Well they were so proud of their work that they decided to post the thing on YouTube for all the world to see. And the video took off. Got something like half a million views in a few days. The nice looking lady who appears in the video has been on a number of morning shows (and Ellen!) Dubbed Deltalina, a portmanteau of Delta and Angelina Jolie, (people say she looks like our favorite goodwill ambassador) has become something of a celebrity. Katherine Lee is her real name and she’s an actual flight attendant for Delta. That’s all well and good for her. I’m sure she takes her job very seriously and deserves the 15 minutes.

But what I don’t get is why this thing became a… thing. There is near zero comedy and little to no sex appeal. I don’t find Katherine Lee all that attractive actually. She’s got some odd looking cheek bones. She’s not ugly by any stretch. But she’s not entering Kardashian territory. Did I just kill my credibility? She does that one famous little finger wag. One little finger wag and you’ve got an internet phenom? Really. It’s JUST a safety video. Is all the hoopla because of those cool rack focuses? Watch it. I swear. There’s nothing to it. Seriously. Go on. Go ahead.

Looking to capitalize on any popular meme I can, I’ve decided to make my own safety video in response. I assure you, after watching mine, you’ll deplane that plane faster than petrification. Mine has no comedy or sex appeal either. But what it does have are lots and lots of sound FX! Zooooom!

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Like many other people, I surrendered to the hype. That enigmatic trailer. That deliberate exclusion of information. I was there on opening weekend to see Cloverfield. And I was there to nearly vomit on the person sitting in front of me.

We had high hopes for this movie. It’s JJ Abrams. The man responsible for our dear LOST. (Season 4 premieres tonight!) So what if it looked exactly like Godzilla. JJ would see it through. And in some ways he did. We got tons of looks at that cool monster. And the story was a near-perfect post-911 New-York disaster movie.

But there is something to be said about the horrific camera shake. I started pining for the Dramamine about 15 minutes in. Right around when our friend HUD grabbed the camera. The person I was with started feeling it even sooner. I had to shut my eyes and look away every 5 minutes. Probably missed a quarter of the movie because of this. What about reviewers? It can’t be good policy to make a person reviewing your movie physically ill. The girl I was with said it best, “They could have explained it with a simple line of dialogue. Like HUD was a videographer and knew how to handle a camera or something.” In the end, I think it is a gimmick that either failed, or is much better used in small doses. Something the YouTube generation of filmmakers need to get in their heads immediately. (I don’t recall how I reacted to The Blair Witch Project, because I was too busy trying not to shit my pants.)

I would not be surprised if the camera shake is a major reason why Cloverfield has seen such a stiff drop off at the box office. The person sitting in that stadium seat in front of me has no idea how much danger they were in that night.

So here is my interpretation of Cloverfield 2. Bring your barf bag.

or…

| Right click to download the iPod-ready version. 7.6 mb

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2007 (1:08) – Here’s the story of two guys, in the throes of a White Castle daze, mesmerized by a flying saucer. The song is “Robot” by The Futureheads. This is really stupid and probably an inside joke. But I think the editing and song have some redeeming value. I had the camera out for no reason whatsoever. This is just cut down from that footage. There was no intention on doing anything with it. The song is from The Futureheads self titled debut record. Hope you go out and buy it.

| Right click to download the iPod-ready version. 5.9 mb (QT7 required)

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iPod/iPhone version. Right click to download. 1.8 mb

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Isn’t video the next logical step after audio? With download speeds always increasing, youTube becoming a household word, and the dissemination of internet video as a whole, I feel video books are the next big thing. Keep an eye out for them at your local iTunes music store.

As a proof of concept, I give you a reading of the first Chapter of Kurt Vonnegut’s novel, Timequake. I did not get Mr. Vonnegut’s permission to use this book. I hope he doesn’t mind, or Kilgore Trout, or Berkely Books.

Thanks.

| Right click to download the iPod-ready version. 10.2 mb (QT7 required)

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2005 (4:49) – This is my first attempt at a thriller. Basically I’m ripping off David Lynch. Right down to the Angelo Badalementi score. John was a great director of photography on this one. It would have been out of focus without him. I don’t remember how the idea came to me, but I remember it materializing very quickly. I hope you’re terrified.

iPod/iPhone version. Right click to download. 49 mb

check out the parum Diabolus teaser…

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2005 – This is from a series of short films I did for the Spymac Film Club. This was the club’s second assignment… And there were no other submissions! The goal of this assignment was to capture a lie. I threw my own Miabi spin into it. Enjoy. Christian and I came up with a few different “lies” we thought would be funny.

Check out the entire series.

| 4.2 mb

| Right click to download the iPod-ready version. 1.6 mb (QT7 required)

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2005 – This is the first of a series of short films I did for the Spymac Film Club. This was the club’s second assignment… And there were no other submissions! The goal of this assignment was to capture a lie. I threw my own Miabi spin into it. Enjoy. Christian and I came up with a few different “lies” we thought would be funny.

Check out the entire series.

| 3.7 mb

| Right click to download the iPod-ready version. 1.4 mb (QT7 required)

No related posts.

2000 (1:14) – Cafaro and I decided to film a 30 second Polish joke. This was our first experience with a real location. We just walked into Harry’s Hardware in Livingston, NJ and asked to shoot a little movie. (using the student angle of course) Praying that there were no Polish employees or people without senses of humor. I felt rushed at the store so the performances suffer greatly. Then we got kicked out of ShopRite shooting pickup shots for the opening. There was a Super8 version of this, but I lost the audio somewhere.

| 5 mb

| Right click to download the iPod-ready version. 4.5 mb (QT7 required)

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2005 – This is one of a series of short films I did for the Spymac Film Club. This was the club’s second assignment… And there were no other submissions! The goal of this assignment was to capture a lie. I threw my own Miabi spin into it. Enjoy. Christian and I came up with a few different “lies” we thought would be funny.

Check out the entire series.

| 2.8 mb

| Right click to download the iPod-ready version. 1.3 mb (QT7 required)

No related posts.