We were planning on shooting the beach scene this morning. Last night I got home at around midnight and stayed up until about 3 getting everything ready so I could get up at 5 a.m. and head out to Keelung to meet Paul.

When I got up, however, all I could hear was rain pelting down. Well, I thought, it might get nice later on; we can still go. Then I called up the weather bureau site and saw that a typhoon was heading towards us, and things were definitly not going to get better. Not only was the appearance totally not what I wanted, it might be dangerous swimming in the surf. So I called everyone, either waking them up at 6 a.m. or catching them just as they were heading out, and called the shoot off.

Dolly’s next free day is the 9th of October. I don’t know how much longer we’ll be able to film anything like this in the north; we may end up either going down to Kending one nice weekend, or waiting until spring (not my favorite option).

In other news, I now have a firewire port as well as a DVD burner, so I can (theoretically) make a bunch of DVDs of stuff and free up space on my hard drive for new footage. We’ll see if and how that works out, as you just never know with Windows what’s going to happen.

Last night before rehearsal at Dave’s house, I got a chance to transfer some of the pictures Robyn took at the Living Room performance onto my usb drive. It was dark, so the pictures are a bit grainy and blurred where there’s movement, but they came out pretty well. Robyn got some interesting angles, such as our reflection in a mirror and on the TV set outside. Most of all, she seemed to be able to catch glimpses of people’s emotions pretty well. Damn, I look almost happy.

Now, as then, there’s a typhoon passing to the north, so it’s rainy and gloomy again. Last night on the way to Dave’s I saw a family having its moon festival barbeque early, seemingly in preparation for several days of moonless nights due to the storm. Looming around the area looking for scraps were a couple of black cats with startingly beautiful green eyes.

Why so many typhoons, you ask? Well, I have to admit, I finally went and got some new shoes after the typhoon-defeating magic of my last ones failed. Unfortunately, I forgot that I was wearing my nice new thick socks from Costco when I tried them on, and they are a size too large. If you want some black leather size 11 Nike Air Jordans, let me know, and I’ll hook you up.

I’ve been seeing references to the Tall Buildings Exhibit, in the form of a MoMA exhibit and a book, recently. My question, which seemingly no one, including most of Metafilter or A-list bloggers who visit the show can answer, is this:

How can you take a Tall Buildings exhibit that doesn’t even mention the world’s tallest building seriously? What is this, some kind of jedi mind trick? I do a Google search for “world’s tallest building”, and only half the sites mention Taipei 101. Of the ones that do, many have already skipped ahead to the new World Trade Center, whenever that’s going to be finished.

It’s wierd living in a country that doesn’t officially exist.

Read an interesting, if rather old, article by David Brin about the differences between two kinds of sci-fi, aka the Star Wars camp and the Star Trek camp. This solidifies some of the reasons I have for disliking the prequels as compared to the original trilogy. The main difference for me had been that the prequels don’t have Han Solo or anyone like him, and now I know why: the prequels are all about the royal elites and demigods, whereas the original triligy was about common people. As far as the audience was concerned, up until the revalation in Empire, Luke Skywalker was just a farmboy on an incredible mission. Could it be that it wasn’t really the Ewoks that made Return of the Jedi the worst film of the original three, but the fact that we now knew that Luke wasn’t really one of us anymore, and the only guy who was one of us, Han Solo, was basically whipped by Leia.

The prequels don’t even have a Han Solo character. Lil’ Orphan Ani is known from the start for special powers, and all the other characters are either jedi or royalty…so why should we care? It always bothered me before, but until I read Brin’s article all of the ambivalence I had for the new films suddenly made sense.

In other news, it’s sunny again, so naturally to celebrate I’ve come down with a cold. I think it might have had something to do with freezing my ass off at Taipei 101 the other day. I don’t know why, but the AC was pumped so strong everyone there was running around with their arms wrapped around them. A couple of shoppers looked like they were on the verge of starting a phamplet fire in one of the trashcans. I was there to look for some blues/jazz sheet music at Page One, but for some reason that section of the bookstore was mobbed by young Taiwanese girls. There were three or four huddled around the one shelf, and when one left another came in to take her place. I sat on a bench nearby, waiting for the little clot of jazz music seeking girls to disperse, wondering what was going on. Perhaps there’s a larger jazz/blues scene in Taipei than I realize, or maybe it’s the Next Big Thing? Who knows. Eventually I was able to worm my way in long enough to pick out a volume worth buying and escape.

I was also interested in buying some Oscar-meyer balogne, but it was not to be. I predicted early on that Jason’s Market would gradually absolve itself of it’s main selling point, i.e. foreign goods, in order to greater exploit the local market with local tastes. Gone are the oscar-meyer stuff, the Keeblers cookies, the pop-tarts, etc. Eventually it will become just another Wellcome, and the managers will wonder where all their profits went. It’s inevitable. I’ve seen it happen a thousand times. Profitable niches abandoned out of a desire to cash in on mass market profits, followed by a crushing by mass-market enterprises who have more market share and experience. Granted, I know nothing about running a business, but I know enough to know I should stay away from such things.

I’ve finally uploaded some test footage for the glidecam. Nothing particularly exciting as far as subject matter goes; simply me walking and runnning around in and out of my apartment. As you can see, I still need to work on my technique and tweak the weights a bit more, but overall I think it’s pretty good, much better than straight handheld in any case. The biggest problem is in the panning right and left, I think.

Dean and I have been going back and forth on the script for the past few days, but we both hope to have a final version printed and bound within a week. Everyone was doing such a good job with the rehearsals I decided to skip it this weekend and return to it the week after. Dolly’s shot at the beach is still up in the air; we’ll see how the weather holds out. I hope we can get it done before the weather gets too cold for swimming.

It seems like it’s been raining forever. Somehow a tropical storm formed right over the island over the past few days, sneaking right past all the weather people. The river’s swollen up to typhoon levels, and more reports of people being buried in mudslides are coming in. I heard that Taoyuan finally got their water supply back, despite Annette Lu’s going down there during the water shortage and getting her hair cut, washed and dyed.

I caught a taxi into town last night. I didn’t want to bother with walking to and from the MRT in the downpour, and also, I must admit, I didn’t want to dilute the feeling of being in 1937. You see, I’d put on baggy gray suit and worn fedora, packed up my trumpet in its battered 20-year-old case, and set out for a gig with a jug band in Taipei’s eastern district. Taking the MRT just would have seemed too incongruous. For my ride I would have preferred a Phaeton, but the battered old Yuelong cab, equipped with a suitably laconic cabbie, was good enough. The rain fit right in as well.

The other members of the band were in the conspicuously un-green Green Room at Corbett’s place. Turns out Corbett had graciously served them dinner, which is something I’m sorry I missed. Count Sandman was wearing a nice longcoat with velvet collar and cuffs, while Dave wore his customary suspenders. Will had two tuxes, one white and one black, one for each set, and Tim wore solid black with a crossword tie. We went over some last minute rearrangements while Dana got ready to open for us.

I was expecting a small crowd due to the inclement weather, but the place filled up pretty quickly. Dana’s really talented and has a great voice. Sandy played along for part of it on his new penny whistle.

After Dana finished and has a break, we marched…well, it more like a shuffle…we shuffled in playing a repeating dirge, and the show started. The place was packed, and since we were all crowded on stage, I had a hard time seeing Dave’s cues. The first couple of songs were pretty rough, at least for me. I was used to playing with everyone about the same level, but now everyone had mikes, which made everything sound different. Also, we were all standing, which took some getting used to.

I took a picture of the crowd right as we took a break after the first set. Shirzi was in attendance, and supplied me with some Chu-hai. After the free drinks the band got, combined with the Japanese Soju, I was feeling a lot looser when we started up the second set. Unfortunately, a few people that I knew had left during the break, but others came crowding in. Corbett was setting out more chairs, and people were sitting on the floor down in front. “There’s going to be some dancing going on, I can feel it,” Will had said during the break, and he wasn’t wrong. I got used to playing up into the mike, especially when I was using a mute. Dana was playing along with us on this set, which made the stage even more crowded. I was sandwiched between Sandy and Connor, and I kept accidentally hitting Dana’s head.

Nonetheless, I got a lot more into the music during the second set, as I knew more or less what was going on. Many of the arrangements and plans we’d made went right out the window, but what we did instead worked just as well. The dancing got a little out of hand at some points, but I didn’t particularly mind myself.

The show concluded with the Work Song, which starts with Dave’s introduction of the band members followed by a wicked solo by Connor. I was surprised at the amount of applause I got; I’d thought my performance was a little off, especially earlier on. Or maybe they just liked my hat. We did one enchore, one of Dana’s pieces, and then it was over. It was also 2:30 a.m., a much later ending than usual from what I understand. By the time we got packed up and ready to leave, it was after 3. I caught a ride home with Sandy and Jojo, but I was still too high to sleep right away, and got to bed just after noticing the slightly lighter dreariness that was dawn this morning.

I just finished Paul Theroux’s The Old Patagonian Express, which turned out to be a really good read. Now I’m reading a tangential work, In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin. In the former book, Theroux mentions at the beginning of his trip that he knew Chatwin had just returned from South America, so as I read Chatwin I envision Theroux sitting in his house in Massachusetts, wondering if he should attempt a trip to Patagonia by rail.

I have to say I enjoy Theroux more, not because of the quality of writing but because he has a greater sense of order than Chatwin.

Tomorrow’s going to be a busy day; we have movie rehearsal in the afternoon, and then the Ramblers at the Living Room in the evening. On my way out of the subway this morning I noticed an ad for a photography contest sponsered by Fnac. It takes place this weekend, so I don’t have time to participate. In any case, the rules stipulate that entrants should have a digital camera of at least 3 megapixels.

Harrumph! I say. I bet I could beat most of them with my little 2.1 megapixel Canon. I have to admit that recently I’m harboring more and more traitorous thoughts concerning upgrading.

My entries of late have been few, mostly because I don’t have a lot of empty time at the office any more, and other times I have better things to do. At the moment I am filling in back at my old job at Ogilvy, in the dark offices amidst the Vampires of Years Past. Needless to say, the years do not affect them. I have to smile at the familiar screeches that meet my attempts to open the office blinds. Also, this time I bring my faithful iPod to combat the cacophony resulting from pretentious English and the rings of immobile mobile phones. And I could always use the extra money.

UPDATE: After adjusting the weight system, i.e. using fishing weights in the compartmentalized little box at the bottom of the frame, I think I’ve just about got it balanced (it looks better, too). I’ve updated the pictures and will try to have some test footage up soon.

I picked up the handle assembly today. We couldn’t find a decent gimbal mechanism here in Taiwan, but one day I was looking around Metalworking Street when I saw some universal joints, so I decided to try that approach. We instructed the guy to weld a handle on one end and a rotating base to the other, then attach the whole thing to a metal plate we could stick on the aluminium assembly we got last time.

After work I took the handle over to Dean’s, where he attached it to the frame. I took it home, put the camera on, and watched it flop over to one side. I adjusted the arms as well as I could to compensate for the fact that the camera’s center of gravity is not directly over the handle, but I couldn’t get it to work. The camera kept wanting to fall over, so I added some weight. No dice. I added some more weight in the form of my wallet taped to the bar. Still not so good. Then I took a soda bottle, filled it with water and taped it to the bar as well.

Bingo. This time it was relatively steady, although I may have added too much weight to the bottom; the camera was prone to rocking like a ship at sea. It is also slightly tilted to the right as the camera is heavier on that side. I’ll play with the weight system and get it just right. At the most all it needs is perhaps some adjusted mounts.

I also need to practice using the thing, especially guiding it without having too great an influence on other movement. I made a few test runs through my apartment, and it came out looking pretty impressively smooth considering it was my first time using it and it wasn’t entirely balanced, certainly smoother than many “glidecam” tests I’ve seen on the Internet.

This should be an excellent tool. I’m glad I only had to spent less than NT$2,000 instead of the over NT$20,000 the folks at Glidecam Industries wanted.

Now if I only had a crane. Hmmm…

開始拍片了! 前幾天花了好幾個小時在DV8, 拍到天亮. 希望下次稍微安排好一點. 那次實在是太累的法道.

我這裡拜六晚上要在小客廳那邊上台

Dana Wylie was at the last rehearsal at Dave’s house on Sunday. We crowded in the room with the keyboard and jammed in there instead of in the usual living room arrangement. Youyu, Dave’s dog, was going from person to person wondering what we were all doing in her room.

Dana’s a great piano player and singer; her music seems very easy to play along with, though I screwed up once and mistook a break for a solo. “Remember our motto,” Will told me. “‘You can do no wrong'”. I find that immensely reassuring, I have to say. In fact I’m sure that that motto, along with a bit of alcohol, will be of great comfort this Saturday night at The Living Room when I make my first public appearance as part of the Ramblers (who now have a preliminary website, btw).

It was after 9pm by the time we were done, and I had to get to DV8 for the first shoot of our latest movie crusade. More details on that in the production journal. Suffice it to say it was a long and challenging shoot. Everyone did a great job, though.

Hard to believe it’s September already. This is usually the time when I begin to get really tired of being sweaty all the time, and this year is no exception.