DepthWish Productions
Monday, January 02, 2006
Well, the Christmas holidays are almost over for me. Back to work in a couple of days. Over my break I made a little video and photo spread advertising the kittens. We have one person who is interested in adopting one. If you or anyone you know is interested, feel free to send them the link to the new kittens page. Happy New Year!:: posted by Darrell 1:15 PM
Sunday, November 06, 2005
Here We Go Again!
Last week I was walking my dogs by the river in Jing Mei when I heard a couple of dogs on the other side of the flood wall going crazy. As I walked up the steps to get to the other side of the wall, a woman was coming over the other way. She looked at me and smiled in a weird way and then kept going. I could see the two dogs "pouncing" and jumping at something in a mud puddle but I couldn't see what they were so excited about. I walked down the stairs, and when I got close enough, I could see three wet little kittens, one of which was covered almost completely in mud. I just stood there for a second not knowing what to do. I had my four dogs with me and the two stray dogs were there jumping around and barking.
I tied my dogs to a pole and picked up the kittens, and put them in the big front pocket of my hooded sweater, got my dogs, and then headed home. When I walked in I said to Judy, "Guess what I got?" She had lost a couple of the dog's leashes while walking the dogs the day before, so she naturally said,"The leashes."
Then a 'meow' came from my pocket and, she said, "Oh, my God! You found a cat." I told her, "No, I found three!"
So, here we go again. Just a few short months after rescuing the last batch of abandoned kittens, we find ourselves with three more. It's a never ending struggle, but I'm not going to talk about that now. If you know anyone looking for a kitten, feel free to contact Judy at judymackinnon@gmail.com or me at medarrell@gmail.com. I hope to make another little kitty video and do a little photo shoot to show just how cute these little fellas are. They are all boys this time where last time they were all girls. They will be ready to be adopted out in about a month so GET THE WORD OUT! The cutest little kittens in the world since the last group of the cutest kittens are looking for loving homes.
:: posted by Darrell 10:09 PM
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Sniper!The weekend was busy with a day of music at the Annual Daniel Pearl Day festival. I met up with Paul Saturday afternoon and had a quick bite to eat before heading off to catch Sky-Burial. Their set was really good but I think they would have been better after dark because they’re spooky!
After that, the Muddy Basin Ramblers did their set. These guys seem to be one of the longest living bands in Taipei. It seems new people are joining all the time and the old timers don’t quit! You don’t see that happen too often. This was the first Muddy Basin Ramblers gig I’ve seen since TC joined the band as the trumpet and wash tub bass player. That old wash tub really fills out the bottom end! And after the Ramblers finished up, TC backed up Tarry Bush during their Celtic / blue grass set. After Tarry Bush finished, they headed off to another gig with the Ramblers. So, TC played four gigs in one day!
After that was a trio from down south, and they were pretty cool, too. I can’t remember the bands real name but at one point they introduced themselves as “Double Chin and the Heartburns.” Sounds good to me! Then after a quick dinner break at a Thai restaurant in Gong Guan, we headed back to Treasure Hill for the last band – Milk. These guys are also from down south and they have a reputation for putting on an entertaining show. They did a great job of the music, but some of their between song banter didn’t exactly fit in with the family friendly vibe of earlier in the day.
Early Sunday morning, the whole Lady X crew headed out to a top secret location up in the mountains where 4 x 4 enthusiasts put their vehicles through their paces. It was a beautiful day and we shot a scene where our heroes get sniped. In the end, it will be a pretty quick action sequence but it still took hours of shooting from different angles to get enough footage to edit a nice sequence. Special thanks to Doug and Bob for taking us out there and buying beer!
When we finished up, we headed back to Taipei on a slow train. All in all it was a very busy but enjoyable weekend.
:: posted by Darrell 10:30 PM
Monday, October 17, 2005
Cool Smokes for Kids
I haven't seen candy cigs since I was a kid. Back in the good old days when Pepe Le Pew would say such things as, 'Her mouth says no, but her eyes say yes. Then Pepe would chase the poor cat down a dark tunnel and the camera would pan to the 'dead end' sign. Rapists today just don't have the charm and sophistication of Pepe Le Pew. And we can't forget Fred and Barney enjoying a "Winston break" while Wilma and Betty did the chores. Fred and Barney knew that cool smokes weren't just for kids and now you do, too.
And don't worry about getting nasty nicotine stains on your teeth because with Darlie toothpaste (formerly Darkie toothpaste) you can have the white teeth of a black man!
:: posted by Darrell 8:56 PM
Friday, September 30, 2005
Here is a picture of Taipei 101 I took recently while on an LX2 shoot. More about that here.
Recently, I've been getting into to music mode. Getting geared up for the music and sound design stuff that'll need to be done for LX2. I've started by making a few purchases including a headphone mixer, a pop filter screen, and EWQL Symphonic Orchestra Silver Edition, as well as an upgrade to my audio / midi sequencer. I've upgraded from SONAR producer EDITION 3 to SONAR PRODUCERS EDITION 5.
The Headphone mixer will come in handy when doing ADR - What "ADR" stands for I'm not sure, but the process involves replacing the dialogue recorded "on set" with audio recorded in a studio. One of the problems with shooting the way we shoot is that we have pretty much zero control over ambient sound, making it hard to get good quality audio. Even big budget movies have these problems and must resort to ADR. On a recent video blog on www.kongisking.net, one of sound guys working on the Kong project says that as much as 90% of the dialogue we will hear on Peter Jackson's remake of the 1933 King Kong movie will be ADR'ed! So, I don't feel too bad having to resort to audio trickery and asking the actors to visit my little studio for a half day to rerecord their lines. Who knows, maybe Judy will make cookies for them!
I'd been eyeing and earing the orchestral sample set for a while and it was on sale so I decided to go for it. Reviews seem to say that it's a great product for getting that big Hollywood music score sound. I'm tracking the FedEx package as I write - It's currently in Anchorage, Alaska. Can't wait to load it up. Check out some of the sample MP3s. Wow!
What can I say about SONAR 5? It keeps getting better and better. The list of new features is impressive. I'll admit that Cakewalk products don't have the sex appeal of some of those German sequencing packages. Did I just use sexy, German, and package in the same sentence? Baby, yeah! I'll probably get a lot of google search hits for that. Hehe
:: posted by Darrell 10:26 PM
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Love Me, Don't Kiss Me!Well, the three gritty kitties have found homes. One is in Danshui and the other two are neighbors in Tien Mu. What was supposed be a temporary home for the 3 kittens turned into a 3 month adventure. Anyway, they are lovely and I hope they are happy with their new families. I've decided that I want to get into this blogging business more seriously and start writing about whatever comes up and I'm going to get really opinioned and start alienating and offending my friends and the people on this island I live on. So, lets begin! :-)
I've been on a little holiday recently and I've bought a mountain bike, so I've been taking rides everyday up and down the river meeting all the stray dogs that live in the area. At one point I counted 16 dogs in a pack! That's not individual dogs along the course of my journey that was one group all hanging out in the sun. They seemed content enough and I don't want to sound like I'm complaining about the dogs. The dogs are fine. It's the fricken idiot people that are the problem! The people who abandon their animals and the people that think dumping their garbage in the park for the dogs is "raising" a pet. The Taiwanese use the word "raise" to describe pet ownership. I would correct them, because to me "raise" means support the development of the "thing", whether it be an animal or a child, until it can take care of itself, or you slaughter it for food. (Anyone here raise chickens? See, that sounds fine, right?) This isn't the case with pets. "Have" or "own" a pet sounds fine to me although some may take exception to those terms as well. The point is, for many people here, "raise" is what they do. When the animal is cute and young they raise it. People take their pets for drags in the park (usually behind a bicycle but sometimes a scooter) When pets mature or become nuisances, the pets get tossed! And you're probably reading this and your saying to your self, "I've learned nothing new buy reading this paragraph" because you've seen this stuff, too. Or, maybe you're a pet "raiser" or a dog "dragger," and you HAVE learned something. Well thanks for visiting! And like the picture says, "Love me don't kiss me!"
:: posted by Darrell 10:19 PM
Friday, August 19, 2005
About a month or so ago, Judy found a box with three ten day old kittens inside and a note that said, "Adopt Us." Knowing the cats wouldn't live long without their mother, Judy decided to take the cats home and to try and find homes for them when they get old enough. Now, the time is nearly here. We figure another week or so and they'll be ready to start new lives with new owners.
A local animal group that deals with cat adoptions has been helping us and have posted some pictures of the wee ones on their website. I have also made a page on my website with more pictures for everyone to ooh and ahh over. They are adorable after all, so just let go and give in to your overwhelming desire to start talking wike a wittle baby. I have to admit I can't resist. Have I mentioned they're adorable? Anyway, Judy and I are crazy about these little beasties and we really want to find the best possible homes them so, stay tuned.
:: posted by Darrell 9:47 PM