I've been making progress getting caught up so now that I'm thinking I haven't been stuck under a mountain of stuff that I can't finish. I've got 2 designs for the large door coverings that Dan mostly likes after a bunch of tries, probably a few more until he's satisfied with them.
Next I can work on the large banner to go on the light pole for the events at Butte. I was thinking of doing one for the Shakespeare play they're putting on "As you Like It" that would be cool although it might be too topical and not as long lasting as some of the more annual events.
I finally finished the Soulmate in Peril video and it came out pretty much the way I had in mind with the mixing of the frames of reference and the layering of a lot of different elements. It was a lot longer than I expected almost 9 minutes and that took a lot more compressing to be able to upload it to YouTube and Revver.
I tried a lot of different compression ratios but getting it down to 100mb had to make some sacrifices in quality. At least the version on CD looks better.
Current TV posted the next VCAM assigment as a commercial for Sony HD Life, showing how people's lives are changed by their ability to use Cameras, Viaio laptops, audio recievers and plasma screen TV's. I'm thinking maybe I should do some motion graphics this time for it
Since Chapter of "An Angel's Destiny seems to be too large to put in altogether and I haven't had time to finish it people seem to agree I should do it in parts. I split it up into 4 parts and I have the 1st 2 parts uploaded now.
The 1st part is from Minerva is crying in the bedroom of the apartment that Chris has to where they get to the Norse Temple.
The 2nd part is where they try to contact Odin at the Temple and meet the monk called Zakita
But Minerva doesn't have any luck contacting Odin there
This way I can keep the story going while I finish the parts at the beach and at the Kiva Retreat. Hopefully that'll generate more interest in it.
I had been thinking about the kinds of things that make people grow and evolve in theirs lives. A lot of them require ego death to break the imprints to transcend their limits. For example the rituals in Freemasonry do that. But is it right to force someone into that kind of situation like V did to Evie in the movie V for Vendetta?
She did grow from it but was it worth the suffering she had to go through to do it? Would she have been able to integrate it better if she had given her consent to it 1st? It certainly would've cut out the anger and bitterness she felt about his methods.
There are supposed to be more positive methods like Tantric Yoga that should produce the same conditions for transcendence. If you're willing to let go then it shouldn't do as much damage to your psyche and most likely you would be more balanced and stable with those methods.
But are they as effective when it takes more courage and discipline to be to willing face the fear of ego death than to be manipulated into it? The suffering might be greater, but was Evie grateful she had gone through it? It all comes down to whether the ends justify the means doesn't it? The trouble is, if all you're focused on is the results then costs of getting them can be very high, with the collateral damage along the way being considerable. It's more about the journey to enlightenment than the goal, since being one with the Omniverse is the same for all, it's the steps taken to get there is different for everyone. A lot like the path described in the Tarot, We all start out as the Fool, but end up as The World. I still have to finish my Tarot card series but this example of one I made shows some of the symbolism.
In the Bitter Suite episode of Xena they make a similar journey using Tarot symbols to work out the impasse between Xena and Gabrielle. They use the major arcana card Wheel of Fortune as a metaphor for karma that all actions have consequences and the reactions will bounce back on you.
They both start out trying to grow beyond the limits of past conditioning. Xena being seduced by her lust for vengance and using force with violent means to achive her goals. Gabrielle seduced by the security of home and family to conform to the views of the society as they say "nothing changes but the time, we don't even change our minds... watch the world by, vegetate until we die" until they stop thinking for themselves and go along with the crowd.
Then get past the distortions of communication when the pain is blinding them and projecting blame onto each other.
Also all the ego defenses that let the hate consume them so that there is no room left for anything else.
Until finally they can reach the stage where they can forgive themselves and each other then let love in to transform their relationship and return to the world. It's not an easy journey since the ego throws up all kinds of obstacles, evasions and rationalizations to stave off having to go through it, that's what the Atman Project is all about.
Most likely that's why they say artists have to suffer to create great art since the struggle of taking that journey is what produces the art and not many have the courage and discipline to embark on it without going through the hardship of suffering 1st
Manipulating someone for their own good to go through them, violates their free will and even if the would've given their consent after the fact when they've realized the benefits it's not fair to take away that choice. By tricking them into those circumstances before they are ready to make the choice, it poisons the soil in which the growth is fostered and weakens whatever gains are made by the deception.
It seems like I'm getting further behind, with trying to do the videos, murals, portfolios and posters. Maybe I should've concentrated more on just one part at a time. I tried doing another video for the Revver Film School but the deadline is 3/12/07 to make it into the Head of the Class collection and the last time the top video had 544 views with the last video having 103 views so I would need a minimum of 150 views to be sure I made it in.
The trouble is that with only 27 days left I would need to get at least 5 views a day to have a shot at it. But I've only got 4 views right now and not much chance of getting that many. Like a lot of things I've been doing to try annd get exposure, a good idea in theory, not so much in practice. Maybe I should've concentrated more on my portfolio since that's what will probably do the most good from what I've heard.
I'm not going to have the "Soulmates in Peril" video ready in time for Valentine's Day but hopefully in time for when the Self-Portrait is due. Dennis is usually pretty flexible about that deadline since I doubt anyone else in the class will be ready either. Krys didn't have that romantic Flash project she was trying to do ready for out anniversary either so I'll just have to do some other stuff for her tomorrow and give it to her when I'm done.
I think I've gotten most of it rendered, now I have to come up with dialogue for the narration and for the comic balloons. I've been looking at different styles, like this romance novel blurb.
But Krys didn't seem to like it as much as the clip from Voyager, she seemed to like more of the Klingon style of Romance Novels.
I can do more of that kind especially during the sword fight between her and Belle. I was going for a mix of styles between a Fairy Tale, Romance Novel and Fractured Fairy Tale.
I like the humorous style of the Fractured Fairy Tale and the way they always had a moral to it since the whole point to the video was the way that love, intimacy and cooperation triumphed over selfishness, competition and betrayal. What I have so far is: "Once upon a time. There were some Soulmates who dwelled in a beautiful garden. They shared such an intimate connection that their lives were a dance of joy where they flowed as one. But just as there is no light without darkness, some were too selfish to be filled with that awareness of joy and coveted the source of power in the enchanted garden. Like a snake Belle slithered into the garden to grab his imzadi by surprise then disappeared before her soulmate could react in time to stop Belle.
Belle did everything to escape from him by fleeing through all part of the globe. But his imzadi meant more than life itself to him so he followed Belle like a bloodhound.
He chased after Belle desperately since there was no mountain too high and no river too wide. For he would go to any lengths to rescue his soulmate.
Even though he was faced with a terrible danger if the Purple Rose fell into the hands of such a malicious entity. When his imzadi was in mortal peril he did not hesitate because his love for her was too damn much. He would have to trust her that they could change the situation together. so that the masses did not take the damage meant for her."
To get a decent version of the T-moble commercial on the Current TV web page. Video Egg really sucks as a conversion software, I wish they would get the one that Revver uses since that's got even better resolution than the one YouTube uses. I wonder if that's proprietary to Revver or if Current TV could get the rights to use it instead of Video Egg. I had to upload a better version from the Butte Computer Lab today since it only seems to work 1 specific way, only, with OS X with Safari on a Mac and only if you install the Video Egg from their site and not Current TV. I've tried it a lot of other ways and none of them work at all. That's what makes Video Egg such a nightmare to use since the version I uploaded from WinXP with IE made the video echo in the audio and you could barely understand it.
I finally found out the reason why it took some long to get it on the site wasn't from Current TV at all, it was that a bunch of people got fired from T-Mobile that were in charge of approving the videos and it took them a while to reorganize and train other people to go through the videos to get them back to Current TV. I hope that means I have a better shot at getting them to accept mine.
