Building a Website and a Danged Color Reel

I heard it once said that design is basically moving crap around till it looks good. 

So very true.

When I find interesting videos about design, I usually try and share them with Joel because I figure he's a designer and will enjoy what I liked about it even more. But he never does. 

As soon as somebody starts getting philosophical about design and how perfect such and such design is, he's done. He wants it off. Its like he can't stand hearing people appreciate good design. But now I think I'm beginning to understand his distain for the "design talk."

I've been building my new website www.benbrooksby.com

It takes so SO SOOOO much longer than I ever thought it would because of the amount of time you spend "tweaking" things. Perhaps you won't understand till you find yourself up at 2am making minor adjustment after minor adjustment to a BACKGROUND IMAGE?! only to trash the entire thing and start over with a different idea. Its this kind of tedium that makes the design talkers hard to listen to. Because somewhere inside you know that the only reason anything got designed that way was because somebody spent hours upon hours of precious lifespan tweaking the thing to death till they finally surrendered to the "good enough" in the thing. 

Along come the design talkers to grant laud and praise over what they've come up with but I wonder sometimes how the designers really feel. Not that they didn't make something wonderful, just that it represents so much time spent trying to make the perfect thing but its such an arbitrary moment that any single tweak would start the whole design phase all over again. 

I'm proud of what I've made. I'm happy with it finally and that's I guess what you really have to find in design. Not so much that its perfect, just that you're happy with other people experiencing it and having it reflect back on you. 

So yeah, definitely feel more appreciation for the hard hard work that goes into every single thing we see in front of us every day. 

I also put up my new color reel finally! Same process! A ton of tweaking, but I think I'm finally happy with everything about it. 

if you're having trouble playing it:http://youtu.be/lOPlym1-PEg

Colorizing...

I've been doing some color addition to old black and white photos.

Its been interesting. Most of the time about halfway through you want to just give up cuz it looks like this: 

But I didn't stop there and do something else. 

It takes a lot of time getting the shades in the face right and often you have to work with the saturation up all the way just to see what's going on.

It's kind of like tayloring a suit. The thing looks like a second grader's been at it with pinking shears and some chalk till its finally all finished. 

Two or three hours and 46 layers later I had better results.

There's more of these on my image restoration page.

The Dirtiest Bathroom in the Whole Entire World

Single guys don't clean things. If you're one of the one's that does, welcome to the club. But a lot don't. I've wondered how people can live in the incredible filth they sometimes surround themselves with. This is one of those times, and luckily I had a camera. 

Enjoy.

Magic Celery: A Thanksgiving Cautionary Tale

So this took a lot more work than it looks like it might have. Joel and I learned how hard acting can be. We shot take after take till we finally got a performance we liked okay. Problem was we hadn't story boarded the thing. We wanted to get more angles to fill out the space, but they just didn't work with the two shots you see at the beginning. Also we had way too much material. During editing Joel was just hating it. I'd work on it for a while, he'd come in, hate it and leave. I was getting to the point of throwing it away, but instead I just set it aside for a couple days. At some point it started getting better. Mostly because I was finding all kinds of stuff to cut out. I think the original first part was about three minutes in length. Now its under two. The part where I come out to the trash was an afterthought. It saved me from the boring badly acted ending we'd shot in the kitchen. I colored it all in Davinci. Took everything to sepia and then added in the green and blue. I don't think it'd sustain itself for anything longer. Then the Tom Billshank bit came to me in the shower this morning. He's a character I've done before for photos. I mixed in some ideas from a concept I came up with three years ago. So there it is. I think it turned out alright.

Get em While They're On: Fall is here.

Fall is here. The leaves have changed and its a great time to get out and shoot. Here's some recent stuff of my own. I'm not a great landscape photograpgher. I like it. I know a few people that are great at it and it fascinates me how they can see things out in nature and frame an intriguing composition from what's in front of them. So basically if you see something beautiful, take some photos. And if you aspire to Ansel Adamsness, work the shot a little, try framing it different ways. I'm no expert so I don't have much more to say than just try some things and see what you come up with!

An Update with some Encouragement

Hey!

So the summer's over and things are moving. Joel and I moved into a house instead of our old student apartment. I've been hard at work building furniture and getting the place up to snuff. Today is light day. I'm getting some new soft lights at Ikea to put in the living room and kitchen because I'm tired of lame ceiling lamps. The quality of light is too harsh and directional. Time for some wrap around light. So I've got some work to do showing the work I've done once I finish the work I'm working on. Meanwhile back in Washington this Summer Nathan refinished and painted his Suby wagon in Rustoleum blue. Got to post some pictures of that too. Jay's busy with his dissertation and Aaron's working hard down in Brazil and loving it. Lisa, Nick and the girls are in South Dakota in a huge new place that's a big improvement over their last one near the railroad tracks and drag racing miscreants.

Point is, we're all working hard.

Hopefully this video can help throw some encouragement on the fire. We're a family of artists. Everything we do, we strive to do well. Mom says over and over that she doesn't feel like she's an artist cuz she doesn't have any work to show. But that's cuz the things she made were piniatas and halloween costumes and masks and puppets and Christmas presents and clothes and just about anything a bunch of kids like us could wear out. Dad made couches and bookshelves and dressers and walls and remodeled bathrooms while teaching us to make swords on the band saw and baseball bats on the lathe. But above all that, Mom and Dad's greatest artwork was us. The only reason any of us can do the things we do is because we were raised by parents who taught us that you can make things. So here's the video I found. Its good stuff.

Ira Glass on Storytelling from David Shiyang Liu on Vimeo.

The Worst Restaurant EVER

I like trying new things... with food anyway. Probably because last Christmas was my first experience with Sushi and I love it. I need to include that fact since what I'm about to tell you would be negative no matter how good the food was if I distrusted unfamiliar foods. I don't. So what I'm going to tell you is doubly disgusting if you do.

And now the story of how I found the worst restaurant I've ever been to in my life.

My cousin told me about this little Sushi place downtown with half off Tuesdays and Thursdays. Most people don't trust half price sushi in a landlocked state 700 miles from the beach, but Sharlene and I were feeling adventurous so we went looking for it.

We found a window along the street with a few flags I didn't recognize and somewhere must've been the words “sushi” or “Asian” or something like that so we parked the car and went in. The withered hostess seemed to be from somewhere else since her answer to, “Do you have sushi?” was to lead us back past the buffet and Mongolian barbeque to a table with some little teal plates wrapped in cellophane..

Lest you picture this wrong let me describe. The entire place from the carpet to the upholstery was a seafoam greenish blue so it felt like climbing into the behind-the-seat area of an old station wagon. And the place was completely empty except for the hostess and a fat man wedged behind a table gulping down noodles. The Mongolian barbeque wasn't on. And, I'm not sure why, but at that moment the raw meat sitting out buffet-style in front of it didn't make me worry. “It's a restaurant.” I thought. “Surely the food is safe.”

It was $8.99 for “allyoucaneebuffet” so like an idiot I said, “Sure.”

The hostess motioned to the back wall smiling and nodding her head. We looked. It was an old stand up freezer filled with dented old chunk encrusted freezer-burned ice cream.

“Oh. Ice cream.” I smiled.

She nodded profusely and went to get our sprites.

They came free with the buffet. Meanwhile Sharlene and I grabbed plates and started our search for anything sort-of-fresh looking. Our first plates were the most exotic with selections of pork and I think chicken and some fried green bean things. Sharlene took advantage of the sushi table taking three or four little plates. It looked like salmon on mine. As I passed the Mongolian barbeque I chanced a closer look at the meats sitting out in the open.

They didn't look healthy.

Imagine opening a fresh frozen Styrofoam bottomed package of boneless chicken. You unwrap it, turn it upside down, and dump it on your kitchen floor, turn up your heat, and go on vacation. What you see when you get back is what was laying there. It needed buried.

As I got back to the table Sharlene had already pushed aside most of what she had on her plate and was cautiously unwrapping one of her sushis.

She didn't eat it.

I tried some of mine- makes me gag now.

I still remember the smell when I unwrapped it. It was like opening the fridge after a fishing trip and your trout are laying there on a plate with a little bit of trout blood surrounding them, and they're all staring wide-eyed at you like they still can't believe you did this to them.

It was that.

Not like real sushi. Not with tasty spices or whatever it is they roll in there that makes it taste good. This was half an ounce of white rice with my dead goldfish laying on it.

I didn't eat the other piece. The hostess came back out to check on us. Like an idiot, I nodded and smiled, not wanting to hurt her feelings.

I think there's something wrong with me.

Sharlene snuck her unopened sushi back to the buffet while the hostess wasn't looking. I figured as long as it was all-you-can-eat I should get my money's worth. So I searched the buffet again for anything I could safely eat. As I found some shrimp on ice I thought, “Hey! Something refrigerated!” Then I noticed someone hacking out a lung in the kitchen. How appetizing. But maybe whoever it was wasn't working when they made the food yesterday or the day before so I took the shrimp. But it smelled like a dumpster.

Sharlene sat across from me with that look.

“What?”

“You shouldn't pay.”

“But we took food... And Sprite!”

“I just don't think you should pay.” She sipped at her sprite.

I looked down at my two unfinished plates. “We could try the ice cream.”

She didn't smile.

“If we hadn't eaten yet, it'd be different, but-”

“We haven't.” She gestured to the unfinished plates.

“So just tell her... I'm not paying?”

I sat uncomfortably for another five minutes fighting my conscience over how to put it tactfully. The hostess finally came out to see if we wanted anything else.

“No. We're done.”

Have you ever realized mid-story that you should have done something differently, but you can't now because you already did what you did?

Well I looked at the lady and then at the food and said, “I'm sorry, but this isn't edible. We thought you served food here... but this is garbage. Have you obtained the proper licensing to serve food publicly? Because this is unacceptable.”

I stood up and took Sharlene by the hand. She beamed back at me with all the love and admiration a woman can beam with. The old lady started apologizing and offering gift certificates for free dinners. We passed them to a starving homeless man sitting just outside on the sidewalk. He grinned toothlessly and lept to his feet to hug me. A reporter for the nightly news was out doing an interview with the mayor but stopped when she saw us helping the poor stranger. The entire camera crew rushed across four lanes of heavy traffic as the music swelled-

I signed the dang receipt vowing never to try miscellaneous “Asian” buffets ever again.

The door swung open and four smiling men came in sniffing the air hungrily. Apparently they'd been here before because the host remembered what each of them wanted to drink. One of them hoped loudly that they still had that sweet and sour pork he loved so much.

We staggered out. I felt a little green. Tossing and turning that night, I was sure I'd be waking up around 3am with that awful churning stagnant garbage-in-your-stomach feeling of food poisonings gone by. But I didn't. I was fine.

Amazing.

So there you go. That's how I found the worst restaurant I've ever been to in my life... and PAID for it.

It even topped the Dollar Wok In next to my first summer job at a jet ski rental shop.

That's pretty bad because that was in Tillicum. But that's a story for another day.

Blazing Clouds of Mediocrity: This end.

I graduated.

Against all odds I graduated.

Normally you take general requirement classes in the BEGINNING years of school so that at the end you're free to focus on your major.

But I didn't know how all that worked when I started.

Advanced writing, Physical science, and Statistics: the bane of human existence. The only thing standing between me and a degree. I just got the grades back and by some miracle I passed them all with a C's. I got an A on my interpretive essay with comments, which means I must have totally bombed that final paper

Most people wouldn't be very happy with that.

I'm ecstatic.

The enthusiasm meter was at an all time low as this semester started. I'd planned on finishing these classes in the Fall to make room for a capstone film project this semester, but the car accident, doctor's appointments, and recovery usurped the classes, and sianara to los capstone. This was the unfinished business semester. The last burning hoop to jump through for my bachelor's degree.As the semester progressed I struggled to find time for my classes in the slew of writing, photography, and film work I was planning. I'd started this new thing on my net book...The Nag List. A text document subdivided into categories like school, work, freelance, photography, writing, makeup, film and so on. I used to write lists on the backs of envelopes and the margins of notebooks to remember stuff when it got to be too much.

This was the same thing but in digital form with more categories to help me remember projects that slid to the back burner and beyond. I was excited. I'd never lose a great idea again. Whenever I had one, I'd jot it down for future development. The list grew. So did my confidence. But my grades didn't. I couldn't find time in the day for all my homework. Each unit test would bring lower scores. My ship was sinking. I was going to fail.

Faced with this strong probability, I halted everything else I was doing.

The nag list was all still there, but my focus fell on only the top two categories, School crap, and Urgent School Crap(the one marked in red). I stopped going to work, stopped writing. The mountain of photos I'd taken last Christmas would have to wait. I stopped everything to focus brain, body and mind all day every day on minutia. Nothing else existed for me.

...Loved it.

I remember the feeling I had walking out of the testing center following my Science and Stats finals. I was sure with both of them that I'd ride out with a high F. I'd already flunked Stats last winter so I found no comfort in knowing some of the answers. The bulk of it was incomprehensible to me.

I walked out to the scan-tron machine feeling like a firing squad victim. It'd be nice if I they missed, but hitting their target is what they do and these tests weren't designed to help anybody. The kid at the machine took my test and slid it into the machine.

He said, “Thanks.”

I moved to the monitor displaying scores with a ten second refresh rate and random placement in the line up to protect your privacy. 

“Cmon sixty!” I plead to myself. 

I'd done the What-if calculator thing they provide online and felt that if I could just get a solid 60 or maybe even a 59, I could ride the curve and pass the class.

 I scanned for my student number I neglect to list here for fear of privacy violation. 

There it was.

 0505. 

And just to the right of it-

My jaw dropped.

I checked the student number again.

Seventy WHAT! 

I'm naturally bad with numbers, but after a three hour bout with that garbage I'd be hard pressed to spell kat correktley. I turned around and went back just to make sure I'd read it right.

Oh five oh five. Seven and another number! (note: bad with numbers. I don't remember nor does it matter with scores in the low end of mediocrity) I'd done it! I'd more than done it! I did that both days!

Most people would feel pretty jipped about that, but I was happy.

It was finally over.

The last couple of days have been sort of blurry as I regain my equilibrium and catch up with stuff at work. I've felt broken. I haven't been able to write or draw or do anything. My desire was just kinda dead. I worried that school killed me. But today I felt it again. I still feel rusty as I type this, but my light's coming back.

I deleted the School category from my nag list.

Now I can start looking at what I left behind. Turn a few burners back on. I feel my life coming back.

I've got to get back up.

Good things are coming.

-Stay tuned

Another Brother!

We need to introduce another brother. Nick married our sister Lisa, and they have two awesome little girls. One of the things we loved to do way back when was ride bikes.  In fact, we loved it so much that we just about spent our whole adolescence on two wheels. Anyway, this post is not about us, it's about Nick. He is launching a new blog devoted to his own bike andventures. So go check it out and subscribe! He wants some readers!

http://afewgoodrides.blogspot.com/ 

Keys to Creativity: use your time

Nearly died shooting it, but here it is.