Happy New Year!

2007 was all about putting up sand bags outside my house so that the creative juices that burst from within my the right side of my mind wouldn't flood my home town. I am completely drenched, and I thank Hurricane IDOM for getting me wet. I have always wanted to be a part of a film production team and this year I got just that. I knew from the beginning, though, that this would be a challenge, since I am a solo kind of guy when it comes to my creativity. I admit, I was a bit nervous at first, but in the end, it donned on me that joining this group was the best thing I ever did for the right side of my brain. What an incredible year. I'd like to take this time to thank Evan, Sig, Dinah, Rob, Joe, Rick, Tom, Joanne, and Kirk for coming along on this crazy ride.


For those who are new to Blogged Arteries: The Unrendered Files, and have no clue what I am talking about, Evan Donn sums up IDOM best:

For the past few years Evan Donn has been teaching classes in After Effects and Final Cut Pro in the Multimedia department at College Of San Mateo. Every semester there were a couple of students who just wouldn't go home when the class was over, staying after with a seemingly endless stream of questions about every imaginable aspect of video production. Many of them returned semester after semester for whichever class Evan was teaching at the time. In the spring of 2006 Evan taught a new class called DV Workflow which consisted almost entirely of these "irregulars". DV Workflow became essentially an 'everything but the kitchen sink' type of class covering the entire process of video production with an emphasis on producing video for the web. As part of DV Workflow every member of the class had to produce an episodic video series for the web. This led to various members teaming up to work on each others' videos as well as providing valuable input on the finished videos during class screenings. When the class ended everyone felt that the working dynamic of the group was worth continuing.

Led by Chief Instigator Tony Nguyen they dubbed themselves 'The Evan Donn School of Film' and began holding quarterly screenings of everyone's current work. In 2006 several members of the group attended one of the 48 Hour Film screenings, and they all walked out with the same thought - we can do that. From that point on the quarterly screenings took on a new direction as 'challenges' were thrown out with criteria similar to the 48 Hour Film Project. This helped prepare the team members for the challenge of building a short film around a character, prop and line of dialogue. As the 2007 competition drew closer Mr. Nguyen once again took the lead and signed up the team. Put on the spot to come up with a team name he considered and rejected many possibilities before the ideal name 'donned' on him...

Despite their history together, the 2007 48 Hour Film Project was the first time all members of the group had worked together on a single project...but it definitely won't be the last...

Firefox

Dinah deSpenza called me last week and noted that she was having technical difficulties posting her videos onto her blog. It was really odd, because she couldn't see the "add video" icon on her site. I could see mine very clearly, but I couldn't see why she didn't have it. It turns out, it was a Safari issue! Why would Safari not show this? I can see it clearly in Firefox! Safari is odd. In fact, I've had some problems in the past with this browser. I've had issues trying to set up evites in Safari and I've pretty much stopped blogging in that problematic browser. We brought this issue up in class, and Professor Donn gave a detailed explanation of why Safari is what it is. I am not going to attempt to reiterate what he said because it was just way too technical. All I know is that I'm sticking to Firefox, and I recommended that Dinah does the same!

12 Days Of Donn

IT DONNED ON ME recently had a holiday party where we were supposed to submit holiday themed film. I was so caught up with everything else associated with the holiday season that I did not submit one. I felt so left out. So, during my winter break from work, I sat down and made a little Christmas film that I call "The 12 Days Of Donn." Happy Holidays!



-----Original Message-----
From: Evan Donn
Sent: Saturday, December 08, 2007 9:19 PM
To: Joe Kirsch; Sig Thorsen; Nguyen, Tony; Joanne Donn; drkemp; Dinah Despenza; Rob C; Thomas Flowers; Kirk Moore
Subject: IDOM Holiday Party

Of course. What kind of IDOM party would it be without movies?

I would have sent out an email sooner, but hey - think of it as a 192 Hour Film Challenge and it'll seem like you have plenty of time. One simple requirement - holiday-themed. Preferably winter-ish holidays, but if you feel the urge to make a St. Paddy's Day film for some reason that'll be acceptable too.

No need to make anything elaborate - even a simple little video christmas card will do.

See you in 192 hours...

Oh Well, Better Luck Next Time!

We regret to say that “Featherweight Blues” has not been accepted to the 2008 Dam Short Film Festival. Once again, our 8-person selection committee struggled with the final decisions. This year, we received over 330 films.

Please keep in mind that the selection process is ultimately based on the subjective opinions and personal tastes of the selection committee and festival organizers. By no means is it a reflection of the creativity and hard work you invested in the project. We encourage you to submit “Featherweight Blues” to other film festivals.

If you would like to attend the 2008 Dam Short Film Festival, we’ll give you one free 3-Day Pass, which is good for all programs and events. Please e-mail us at info@damshortfilm.org with the subject “3-Day” if you would like a pass reserved for you.

Sincerely,

-The DSFF Staff

Merry Christmas!

CCCSAT Network 3rd Annual Student Film Festival 2008

I'm Doing It!

-----Original Message-----
From: Evan Donn
Sent: Friday, December 14, 2007 7:57 AM
To: Joe Kirsch
Cc: Sig Thorsen; Nguyen, Tony; Joanne Donn; drkemp; Dinah Despenza; Rob C; Thomas Flowers; Kirk Moore; tsunami1@hotmail.com
Subject: CCCSAT Network 3rd Annual Student Film Festival 2008

This is a contest/festival open only to work produced by students as part of coursework at a California community college. It looks like just about anything you've produced as part of one of my classes (or any others at CSM) should be eligible, it doesn't cost anything to enter, and there are some pretty nice prizes.

You have until January 31 to get your entries in... I'd suggest trying to avoid being at the airport post office at 11:56pm on January 31st.

Thriller

Five years ago, I stumbled across a very odd looking booth at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It was the last day of the show, so I thought I'd stop by to see what it was all about. I had just gotten off my booth duty shift, so I was still in my Dolby uniform. It had been a long but productive week at ICES for me, and amazingly enough, I was still operating on adrenaline.

This unusual looking booth caught my eye because it had a trailer park feel to it. In the middle of the booth was a trailer, very much like the one Cyndi Lauper lived in in the Time After Time video. Under my feet was astro turf. My curiosity was definitely aroused, so I approached the trailer. I learned that this booth belonged to Madwaves, and their latest product was a hand held karaoke machine. I said to Madwaves Director of Marketing, "well, I'm the karaoke king!" Next thing I know, I'm up on stage performing "Thriller" up on their stage. The funny part was that the pitch was changed, so I sounded like Minnie Mouse on helium, hee hee.

Fast forward five years. I recently received an email from that Director of Marketing inviting me to join her Linked In network. I hadn't heard from this woman in years, so it did not surprise me when the email exchange quickly shifted to that Thriller performance. Sure enough, in this day and age of YouTube, that video of me rocking out to Michael Jackson made it on to the internet, and this former Madwaves marketing director sent it to me. I couldn't help but laugh. Oh my, how my karaoke has matured over the years...

Shot live during CES 2002 in Vegas, an amazing karaoke performance with a pitch shift thanks to the now sold out MadPlayer... and thanks to Tony, a visitor to the booth on that memorable day.

SFCutters Supermeet

I'm so there!


-----Original Message-----
From: Professor Donn
Sent: Friday, December 14, 2007 7:49 AM
To: Nguyen, Tony
Subject: SFCutters Supermeet

A few of us went to this last year, it was good but not great - however the lineup of speakers this year looks to be much better. Stu Machwitz (author of the Rebels Guide), Alex Lindsey (former ILM'er and founder of Pixel Corp and DvGarage), Sony will be showing off the XDCAM EX (my next camera just as soon as they get around to actually shipping more than a couple), and Apple is showing... something mysterious! Plus $34,000 worth of raffle prizes - hopefully handled in a bit more organized fashion than last year...So I'll probably go check it out, tickets are $10 and may sell out so if you want to go now's the time to get them. Let me know if you're planning to go.

The Road Not Taken

The semester has officially ended, and though I am very relieved that my stress level has dropped, I am sad to see Digital Workflow come to an end. I was up to the wee hours of the morning finishing up my final project, so I'm dead tired. I am happy that project #5 is complete. I ended up incorporating Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" and Vivaldi's "Winter" into my road film. To me, this semester was journey, and what I really wanted was to show the route I took this semester to reach this final destination. Professor Donn and my Digital Workflow classmates, thanks for coming along on this ride with me. What a trip it was!



Character:
Dr. Michael or Marian Bailey, M.D.

Prop:
Bar of soap.

Line of Dialogue:
"Who's your daddy?"

Film Genre:
Road Movie.

It's Going To Be A Late Night...

I'm still plugging along on this final project. I took the day off today to complete my final project for Evan Donn's Digital Workflow class. It's been such a busy semester. It's funny, when I told Professor Donn that I was going to call in sick, he responded, "Again? You've been doing that a lot this semester." True. I did bite off more than I could chew by choosing such a challenging episodic series, but it really was worth it. I learned a thing or two about filming and editing. I really don't like to use my personal days off, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

As I noted earlier, it has been a crazy busy semester, and now that it's winding down, every minute counts. Friday and Saturday were devoted to family, Sunday afternoon was devoted to my Colts, and Sunday night was the IDOM Holiday Party, and you know I would not miss that for anything. My weekend was so jammed packed that I did not have time to submit a holiday film for this party, which is very un-Borm like. Instead, I rehashed an old piece. Cop out, yes, but at least I had something to show. In any case, now that my weekend of fun is officially over, I have about 16 hours left to create my final masterpiece for Evan Donn. Let's see how it goes.

Happy Holidays From IDOM!

There is just not enough minutes in the day, but I guess I shouldn't complain, because I'm filling these minutes with fun things. I went to the Raider/Colts game in Oakland this afternoon and then rushed across the Bay Bridge to get to The Donns in time for the IDOM holiday party. I was on 9th and Brannan at about 5:40pm, so I thought I'd give Joanne a call to let her know that I was on my way. I was surprised when she said nobody had shown up yet! I guess everyone was being fashionably late. It turns out, a few people got lost. The Donns' place is not the easiest place to find, but sure enough everybody made it.

I'm glad we were all able to get together for this party. Even though I did not submit a holiday theme film, I still enjoyed watching my team members' projects. I really wished I had submitted a project, but like I said, there is just not enough minutes in the day. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed everyone else's films. It's been a great year for IDOM, and I'm glad that everyone was there to celebrate. I'm looking forward to the 2008 season!

Merry Christmas From Borm's Family

We celebrate Christmas a week early in my family. Contrary to what most Catholics believe, Jesus Christ was ten days premature. The Virgin Mary had an immaculate Cesarean section in the manger on December 15th. She and Joseph decided to throw a party for baby Jesus a week later. She sent evites to all her friends in Bethlehem stating that "Jesus' Birthday is on the 25th." At that time, Mary had made a slight typo error and didn't catch the omission of the word "Bash" after the word "Birthday." It was supposed to have read, "Jesus' Birthday Bash is on the 25th." However, the battery on her MacBook Pro was running low, so she went ahead and clicked the send button. She didn't think much of this until one of the three kings officially put down on Jesus' birth certificate that he was born on December 25th because of what Mary had noted in the evite. Who would have thought that the omission of this one word would have changed history? We are purists in my family, so we prefer to celebrate the birth of the Holy Christ on his actual birth date. Hence, my whole family gathered on Christmas Eve, December 17th.


All kidding (or blasphemy, depending on which side of pew your are kneeling on) aside, my mom got tired of absent family members during the holidays because of in-law issues, and so she changed tradition so that everyone can be together on Christmas. Stroke of genius. Now my brother John has no excuses for not driving up to the Bay Area in December. No more, "we can't make it because we have to be at so and so parents' place blah blah blah." This is a good thing because no one is excluded. I always say that Christmas Eve is really for the kids, but in reality, we adults have a whole lot of fun as well. At first, it was really strange celebrating Christmas Eve a week early, but we got used to it. What I haven't really been able to adjust to is the Premature Christmas Eve Mass. There's no Christmas church songs, no children dressed up as the three kings, and no barn yard animals. It's just another mass. I always feel like a tourist at St. Luke's on this special night. I only go to church twice a year, so everything always feels so foreign to me. But all the prayers came back to me like the lyrics of old eighties pop tunes that I haven't heard in 20 years. I praised the Lord as though I had never forgotten his word. My brother's wife Alma was quite impressed. She leaned into me and said, "Wow, you know the prayers." My response, "Um yeah. Now wake up and stop snoring, Alma." I guess you can take the boy of church, but you can't take the church out of the boy.

In any case, what started out as a joke has turned into a new Borm Family tradition: the patented Borm photoshop gift. A few years ago, I made funny Photoshop presents for my family. These were all inside jokes, and everyone always got a kick out of them. I've done this a few times already, and now it is expected that there is some sort of Photoshop concoction under the tree for each member of the family. Though my schedule is crazy busy, I managed to find time to make some customized photoshop projects. Hey, some peeps bake chocolate chip cookies, I whip up a batch of creativity. My family gets a kick out of these, and I sure do love their expressions when they unwrap and see what's in the frame. Below are three that got a lot of laughs.

Maybe next year I'll make DVDs. Who am I kidding? With my busy schedule, I was lucky to get these photoshopped projects done! Also, word on the street is that Evan Donn will be teaching Digital Workflow again next fall, so chances are that I will be stressing out at the end of fall 2008. What do they call this, a vicious cycle?

Featherweight Blues: The Dam Version

Here it is! The remastered version of Featherweight Blues, edited for The Dam Short Film Festival. Carlos Gutierrez is a featherweight class boxer on a losing streak. This film was made for a Digital Workflow class at The College of San Mateo. The assignment is to create a short film incorporating a boxer, frozen peas, and the line of dialogue "you can't stop me." Oh yeah, did I mention that the film genre is musical?

Doggie Style: The Sequel

If IDOM were to make a sequel to Doggie Style, then I have the perfect dog to star in it! I took Chewbacca to class tonight and introduced her to most of The It Donned On Me team. Chewbacca is a very well behaved chihuahua, and she just sat on my lap during Professor Donn's lecture. With a little training and some acting classes, this dog could become the next Lassie!

I'm A Dad!

I am very happy to announce that I am officially a dad! I was beginning to lose hope in my quest to adopt a chihuahua but I met the perfect orphan pup this morning, and was instantly swept off my feet. My new little girl is a little chiweenie with big sad eyes and a tiny little body. I fell in love with this little dog the second she blinked at me. I made up my mind to take her home after spending some time in the meet and greet room with her. I decided to name her Chewbacca. The name actually stuck in my head because a buddy of mine had mentioned it in the past. I like it a lot because this little girl looks nothing like a wookiee, but she did have the same sounding grunt because of her kennel cough.

The Peninsula Humane Society people noted that Chewbacca was a pregnant stray and had to have an emergency c-section to remove the dead puppy lodged in her vulva. Long story short, this dog didn't have a good life, but you know that now she's my little girl, she will be spoiled rotten! The Peninsula Humane Society people keep telling me that Chewbacca because she's being adopted by me, but the truth of the matter is that I'm the lucky one for having found her.

The Acceptance Speech

Here's a crazy little video clip from the night of the Visa Life Takes Invitational screening. Justine, our yoga instructor from "Retreat," took the tail end of my spasmatic outburst. What an awesome night that was, and seeing this video clip takes me back to that glorious night. IDOM's 2007 season may be over, but we certainly have many reminders of what an incredible year it has been. :-)

The AE Project

I am procrastinating. There are so many things that I need to do, but instead I have decided to upload old projects onto Blogged Arteries: The Unrendered Files. Below is the short film I made for the Spring 2007 Evan Donn School of Film Festival. Of course, we had required elements that we had to incorporate into our films:

Character:
Fred

Prop #1:
Balloon

Prop #2:
Picture Of Evan Donn


Line of Dialogue:
"That's colorful."

Song:
Michael Jackson's "Beat It"

Individual Songs:
Sig - Stairway To Heaven (Led Zeppelin)
Rob - Physical (Olivia Newton John)
Evan - You Can Do Magic (America)
Sasan - Sun King (The Beatles)
Rick - Blue Suede Shoes (Elvis Presley)
Joe - Ruby Soho (Rancid)
Tony - Beat It (Michael Jackson)
Tom - Don't Stop Believing (Journey)
Dinah - Ring of Fire (Johnny Cash)
Penny - Stop In The Name Of Love (The Supremes)
Kirk - Bad Girls



This was definitely another successful screening. The purpose of these quarterly meetings is so that we can show case our work in a fun and friendly environment. Because IDOM exploded onto the scene this summer, we've been on hiatus from these events. I think it's time for me to pick them back up again!

Lulu

I just opened up a Lulu account. Lulu’s easy and effective marketing program gets you the traffic you need to sell your content. Plans start at $45. I will open up the official IDOM store, so come back after the holidays for IDOM DVDs, books, movie posters, any more!

End Of Semester Stress

I'm looking at my schedule and I'm stressing out. My family is coming up to celebrate Christmas on the 15th and our IDOM holiday party is on the 16th. The challenge is that in between those two events is the Raider/Colts game and two days later project #5 is due. Am I going to be able to submit a holiday themed film for this IDOM party? Stress.

Tribute To Robert Frost?

I have an idea for my final project. Vivaldi is still ringing in my ears and now I'm channeling Robert Frost. I'm thinking about incorporating these two things into project #5. How will I add a bar of soap, the line "who's your daddy," and a doctor named Michael or Marian Bailey? Hmm...


Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Another Afternoon With Dr. Kemp

I spending way too much time with the red headed chiropractor. We're trying to finish up his client's weight loss DVD, but we keep hitting road blocks. Why are we having so many technical difficulties with the authoring of this DVD? I am so frustrated that while I'm trying to trouble shoot, I cram my face with junk food. After we finish this project, maybe I should sit through the Solkolsky Plan. Maybe I'll lose the weight I've put on while working on this project!

Dam Featherweight Blues

Deadlines! Deadlines! Deadlines! I finally got the digitally remastered version Featherweight Blues done and sent to the Dam Short Film Festival. What a frantic day it was for me, trying to get the DVD authored and all the paperwork in order. My blood pressure reached a high when I realized that I didn't have anymore checks! I ran to the post office to get a money order for the application fee, and then ran back home to pack everything up . I then FedEx this film overnight so that it would meet the December 2nd deadline. I'll find out after the new year if Featherweight Blues will be screened. Below is a shot of my perfect Director of Photography, Sig Thorsen, and the star of Featherweight Blues, Jeremy Marquez. I'll post the remastered version for your viewing pleasure in a later blog.