I Wish I Was an Oscar Mayer Wiener

A very talented Laer Adlon in music composing mode

Today was a pretty busy day. It started with me travelling across our vast city to Kodak located near Photography drive (IMHO in the middle of nowhere). Using our transit system it took me an hour and a half. A bus, a train, another bus, a bit of walking and I was there. Kodak had a seminar on a product they're introducing to the DPs (Director of Photography) in our area. The LOOK management system. Basically it's software that standardizes color information between the DP and the colorist and anyone else in post production.

The way it works is that that DP will shoot a scene using a Canon or Nikon camera, not just any camera but the higher end SLRs. For Nikon the D100 or D70. I didn't pay attention to the Canon cameras as I'm a Nikon user. Once the picture is shot in raw format, the file is transferred to a computer (could be a laptop) with the LOOK software installed.

The DP can then pick what Kodak film stock he would like to use, if he wants to color correct the image, and if he wants to push or pull the film. The software emulates what the final film will look like. This information can then be saved and a person in post production can access it (with installed software on their computer). The various computer monitors are calibrated with a little puck shaped sensor that sticks onto the monitor screen.

After hob-nobbing with some of our finest DPs in the industry I walked back to the subway station and hopped on the train to bring me downtown. I did a quick stop at Monster Records then proceded to Laer's place. He wanted to see "Ong Bak", a thai martial arts movie. We were going to go with a bunch of people later on in the evening so we had some time to kill. I decided to take a nap on his couch while he worked on a soundtrack for his web site (see www.laerworks.com).

Laer is one of those untapped talents that can do a vast number of things from exploding zombie heads, visual effects, playback, musical scores and pretty much everything in between. With all this talent what does Laer do? He plays requests for one. Alan showed up later that night and requested the Oscar Mayer theme. Laer not only played it but embellished it to resemble something you might hear at an ice rink. Very cheesy with a lounge feel to it.

We went to see the movie, which was incredible, BTW. I don't think Bruce Lee will ever be replaced but if you want hard elbow to the head, skull cracking action then this is the movie for you. The only downside to seeing this movie were the three guys that kept yelling in the back of the theatre complaining the movie had sub titles. Heathen scum.

After the movie Alan told me that a mutual friend's pet cat is having difficulties. It disturbs me that this is happening and there's nothing I can do to fix it or help out. I realize there are some things that are just not in our realm to control or fix but despite this I'm still awake thinking about her and the cat. It's 4:45am. I've been lying in bed since 12:30 (with the exception of turning on the computer to make this entry).

On a happier note, "Macho Baby!" has been selected as an official entry in the IASTE screening march 5th and I managed to get some daily work tomorrow on "Tilt". Now I just have to get to sleep to wake up at 9am.