Just Another Day at the Office

*This is a slice of my working life today*
The client rings (cue hyper excited Jewish New York accent)

"Hi, my name is #### and I'm a world famous producer and our client is a Household Name and we want you to do this fantastic, amazing, really wild, life changing, earth shattering, poop your pants , save every child in the world , one of a kind, bigger than Ben Hur...,,blah,blah,blah. ......job.... blah..blah... we don't have much money .....blah..blah....you know how it is, Sweetie,"
*I certainly do* ...."blah, blah, blah.". *I start switching off by about now*.

"We're looking at filming in 2 weeks.We don't have a location yet, but that shouldn't be a prob,
Oh, and Honey, could you get the quote to us by this afternoon? Maybe do a ball park figure, you know? Their busting my balls over here on this one Sweetie."
*Its now 6.00 pm my time.*

O.K, I say, send us an email with as much information as possible, and we'll get back to you.
So the script comes through, and it IS bigger than Ben Hur.
PS The names, script, and everything else have been changed to protect my career.*

The email:
Hi Enigma, how you doin? It was great talking to you, Baby.

Here's the script codenamed Project Crash and Burn, we haven't decided on a location, or a director, the actors, casting agency, what our budget is , or how much will be physical SFX or CGI, but see what you can do , top secret, of course, please sign confidentiality agreement and send back ASAP. Thanks Honey,
Regards Famous Producer
___________________________________________
Project Crash And Burn
___________________________________________
Date: 8/11/08
Client: Household Name
____________________________________________
Scene 1>The Crowd
location, wardrobe, camera dept, casting , rigging dept not yet decided on
(SFX , casting wardrobe).

The scene opens with a crowd on a typical New York street, they are going about their business as usual, it is early afternoon , the sun is shining,(we want the streets wet down, and smoke rising from the fire hydrants, and man holes) some of the crowd looks casual , but not too casual, others well dressed, but not too well dressed , some scruffy, but not too scruffy,the men are manly, but not too macho, the women hauntingly lovely, but not to hauntingly lovely, some ethnic diversity, but not too diverse , a few teenagers, but not too few, or too manly, or too feminine .(6 cameras to be positioned for maximum coverage.)
_____________________________________________
Scene 2> Perturbed Crowd,
location: not yet decided on.
( SFX, sunshine , fog, wind, rain, lightening , hale , some snow?... earthquake?)

The crowd is continuing on with their business of being a crowd, when suddenly a raging, swirling, malevolent , heavy, mother fucker of a storm appears , it seems to blow up out of no where, rising and swirling around the crowd. Papers are blowing, skirts are flying up, ties are tangled(close up of tangled ties)The crowd looks around in confusion ( slow panning of camera through crowd) The crowd is becoming visibly perturbed.
____________________________________________________
Scene 3 >Not a train
location ,not yet decided on
( SFX, fire ,wind, rain, sun, models, pyro, gas,flares, pneumatics, hydraulics, animatronics, no trains)

The crowd is visibly perturbed ( camera pans in on close up of visibly perturbed crowd) Suddenly there is a loud sound, like a train coming, but its not a train ... it seems to be coming from above the crowd, they look up , up , up, up, through streets and office buildings of New York ( we will want you to build the full scale models for these,, as we cant get permission to film there) up to what looks like a fiery ball, brighter than a thousand suns, burning, flaring, smoking ( we might CGI the comet, unless you can make a full scale one?) getting bigger and bigger, piercing through the sunny , windy, rainy , foggy snowing day .The ground trembles (perhaps we can use a platform on a gimble rig for this?) ....the camera pans to the perturbed crowd, who is becoming more horrified with every second,(cue Bella Lugosi music) pans back to the fiery ball ,which is getting closer and closer , back to the perturbed ,horrified , macho, hauntingly lovely, ethnically diverse, crowd, back to the fiery ball, back to the crowd, back to the fiery ball, back to the crowd, back to the fiery ball...The heat is building, becoming intense, what the hell is going on? *good question Enigma thinks*
_________________________________________________
scene >4, The Comet
location, cast, camera department , stunt coordinator not yet decided on
(SFX ,stunts,rigging, armouring, pyro, explosives, full scale sets, fire smoke, models, full scale comet?)

The visibly perturbed horrified crowd is becoming even more visibly perturbed and horrified.....they are beginning to panic,
( camera pans around to beginning to panic perturbed horrified crowd), (this will be be an overhead high camera shot, can you supply us with the camera crane?)

Buildings begin to smoke, windows are blowing out with the intense heat, fires are flaring up all around, 12 cars suddenly explode in flames... their doors and windows blow out, broken glass shatters all around, (we want extreme close ups of the cars exploding, as extremely close as you can get).

The fiery ball is getting closer and closer, the crowd goes mad, running like a mad crowd , scattering in all directions, people are looting shops, (this scene should look like the money shot in inferno) fires are exploding all around, a petrol station suddenly explodes into a 50 metre fireball, and blows up another 10 parked cars (is your studio big enough to shoot this there?) The Fire Department and Police arrive .(screaming sirens)

They are attacked by the armed mad looters, everyone in the crowd is packing weapons, and fights back( the director wants only fully automatic weapons for this shot, and he wants live fire, NO BLANKS !)
People are screaming, running in all directions, falling, crashing cars, shooting, looting, and cahooting, frogs are falling from the sky, dogs and cats are living together .IT IS HELL !!!!!
PS (we haven't yet decided on the location and whether to use real scattering extras, or just scatter a few CGI extras in)
_________________________________________________
scene 5> Our Hero, Man and his Dog,
Studio shot, studio not yet decided on, hero and hero dog, not yet decided on.
The dogs name will be Marc Antony .
(SFX, Pyro, dog wrangler.)

The camera pans in hard on our hero and his hero dog,(who will be muscular, but not too muscular, handsome, but not too handsome , the dog that is) of an unsure age, probably about 30 . He is dressed stylishly casual, but not too stylish, he could be Everyman...and his dog could be Everydog...he looks up onto the sunny, foggy, raining, a little bit earth quaky , smoky, windy, burning, fiery, flaming sky . He realises its a comet!!!!!!!, (close up of look of dawning horror on hero, and hero dogs face)
_________________________________________
Scene 6 >Hero Running
Camera on camera tracks,
camera department and location not yet decided on
(SFX ,Mark Antony's handler)

The comet is streaking towards the crowd . Our hero and hero dog pause , we know they are gathering themselves for something important and heroic, but what?(this will be done in single frame) the tension builds , the comet is getting closer , the camera follows our heroes as they run confidently, purposely and stylishly in the opposite direction from the crowd..We wonder,
What is he doing? Where is he going? Will he survive, And what will happen to Marc Antony?

The tension is building to almost unbearable proportions, as our hero and hero dog run, purposely, determinedly, consciously, poetically, an exquisite blend of man and beast, at one with the urban environment and each other. (this should look somewhat like the running scene in Forrest Gump)
____________________________________________

Scene 7- House ; house style and location not yet decided on ,Props department not yet decided on ,Rigging not yet decided on.
(SFX pyro, rigging, breakaway models props, Marc Antony wrangler)

The comet is hurtling towards the earth at a fantastic speed, getting closer and closer, brighter and brighter, hotter and hotter, camera cuts hard to a close up of our heroes, they are running toward a house, the camera cuts back to the comet, cuts back to our hero, back to the comet, back to our hero, back to the comet, back to our hero as he runs inside the house( we know its his house as props will put photos of him and the dog in the hallway).Our heroes run up to the front door, throw it open and run through the house , tripping over furniture , tripping over vases, tripping over Marc Antony ( can you do the breakaway glass, and cutaway furniture?) he runs through the length of the house and reaches the back, he throws open the back door, and runs into the large back yard , disappearing behind the trees at the bottom of the garden. What is on earth is he doing?
*Its at this point Enigma wonders what on earth shes doing*

__________________________________________________
Scene 8>
outside full scale house, location not yet decided on

(SFX, pyro, rigging, full scale street sets)
The comet has now built up speed and incredible heat..it is hurtling toward the hero's house, faster and faster, hotter and hotter, its just a blur of flames and fire ,the surrounding houses are going up in flames , trees are exploding,.....(can you hurtle the comet whilst its burning?I saw the one you did for ##### )it is heading directly towards our hero's house........(camera POV from above on your crane).
_______________________________________________

Scene 9 >outside house burn,
full scale burning house, comet.l ocation not yet decided on ,

(SFX, grips, rigging, pyro, full scale model),

And smash, the comet thunders on down ,streaming a river of flames as it goes,(not sure on pyro or maybe a flame thrower for this?) burning, roaring, incinerating everything in its path
( we will shoot from above on your crane ) it hurtles past the house at a 90 degree angle, the house is destroyed in the trailing fireball (cut to inside of house where everything is ablaze..(we want extreme close ups of this,can you supply the heat shields for the cameras?) it plummets into the yard and and embeds itself 20 metres into the earth , still burning and smoking. Did our heroes survive?

_________________________________________________

scene 10 >Back yard,
location, props, greens, not yet decided on

(SFX, props, greens)
(Long shot, from burning house to back yard).
The camera slowly moves through the burning house, past the blackened trees , through the devastated back yard, the swinging burnt gate, the blackened picket fence, the burning child's tricycle, the burning swing (think the opening scenes in T2) past cars incinerated in the driveway and pans on by the the napalmed pool,(cue music from Apocalypse Now) and closes in on an object on the far side of the yard.

________________________________________
Scene 10 - The MONEY SHOT.
(SFX, props, wardrobe)

We move in closer on the strange object, its blackened and smoking, it looks like a small house..what the fuck is it? (music rises to crescendo), Its a dogs house!
Just then our heroes crawl out of the dog house, they are a bit dirty and smokey , but otherwise o.k...both of them look around at the carnage in absolute amazement.
Our hero reaches down and pats Marc Antony on his head "Crickey" , he says in an awed voice (close up),

"Mark Antony, your Petmate Dog House saved our lives, thank God we didn't go for an inferior product! ....camera pans into Petmate logo, music, fade to black.....

The End

*So folks this is a slice of my working life, it is a pretty accurate description of what happens everyday....The insane ridiculousness of it sometimes really astounds me.

preview

For those few people who saw that last post..it wasn't supposed to be up there yet, it was a draft ..blogger is going nuts and posted it,, so my apologies for the unedited bad spelling on it.

The Shakespeare Enigma, or, Not What It Seems

A letter from me , to a friend, who is my Hero.
I am still not really posting much at this stage, but had to write this today.
PS I didn't name my blog after this, I came across it by accident when I googled my blog name in one day.

"One of the fascinating things about the Shakespeare plays is that they are full of enigmas and situations that are not what they at first appear to be - at least, not to the characters in each play.

Take, for instance, Much Ado About Nothing,

Much Ado About Nothing shows how easily men can be duped and made to believe something that is completely wrong, and leading to actions by them that are absolutely wrong, by a simple trick of deception. The prince of Aragon, Don Pedro, together with his friend Claudio and Leonarto, governor of Messina, are totally convinced that Leonarto's daughter, Hero, has been unfaithful on her wedding night. They viciously accuse her in church, at a crucial moment in the wedding ceremony. Hero, struck to the heart, faints. The friar, Francis, who sees clearly that Hero is almost certainly innocent of the charges, proposes that it be put abroad that Hero has died, so as to generate remorse in the hearts of the 'blind' and unkind men. This second but benign trick also works. The men show true remorse and do penance. The play's finale 'resurrects' Hero and, once again, all is revealed and resolved in a way that expresses a far greater love and appreciation than ever existed before.

The principal comedies about twins, The Comedy of Errors and Twelfth Night, also use the idea of seeming death and therefore loss to create a resolution and transmutation of the previously existing state of affairs.

The Tempest portrays the loving couple, Ferdinand and Miranda, helped by Prospero, as privy to seeing the truth - even to the seeing of spirits summoned by Prospero to entertain them. By contrast, the three 'men of sin' see the island as an inhospitable desert, and the good spirit Ariel as a harpie, and the king's son, Ferdinand, as lost to them, drowned in the tempestuous sea. But all is not what it seems, and at the end of the play all is revealed as it really is, with no one harmed and evil desires and thoughts largely redeemed and forgiven. Prospero is then able to throw off his disguise and reveal who he really is, and be restored to his rightful place in the world that had been usurped by his younger brother.

Even in the tragedies, the end result of all mistaken identity is some kind of resolution, in which love and compassion is evoked from various hearts, some of which before were stony, others already generous.

In King Lear the proud old king is deceived by his eldest two daughters, and is blind to the love of his youngest daughter, Cordelia. His mad passion of anger as well as pride causes him to make some disastrous judgements and decisions, leading to some terrible consequences.
His councillor, Gloucester, is likewise deceived, but in this instance by his ill-meaning bastard son, Edmund. Banishment, torture, murder and war follow, but Cordelia's love for her father, Edgar's love for his father, and Kent and the fool's love for their king, awaken Lear's love and clear Gloucester's inner sight. Edgar, importantly, is able to successfully give his love and assistance in the disguise of poor, mad Tom. Like the professional fools of the plays, he pretends to be other than he really is. Jaques, in As You Like It, longs to be such a motley-clad fool, so as to 'cleanse the foul body of th'infected world'.

In all these cases the truth is, at first, concealed, and only revealed at the end of each play. The effect of each concealment, disguise or trick, in which pseudonyms are used, and the subsequent revealing of the truth, is to enable an almost magical resolution of a situation that was previously inharmonious, unenlightened and, in some cases, almost unbearable. The process is what the ancients would call 'alchemy', and the author Shakespeare shows himself a master of its art."

Francis Bacon Research Trust - Essay

Slim Pickin's

Postings may be a bit thin on the ground for a while as I am up to my eyeballs doing whatever it is I do.

Now I know you all will miss my wit, charm, fabulous sense of humour, my enigmatically winsome ways, the occasional deep pools of wisdom, LOL, that I spout forth , but never fear, I will be still popping in on the comments sections.

Conversations With Mum

I was at my mums house yesterday and the conversation went something like this:

Enigmas Mum
"You know Enigma, I was listening to the radio the other day, and that really nice vet , Dr Harry Neuter, was talking about how dangerous it is to feed your cats onions.'
He was saying that there is something in the chemicals in onions that doesn't agree with the chemicals in cats, and it can actually KILL them .
Your not feeding your cats onions are you?" *worried expression*

Enigma:
*rather amused*
"No Mum, I'm not feeding my cats onions, I do give them chopped up garlic in their food sometimes though , as its a natural parasite killer".

Enigmas Mum:
*eyes begging to glaze *
I really hope your not giving them onions, Enigma, Dr Neuter was really emphatic about it, he said onions can KILL them, and he said they could just drop down dead on the spot!!!!!

Enigma:
*trying to be patient*
"I didn't say I feeding them onions , Mum , I SAID I was feeding them garlic".

Enigmas Mum
*becoming agitated*
"Well , there has been five cat onion deaths already, its so serious they are about to do a public enquiry into it. Enigma I really thought you of all people would have been aware of it, they have been trying to educate the public about the danger, its been on Today Tonight, and Oprah has even done a show on it, how can you keep giving them onions when there has been such a scandal about it?
You really do have to keep up with current affairs more Enigma."

Enigma
*starting to loose patience*
Mum, listen to me, I'm not feeding them onions, I'm feeding them garlic, and I only give it to them about once a month anyway".

Enigmas mum
*beginning to panic*
How many onions have you given them? They could be ticking time bombs, they may drop dead at any moment! We have to call Dr Neuter straight away, *wringing hands and reaching for the phone*

Enigma ,
*loosing it*
MUM , I'M NOT FEEDING THEM BLOODY ONIONS!! I'm giving them GARLIC !!!

Enigmas Mum:
*subsiding back onto the lounge*
"Oh....Oh... Well , that's probably alright then Dear, just as long as you don't give them onions they should be fine".

A long pause whilst Enigma, and Enigmas Mum recover from the near onion tragedy
.
Enigma:
"Would you like a cup of tea, Mum?"

Enigmas Mum:
"Yes Dear, that would be lovely".

Mums cat follows Enigma into the kitchen and Enigma notices his food his bowl is empty

Enigma:
*calling from kitchen*
"Mum do you want me to feed the cat?"

Enigmas Mum:
"Yes Dear , I was just about to do it myself, but I forgot in all the excitement".

Enigma:
"Here's your food , Puddy Cat," spooning food into his bowl.

Suddenly there's a horrified scream from the lounge room,

DEAR GOD, YOUR NOT FEEDING HIM ONIONS ARE YOU!!!! ?

LA Mort D'Armour

When was it that love died? We were so fond,

So very fond a little while ago.
With leaping pulses, and blood all aglow,
We dreamed about a sweeter life beyond,

When we should dwell together as one heart,
And scarce could wait that happy time to come.
Now side by side we sit with lips quite dumb,
And feel ourselves a thousand miles apart.

How was it that love died? I do not know.
I only know that all its grace untold
Has faded into gray! I miss the gold
From our dull skies; but did not see it go.

Why should love die? We prized it, I am sure;
We thought of nothing else when it was ours;
We cherished it in smiling, sunlit bowers:
It was our all; why could it not endure?

Alas, we know not how, or when, or why
This dear thing died. We only know it went,
And left us dull, cold, and indifferent;
We who found heaven once in each other’s sigh.

How pitiful it is, and yet how true
That half the lovers in the world, one day,
Look questioning in each other’s eyes this way
And know love’s gone forever, as we do.

Sometimes I cannot help but think, dear heart,
As I look out o’er all the wide, sad earth
And see love’s flame gone out on many a hearth,
That those who would keep love must dwell apart.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From Maurine and Other Poems | Gay and Hancock, 1910

Two Cows, A Country Bussines Story

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income

SURREALISM
You have two giraffes.
The government requires you to take harmonica lessons

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, and force the other to produce the
milk of four cows.
Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the
cow has dropped dead.

ENRON VENTURE CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company,
using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the
bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated
general offer so that you get all four cows back,
with a tax exemption for five cows.

The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an
intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly
owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights
to all seven cows back to your listed company.
The annual report says the company owns eight cows,
with an option on one more.
You sell one cow to buy a new President of the
United States,leaving you with nine cows.
No balance sheet provided with the release.
The public then buys your bull.

A FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike, organise a riot, and block the roads,
because you want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an
ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.
You then create a clever cow cartoon image called
'Cowkimon' and market it worldwide.


A GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years,
eat once a month, and milk themselves.


AN ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows, but you don't know where they are.
You decide to have lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
You count them again and learn you have 2 cows.
You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION
You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you.
You charge the owners for storing them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them.
You claim that you have full employment,
and high bovine productivity.
You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You worship them.

A BRITISH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Both are mad.

AN IRAQI CORPORATION
Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.
You tell them that you have none.
No-one believes you, so they bomb the **** out of you
and invade your country.
You still have no cows,
but at least now you are part of a Democracy...

AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Business seems pretty good.
You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.

A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION
You have two cows.
The one on the left looks very attractive


Donna Maria Taylor

Recreational Alien

What would you do if you were a Recreational Alien?

An Alien with too much time on your hands?

When your Alien weekends just drag on by.

Would you pop on in and do some really fruity crop circles?

Do burnouts with your space ship?

Write a film script?

Maybe abduct a human or too, just for kicks, because your young and bored?

And then ask your parents "Can I keep him? I promise to feed and clean up after him.

Plleeeaase can I keep him? Preeetttyyy Plleeaase?

And then have to go through the hassle of wiping his mind when your unhip Alien parents say "No You cant keep him! You know they'll grow up into big whiney things, they make a terrible mess, and they are never happy.

Look at what happened to the last one we got. Luckily when we dropped him back, he wrote that silly book, and no one believed him . Just because the neighbours have them doesn't mean we have to. When will you learn they cant be house trained?"

So there you are, your lean, your mean and your green, your parents don't understand you, your a Recreational Alien, tell me ,what would you do?

I am obviously a bored recreational Enigma at the moment.

Ps The best response to this question was from a non-blogging friend of mine, she said if she was a bored recreational alien shed start a blog.......food for thought for all the bloggers out there.

Floods

I never post anything personal here, its just my way, but today is an exception.

Today I watched our dam break its banks, roaring and gushing with unbelievable power, taking trees, an orchard and our tractor with it.

I watched our bridge wash out, huge trees swept down a river (which wasn't there an hour before) and our wharf disappear under 5 feet of water.

When it had subsided somewhat, I put on my gum boots, shorts , Akubra and Driz-a-Bone (Aussie raincoat) got in our jeep, and inspected the damage.

Luckily the damage isn,t extensive, we are not cut of, and our house is on top of a valley, so we are safe.

The force of nature is truly a breathtaking thing.

So to all you Aussies out there who are affected by the floods, I hope you are dry and safe.

The Shadow

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the shadow

Between the conception
And the creation
Beween the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essense
And the descent
Falls the Shadow

An excerpt I love, by T S Elliot

Self Reliance

I must be myself.

I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that which is deep and holy, that I will do strongly before the the sun and the moon only whatever rejoices me, and the heart apoints.

If you are noble, I will love you: if you are not, I will not hurt you and myself by hypocritical attentions. If you are true , but not in the same truth as me, cleave to your companions: I will seek my own. I do this not selfishly, but humbly and truly.

It is alike your interests and mine and all mens, however long we have dealt in lies, to live in truth.

Emerson.
"Self Reliance"

Ego Is Not A Dirty Word

This is an edited version of an email I sent to a friend once, someone very dear to my heart.
I am posting this as I have a friend currently going through a similar thing.

There seems to be a fashion in spiritual circles to try and "kill the Ego".
The Ego is just one aspect of our humaneness.

Admittedly a powerful , consuming one.

Whatever we fight we empower, that's why Christ said "resist not evil". Its the denial of all aspects of ourselves that creates separation and gives us the idea we have something to fight.

Its the longing for the "other" the "not this" the "almost there" that creates spiritual and human anguish.

The belief that there is a right way and a wrong way, that pain , despair, and all of our beautiful confused humanness is not right or spiritual or true.

THIS is the ego talking...it will create conflict any way it knows how, and when you are on the spiritual path, it will use that.

You cant blame it for this, it literally doesn't know what it is doing, its function initially was to be the force that looks outwards, on the world , and to give us a strong sense of self to survive and to explore the external world.
When we thought that it was the only thing, and forgot where 'home' is , thats when the problems arose.

God gave us an ego , as he gave us freewill, to create whatever world we wanted, not in his image, but in ours, which are one and the same.

The Ego thinks it is you, and you think you are it, it is actually trying to protect you, it thinks if it dies , so do you, so to try and kill it, there is an underlying feeling of trying to kill yourself.

You cannot create spiritual suicide, you will end up terribly depressed.

Give it to God. Learn to love yourself, The Good, The Bad & The Ugly. Everything changes through love. That isn't a hip throw away line ......real love encompasses everything, including your ego, it sees it as mistaken, like a small child, not threatening, real love is compassionate.

The ego is a God given gift, if one was never lost, they would never work to find the way home.

In our confusion and humaneness we are beautiful beyond belief, an expression of Gods glory and magnificence, perfect in our imperfections....

PS even though I talk about God a lot, I am not formally aligned with any religion.

A Thought For The New Year

The greatest risk for man is not that he aims too high and misses, but that he aims too low and hits."
- Michelangelo