MarshMELLOkiller

I'M SO FUCKING PISSED RIGHT NOW.

I like.... can't even put into words how much I wanna kill someone right now. I feel like Godzilla destroying Japan in a fit of rage.

PROBLEM 1:

I'm just so overwhelmed right now. I'm back in Chicago for this project with a professor. When this is over it will be a crown jewel in my portfolio. He's a well known artist, and now he'll owe me for helping him with this. I NEED THIS TO WORK. He had me sew my own costume. I'm not bad at making anime costumes, but when it comes to designing it myself I'm not that great. Show me something in existences  and I can make it, ask me to make something up and it's gonna look like a 4th grader did it.

I've been sewing for 2 WEEKS and it still looks like crap. I've sewn it together, taken it apart, cut it up, sewn it together, took off half, cut off corners, sewn it together, started over, cut off the sleeves, put on the sleeves, failed! FAILED. AHHH FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK THIS DRESS. SO HARD. I'm sitting here on the floor, two days before it needs to be done and it's just a pile of fabric. I'm looking around going 'What the hell do I do now? I'm walking into a situation where I'll have to have a costume on par with professional work.' I'm so royally fucked. My stress level is through the roof.

PROBLEM 2:

A teacher of mine rented a camera for me over summer. (Students can't have them for that long of time.) It's for my documentary, which I hope to have almost done by the end of summer. (Let me rephrase that, I'm expected to have it done in time for some film festivals coming up in the fall. Some of my professors want to see it when I come back.) Okay, cool. I can get that done. When I'm back here in Chicago I can just bring the camera back and upload all the footage in the labs. I purposely took about 20mins of footage from ACEN so that it wouldn't take a lot of time to upload. Stressful, but manageable.

Well fuck me if I didn't forget a battery at home. It'll put a hold on my teachers account and a large fine for not returning it on time. (These fines are RIDICULOUS.) My mom found it and is fedex'ing it to me for Tuesday morning. I'll pay the fine cause it's due back Monday at 4pm. Okay. Deep breath. You can do this Shelby.

PROBLEM 3:

I spent the past weekend in Jackson Minnesota for a family reunion on my mother's side of the family. These things are SO AWKWARD considering I don't know anyone. My Grandpa was one of five siblings and he sorta got disowned because he left the family farm. So we're all on in bumfuck nowhere on a farm. A few weeks before my mom asked if I would bring my camera and help her take some pictures. Okay... not bad, I don't know anyone but whatever, I do have a nice camera.
Then she's like:
'How about your little video camera, that'll be fun!' I look at her like 'Are you kidding me Mom?' FINE. Okay I'll bring that. A few shots of people eating and I'll be done.
'ACTUALLY, you have that really big camera right? Bring that and get some really good footage!'
'No thanks mom, do I have to?'
'YOU DISHONOR THE FAMILY AND MYSELF BY YOUR LAZINESS.' (Aka you hurt my feelings by saying no.)
So fine, I'll bring my big camera and take a few minutes.
Mom sends out an email to everyone going to this (LIKE 40 PEOPLE) that her daughter is a professional and will be catering the whole thing, and make a video about the whole reunion.
Then someone says lets get all the siblings together for an HOUR LONG interview on top of the basic footage.
So now it's a fucking movie that I will film, edit, and produce. I will then make everyone a copy of our family history.
All I got was 'Well this is what you want to do with your life anyways, right? It's not a problem.' -Mom

Lets set this straight. ON AVERAGE:

1hour of filming takes 2 hours to upload.
That one hour then takes 30 mins to transfer to my hard drive.
1 hour of footage can takes about 4 hours to edit into something descent.
Once I've made the movie it's another 2 hours with the title screen.
Then burning all the copies.

1 HOUR of film = 8 hours of work MINIMUM. FUCK YOU MOM. I now have two hours to work with (the reunion and ACEN) and only three days to do it.
Everyone's made it clear I hold the honor of our side of the family in my hands.
So stressful.... I went straight from Jackson to my flight in Chicago, then took a taxi to the house and started sewing a half hour after walking in the door.

PROBLEM 4:

I worked almost all night. Nothing's working and I'm frustrated. I'm still not getting it. I called it a night at 3am cause I was so upset. I'll spend the next few nights in the computer studio's working, but tonight I just needed some sleep. 7am. My mom calls. I answered to her just yelling at me about something I'm not even understanding. I'm so sleepy, and she yells and says stop talking like that.

'Mom I'm just tired. Sorry.'
'Yeah well me to, get used to it.'
'Okay well what are you looking-'
'I CAN'T HEAR YOU. SPEAK UP.'
'WHAT ARE YOU-'
'DON'T TALK LIKE THAT TO ME.'

-CLICK-

I'm gonna send another big FUCK YOU to my mom again. I'm so stressed I'm throwing up. I have only a few more hours to get this stuff done. I'm thinking about skipping my flight home. I'll stay out here for awhile longer. As soon as this hell is over, I fly home Monday. Tuesday at 8am I'm expected to start my construction job again. No break. 'I should be grateful for this trip cause it's like a vacation.'

I'm full of bitter and hate right now.

I love my friends, but really this is way to much for me right now.

(This made me feel a little better to write this. Thanks <3)


********EDIT********

So yeah took it to my professor and he says don't change a thing. He likes the little fucked up parts. In fact he liked it so much he invited me out for drinks with the crew to discuss costumes. Nothing like nonalcoholic beverages with your teachers and their spouses!

Thanks Karma, you don't hate me afterwords. <3

UHG!
Fuck me this week has been crazy.

I finally got my act together and started a major project. I'll put up more details when I've actually got some substance to it. It's a convention documentary, but goes way past the obvious.  I'll be bringing some equipment home the weekend of the 24th-27th. I need a few 'pre-Detour' interviews. Who's willing to give them to me?  

Also I've got a not so secret cosplay for C2E2 98% done. I'll put up pictures after the convention. You guys will really like it. I'll also be bringing it to ACEN.

Nothing else to report. I'm still alive, thought I'd let everyone know.

<3 <3 <3

As if I haven't spammed you guys enough tonight.

I'm sorry about the mass updates and strange new layout. If you click on my gallery you'll see I've put everything into organized folders. The only things that will be featured in the gallery will be films I've made and the newest DA submission.  I really wanna be taken more seriously as a Video Artist. I found out I have to be invited into the DA film group, so maybe if I set up my DA more like this I'll get some recognition.

ANYWAYS, I understand that by doing this mass update and putting films here people may not spend the time to click the link and watch the video. I understand it's a bit of work to let that load. So no hard feelings if you don't feel like watching them. I just want you guys to know that this will be 90% of what I do in school. I also plan to make this what I do with the rest of my life! I'll keep doodling just for you guys though ^_-

So watch the videos and comment on my DA if you feel like giving some feedback or anything is unclear.

I will be posting new videos about every three weeks. (Or as finals are due.)

ILU AAAALLLLLL! <3

Okay. So I've been working on a video project for about three weeks now. It's supposed to center around the idea of 'Focus.' I've dealt with perspective in past videos, so I wasn't keen on piggy backing on that again. I came up with a completely new concept and idea.

The first week I spent brainstorming, carrying around a notebook for whenever an idea struck me. The second week I set up times and dates of filming. Unfortunately most of the equipment and helpers weren't available until the end of the next week.  After numerous equipment mishaps and some new authorizations I got what I needed. So for so good, right? I looked over all the footage I had and decided it just wasn't enough.

Saturday. Three days left. I go way out into the suburbs to a grocery store to get the freshest veggies I can find. This trip took about three hours. I get home and waited until dinner so I can film myself making food. Food is easy to film well. The $4,000 camera I rented doesn't have enough light in my kitchen to make even a decent shot. I resort to my $400 one I own myself.  Whatever. All is still on track. I spend the night filming, organizing and uploading the footage.

Sunday. I start the final cut. This project is supposed to have very little editing, so I assumed it would only take a few hours. I start about 1pm out of sheer laziness. I look at the footage. All of it is corrupted and about 5X to small. I have deleted all of the originals on the cameras and returned the equipment. FUUUUUUUUU.

I try my best to put everything together. It looks like shit. Pure shit. I couldn't believe how bad it was. I'd rather go in with nothing then all of this. I look at my camera to see what settings I had it on to make everything go this wrong. I spent the next half hour resetting the settings. It's 3pm.

Now I'm starting to worry. I now have no idea what to film. The plot and shots I set up were complete nonsense. I'm at the same place I was three weeks ago. Zero footage and about 2 hours of daylight left. I have no equipment but my little hand held camera.  Frantically I try and think of something to do. Before I could start anything I figured I should test these setting so I don't make the same mistake twice.

I have some really dead flowers from Valentines day on my deck. I did some close ups and color shots. Most were quickly taken with very little thought. When I uploaded it I couldn't believe how awesome the footage looked.

I clipped it all together with some of the better moments of the crap footage to help fill in the blanks. I'm now very proud of my stupid flower montage. Go figure that three weeks of work would come down to 6 hours of crazed nonsense.

I didn't even use the veggie footage, but now have a fridge filled with colorful food.

GO TEAM!

I check my DA at least three times a day.

Why I don't post anything? I'm not sure. I'm working on a photoshopped picture, but it's really slow going. I'm in way to many history classes this semester. I'm only in one intermediate Film and Video, so don't expect to much work for awhile. ;_;

For some reason being back in Chicago this time is a little hard. I'm here for 4 months because I'm not going home for Detour and my spring break is only 4 days long. Lonely!

This film class seems like it'll be good for me. We all had to bring in a sample of our work and show it in front of the class on the first day. I ended up going first and everyone seemed really impressed. The teacher whispered to me she thought my work was beautiful, so that seems a plus.

It's chilly here, but not as cold as MN. I'm getting by with a light jacket. People keep asking me how I'm not cold. >.< I tell them Minnesota perspective.

Relationship wise I'm completely single. Bummer but what's meant to be is meant to be. I'm not to broken up about it, but I am sad. It wasn't a big break up and we're still close friends. It makes me sad to see her so upset with the situation with the rest of our friends. I hope this all settles as we all get busy with work.

I'm reading so many web comics right now. I'm addicted. If anyone wants any I can link you. I keep picking ones that unbeknownst to me turned out to be BL based. Woohoo! (Not that I don't read normal ones too.)

Gah I've been here less then a week and it already feels like a month! I need a convention so bad!

Maybe as I make films I will continue to try and apply for the DA film category. (Technically I'm a Video artist. Film artist use film like in VHS, while Video uses digital medias and are more conceptual art based.)  I really wanna post them directly and the site instead of weird links to youtube!

okay that's it for me. I love love love love love all of you!