Home Before Midnight

I'm procrastinating big time. I worked most of the day on homework and I have to go work on my printmaking project that's due this Wednesday. One thing I've been working on today was the homework for my advertising design class. I think this has been my favorite advertising class because it actually deals with design rather than stupid statistics and analyzing target audiences. Our teacher gave us all different movie titles from B movies like "Die Screaming Marianne" and "Women of the Saloon Brothel" and who could forget "God's little acre." I lucked out though and got assigned the title "Home Before Midnight." From there, we were told to go home and come up with what genre our movie would be and then come up with a short story about what happens in the movie. For mine, I decided it would be a seduction thriller and that it would be about a young man who has a really nice life. He's got a really great, sweet girlfriend, a good job and a nice apartment. Then one day he meets this other woman and he's drawn into having an affair with her. She gets a little crazy and starts poisoning his mind and persuades him to murder his wife. Something happens where he comes to his senses and reconciles with the girlfriend and in the end the other woman attacks them in their home and somehow ends up getting killed. Think a mix of "Match Point" and "Fatal Attraction."

Next we had to come up with a few logo designs in black and white to go along with our movie and eventually we're going to do a few versions of a movie poster. It's a cool process. This is what I came up with for a few of the 10 logos I did.


Rocking the futura font. I pretty much ripped this one straight from "Million Dollar Baby" but I don't care.


I used a simple serif font because if you look at the Match Point and What Lies Beneath posters, they are really simple like this.


I wanted to test out a calm logo with the "i" at the end turning into a candle with the flame having just been blown out. I hope it looks like that.


This is a typical horror movie typeface with a gradiant and edgy dropshadow.


I was going for a creepy effect to resemble something like rust or hanging moss. I don't know...it's hard to pull off in black and white.

i wish i knew how to quit you

Every once in a while, someone comes a long who is so good at art and computer graphics that it makes me feel like the work I've been doing the last 2 years resembles kindergarten fingerpaintings. I attended this photoshop workshop yesterday put on by this usc student, Marie Lu, who does amazingly detailed digital paintings. She showed us step by step how to do hair and eyes, but I think I would never be able to come up with the things she does. But in a way it's kind of inspired me to start working a little harder on a few of my outside projects. Here are a few of the pieces she did.









Anyway, I went to BJs last night with a bunch of people for a late birthday celebration, and despite the rain, it was a lot of fun. I always get nervous when I'm the person planning something like that because I'm worried that since people don't know each other at all, they might not get along or you'll get the horrible awkwardness. But everyone seemed to get along really well and it was nice to see. We had a little bit of trouble with the waiter but it worked out in the end and we got 2 free pizookies out of it. Even though I did spaz out, turn around at the wrong moment, and got smacked in the head by the pizookie tray that the guy was bringing over. My hand eye coordination has been miserable lately. I smacked my head on the plate, spilled a drink all over myself when I was trying to take a sip, and then was trying to pay the guy at a drive through window and instead of giving him the money I hit my arm on the doorframe and dropped the money all over the ground. I'm getting sloppy in my old age.

Oh I also stabbed myself in the finger while working on printmaking. I hate that class. It seems like such a dead art to me. I could be off learning how to edit video or working on some graphic design thing that will actually apply to my major, and instead I'm stuck here carving out patterns in linoleum blocks. Tonight I'm going to see Brokeback Mountain with my dad and brother which I've already seen but am excited to see again. Especially after seeing all the mock trailers made for it like "Brokeback to the Future."

And we can dress real neat from our hats to our feet

I had my formal invite last night. I HATE finding dates to invites though. I always wait until the last second to ask people and then no one can come. This year was no exception because I ended up asking 6 people to go before finding someone and by the end I was so frustrated that I almost didnt go. My dad offered to take me out to dinner that night if I decided I didn't want to go, but at that point I was ready to just curl up under my covers and eat an entire bag of chocolate. But these things usually have a way of working themselves out and I found a date to come with me. Dinner was at this beautiful restaurant called Cafe Pinot, which was right next to the Los Angeles Public Library. We ate out on the patio which thankfully had heaters because I didn't have a jacket and would've frozen to death in the chilly 65 degree calfornia weather.



I met up with my date at the house and we ended up waiting for the bus for like 20 minutes, which was alright because we were entertained by this extremely drunk guy standing behind us in line. He was wearing a blue tux jacket, white girls pants that were about 3 inches too short, and these rubbery pale blue shoes. He was loud and coined such lines as "no I swear, I'm as sober as a sparrow." And then he said he was gonna make out with my date. In this picture, he's the insane looking guy in the back.



My mom came and did my hair and two other girls, but it was funny because she only knew how to do the one hairstyle that we had practiced the weekend before so she did it for all of us. It worked out well though because we all got compliments all night long.





The dance was at the Omni hotel in downtown LA which was such a nice change because our last invite was held at Fu's Palace, some chinese restaurant where not even half the people could fit on the dancefloor at one time. So, for not knowing my date and not even planning on going 24 hours before, everything came together and I ended up having a really nice time.

Rise and shine, campers, and don't forget your booties cause it's coooold out there!

Just got back from Brazilian BBQ with Leona, Jason, Graham, Hilary, Rebecca, and Angie...the "Parkside group". It's comprised of the suitemates from Freshman year that I still talk to and some guys who we were friends with on our floor. We try to get together at least once or twice a semester and go to dinner. I feel like my relationship with them is like the show Felicity (sorry for the reference, Hilary lent me the dvds so that's what I've been watching most recently). It started out with not everyone getting along and we didn't think we'd end up friends and by the end of the year everyone was moving to different apartments, but two years later we're all still getting together and enjoying each other's company. I ended up getting the completely non-Brazilian meal of Gniocci pasta. I'm tragically boring, but also vegetarian so I was lucky that there was any food for me at all. Leona is going to study abroad in Japan in a week so we all wanted to get together as a send off of sorts. Come to think of it, a lot of my friends are away this semester.

Today is groundhog day and I always think about the movie with Bill Murray and how he had to keep repeating the day over and over again. I think I wouldn't mind repeating today, went to design class, took a long nap, cooked some good food that actually was edible unlike the crap I usually cook, and then had dinner with friends. Overall, not a bad day.

I think when I graudate and get a real job, I'm going to miss afternoon naps. Although I never sleep during the naps, I usually just close my eyes and rest. I don't know what it is. I think it's because I set my alarm and I'm anxious that it's going to go off and so I just don't fall asleep to begin with. It doesn't make much sense.

Tomorrow I have the whole day off because my writing class was canceled so I'm trying to decide what to do with my new found freedom. I'm thinking for part of the day I'm going to venture out with my camera around campus and surrounding areas to take pictures. I've been meaning to plot a bus route to a few locations in LA and just go and shoot pictures. Maybe get a cup of chai tea latter (the best drink in the world!) and catch up on some reading on campus. It doesn't take a lot to make me happy.