who was basically the youngest paparazzi on the Hollywood scene. She now does a lot of travel/surfing writing instead (as a more productive alternative). You may ask... why would I approach someone like Marlise? I have no interest in paparazzi. The truth of the matter was that she was the most eloquent and to-the-point guest speaker there. Marlise was very sharp and on top of things. I approached her after the talk, and she was actually very friendly with me (this is the first time a non-university author took the time to ever talk to me and hold a friendly conversation... the other authors I have met were rude and were quick to brush me off). Marlise gave me her email, and she also provided advice in overall journalism. Two essential resources she uses are "media kitty" or http://www.mediakitty.com and a house-sitting website http://www.housecarers.com. I told her about my first manuscript I ever wrote and she was very enthusiastic, despite it's philosophy and environmental properties. I emphasized that I wanted to make my writing accessible to everyone, so I created two comical characters--biogeek and geobum graduate students--going on a road trip up the California Coastline, but simultaneously taking an arduous adventure into the de-construction and re-organization of Terra's mind and her perception of Reality. Marlise took a step back and said this was very interesting! I haven't pulled out "the card" yet, but I may shoot her an email sometime!

Anyhow, this brief experience impacted me greatly, to the point that by the end of the summer I officially labeled myself "rock crab paparazzi" in my film.

This year I am anticipating to volunteer at the Santa Barbara Writer's Conference. I am required to volunteer 30 hours, which is quite a lot! Hopefully I can get some "before-the-conference" hours so I can enjoy the time during. I have been attempt to contact Ms. Grace Rachow, who is the coordinator of volunteers. She has an interesting website at http://www.gracerachow.com in which she is actively involved in organizing community events, from Community of Voices publication to Toastmasters to writing tutorials. I have had a little bit of difficulty trying to get a hold of her to see if I can volunteer during the spring quarter as well. I also had the opportunity to speak with Marcia Meiers over the phone, who is the coordinator for the entire event! What a daunting task, so it would seem to me.

Hopefully this all works out. It would otherwise be my first ever chance to participate in a REAL writers' conference!

http://www.sbwritersconference.com

132. Blue Horizons Continued: Random Experiences in Between: A Photograph Taken During Demo Video at Coal Oil Point

I am now in this phase of blogging in which I got over the worst, but I'm going to touch upon quite a few random (yet important) incidents and events that happened during the Blue Horizons Program that I didn't have a chance yet to touch upon.

This above image is very interesting to me. I wish I had the color image right along side it. Why? Because the color image is actually very boring but the black-and-white version is actually very interesting--an optimal distribution of pigeonholes and sharp lines and contrasts of pigeonholes within the image. Coal Oil Point Reserve, just west of UC Santa Barbara. Two surfers standing in the shallow water. A pack of eager surfers waiting for ideal waves. Platform Holly (oil rig) in the distance. I took this picture late July of 2007 when Nicole Bulalacao and I were struggling to do our first interview film assignment. I guess it's one of those moments to say that "Life's a bxtch to go through but fun and amusing to reflect upon."

128. Blue Horizons Continued: Very First Blog on June 25, 2007

Yesterday I spent my afternoon out with Oscar Flores out in Ventura. It was a nice, much needed break, but as I return to blogging, I feel guilty for having fun.... I have to get back into the Zen of Blue Horizons flashbacks.

Basically, the next three blogs will post the "first three blogs" that I wrote in the summer of 2007 that I never had the chance to post... until now. I wrote them in Microsoft Word, not exactly knowing how Blogger worked at the time. Since these first three blogs are rather long, I will review them and type out key words / key quotes, such that they are hopefully more "searchable" on the internet.

http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/blog1june252007.pdf

Above is the pdf file of my first blog.

And here goes a string of key words and quoteable quotes!

**Dealing with the Initiation of a Blog ** Why Blog ** lose track of time ** the hardest part is always starting / but once you're going you keep on rolling! ** from initiation to habits to addiction ** blogging versus journal writing ** university 31 flavors Baskin Robbins ** females rambling contextually and gossip properties versus males short and to the point ** audience versus non audience ** mental entropy ** spontaneous organization ** shifts in audience ** first 100 blogs are junk, but the 101st blog will start to look interesting ** who is the audience ** my dad said "I only know 20 people very well in my life** gradient from humanity to pseudo-autism ** at least 20 people care about my blog ** "all of you make up the pieces of me" ** Vic the Conglomerate ** I am more inspired by conversations than reading books ** Victoria, Vic, Vickle the Pickle, La Victoria Salsa, Victoria's Secret ** "I am the summation of elements from my environment" ** self-promotion, marketing is a necessary evil demon for self survival in a mass-production system ** simultaneously selfish and selfless ** relativistically selfish ** internal TV-box reality ** apathy and pacification are evil ** "the greatest evil of all of humanity is apathy and lack of action" ** "to me, human interactions through bureaucratic structure is like capillary action of water molecules through a tree" have to tag a water molecule higher up to go up the branch to the next step ** positive and negative molecular interactions of humans ** MENTAL DIGESTIBILITY ** interactive ** multi-media ** biologically incorrect: if to laugh, then to think ** Mark Twain flashback ** "educational entertainment" ** re-integration of education and entertainment ** MENTAL METABOLISM ** cussing issue ** f*ck or fxck ** "my brain feels like an eternal abyss of ideas at the moment" **

127. Blue Horizons Continued: Enrollment Process, Administrative Logistics

Picasa is driving me nuts. So is Picasa Web Albums. I have resorted again to downloading images on Stokastika Googlepages. Scream! I'm pulling my hair out. If I were a computer science major, perhaps I wouldn't be complaining right now. Same for being an auto mechanic.

All righty! So, above are more administrative nuts and bolts for initiating Blue Horizons: course descriptions, calendars, add codes, schedule... which I must say, the class setup was brilliant. Monday and Wednesdays included a course in the morning, the film theory class in the evening, and Tuesday-Thursday was film production right in the middle of the day. I remember a while ago how Eric Zimmerman (counselor/advisor in the Environmental Studies Program at UC Santa Barbara, regional professional photographer) told us about how technology has changed the school system. Before, when he went to school, you had to wait for a day in a very long line in order to register for classes. You would have something called a "punch card" I believe and use this card to become enrolled. Funny. I'm sure you had all day to think TWICE about what type of class to take. Now it's just a five-second button click over the internet and you're enrolled!

126. Blue Horizons Continued: Retroactive Comparative Logos

This is a blog of comparative logos. Logos are not right or wrong or good or bad. They represent a style or just represent a best fit of the portrayal of a system. When I first encountered the logos for Blue Horizons and the Carsey-Wolf Center for Film, Television, and New Media, I was in part shocked... mostly from the Carsey-Wolf logo and brochure. Mind you, this is coming from a scientist who never really hung out with any film people until this program. The Blue Horizons graphic is... well... very... conservative and academic. It seems suitable. But it doesn't exactly jump out at you. The Carsey-Wolf Center has too long of a name for a center title, and additionally, if this center is full of media experts, wouldn't they know not to create a dark, gloomy brochure? It is a brochure and logo that doesn't jump out at me in the slightest bit. I don't know, it's just my own opinion. Then from my own navel-gazing viewpoint of my own art... Let's see, my logos are (1) very layered (2) very saturated and diverse in colors. I mean, rock crabs don't have much aesthetic or sex appeal, so, I think I did a good job for making a seemingly bizarre subject kind of interesting and enticing. Okay, I'll stop the ridiculousness of self-glorification! I guess this situation shows the variation in perception of the same system.

I think one of the undergraduate students of the course was getting paid to make a logo for Blue Horizons, but I never saw what happened. As soon as I found out about this, I think that very night I constructed my own logo, starting with the eyeball, then planet earth, then the sun, then the camera, then the channel islands, and then Blue Horizons written on top. Lots, of layers. Insane! I didn't get paid but my own mind's heart was paid very well through this artistic exercise.

I feel good critiquing art. Why? Because I'm not right or wrong, and no one has to take me seriously since critiquing art is an opinion, and critiquing science isn't necessarily the case.