A P R I L 0 4
Dave meets Puff Daddy and gets tangled up in the high school rumor mill. Ferenczy makes a surprise visit to Atlanta. New recording studio plans are made. OKSMM trivia and remembering Outlook detective agency.
Fun With Delinquency
Unfortunately, I can't show you the movie that I shot and edited this morning. The Portfolio Center Terms of Use state that "Posting, transmitting, promoting, using, distributing or storing Content that could subject PC to any legal liability, whether in tort or otherwise, is prohibited." Specific for my case is "Pretending to be anyone you are not -- you may not impersonate or misrepresent yourself." Oops. If I store the movie online or send it via email, I'm setting myself up for problems. It's not worth risking my enrollment and reputation for a five minute (albeit freakin' hilarious) video. Without getting into too much detail, I went somewhere indirectly related to PC and pretended to be someone else while taking digital movies under the guise of a tourist. So sorry Nick and Jeff, your shout-outs will have to wait.
Friday, April 30 at 3:04 PM
Writing Late Because The Power Went Out
Well, it's official: I'm recording for an eight hour block on Monday, May 17th. The ever-delayed demo will finally be completed. Although the new versions will follow the same general structure as the old ones, there will be some new bleeps and bloops in there (and a real piano!). Katie will be back to help with the Aphelion chant section. That part was actually inspired by a special choir that occasionally visits the church that I attend. The male and female voices sounded so incredible together, and I dropped beatboxes in my head against their Ave Maria. My mind is so weird sometimes. Anyway, the point is that I hope to begin playing live by the start of 4th quarter in July. The latest addition to the setlist is an acoustic-looped version of Ur-sher's Yeah mixed in with Hotel and I Don't Want To Know.
A correction from a couple of weeks ago: Ogilvy & Mather's American Express Tiger Woods gopher commercial was led under the creative direction of David Apicella and Chris Mitton, not Brian Collins. A special thank you to the person that sent that in along with constructive feedback - you made my day.
Congratulations to Jeff Chin and Nick Deifel for winning Wednesday's OKSMM trivia contest. Their names will be featured in an upcoming movie about a prank war that I'm starting up. Details very soon. The answers were 1) Magritte, 2) Blackwell Forest, 3) Five O' Clock Shadow, 4) roller coaster from Second Nature, 5) Edward Split, 6) Brass Monkey, 7) Italy's Beverley: Bittef Aperitif, 8) Golfing With Fish, 9) Chase and Hatch and 10) Ladder 49.
Thursday, April 29 at 10:50 PM
OKSMM Trivia Contest
If you've been a reader here for a while, you know that I did a few contests with the comic strip. Today's contest deals with all of the contents on this site, whether it's an obscure picture or a small blurb of text somewhere (the search engine on the archives page might be helpful). Please send your answers via the mailbox. Anyone who correctly answers all 10 questions will be sent an exclusive mp3 of "She's Still Wearing The Yellow Dress", previously only available on The Possibility War compilation CD. The first person to answer all 10 questions will also get a shout-out in the next OKSMM movie. The deadline is 11:00 PM Eastern Standard Time on Thursday night. Good luck!
1) What artist did Dave have to paint a self-portrait in the style of?
2) What's the name of the forest on Northeast Island?
3) What was the name of Brian Turner's independent short film?
4) What is the "Meddlesome Octopus"?
5) What is Jeff Chin's adult filmstar name?
6) What was the name of the venue where Dave and Mike won a battle of the bands by themselves?
7) What is the name of the Italian soda that almost made Dave throw up when he visited the World of Coke?
8) According to Okay Samurai Factoid #3, what song did Adam Kantor play the trumpet on?
9) What are the two birds' names in The Shape of Footprints?
10) What unreleased movie was filmed a block away from Dave's house in Baltimore?
Tuesday, April 27 at 8:58 PM
Outlook Detective Agency
Spy Tech was the line of low-tech detective toys in early 90s. My favorites growing up included the Long Range Microphone, Walkie Talkies, Plastic Rock with Secret Compartment and the Camera Hidden Inside a Good N' Plenty Box. Andrew and I founded a detective agency called Outlook and enlisted the help of all the neighborhood kids. Why Outlook? Because the two "o"s could be made into cool cartoon eyes. Using spray-painted wine cases as suitcases for our spy gear, Burke VA didn't provide us with too many triple homicides. We did, however, conduct a full-scale surveillance operation when the stereotypical annoying kid was moving out. Outlook was more about being our neighborhood club (parents went into an uproar when Andrew and I fired a kid from the agency). We all had official positions, but some of the younger kids were given crappy positions like the President of Transportation.
"All right guys, we want to go to the playground. President of Transportation?"
"Bikes."
Then there was our friend Brandt, who moved in around 7th grade and went through the grueling selection meeting with our current members.
"Brandt, why should you be in Outlook?"
"Well, I'm really tall, so I can see over fences and stuff. And my Dad has a lot of power tools."
"Welcome to the team!"
More than anything, Outlook was about our secret forest bases. Base 11 was a common meeting place until we explored deeper into the woods and established Base 13 (what happened to 12, I have no idea). Base 13 was marked by a cinder block, a tire, and a fallen tree to sit on. I still know every single path and shortcut in those woods. No one ever got injured - well, Andrew got poison ivy a few times (I'm apparently immune to it) and fell out of a tree once. As we grew older, we continued exploring deeper into the woods and found things like an enormous hollowed tree that fell across a river and became a shaky bridge. A friend made a makeshift zip wire that was ridiculously unsafe but a lot of fun. This is what my dream of building a treehouse is based upon - a love of exploring the forest and creating daily adventures. About two years ago, Andrew and I climbed up an astronomically tall tree near our house. At a height towering above rooftops, we saw a view of our neighborhood that managed to match my excitement of exploration as a kid.
Monday, April 26 at 8:35 PM
Pret-A-Porter (Mais Manger Les Soixante Poisson Croissants)
My first sense of fashion came early in elementary school when two girls made fun of my striped socks pulled up to my knees. Pretty soon after that I was all about Umbro shorts, neon green slap bracelets and jeans with millions of pockets. I never got a Hypercolor shirt or Reebok Pumps, but both were big for a while. Andrew and I went through Andre Agassi phases where we grew out wild, massively-gelled hair while sporting purple Challenge Court shirts. We also had oversized denim shirts to wear unbuttoned over a white tee - just like a photo we saw of Macaulay Culkin in Disney Adventures magazine. Flannels were a staple from the early to mid 90s, but I pretty much stopped caring about clothes for a while after that (except for an omnipresent Richmond Braves hat). When I was later introduced to the little slice of heaven we call thrift stores, I immediately fell in love. I did the sideburns thing for that one month that ska music was cool. UVA infused a little preppiness into the bloodstream, so the kahki/tee-shirt combo became a regular pattern. I wore necklaces that friends gave me as gifts throughout the years, rocked the rubber bands around the wrist, and occasionally considered getting an ear pierced. In my third year of college, I let my hair grow out and curl naturally, and the result was nothing short of the old-school Justin Timberlake afro. Since then I've wavered back and forth between short and long hair.
Today, I still don't quite get the big deal with fashion. I could live off my tee-shirt collection easily for two months, without repeating favorites like 1980 Top Ten Basketball or the Transformers logo. Flushing money with Abercrombie & Fitch pre-frayed hats or trendy shirts isn't my cup of tea, but a trip to Old Navy, Ross, Marshall's or Salvation Army never disappoints. It's dangerous to fall completely into ultra-fashion (latest trend-setting expensive shoe) or anti-fashion (plaid shorts or wearing pajamas to work). Although outer appearance is important, clothes are really just an excuse not to be naked. A friend and I might get into some tee-shirt silkscreening soon, so maybe that will lead to original PC or Linden shirts. Fashion trends are short, but you're always safe in a tee-shirt and jeans. Then again, I'm involved with an industry where you don't exactly dress up for work. If the trends were up to me, monocles and giant sombreros would make a huge comeback.
Sunday, April 25 at 6:47 PM
Back To The Studio?
One of my assignments this week was to make an advertisement for the Rome Braves minor league baseball team. Teamed up with my friend Richard, we decided to go directly to the source and check out an afternoon game today (Rome is about 60 miles from Atlanta). It was actually very entertaining, and we took plenty of movies and photos to be used in our presentation on Friday. I even got my picture with Romey, the blue misshapen mascot.
You can only make a first impression once, and that's why I'm becoming reluctant to put my homemade recordings on the demo. Most of them sound good through headphones or a computer, but I recently realized that a car or home stereo is a different story. The clarity and separation of individual instruments in a normal recording isn't there. I toured a local recording studio yesterday, and am playing around with the idea of re-recording Hawaiian Treehouse and Aphelion in a professional environment. I think I'll be able to justify it financially - it's a great package deal, and I'm getting my DVD cases free from a friend who works at Blockbuster. This will delay the demo yet again, but the end result should be significantly better. Again, I'm still debating whether or not to do this, but I was extremely impressed by the studio and could begin as early as next month. We'll see...
Wednesday, April 21 at 2:37 PM
Aphelion
Aphelion is now available as a free mp3 download in the music section. Special thanks to Katie Kosma for helping out with some guest vocals. It turned out decent, but now in retrospect, I probably won't include it in the demo. That would leave the three acoustic songs and Mosquito, which I'm okay with. My frustrations reached a fever pitch tonight. Full Okay Samurai versions of these songs play in my imagination. Lacking the skill and knowledge to create a studio-quality song, whatever I produce always falls short. Any more recordings will just be simple acoustic renditions to familiarize people with the live material. If recording is my weakness, then maybe live performance is my strength. I know that I've come a long way from staring at my shoes Janine Mason's birthday party. So as long as what I've got recorded is enough to land a couple of shows, I'll be satisfied. Then maybe I could afford REAL studio time.
Sunday, April 18 at 8:35 PM
Or An Albino Kid In Flashlight Tag
First off, sorry for the site being down most of today (Friday). It happened to Jeff's site too for a while, so our hosting service was acting up. They're usually pretty reliable, but I'll probably switch to a friend's company next month so we'll have more space for movies, photos, and music.
Brian Collins from Ogilvy & Mather spoke to a packed house at PC yesterday. His team was responsible for the original "Obey Your Thirst" campaign for Sprite, the popular Hershey's store in Times Square, and the recent Tiger Woods gopher commercials for American Express. Inspiration spilled into the crowd as he took us through the creative processes of several campaigns. These are the dream jobs that everyone wants. In reality, most designers won't achieve superstar status. That's with "superstar" as a relative term, since even the most famous designers are generally unknown to the public. For many, the job that pays the bills might be redesigning a local restaurant's menu, the church bulletin or a logo for toilet paper. Generally, if you think a certain advertising job sounds like fun, chances are that an established company is handling it. I've heard time and time again that raw talent is rarely ever the main factor of success in this business. Experience, passion, and presentation play at least equal roles. Presentation is huge. You could have the best idea in the history of the known universe, but if you can't express it somehow to others, it's dead.
If asked what my dream job is right now, I'd say boy band member. But then I'd say that I honestly don't know. Maybe the creative director of an interactive multimedia design studio. The music industry's next big step should be interactivity, and I want to be there when it happens. The interactivity of the internet is stale during this infancy stage; the possibilities ten years from now are going to be unbelievable. Video games, movies, television, advertising, internet - the lines that separate these mediums are getting blurrier every day. That's why I want to learn about animation and motion graphics, film editing, illustration, art direction, design, multitrack sound recording and editing, 3D graphics, photography, writing and video games - I can't make up my freakin' mind, hence multimedia. Okay Samurai has obvious roots in the band (with no hidden meaning behind it, I just thought it sounded familiar and cool). But Multimedia was added on as a cop-out umbrella term since work at the time included a comic strip, VRML video game, and creative writing short stories in addition to the music. And now I'm going to school for this sort of stuff? Is that even legal?
Another reason that yesterday morning's seminar was entertaining stemmed from a question Mr. Collins raised. What is the only nationally-recognized brand to survive without advertising? The answer: Krispy Kreme. With that, the doors to the auditorium opened and three students walked in, their arms filled with boxes of Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Now that's presentation. I'm out like Muhammad Ali in Jenga.
Thursday, April 15 at 9:17 PM
Try Marzen, Not Dunkles
I got a call early Monday morning from old Baltimore roommate Mike Ferenczy. Too early even for him to be drinking, I curiously answered the phone. Mike and Mel were coming back from a Disneyworld spring break vacation and missed a connecting flight - so they were stuck in Atlanta until their rescheduled departure that night! I picked up my surprise guests from the airport and spent the afternoon showing them around the city. We drove downtown near Coke and CNN, and then checked out some homes straight out of Southern Living magazine. If you take Peachtree Street to Peachtree Battle and take a right on Northside Drive, you'll pass a ridiculously enormous house on your left - it has a putting green surrounded by a moat in the front yard. After a tour of PC and dinner with a friend of Mel's at Gordon Biersch, it was a teary-eyed goodbye. Mike says he'll rate the trip with his patented giraffe system in a future update to this site.
Aphelion will definitely be up next Monday, barring any more surprise visits. I've decided to call it quits on recording after this - the demo production has been delayed for too long, and one more song won't tip the scales. Okay Samurai already created a great full song to round out the album in Mosquito, so that will be the final track. The music section will go through some changes soon to reflect the new stage name and style. A few people have asked if I'll ever record a full rock version of Monochroma. The "Bloody Tears" theme has actually been made into several rock remixes before, one of the best being this one.
Wednesday, April 14 at 6:51 PM
PC Reality Television
Whether you asked for it or not, it's time for another digital camera movie, Cubs Vs. Braves (Quicktime, 4:16, 9.8 MB - no longer online). A handful of third quarter students went to the baseball game last night through an event by the Colonial Homes leasing office. The Braves managed to win with an 8th inning grand slam. We met up with others later for chocolate tiramisu martinis (I didn't believe it either) and the East Atlanta bar scene. And all the highlights of the night were captured on film. Enjoy.
Sunday, April 11 at 3:00 PM
Grindstone, Meet Nose
Third quarter at Portfolio Center is where designers and art directors start to branch off into different classes. I'm currently labeled as "D/AD", meaning someone who straddles between both concentrations. This quarter already seems a little more down-to-earth and conservative; we're down to a four class schedule from here on out. I'll finally learn Flash, which means you'll see cartoons on this site in the near future. Half the class will be about animation, but the other half will focus on ActionScripting, meaning figuring out how to make things interactive. The deliverable for Publication and Art Direction is to basically create a magazine - everyone gets the same name (Cipher), but we all use different styles and genres. Brand Strategy is a concepting class. We're assigned a new product or company every week, which we turn around into some sort of print campaign.
But I can already tell you my favorite class of the quarter, and probably the year - Matt Belfi's Electronic Design Concepts. Each student is given some obscure retirement home and expected to create a logo and 12-page information booklet. This computer lab class seems to be mainly about learning the various computer design tips and tricks that separate the beginners from the professionals. It helps that Belfi is the man. He's a former PC student who is consistently exploding with personality. This is going to be one heck of a quarter.
It's going to take a miracle to get these songs finished by Monday, so hang tight. I'm in so far over my head with this mixing stuff.
Friday, April 9 at 9:02 PM
Starting A Trend (With Elementary School Kids)
Since the end of college, I have always worn at least one rubber band around my right wrist. I'm certainly not the first one to do this, but people often wonder if there's a reason behind it. When I was working at the Kiddie Country Day Care Center in Burke, I was usually one of the last employees to leave. That meant cleaning up, stacking chairs, and hanging out with the last handful of kids waiting to get picked up. Rubbers bands were always lying around - they were often used for wrapping around art projects or Pokemon trading cards. Instead of throwing them away, I slapped them on my wrist to put back in the supply cabinet later. The kids caught onto this and started doing the same. I remember Cody's mom telling me about Cody never taking his off, even during sleep! Today, I wear rubber bands as a reminder to act like a kid. It's never a hassle looking for them either - when one breaks, another one miraculously pops up somewhere.
Thursday, April 8 at 9:32 PM
The Wall
Things are deep into recording process now, so I've sequestered myself indoors with synthesized choirs and drum loops. The final two demo songs will online by next Monday.
At the beginning of every Portfolio Center quarter, the entire school is re-decorated with current student projects. The main entrance and hallway seem like a museum, with display cases and framed pieces illuminated by track lighting. Getting your work on "the wall" is determined by some secret faculty voting formula. While first quarter had a few appearances, our quarter really cleaned up this time around - it seems that everyone has something on display. My "wall" pieces have been the Port Discovery Explorer Sack and the Okay Samurai Multimedia bluebird poster. If nothing else, it's refreshing to walk into a new building every quarter and get inspired by all kinds of different creative solutions.
Monday, April 5 at 6:18 PM
The Jessica Incident
Every once in a while, I get random emails from people in my past who bump into this site. Today, I heard from two old friends out of the blue, and one directed me to a Robinson Class of 1998 gossip site where I had apparently stirred up a little controversy. I wrote a story in September detailing how I met Eugene by lying to the counselors about a note he wrote to a girl named Jessica. A source named "Andy" claimed that I had a Jessica-bashing website and refused to grow out of my teenage phase. I wrote back to the gossip site and apologized if any feelings were hurt, and attempted to defend my reasons for writing the story. So yeah, whoopie, I made the high school gossip wheel. I wish it had been a more outrageous story, like "Dave is sooo fat now" or "Dave married Eugene", but beggars can't be choosers. Regardless, I got to hear from some old friends (including my 8th grade girlfriend!) that otherwise wouldn't have contacted me, so I'm glad it happened.
I saw The Triplets of Belleville tonight in the theater. It's ridiculously weird, but the animation and art are excellent and the story somehow succeeds for an hour and a half with barely any dialogue. The sprinklings of 3D animation in a 2D film were in good taste and not gimmicky.
Thursday, April 1 at 10:51 PM
Okay Samurai Multimedia is Dave Werner's personal site. I'm currently working at Minor Studios in San Francisco. Thanks for visiting! (more...)
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