No, Mister Bond, I Expect You To Blog!

Time for another whiny post, I suppose.

I've been spending this summer doing a lot of editing -- compiling and authoring, but also editing -- and it's finally starting to wear me down.  Not that I dislike editing my own material -- quite the contrary, I get rather defensive when others handle the process.  But more than sitting at a computer and manipulating footage, I'd love to get out in the "field" with a cast and camera and make something new.

I guess that's why most of my projects never get finished once they enter the editing stage.

But call me what you like, the fact is, I haven't shot a single stitch of movie all summer... and for me, that's a really, *really* long time to go.  After all, I didn't get into this business to connect and shine up the dots; I got into it to plot them out.

So I'm starting to think about shooting films again tonight.  Short ones, long ones, feature ones- anything.  And I know already that it'd be naive of me to say I'm just interested in holding a camera.  I have a tremendous drive to act, too, and I think I'm still improving.  I can't walk into the bathroom and close the door without stopping to perform a scene of some kind, just to verify to myself that yes, I indeed deserve an Academy Award for such a tasteful mastery of art.

I've got a lot of projects at this point that I'd like to take time to develop further, write a draft out of, put it up on screen, see how it balances and flows.  One's a Memento-esque bomb-and-cops mystery.  One's a noir about a masked hitman.  Another's about brothers who are assassins.  There's a parody of The Fog, a rogue Grim Reaper story, a Red Riding Hood-zombie remash, and I still think doing a Beard vs. Garbage Man action-horror movie would be a brilliant and exciting challenge.  And now Peter (Srinivasan) says he thinks I should try out a drama, and test my versatility in a genre such as that.  Huh.  Now he's probably right that a little non-action/comedy wouldn't hurt me, but I can hardly imagine finding a good drama script that I could ever like.  And writing one seems like writing a report on beans; what's to excite an audience when your characters aren't taking extra measures and major actions to progress the plot?

Maybe they are, emotionally, but I need to see knives and explosions and jumping off buildings before I'm convinced that it's not going to put people to sleep.

Regardless, I do want to test my range as a writer and director, and I do value the challenge of something completely out of my fish bowl.  They say Mel Brooks directed The Elephant Man under a different name, because he feared audiences would view it lightly if shot by a man made famous for his sense of humor.

The least I can do is try something without a single bullet.

Megatron Wants What's In My Blog

Today I had no new assignments, so it was basically a day off.  And given that the FR3 DVD is finished (other than printing some box art and mailing copies), it was a good chance to catch up on things.

So after messing a little more with the Eating Disorders: The Musical trailer, I opened Batman and Spider-Man Save Christmas to do some new editing on it.  Today's challenge: start laying in a soundtrack, beginning with the production logos and opening pre-title sequence.

I started hunting through the Spider-Man 2 score, because I only have a couple track from Spider-Man 1, and the early Batman scores are a little less sophisticated (I'm unsold as of this moment on whether I'll be incorporating the Hans Zimmer/James Newton Howard scores from Batman Begins and The Dark Knight).  I found a piece that was mildly suitable, but after a hundred and fifty movies and eight years, what I've learned is that music is never a throwaway element, and something "mildly suitable" is never good enough.  If that piece of music doesn't stand the hairs on your neck up when matched with the picture, then it isn't the right piece of music and you're not getting the mileage out of your movie.

Now, I'd been briefly entertaining the idea of testing a track from Michael Giacchino's Star Trek score.  To satisfy my curiosity, I placed it in and took a look.  The effect I was looking for was there, but only briefly.  Then, the picture began to develop a separate pace from the music, and I thought, "Rrrrr!  The titles need to go there!"

But Uh-oh.  An impasse.  I'd already decided to put the titles, over footage, later in the film.  Now what?

I thought this was an interesting example of the challenge of deciding what serves what in the film.  On the one hand, I can resort of a weaker score piece, or make uneasy decision like fading out driving music, to better support the image.  Or I can alter the image to better match the score -- a severe and classic No-No, especially because real films are scored TO the picture by a composer.

But then, that's not really an option to be undertaking, now is it?

Besides, I've a long and dense history of editing picture to fit sound, and not visa versa.  Maybe it's a cheater's way out -- the score is conducted by a professional's pacing; why not copycat along?  But I was just told only last night that human beings are an aural audience; we're more influenced by what we're hearing than what we're seeing, and when a movie sounds excellent, we'll believe it's excellent... even if the visual testifies contrarily.

So which will I do?  Well, I haven't quite decided yet, so it's still up in the air.  Regardless, I found it an interesting dilemma and an issue worth mentioning.  Hopefully, when you see the finished product, you'll find that both sound and picture speak quite clearly for themselves, while matching quite neatly.

Get Out Of My Blog, Charles!

I found a single white glove behind some old toy boxes today.

Michael Jackson is alive, and he's hiding somewhere in my house.

Come With Me If You Want To Blog!

Beh.  Why must I be some sort of lazy swine?  (No offense to the swine who read this blog)

I've secured another transcription job through Cornell -- taking phone interview recordings from a business professor and typing them into a "script" document -- and conditions for it are excellent.  $17 an hour, work-from-home, no real deadlines, and projected job continuance of two interviews a week for the remainder of the summer.  Yesterday, I set to work in an undershirt.  Today, I was in my pajamas.  That's a classy summer job if ever there was one.

So can somebody explain why I've only managed about four hours today and four hours yesterday?  Why am I updating my blog instead of making $17 an hour updating a Word document?

I fell asleep earlier and woke up drenched in sweat and feeling awful.  Partly from the heat and partly out of guilt that instead of working feverishly at the recording on my laptop, I was laying on my bed snoozing.  Even though they told me the position was highly flexible, I still feel terribly wasteful taking a nap an a hour after taking a lunch break.  The good news is, that never happened when I went to the agency office to do this stuff.

I'm hoping that it's just the heat.  The heat and hours of Quicktime playback about behavioral integrity.  But at this point, even when I take a break or "finish" for the night, the last thing I want to do at this point is pick my laptop up and edit video or work on scripts.  I feel almost physically ATTACHED to this machine nowadays.  I can't get more than twenty yards away from it at any time.  Everything I do, all day long, is directly connected to sitting somewhere with this infernal contraption on my lap and tippity-tappity-typing for hours on end.  And hey, I don't wanna be casting out judgments on anybody here, but... sitting on the computer all day long makes me feel like a completely horrible, wasteful pile of human being.

I should really get back to work some more on it.  My progress has been substantially slower than I thought it'd be, and the only justification I've managed to find in my nap is that I'm missing out on seeing Transformers 2 with my friends a second night in a row.  That seems like an adequate punishment and discipline to rectify my lousy work habits.

Besides, listening and relaying conversations about business ethics is almost as exciting as giant robots battling to save the earth.  Well... it's more lucrative... 

Life Here Ain't Worth A Hill Of Blogs

Sorry about the delay in DVD release; I had a last-minute dilemma with buttons and all the *SUPER SECRET* Easter Egg content stopped playing. ;<  I personally found this unsatisfactory, and so rather than preparing a slew of faulty discs with no extra-extra content, I took the extra day or so to iron out the problem and recraft the menus to offer these secret clips.

I have my questions how many of you will even find the material, but I think it was still worth it just to add the potential for treasure hunting and finding something cool.

On another note--

I just counted out the weeks tonight until I move to LA.  It was 8.  Eight weeks until New York is no longer my legal home.  It kind of feels impossible that I'm already at that point in life where you, um, stop being a kid and start being an adult.  And this college-in-three-years thing is still throwing me off, too.  I'm totally in the mindset of going back to school and being obnoxiously carefree and infantile for another nine months.  Fortunately, I've made the realization that I'm definitely not getting more "mature"  -- people are just trusting my responsibility more.  I'd say that's a fair trade.

I keep thinking about these kids from college that I'll never see again.  The good news is, a lot of graduates in the film program end up moving to LA, so there's a wonderful chance that I'll re-encounter (if not work professionally with) a lot of Ithaca College kids and ex-Parkies (I'm living with a bunch of them).  And then, odds are high that I'll run into old classmates coming out for a semester of study-abroad, as early as one week after I move there myself.  But then, what about the kids who already went to Los Angeles (maybe with me, even?)  What about the ones who are skipping LA to study elsewhere instead?  What if they don't want to move to California when they finish school?  I sort of feel bad, thinking about how unseriously I took saying goodbyes and tying up loose ends.

Probably a defense mechanism.  Easier to pretend I'll run into anybody anytime I want than to imagine I may be saying bye for the last time.  Easier, but not as realistic...

I Will Find You... And I Will Blog About You

So the DVD was "supposed" to come out yesterday... but who's really keeping track, right?  Besides, it was in everyone's best interest that I let it slip an extra day or so.  I was at my computer at midnight (I claim to operate on Pacific Standard Time still, so no prob) and ready to burn the first disc, but then I got thinking.  The data quota bar said I had crammed 4.1 gigs onto the DVD -- quite full, and substantially more than I customarily put on any DVD.  But then, a DVD's capacity is 4.7 gigabytes...  and with over half a gigabyte to spare, why export quite yet when I could search for some extra clips to fill the extra space with?

There began a frantic, late-night hunt for bonus content and easter eggs -- little video treasures that are essentially pointless, but give you DVD hounds a tad bit extra to search your disc for, and hopefully get some mild enjoyment out of.

Unfortunately, it came to my immediate attention that we have very little extra to offer in the way of additional content.  I searched my drive, repeatedly, and came to this startling and unpleasant conclusion: we need to make more movies.

Unbelievably, just about everything I have has either been used on a previous disc, was put onto this disc, or is due to be placed onto a future disc.  After much fruitless scouring, I could find very little to offer in the way of bonus clips and easter eggs.  I was up until 5 AM re-editing an old, unfinished clip from last summer, then begged a side-short off pal Nathan Morse to also add.  I've got maybe one or two other small things to dub or re-edit and throw on, but the point is clear: we're scraping the bottom of the barrel here to fill up that last half a gig, and it's probably going to show.

Thankfully, the solution is simple: time to get out there with a camera and make more movies.  But with summer work and a move to LA in the quite-near future, making new films may have to go on hold for a bit.

Don't expect The Fungus-Ridden Collection Volume 4 anytime in the near future.

With Great Blogs Comes Great Responsibility

What's this?  Did I... MISS a day???

Could be.  Things have been busy here; hopefully you won't hold it against me if I don't keep you up-to-date every single day.  After all, I never claimed this would be one of THOSE kinds of blogs...

I worked on DVD menus and special features straight through yesterday and had a miserable night when my parrot expressed a keen interest in climbing the curtains of his adjacent window and hanging from them like a bat.

I decided for his better interest to take him upstairs for the night with me to his "vacation cage," where he can get away to when he needs attention and isn't finding it in his own room.  Unfortunately, he really hates his vacation cage.  I can't figure it out, but something about the room makes him incredibly uneasy.  He won't stand anywhere but in the very corner, all night, and if -- heaven forbid -- I should turn off the lights, then he'll make a jump for it and fly straight for the stairs.

I thought maybe the claustrophobic corner was making him jumpy, so I moved his cage last night to the floor, and then set it next to my bed.  Unfortunately, I seem to have been wrong about the corner; he remained skittish and paranoid unless I held him.  And the thing about birds is, you can't let them sleep in your bed with you, or you might roll over and squash them.

So I zonked out "early" at 2AM, still in my clothes, and left the stairway lamp on.  And he stood on the corner of his cage wide-awake, I think, and waited all night for me to wake back up and return him to his room.  Poor little bird.

On a side-but-related note, I dreamed I took a group of children camping, and someone lit a fire in the forest and burned some trees down.  At least one kid died in the fire.

Twice The Blog, Double The Fall

I almost removed an entire menu from the DVD today simply because it was too dense.  In truth, it makes a better short film than a menu -- some of these are really, really elaborate -- but I hate to water it down any, or make a new, emptier one.  I'm wrapping up all the buttons tonight and by tomorrow, I'll be able to just open the project and perform the voice work.  Dah! <3 

On another note, in between rendering, I've been easing back into my obsession of fan-made Flash videos tonight.  The best are a collaborative series of short clips based on the Sonic the Hedgehog games.  I believe the fifth collection just hit Newgrounds -- no small feet, given how many animators contribute and how many shorts they stuff into these ten-minute videos.  It makes you realize what an awful lot of talent there is lurking around the corners of the web...

It also makes you feel a little sad not to be contributing.  I'd love to be part of the team producing these shorts, and the content is not unlike the style of my earlier work.  I guess we all make our choices and set our priorities, and I've ended up putting emphasis on DVDs and superhero movies over Flash video game parodies... but it's got me thinking about how nice it'd be, for a change of pace, to dabble back into gaming satire again...

Maybe once these summer DVDs are done and Batman and Spider-Man is completely wrapped, I can afford a brief hiatus this fall for some game-culture loving...

You Think That's Blog You're Reading?

A couple quick updates on the production-side of life, while I kill the time it takes my computer to render out more video changes.

Last night, I got hit by a minor setback and lost some unsaved progress on the special features menu.  No biggie, since it's just labor and keyframing -- not creative work or art -- that was lost.  But it wiped out a solid thirty minutes of computer work that was looking pretty sharp.  This event is also one of the first major instances in three years that my Mac has inexplicably crashed.  I guess it's been wired to my Windows too long...

The bright news is that I also paid a visit last night to friend and filmmaker Nathaniel J. and helped rework his premiere Kill Booth teaser.  The clip is F-R ground-breaking in that it's been constructed almost months ahead of the film's production.  We actually shot new material specifically for the teaser, but ultimately didn't incorporate it in.  DVD material, perhaps?  Regardless, you'll be able to see the first glimpse of Nate's revolutionary upcoming film, Kill Booth, on either the FR3 DVD or on his Kill Booth production log.

Looks like my rendering is finished.  Back to the grind.  Stay tuned for more updates, though!

I Can't Let You Blog That, Dave

http://students.ithaca.edu/~apinker1/BankRobbingPotato.swf

I made this video about a year ago for my Flash Animation course. It was the last straight-forward video project we were assigned. After that, all our projects revolved around programming and code, and the whole class went down from there.

The culinary anomole of The Bouncing Potato began back in high school, and I launched multiple attempts on a pirated learning edition of Flash (back when Macromedia was developing it, before Adobe). Though I never accomplished a successful Bouncing Potato video in high school, the concept kept lingering around. Years later, when faced with Flash projects at the collegiate level, it seemed time to dig back into those folders for a great big WTF semester-long gag. My Flash Animation class never saw me turn in anything but new bouncing potato videos for the entirety of the course.

The reason I'm posting it is because I'm searching for a means to convert it from Flash (.swf) into a usable format for DVD release. If I'm able to convert it to an extension allowed by my disc authoring software, then it will join the other legendary content on the Fungus-Ridden 3 DVD. I've all but expired every option my Mac can offer me, but now it's time to test Windows.

C'mon, PC. Here's your chance to shine.

You Smell Like Old People And Blogs... I Like It...

I'm considering renaming this blog "Render Words," because I seem to use it most while rendering video for editing.

Progress on menus is good, so I'm going to waste words tonight on one of the recent movies I've been quite inspired by instead.  And for once in my life, I'm not referring to Wall-E.

Let's talk about BOLT.  It came out in November of 2008; I watched it in theaters immediately following Keanu Reeve's "memorable" performance in The Day The Earth Stood Still.  Despite following one of the worst movies of the year -- if not all time -- Bolt proved absolutely inspirational.

There were a few problems plaguing it: Disney's last strand of computer-animated offerings had been lackluster at best, horrible at worst.  The company reputation was sagging around the edges.  Disney Princesses were fast becoming the only palpable property worth the company's funding.  If you're like me -- grouchy, balding, and frequently unshaven -- you probably sat down preparing for the worst.

As it turns out, I sat spellbound for two hours and soaked in a level of CG genius previously unknown at the gates of Disney.  Each time I've watched it again, I've revisited my state of amazement.  Industry in-jokes, movie references, genuine WTF comedy, lines about snapping necks...  Surely this can't be from the land of Goof Troops and Winnie the Pooh.

I'm not writing all this just to offer some sort of movie review (although it's amazing, go watch it).  My point is, Bolt altered my entire perspective on the Walt Disney company, and for the first time, I began considering what it would take to go to work on that lot every day.

If you find me shooting Disney films twenty years from now, you can trace that back here and chalk it up to Bolt.

So This Is How Blogs Die... With Thunderous Applause...

I feel like I just ran a marathon, but less ready to puke and more ready to cry.

Our family hosted an "afternoon" picnic at our camp for the church youth group, and I of course took part in said activity.  Unfortunately, today, I've been feeling really emo about everything.  Just one of those moody, lonely, pathetic-feeling days, I guess.  Nothing really helps bring out the feelings of pitifulness, though, like being the weird 22-year old with no friends standing around in creepy places or looking for small teenage groups to insert yourself awkwardly into.

That's tough to endure for ten hours on a normal day.  It's super tough when you're feeling miserable about your life and seem to be the only one not having an extra-freaking-terrific day.

Yeah, I know.  Crummy old troll kid, raining on everyone's parade, downing everybody's fun.  But I don't mind that everybody's having fun; I'm really glad to see friendships and relationships blossoming, good times all around...  I'm just bitter and jealous that I'm the wretch lurking in the shadows, contemplating my sucky state of being and searching for discarded paper cups.

I guess I'm taking this into the ultra-emo territory.  All ye who are easily disgusted, time to ditch the blog for greener websites.

I play like my career (filmmaking) is the most important element of my life, and that I sacrifice other things to put it first.  And that's not a cover-up; I'm sincerely -- fiercely -- devoted to making movies with the passion of a thousand burning fire-ghouls from the sun (as no doubt you're aware).  But, as my troubled mind wandered in the car tonight, I came upon this notion: there's a puzzle piece missing in my life, and it's got life-altering impact.  I'm talking the girlfriend thing.

It may not be the same for everyone, but for me, a significant other immediately attaches to the center of the universe.  Even with things that have nothing to do with her -- stuff that doesn't even keep her on your mind -- there's just a soul-cuddling warmth in knowing SOMEBODY gives a darn about you.  And when you don't have that...  well, the aforementioned hole in your universe, which shallows out everything else you do.

That's sort of the place I'm at now.  All the merit of whatever I do feels like it's fat-free, or at least 1%.  Yeah, hooray, whoo-hoo, you did it, but there's nobody standing at your sideline to really be proud of you, to claim you as her own.  And without that, you're out there busting your butt and fighting for... the world?  No one?  Feels kinda the same.

Feels kinda like tonight.

I'm The Only One Who Can Blog Between Both Worlds

Just a general update:

I've spent today implementing some live-action shots onto animated menus for the FR3 DVD, and it's gone along relatively smoothly.  I may make a tutorial on the matter for Rootclip at some point, but the basic process entails shooting against a blue- or green-screen, then keying out and using cropping- and angling- keyframes to generate proper movement (accompanied by masks of the menu setting, as needed).

I've been saving all audio (other than music) to record at the very end, but I'm very close to having finished picture on at least two of the menus, as well as a pre-disc clip.  But now I'm beginning to think about Easter Eggs...  I believe I know what options I've got for making them, but I haven't decided what trigger to use.  If I simply make an invisible button, users on computers will be able to hunt the egg out with the mouse and spoil the fun!  But if I force viewers to punch in a trigger combination -- say, up, down, up, left -- it may be too tricky and complicated, and waste the egg by never being found!  A third option is to make the trigger an unused button pressed DURING another video -- for instance, the subtitle button pressed during PIRATE MOVIE, skipping the rest of the film and jumping straight to a new, hidden feature.  My fourth option is to cause the egg only to play if, say, the same film or feature is watched twice in a row -- unlikely to happen by accident, yet simple enough to do.  Such a puzzle...  

Regardless, I'll probably leave a hint lying around on one of the menus or the box art.  Or maybe I've left one already... ;)

Blog Long and Prosperous

I followed my usual routine of site-snooping this morning, which includes e-mail, contests, Facebook, and "blogs of interest."  One of them -- the blog of Cory Edwards (writer/director of Hoodwinked and the upcoming Fraggle Rock movie) -- had an interesting new comment.  It was from an (apparently) evangelical Christian who was disappointed in Cory's hiring of "proud" bisexual Andy Dick as the voice of the villain in both Hoodwinked movies.

Being Christian myself and a certain guard-dog of Cory's, I snapped back immediately with a genuine response of my own:

Jesus ate with tax-collectors, the most deceitful and "lost" individuals of the era. He wasn't afraid to spend time with people who were as opposite to his views as imaginable, and I think his example holds true for us today.

Isn't it much better to hire and reward Andy Dick to use his talents for family-friendly entertainment than let him find work in more "un-Christian" material?

Of course, once I hit Post, and my name generated on screen beneath my words, I immediately began to second guess them.  Jesus may have shared a meal with the scum of the town, but he didn't necessarily pay them for work he could've given someone else.  Then again, he also knowingly chose a man among his twelve closest sidekicks who would ultimately have him tortured and executed.  And while we're on the topic, let's pull Andy Dick's sexuality out of this mess.  Being bi- or homosexual doesn't make you "slime."  It makes you unenviably challenged.  :/

Let's have tea and discuss this another time.

I Read His Blog With Some Fava Beans

Even I'm asking myself what I'm still doing up right now.  Even though I know the answer.

I'm watching a little stone jaguar dressed as a Vegas Showgirl pitter-patter back and forth across my laptop monitor in an almost dream-like awe, punching keys here and dragging things there to make the most minute and unnoticeable changes to his (her?) little flight pattern -- a trans-monitor trek that lasts almost two seconds before the audience's eyes.

No sane human being would be mindlessly trying to edit DVD menus this late at night... but then, if history has proven anything, it's that A) I'm barely less than sane and B) this boy doesn't answer to his bedtime.

Still, working on these menus (which will appear in the Fungus-Ridden Collection volume 3, due "out" next week) makes me question the value of my efforts.  After weeks of work polishing and perfecting, I know that the only people who will be getting copies to admire will be the usuals who contributed to the films included within.  Of course, those are very important people, and they deserve crazy little jaguars scurrying about in funny costumes and strange boot guys falling from the sky.  I would never let my loyals down...  But then, when a DVD collection takes a year in between to produce new entries (because of all the bells and whistles and dancing jaguars), is it really worth it?

I'll let you decide next week.  As for me, I've got a few more boot guys to animate before bed.

Why Blogs, Master Bruce?

Here it is, my premiere post on my new blog.  After tossing around crafty blog titles like "Live Free or Blog Hard," "Like A Blog Chasing Cars," and "16 + 8... We're in the Blogosphere," I settled on a solid Batman Begins reference.  I hope my future readers make the connection!

Before I kick this site off, let me just take a moment (for myself, as well as you) to figure out why I'm doing this.  As Michael Caine would ask, "Why blogs, Master Bruce?"  I don't think I've had a blog since Xanga folded ("The Whiner's Log," I call it).  For a while, I was ashamed of ranting or raving or spilling emotions willy-nilly everywhere on the net for people to read.  I didn't really want people to think I was emotional or whiny... or boring...  But the more I dwell on that, the more natural -- and healthy, I think -- it is to have a spot where you can drop the stand-up and kinda be yourself.  And if that means serious, severe, dry, boring, pitiful, whatever, then so be it.  But that said, I *am* an entertainer and if I'm not doing it on purpose, I'll be doing it on accident anyway.  So you have my promise that I'll devote myself to keeping my dialect amusing at best, intriguing at worst.  Capice?

Right, so that's what this blog is/will be about.

Now, a legit consideration I had today:

While glancing news stories on Internet Movie Database, I discovered that Michael Cera (innocent boy-charm actor from Juno, Year One, etc.) is roughly one year younger than me.  That's odd in that I've spent years uncovering the shocking truth that Anne Hathaway, Shia LeBeouf, the Olsen Twins, etc., were older than me.  Kids MY AGE, acting in DISNEY SHOWS and 'TWEEN MOVIES?  Gag!

As I tried to fathom what it'd be like to be one year younger AND hotly-famous, I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed.  Twenty-two years (this year), and what have I got to show for it?  Certainly not an extensive and successful career in show business and numerous contracts still sorting out.

I'm not regretting my life, so much as regretting that at each fork in the path, you can only choose one direction, and that in order to discover what you've chosen, you have to walk down it to the next intersection.

Feels like some other intersection I could've gotten to might've been more beneficial, huh?  Feels like one might see me engaged to the sweetest little thing on the planet.  Feels like one might see me driving a really hot car.  Feels like one might have me doing a tent-pole comedy with Jack Black.    

(Feels like one could have had me get my legs cut off and eaten by a mass murderer, too, but that's kind of ruining my point)

Not to be a big whiner, but being 21 years old and entrenched in Hollywood with the world's most powerful entertainers would have been a really, really helpful place for someone like me to end up today.  Go figure, I'm a zillion miles away in a poor cow-grazing town that's still transitioning from Dial-up internet.  

We wouldn't want to make getting into the industry *too* easy, though, would we?

Welcome to my blog.