http://www.cityofember.com/
Been working on the effects for this since September, and just finished up this week. I did the generator room electricity and the underground river.
Overall, excited for the movie, but they’re messing with the colors a LOT. There’s one of my shots in the trailer that goes by really quick (the 1:34 mark), where the dark cave is lit up like a discotheque. Looks awful.
And before you think, oh, he’s a film guy, he’s just being picky, take a look at what they did to my work on Ultraviolet:
http://www.complexdream.com/tmp_images/cgtalk/uv/
…yeah. Consider this also happened on Sky Captain and Fantastic Four. I’m cursed or something.
I lost a friend today.
I met Maa at a Christmas party in Japan — his mom was one of the people organizing it, and he was there helping out. From the get-go, it was clear that he was a little bit off. I’d soon learn that he was diagnosed with both bipolar disorder and light schizophrenia.
Still, he was a delight. He’d dance around and act goofy and make funny faces. We started inviting him out to karaoke and dinner, and he’d always show up on his little yellow scooter, a cigarette dangling from his lips. He loved the color yellow, and would excitedly (and exaggeratedly) yelp out “ye~e~errooo~” whenever we showed him something yellow (including my friend Ananda’s hair).
Maa was going to design school and wanted to make sports shoes for a living. He worked very hard, struggling with his tests, but making good grades. He worked so hard that it was sometimes difficult to get him to come out and join us for our frivolities, but we tried nonetheless. His mom would tell us how much she appreciated it — he didn’t have many other friends.
Almost one year to the day after I met him, Maa killed himself.
I didn’t learn about this until today. My friend Amy, who is still in Japan, went to lunch with her Japanese “grandmother,” and asked about Maa, whom she hadn’t seen in awhile.
“He’s dead,” was the reply.
Amy stammered. “…what?”
“Jisatsu. He killed himself. Suisaido. On Christmas.”
Amy began to tremble. The grandma continued. “Long hair boy right? Yeah, he’s dead. Shinda.” She didn’t even phrase it politely, the way a Japanese person would, by saying “nakunarimashita” (went away).
She then started talking about how delicious the salad was.
When Amy began to cry, the grandmother comforted her by informing her that Maa’s dad had two sons, so it’s okay.
And it’s about there that I completely lost my shit and started crying.
It was preventable. The whole fucking thing was preventable. Maa was always full of life and energy and willing to hang out. And we were the only people who would talk to him. Everyone else ignored him, even his own family — actually, especially his own family.
And I think, if I’d just emailed him a bit more since I came back, invited him out a couple more times, just… done something… he might still be alive. I know I can’t blame myself for this, but…
…this was preventable.
As Amy and I sat there, typing to each other from across the planet and crying, I felt so alone. Like I’d witnessed some sort of secret tragedy, one that nobody would ever know about, that nobody would ever care about. Something I’d carry in silent, in the dark.
And that’s why I’m telling you. I’m telling you that once there was a bright and beautiful person named Maa. He always did his best and never stopped smiling. He was my friend. And now he’s gone.
The title of this post is a literal translation of Yukiko’s name. I’ve posted off-and-on about her, but this post is to tie all that up — and really, so I don’t forget, cause god knows I’ve got a shitty memory.
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Okay, here we go. Fixed comments, can use the damn system again, looks like. I hope. All old comments are gone, but what the hey.
So, to start things off, a dream I had recently:
I wake up on the Joban line train, right as they’re announcing Sanuki station, my stop. It’s early morning, and I’m sleepy as hell, so I know that I must have been out in Tokyo clubbing or something. I stumble out into the early morning, into a sea of headphoned salarymen. The sun is still low in the sky, making me squint, giving me a slight headache. I’m not limber enough to bound up the stairs with any grace, so I’m plodding along, my feet heavy. I get up to the turnstiles, and they seem much further away than they usually do. It’s like a dolly-zoom shot from a Hitchcock movie. I reach for my wallet, take it out, and I can’t find my rail pass. I’m standing in the thick of things, and people are whizzing by on either side of me. The crowd thins, and I’m there, alone, and I can’t get out of the station and back home. And then I wake up.
My first thoughts were, goddamnit subconscious, you’re not even TRYING to be subtle anymore.
So, I’m doing 2.5 weeks of travel by myself across Asia before heading back to the States. Already hit up Korea (South and technically North), in Thailand right now, and going to Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos before it’s all said and done with. How’s it been? Let me tell you!
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So I’ve been a complete wreck for something like 2 months now and haven’t posted at all. Mea culpa. Here’s the lowdown.
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I wrote a little bit ago about the βwarai geninβ style of Japanese humor, and how difficult it is for me to grasp. Well, a new meme started going around Japan this month, further illustrating how much of a gaijin I am, because I think it’s the closest thing I have to concrete proof that Japanese people are fucking crazy.
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Been a looong while since the last update, and a lot of stuff has happened. Will try and catch up on posts this week, but in the meantime, there was an excellent article in Variety highlighting one of the big reasons I got out of effects as a career. It’s originally posted here, but I’m copy-pasting it in case that link goes offline.
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