书法是最好的圣诞节礼物 (Chinese Calligraphy makes great Christmas presents)

I bet y'all didn't know I'm a pretty decent calligrapher! I actually really love calligraphy in general since I was introduced to it when I took Design in my senior year of high school (a class that overindulged my OCD-like tendencies for detail craftmanship). I got to learn proper Chinese Calligraphy (or 书法) while I spent a good 3 months on the college language program in Qingdao, China and came back with a full set of Chinese calligraphy brushes, a mat, authentic Chinese rice paper, a traditional inkbowl, and a traditional Chinese seal with my Chinese name written on it in traditional characters plus the red ink for the seal. I really love that seal. And I like going around stamping it on things :D. I practice some calligraphy every now and then, and now I'm pretty decent at it. What I like about it is that it looks really easy and simple, but actually is quite the artform that requires a lot of skill and concentration. I find it super-relaxing, but unfortunately when I do get around to practicing it, I lose track of time, do it for like 4 hours and then get carpel-tunnel. Ha.
Anyways, given that I'm basically broke and unemployed, I can't really afford the nicer gifts I usually get my extended family. So I decided to make some. I looked through the 道德经 (Dao de Jing) and picked out a passage specific for every person and then set about making scrolls with them. I think they came out really nice. It was also my first time inking traditional characters which are much more complex than the simplified ones I'm used to. There's something beautifully poetic in them though.

Anyways, I just thoughts I'd wish everyone out there some very Happy Holidays. I hope you enjoy your Christmas meal (I know I will be chowing down tamales and turkey like there's no tomorrow!).

Much love from Ecuador!

Categories: Calligraphy, Chinese, Christmas

If you give E a cookie...I will put delicious, colorful frosting all over it!

So it is that time of the year again. As as per tradition at my parents' house, massive amounts of cookie-baking is currently underway. You see, everyone close to the family usually gets a bag with an assortment of homemade cookies. My mom usually makes like12 kinds. Because she's been stuck with an unusual amount of work lately, I've been the one doing the baking (because, you know, I have no job). I've made Sugar Cookies and Chocolate Chip cookies and also filled the alfajores with the dulce de leche.
This morning, I frosted the Sugar Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting. I currently smell like butter and sugar and have food coloring stains all over my fingers, but the cookies look beautiful (if I do say so myself!).
Here are some pics to spread the holiday spirit!

Some stars and trees
Some StarsSome trees

Some people


A Girl

A Boy
I also had fun naming the colors I was mixing for the cookies. For example, I named the color of the boy "Grinch Green" and the green for the trees "Radioactive Green". The light blue of the background of the stars is "sky blue" and the blue in the rims is "Cookie Monster blue". The maroon for the girl is "Vassar Red", and red on the trees is "Highlighter Red". The yellow that decorates all of them? "Sunny Day yellow".

Happy holidays!

Categories: Christmas, cookie

Writing Playlist #1 - Pulsar

So I thought it might be interesting to share a bit of my creative process with you guys! Anyways, whenever I do a project, I'll create a playlist for that project that will sort of mimic the emotional arc that the story is meant to follow. I'm currently working on a new playlist for a new project I'm starting to write soon (it is a 3-part science fiction fantasy that I've been working on to develop since I was 15) so that playlist currently involves a lot of Daft Punk's new stuff for the soon-t0-be-released film Tron: Legacy. Daft Punk is pretty cool. And the stuff I'm adding to this new playlist is pretty amazing.
Well, there's more to playlist authoring for writing than just making a playlist. The playlist evolves as the narrative moves on. Songs are taken out and others are brought in. And at the end you end u with a pretty cool list of songs that follows the emotional arc of the narrative.
Oh, and there's also one song that just really ends up encompassing the tone of the film itself that I just listen over and over again when I need to keep the tone of the film in mind.

Anyhoo, I thought I'd post my final playlist for my recently completed project "Pulsar".
The song that really sets the tone for this film is #14 "World Citizen". My itunes reports that I listened to it 149 times while writing the screenplay.

So, playlist for "Pulsar":

(1) Mushaboom by Feist
(2) Boy With A Coin by Iron and Wine
(3) Nature Boy by David Bowie & Massive Attack
(4) Nature Boy by Nat King Cole
(5) Headlights Look Like Diamonds by Arcade Fire
(6) New Killer Star by David Bowie
(7) Mírame by Daddy Yankee feat. Deevani
(8) Violet Hill by Coldplay
(9) Poker Face by Lady GaGa
(10) Woman King by Iron and Wine
(11) Wait by Alexi Murdoch
(12) About Her from the Kill Bill Vol. 2. Soundtrack
(13) In the Backseat by Arcade Fire
(14) World Citizen by Ryuichi Sakamoto
(15) Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games by Of Monteal
(16) E-Pro by Beck
(17) Free Until They Cut Me Down by Iron and Wine
(18) Space Oddity by David Bowie
(19) Sleep by Eric Whitacre
(20) The Blower's Daughter by Damien Rice and Lisa Tucker
(21) Four Cigarettes by Malcolm Middleton
(22) The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack by Liars

Categories: film, playlist

So I'm not nuts (and that's good to know)

M kindly sent me the link to a really interesting and incredible article in the New York Times about half an hour ago. It is about young entrepreneurs, who like myself, gave the economic depression the finger and started their own companies. My own personal LLC for films is still sort of just a bunch of business cards on my desk, a website, and a registered company in New Mexico. We have yet to actually get a Tax ID number (should get on that soon actually) or really actually hire anyone else other than myself. Or transact business. We're on our way though. And I hope that we'll be able to get more stuff moving soon.
The funny thing is, I kind of never really envisioned myself as an entrepreneur. Risky and strange world - business is just something that always felt so alien to me. That is until an old high school classmate of mine suggested that I join in to form a production company with him and a friend of his to have a structure to make a film. That eventually fell through, but my company was sort of born from that idea. I taught myself business and how to make business plans with help from my uncle Leo and aunt Sole and my dad. Add some visits to film markets, and greater understanding of the business of film and voilá! I'm kind of an informed businesswoman. I mean. I feel capable.
That feeling was recently validated when I took a serious business venture proposal to a few filmmakers and I completely nailed it. I'm going to Hong Kong as a sales agent for a local film. Highly lucrative contract if I can actually sell the rights to the film to territories. But why shouldn't I be able to? I know this stuff. I know who I'm selling to. The sales agent thing is a step though. A step to a greater goal of getting financial independence that will allow me to start looking for investors for my own projects.
At least that's what I hope happens. Hehe.
Nobody knows.

Categories: business, business plan, M

Submitted

Last night I successfully submitted my project "Pulsar" for a very important film grant. I get notified in March if I got it, so keep your fingers crossed for me!
I'm going to go sleep now.

peace.

Categories: film, pulsar, Script

Small thoughts

Reading up on Pulsars for the bagillionth time this month. Weird weird weird objects. And fascinating. You can actually hear them, which is also weird. Search for Vega Pulsar Sound on YouTube. Their sound is oddly trance like but also really sort of frightening.

Categories: film, pulsar, Script

First Draft

I finally finished the first draft of my screenplay! I must say, I'm proud of myself. I wrote 94 of its 144 pages in the past two and a half days. Guess I can really get things done when I'm motivated. I'm actually really proud of it. I mean, it needs tons of work, but the main idea is there and solid and the characters and the dialogue are good. I'm extremely self-critical of my own writing, so for me to thing it is actually a good solid base is a good sign. I think.
This is the fourth full-length screenplay I've written, and also the longest. The other three are two screenplays I wrote in Dramatic Writing and Screenplay classes respectively and my Chinese major senior project which was a screenplay adaptation of Jorge Luis Borges's short story "The Garden of Forking Paths" (which I am kind of obsessed with) completely written in Mandarin Chinese. It was a full-length screenplay too (long enough to sustain a 80-minute film had it been made).
Anyhoo, my new screenplay is in the hands of N now, who I trust will rip it to shreds in editing so that I can rebuild it so it can be even better!
I'm so happy! :D

P.S. Also yesterday I got a sort-of job offer for a short filming gig from a former HS classmate of mine. Woot!

Categories: Borges, Chinese, film, N, Script, The Garden Of Forking Paths, work

如果是七点种以前，我的脑子就运不作 (if it is before 7 am, my brain won't work)

The title pretty much sums it up. I had to get up at some ungodly hour this morning (6:15 am) after going to bed at 3 am (without finishing my screenplay) to go to the first Chinese class I've attended since I tearfully (and I do mean tearfully, the damn exam reduced me to tears of desperation) handed in my final exam for Advanced Readings in Chinese and gleefully completed my Chinese major. I got up today in hopes of maybe refreshing my language skills to be able to successfully conduct business in Mandarin Chinese when I go to Hong Kong in March if need be.
Much to my dismay (and my non-working brain's) I was met with the equivalent of the material I looked at back in the third week my freshman year. Really? 图书馆 (Library) is an Intermediate-level Chinese vocabulary word? And the grammar structure Verb + 到/ Verb +不到 is really an Intermediate-level Chinese grammar structure? REALLY? Maybe I got a little more annoyed at the class I'd arranged to take than I meant to - I think it just has to do with having to wake up too early and not having 喝了一杯咖啡 ("drank a cup of coffee". NW will understand this. She understands the importance of 汉语课以前，我们需要喝着一杯咖啡).
Damn. My 脑子(brain) really doesn't work right now. I think I'm going to go sit down with a cup of 绿茶 (Green Tea) in hopes of rebooting it sometime soon.
Until then, 再见！

Categories: China, Chinese, Hong Kong, NW