Thank you for Smoking

No, I am not becoming a pro smoking lobbiest. Today we had a guest lecture from Jason Reitmen, the director of, you guessed it, Thank You for Smoking.... well, you better have guessed it. A movie staring Aaron Eckhart, William H. Macy, Robert Duvall, Sam Elliot, J.K Simmons, David Koechner, Maria Bello, Rob Lowe, Adam Brody, Katie Holmes. It also grossed over 24.8 million, on only a 6.5 million dollar budget. He is in town working on his new movie Juno
staring

	Jennifer Garner
	Ellen Page	....	Juno
	Michael Cera	....	Bleeker

..... Wow, you can do some pretty cool stuff with this new blogger....

The talk was pretty awesome, neigh insipiring...... It was cool because Thank you for Smoking was his first major movie.. All of his stuff before then was shorts that he showed around the festival circut. Jason Reitmen is the son of director Ivan Reitmen.. whom you may know from such great movies as

1. Trailer Park Boys: The Movie (2006) (executive producer)
   ... aka Trailer Park Boys: Baked on a True Story (USA: promotional title)
2. EuroTrip (2004) (executive producer)
3. Old School (2003) (executive producer)
4. Evolution (2001) (producer)
5. Road Trip (2000) (executive producer)
   
6. Six Days Seven Nights (1998) (producer)
   ... aka 6 Days 7 Nights
7. Fathers' Day (1997) (producer)
8. Space Jam (1996) (producer)
9. Junior (1994) (producer)
10. "Beethoven" (1994) TV Series (executive producer)
11. Beethoven's 2nd (1993) (executive producer)
12. Dave (1993) (producer)
13. Beethoven (1992) (executive producer)
    ... aka Beethoven: Story of a Dog (Australia: cable TV title)
14. Kindergarten Cop (1990) (producer)
    
15. Ghostbusters II (1989) (producer)
    ... aka Ghostbusters 2 (USA: video box title)
16. Ghost Busters (1984) (producer)

Thats just some of them... Apparently he made quite a few movies..... but yeah, so hearing the talk was pretty cool......... I'm just going to say it was completly awesome.

So I have decided that I will speak at film schools when I am a famous director.... basically so I can be as cool as him.... probably cooler....

In other film school news....

I had a meeting with the writing instructor and he approved my treatment to go one the the first draft stage of development.... so I am going to be starting to write my first script soon... exciting.... There was a bit of confusion and he had some concerns... but that was just because I didn't write it out quite clearly enough... my bad.... but in the end he liked my idea.. which is cool... I didn't really think he would, since he has a little different taste. He said that my story structure was solid, and my character had good motivation backed up by compelling supporting characters... and now that I cleared up the misconception, it also has a good climax, well better than he thought it was. Basically his only comments were to add more highs and lows in the second act, to make it more intense for the viewer, to make them care more... and I totally agree.. so I'll do it....

RANDOM CRAP TIME!!!!!!!!! WOOOOHHHHH!!!!!

So it was a very film based day today, which is totally awesome... And to make it even better it was an completely beautiful day... I mean it was so nice today... Sunny and +13.... I walked to English Bay and watched the ships... took a ferry ride to granville island and walked through the warket... and then walked home... It was so nice... look at me.. I'm gushing... thats how nice it was...Some ships in the English Bay Fishermans Wharf..........................................
H&R BLOCK

Something else that was exciting... I worked for H&R Block this last weekend. How random is that? The dad of a friend of mine works there and he got us a job setting up cubicles for the H&R Block locations in department stores... I set up 3 different locations... It was a lot of lifting.... and as a film maker... I don't have much muscles.... I guess it will help, but my arms sure hurt afterwards.... oh so much lifting.....The locations were also set up in the womens unmentionable section most of the time... which was a little awkward... I guess they don't really want guys doing their taxes... or maybe they want them to do the taxes while the wives shop?... I don't know..... and this is only one wall of the setup... It really was bigger.....There, that's more about the size of the offices that we built... and that is my friend Chris working on a sign.... good times...The sweet "office" like wearhouse of H&R Bock. where we loaded the truck, oh so many times...I just thought this was cool... I got a sticker saying I was a visitor at Sears.... I wish every store gave you a sticker for visiting.....

Okay, thats enough random crap for today, since it is now like the longest post ever.... but I had some cool stuff going down that I thought you all would appreciate.... so rock on...

Remember, The important is to not be intimidated by all the stuff I know,
Andrew

Good Morning, Starshine

Today was a monumentous occasion for me in my metamophisis as a film maker. For this was the first day I have shot with a film camera. I must tell you that it was an exhilarating experience. To work with film you have to really know what your doing. We have taken 3 or 4 classes on the cameras and the film itself before we could actually use either of the two. First off, film is quite expensive, a 100 foot roll costing about 80 dollars. That may not sound too bad, but that much film only lasts about 2 minutes and fourty seconds... so not that long at all. That price also does not include the cost of having the film developed... so it ends up being quite expensive indeed. It was quite nerve racking loading that film bit of film in the camera. You have to be sure to do it in the dark so as to not pre expose and thus ruin the film... that just a little bit of pressure... It did help however that we did have daylight rolls, so it's not quite so crucial that you do it in absolute dark.

It was high pressure, but thats film! We didn't actually shot anything of that great importance, as it was just an exercise, and we were just the crappy Bolex 16mm cameras. That particular camera while being a 16mm camera, which is nice, does have some flaws. Like the viewfinder that you can hardly see through... and some of the crews had to use ones that had hand cranks.... which while being nostalgic, is quite irritating... so I'm just glad I didn't have to use it.... When we get farther along we get to use Arri SR II's which are a much nicer camera. To put it in purely fiscal terms, a bolex runs about 1 grand, maybe 2 and as for an Arri SR II... it runs about, and this here is a rough estimate, around 100 000..... So there is a little difference in the price.... But it is a much nicer camera...

Also in film school news... I have as of minutes ago, finished my treatment for my short script. The script itself is still rather hush hush, as it is in the development stage... but I think the treatment turned out rather well. For those of you who are unfamilliar with what is involved in a treatment, you can just think of it as a shortend play by play of the prospective movie. Next on the agenda is the 1st draft of the script...... well that and script analysis, art design, film theory, cinematography, assistant directing, and film history.... so yeah, not really much at all.... It's okay though, since it is all freaking awesome.....

Holy CRAP!!! Ryan Rowe wrote Charlies Angles...... I always knew he had a secret life as a Hollywood screenplay writer.... sorry, I was just watching Charlies Angles..... I can't believe it didn't win an oscar..... ah well.....

So, as you can tell, my spirits have been lifted quite significantly, which is definatly a good thing, but thats what happens when I'm on my own. I get narasistic to the point where I give myself made up diseases... the brain is a weird thing.....

So, thats it for this instalment.... and if you are wondering what the title is about, well... to tell you the truth, I don't really know..... it's from a song... It popped into my head.... enough said?.... "The Earth say's hello".... it's a really weird song......

anywho...... You know what your problem is? I'm too good looking!

Peace out,
Andrew

Hypoparanoia

So, sorry all... I was pretty down last night, hence the rather depressing post... I don't know, I just have been really paranoid about my health lately... despite the fact that I have been to the doctor and declared healthy...... It something about being alone here in the city, makes me paranoid.... and I have been dwelling over diseases that I have absolutly no way of contracting.... only because I am paranoid.

This reminds me of a Stuart Mclean story... that all men are hypocondriacts... Like nervous passengers on airliners, nervously gripping their seats.... keeping the plane up only by sheer force of will... and thus we as men only stay healthy through sheer force of will.... I have weak will I suppose.... or pretend I have weak will....

Basically I am saying, I think I am unhealthy... but I really don't... if you think it's confusing, try being me! I believe that it's just my overactive imagination... possibly mixed in with the after effects of my influenza, causing me to believe I have numerous deadly diseases...... But, I have some friends who listen to my stupid ramblings... and that makes me feel better.... so....

I hope I can keep my happiness up, and thus, not think I'm dying.... I'm such a drama queen...

So today was a pretty good day... It was rainy, and I walked home..... perfect...

The hypocondriact paranoid blogger,
Andrew Sorenson

post for postings sake alone....

Everyone, 24 is really getting depressing.. and after only two episodes.... a Nuke just went off and it has really sad music... Jack is having a mental breakdown, ugh, it's just terrible... To make it worse, the nuke was set off by a Canadian... a Canadian comedian no less... Shawn Majumder, of This hour has 22 minutes fame. Has the whole world gone mad?! Okay, I know nobody really cares about 24, but it's a good show. And I get to write this blog, so I can talk about whatever I want! Okay?

Well, life here has been fairly stale. I don't know, It's just been boring lately... which hasen't been the best thing for my normally cheery demeanor... Hopefully it picks up soon.. I seem to get even more paranoid when I'm bored.. I guess since I have nothing better to do, I may as well freak out eh? Pretty much the only thing keeping me busy at all is school....I am in the midst of writing a Treatment for my short script, and by "in the midst" I mean, haven't started yet... I hope to spend most of tomorrow working on it, as I only have one class. So treatment and then on to the first draft...

What else... I don't know... Yeah, in case you haven't figured out by now, I didn't really know what to post about..... I just felt like writting some nonsense... and here we are...

I should go to bed early I suppose, since they say it is supposed to snow a bunch, and the commute will be hell... thats awesome...

until next time folks...

Cook along with Bert the Moose

Welcome everyone, to the first installment of cook along with Bert the Moose. Just for those of you who don't know the reference, it's from the radio series Jungle Jam... a very funny show, I highly recommend it. Anywho.... back to the cooking part. As you may recall from my previous post I have made it a goal to cook better..... and now you can too!

Lemon Chicken with Rissoto and Arugula

Ingredients:
4 Chicken quarters
2 Lemons - juice and rind
4tbsp. olive oil
2 cloves of garlic
2 sprigs of fresh thyme (If fresh thyme cannot be found, subsitute with dry thyme..... huh...)
both salt and pepper!

Directions:
Chicken:
Take the chicken, put it in a pan, mix remainder of ingredients and add to chicken as baste. Then either broil or fry chicken to perfection..... simple! a note - when peeling the rind off of the lemon be sure to not get any of the white part.... as that is where the bitter taste comes from... and it'll taste gross.

Rissoto:
Okay.... to tell you the truth, I just used rice.... but that dosen't sound as cool.... Rissoto is a goey rice, and I'm not a goey rice kind of guy..... so just follow the directions on the rissoto or rice packaging and you should be fine.

Finish off with with mixed greens, perferably arugula mainly because it's got a cool name. And there you go!

This meal is fairly labour free... which is nice, but not very impressive... I do have a good excuse for that though. I made this meal during a brief but violent stint with the influenza virus, which I am just getting over so the next time it'll be more impressive..... hopefully....

so till next.......... keep fit and have fun?

platitudes and post script

Well, it's officially the end of my christmas vacation, and I tell you what, it was too short. But it's back to school, which is as you may know, awesome.

Just for those of you who were wondering if I was in fact dying, I'm afraid I must dissapoint. The doctor could in fact find nothing wrong with me.. blood test came up clear... I even had good blood pressure... wierd... so now I will just worry about diseases that just appear out of nowhere.... oh paranoia, how wonderful.

And now it is 2007, a new year... filled with oh so many possibilities. I myself am not often making New Years resolutions, but I think this year I may take a stab at it. I decided that for one, I would need to take up a west coast hobby. Which of course means physical activity. theres skiing, hiking, power walking with your tiny dog that someone could crush with one hand.... you know, those sorts of things. All of those options are quite tempting, but I finally settled on running. It's cheap, you can do it whenever you have spare time, and most importantly it will get me into great physical shape... which can never be a bad thing. I'm betting most of you are now thinking.... and I can pretty much quote your cognative process...." Sure, he may run once or twice, and it is an honourable goal, but he'll skip it a couple times, or get too busy and it will be like every other resolution in the history of time, just a good intention...."... but hey, it's worth a shot isn't it? Also this Christmas I recieved a cookbook, and now that I live in Vancouver, a place where all sorts of wonderful ingerdients can be found in a varying array of shops, it grants me a unique opportunity to cook many fancy, crazy dishes.... so thats the other resolution right there. So exercise and eating right... oh such high and lofty goals... but hey, you don't get anywhere if you don't try and go somewhere... I love platitudes.

So Happy New Year to you all... I hope it brings you both Joy and Pain, Contentment and Longing, Substance and Cotton Candy Fluff..... For this is the stuff of life...

Another comment.. it has come to my attention that I have many more readers than I previously was aware of. Which is wonderful, but I must admit, it makes the writing of this somewhat more of an intimidating task. It also makes me think more carefully of what I write down now.... oh and comment number two... something else that has been a common is people asking me about film school... and the crazy, awesomely cool life that I have the pleasure of living. So I've decided to answer these questions in a column on my blog.... whoa, this whole segment is becoming quite self absorbed. I think I may be slightly narcissistic, probably on account of me being so unbelieveably cool . So yeah, I will be open to any question anyone has about anything... I suppose not even limited to film school.... and I guess if no one does have any questions.... I'll just keep the blog the way it is..... but just so you know, feel free to pick my brain, even just for the fun of it...

Okay... I'm just going to cut this entry off right here... party..hmmmm.....partly..... because I'm tired and I have school in the morning.... well, thats kind of the reason.

and now the P.S
Keep on the look out for my next entry as it will be quite interesting..... quite indeed.... I'm keeping it vauge so that it build excitment........ the anticipation is almost palpable...