It has been far too long since I updated this, lets just say that the past few weeks have been really hectic. Basically I had to write a script, do a pitch for a studio executive about a movie I want to make, and film my Studio final. Also in that time was Thanksgiving... so yeah, I've been busy.
Once again I chose to do the most ridiculous thing for my final project 
that I probably shouldn't have done. But in my own vein of one-upping myself I thought I would tackle the superhero genre in my own style. This meant blue-screen and special effects and sound design like crazy. However that would come at the end, first I had to find actors, design costumes, and figure out how I would arrange the blue-screen in the first place. Well to make a long story short... everyone should go to my movies page and watch The Blueberry Conversation as I think it is a great way to see how my skills have developed. Coupled with Pirating which couldn't be any more different I think it gives a good idea of my skill in the studio.
Next semester I am taking one of the most labor intensive classes any film major will take and it is called Color Sync. In this class you create a narrative film that is up to 8 minutes in length. I know some of you are thinking, oh 8 minutes that's not that bad, but the bad part comes from how much work is going to go into it not to mention money. Film is super expensive and actors are too, plus your whole crew and the thought that this is going to become your calling card and your whole career can stand on this one film... yea its a lot of pressure.
I finished my script and I think it is fantastic, and I'm still slowly reworking little things here and there to make it that much better. It has gone through countless rewrites from scratch and I feel really good about it. I've found myself a producer and now I have to worry about fundraising and getting a good director of photography (DP.) Should be intersting.
NYC is great as usual and I've been very caught up in work so that I can't fully enjoy what it has to offer as much as I like. However I have been able to wrangle myself a possible internship at Sesame Street, I just have to see if it works in my schedule. I also went ice skating at the Trump Ice Rink in Central Park last night and that was a blast (Rockefeller was a bit too crowded.) Anyway I hope everyone has a great holiday as this will be the last update until next year because I am leaving my computer here! So Happy Holidays and Happy New Years!
Well the site got a bunch of huge additions today. This morning I added 4/5 of my films from over the Summer (we are still missing the best one) plus my final film from UMBC (Moebius.)
Not only that but I got rid of the pretty much useless Rhino page and have created a VLOG page instead. In the future check here for all the VLOGS as the response for the first one was favorable and I think it will prove to be a valuable addition to this site.
Also I finally put my best movie I've ever made...
COMICDOM!
on the site as I have feared doing for so long. It is a long movie that should only be enjoyed at a large size in high quality so I am going to work at fixing it a little bit so that I can get a better version on the site. However it is up for now with the UMBC movies. I hope everyone enjoys it.
Some things have been cleaned up on the site, including the main page which has been getting rather long.
Why such a big update so late in the night you might ask, when I have work in 7 hours? I'm an insomniac I answer and have a lot on my mind to sort out and this helps distract me! Anyway check back soon I'm sure I'll VLOG soon.
HALLOWEEN
Click on the picture!
Welcome to the brand new
www.dan-gvozden.com
This site is an extension of my old site, with soon to come tons of new things. Things like:
More videos
Higher quality videos
More content
Video blogs (hopefully)
More photos
Redesigned site (in the future hopefully)
These are all in the planning, we'll see how long it takes for me to implement them but I hope to get it all done!
I said it, I'm back. I feel like all the creativity that I've been lacking for the past few college years has finally come back into my life. Everywhere I go I see a potential movie idea or interesting character for a movie. Stories from my past are weaving their ways through my head, I feel like I'm my old high school self again, in a good way. I think I have figured out why I feel this way again...
Once again I've become an active protagonist in my own life. I am having fun and I am working towards success.
That said, I am having a blast!
So I did absolutely nothing this weekend, at all. I sat around on my butt way too much and was feeling totally dead creatively. Everyone went home for the weekend since we had off on Monday so I was very lonely. If you talked to me you knew that. (Thanks Kelly for hanging with me)
Anyway, over the weekend my script has been driving me nuts, I need to find a place for the story to go and I have no idea. I want it to be a character piece because I think that is what people want to see, not a story they've seen a million times, or a silly reveal at the end. They want to see my own life reflected in a movie, they want me to bare it all. 
I am trying to find a way to do that and still keep it interesting. However, in the process of thinking about this so much I've come up with tons of ideas for a longer piece and all kinds of quirky things to encorporate. Ideas about life have come rushing at me like they used to before and I've begun to do things that I would never usually do without a lot of stress. I think I'm getting my impulsivity back again.
As you can see I'm in a pretty good mood about life and living.
This was fueled even more by the events of today. I went to Borough Hall in Brooklyn to visit the Markowitz's. For those that remember from earlier, Marty Markowitz wrote my letter of recommendation to NYU and was the one who found out that I got into NYU first. I've kept in touch with his awesome wife, Jamie, and I had to meet them. I've been a bit busy adjusting and to be honest took way too long to meet them.
Anyway its a really long story about all the stuff we did. Needless to say they were both great people and really fun to be around. I got the grand tour and it ended up that it was Italian/American night so the Hall got turned into a huge party with Italian food. It was an amazing time and the first really fun adult party I've even been too. If you click on the picture it will open a page with all the pictures and the story of what I did. What a blast!
The pictures won't be up tonight because I'm really tired but check back tomorrow.
Alright so I'm really sorry that it has been so long since I've updated. Thanks to all of you who bugged me to update, I'm finally doing it and this isn't going to be the end of it. In fact in the coming week or two you will get a couple more of my recent films just so you can see what I've been up too. Some people have been complaining that the movies on my site aren't working for them, well you need to download a newer version of Quicktime and that should solve it, just go to Mac's website to download it for free. If you continue to have a problem please contact me and I'll see what I can do.
Quicktime Download
Download this Codec (if Quicktime doesn't work)
Well Fall has finally started in New York as evident by the on and off nice weather. However that isn't going to stop me from having a great time, it just means heavier clothing. One thing that is lighter is the hair on my head (not from going bald) because I got a new haircut. It was totally accidental because the place I went to messed up big time. Let's just say that it involved a clipper and my head. So well in the end my lovely locks are all gone and I've returned to a slightly longer version of my high school hairdo. I was slightly upset at first but a nice stream of compliments quickly straightened out that mess.
Classes are going well. My Sight and Sound: Studio class is taught by none other than Robby Benson, the voice of the Beast from Beauty and the Beast and Alexander from Kings Quest VI: Heir Today Gone Tomorrow and the director of a show you might of heard of called Friends. The class is going pretty well, I've already filmed two movies, one even involved a pirate. I'm actually using professional actors now and its working out amazingly, I can finally get the emotions that I want out of people.
In my scriptwriting class I am writing a script in the vein of Woody Allen that stars a character based off myself. It is coming along rather nicely except that my teacher doesn't understand my sense of humor. My first draft that I turned in he wrote on my paper "Let's see if the class finds this funny or dramatic. I think it is neither." However everyone in class told me they thought it was really funny. Oh well you can't win them all!
I've been meeting a lot of great people up here in NYC and I am constantly in action in this never sleeping city. Jenny and Traci came to visit me, which was a ton of fun. We went to the Brooklyn Bridge, the former WTC, and the Statue of Liberty (oh and Ellis Island too)!
I've done many interesting things in my time up here and it has certainly been a great time to experienec NYC. I went to the World Trade Center site on 9/11 for a sad and moving experience like none other. The twin beacons blasting into the sky for all to see. I'll never forget the people that I witnessed reading off the names and stories of those lost in such a senseless tragedy. They displayed all kinds of artwork and pictures of the Twin Towers, even though I wasn't in NYC when it happened (far from it) it still hit home.
August was an interesting month full of the beach and friends. I went to Ocean City with the family and had a good time and then I drove 8 hours to Wilmington, North Carolina to visit Brittany. She'll probably agree with me when I say it was an interesting time, but I had a lot of fun and the area is quite lovely and I've never experienced beaches like those before. I also went clubbing, which ended up being fun and I'm sure I probably looked like an idiot (what else is new?)
Then it was moving up to NYC time, with a quick 14 hour Star Wars-a-thon in between. My room rocks, its huge and my roommate Esteban is a pretty cool and unique guy. We've already been to the MoMA which was an absolute blast! However I've been spending most my time with my friend Laura who has the same passion for exploring the city as I do. We've done pretty much everything from Brazilfest to the Ferries to going to see a Met's game (her first baseball game ever!) I've also made a good friend out of a girl named Libby who's passion for Seinfeld rivals my own, making for some fun situations and conversations (man does that show rub off on its fans.) I also can't forget about my friend Kelly who I can have a great time with while engaging in some meaningful conversations about life! Oh, and there is Laura O'Hara, my friend from over the Summer who lives in my dorm who's great for a good meal nearby over a nice conversation (in sweatpants, lol.) Just writing this makes me realize that I don't really have any strong guy friends... ok, next on the agenda, more guy friends...
That aside my time here has been fantastic so far and I will try and post more often. Check back soon for some new films, yes that's right, I said films, not video,,,, that's a lot of commas. Thanks for reading!
Update coming really soon, sorry for such a long break and thanks for hanging in there. I just got my movies from over the Summer transferred to digital so I'm going to do a huge update really soon.
It has been a little while since I've updated and a lot has happened. However just a few minutes ago I had the pleasure of meeting Michel Gondry (director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,) who is an idol of mine. Kyle called me to a Thai restaurant in Chinatown because he thought he saw him and knew that I knew him better. I ran there and there he was. When he went outside Kyle and I followed and I approached him and asked him if he was in fact Michel Gondry. He was very nice and modest and his "girlfriends" (all three of them) were also very nice. We talked about his upcoming film The Science of Sleep which comes out September 20th. It was a very awesome experience, I mean what are the chances? I love this city.
The last few weeks have been really hectic as everyone tries to finish their final projects. I'm glad that I planned ahead and got mine filmed last Tuesday. Half of the special effect shots, which is every shot, didn't come out so I had to reshot this Tuesday. The heat here is unbearable it has even reached 115 degrees, try shooting in that. Not to mention the humidity, absolutely absurd!
That hasn't stopped us from shooting though, and we shot Matt and Andrea's final films. Both shoots were awesome and interesting. Andrea's shoot took place in Central Park and was an easy shoot except for the fact that our location was populated by the International Folk Dancers. This however turned out to be absolutely hilarious. 
If you click on the picture to the left it will take you to a page of pictures from the shoot. Eventually we decided to dance along with them, the music was indescribeable and the dancing was like Rigor Mortis. However the most adorable Polish woman came up to us and asked us to dance with them during the next song because it was easy. Matt and Pablo joined as I took pictures and they are a riot.
Also a model came along for a bikini shoot. This was odd because they took a picture of her in front of a lake filled with algae and the guy in the picture with her had the worst farmer's tan! Strange, I think so. Basically it was an enjoyable shoot, despite how tired I was, full of strange happenings.
Oh! By the way, someone finally cleaned up the feces in my bathroom, 2 days later! (Figured that was noteworthy)
Matt's shoot was the following day and was equally as fun at Andrea's despite the rising temperatures. Andrea and I shared camera duties and boy was it fun. Many of the shots required that I harness Andrea as she hung out the window shooting the movie. Other shots required that I lean out the window with the camera in my hands and shoot down, it was nerve racking its like holding $3,500 out the window. The shoot went fine and the movie is looking good.
I reshot my movie the following day and the temperatures broke records here in New York City. The reshoot went well and we were all gross and exhausted after the shoot. I got the footage back the following day and edited it that night. My film looks good but I had to remove some of the crazy special effects I did because they weren't perfect (you win some you lose some.) I showed it off today, the first of the final projects and my teacher seems to like it.
He said, "It was a lot of fun to watch. Your personality shines through your work and you love of filmmaking is very apparent in all that you do."
I'll take that as a good sign.
After class I tried to digitize my films and found out that I won't be able to until September, so that is when I will put them on here. I'm kinda upset but oh well, until then I am going to add a few new/old vidoes to the site for you to enjoy so keep checking back. I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer and this might be my last update until I get back to NYU August 27th. Tomorrow is my last schoolday and then I leave the following morning for Ocean City with my family!
With my final project done with pre and post-production I've had a good time to relax and think about what I've done. I've gotten some good sleep in and worked on my previous projects, cleaning up my production books so I can keep them for further study.
I've also been working on the sound effects for my final project. A sound editor, who did movies like Secret Window came in to teach the class on sound editing (of all things!) So I talked to him after class and we met later in a foley room. For those of you who don't know what foleying is, it is the process of creating sound effects in a movie. Everything from footsteps, breathing, and the rustle of clothes has to be added in post-production. Foley artists use all kinds of odd things to make sounds for the movies, for example a Tie Fighter is actually an elephant's trumpet played backwards plus a couple of other distortions. We discuss and started to invent sounds for my new movie. The sound I am trying to create is a portal sound, I'll have the film up soon enough and you'll see why.
Anyways, I ended up wandering around the city looking for sounds to work for my portal. I went to the generators by the Brooklyn Bridge, they might work quite well. It was unfortunate because today in class this loud electronic hum went off and it would have been perfect. I could never recreate it because I have no idea what caused the sound.
Today was an interesting day. I got lost on the Subway and arrived rather late to the shoot, I was going to be really early too so it was rather unfortunate. Everyone was really nice about it and actually only had to wait 10 minutes for me so it wasn't really much of a setback. We were filming Pablo's final film on how logic can rule out everything and make you miserable, sometimes you have to have faith in something. I love how he always packs in a good message into his films.
In his film a man is using logic to prove everthing to be false and it ends up driving him insane. 
Matt acted as this man and did a wonderful job as he normally does. He really got into it, in one scene he was bashing his head against a door and tearing up papers it was quite awesome.
In class we screened more movies and they are starting to get really good. Sound has made a huge difference and some people are really starting to shine now that they can work with sound. I got my production book back from my third project, the cross-dressing one, and I got an A- on it. This wierded me out to no end. This was easily my weakest film in my opinion and I didn't care about it at all, in fact I was ashamed to show it. I didn't do any pre-production and pretty much winged it off an idea in my head. The lighting looked good but I thought the story really didn't work out. In fact I even told him that in my evaluation of the project:
All in all I feel like this film was a failure on a lot of different levels. The story was not well planned out and the shots were not as interesting as I wanted them to be. I met some of the objectives that I set for myself like pulling of three-point lighting. Some of the exposures and lighting really defined features on the character’s face, for example the opening shot. So while the lighting was dynamic and interesting the tone was never fully established and the quick change to comedy at the end was never pulled off. 
I think the main source of failure for the piece was in my lack of pre-production planning. I was so wrapped up in making my second film as awesome as I could that I did not really put the time into this film that I should have. I also think that the shot that was meant to reveal the cross-dressing character wasn’t as monumental as it could have been. I did not get a shot that showed off my face as much as I wanted it to and therefore all the information about the makeup was lost and the exposure did not pick up the skirt I was wearing. This caused the audience to be confused and was the exact opposite of what I was looking for. The acting and editing did not work well together; I should have removed performances by Matt where he was a little too goofy for the role. My direction was too loose and I feel like I didn’t get a strong enough message of my idea off to my group members. We were rushing to get it done and no one really seemed to care about the film. We had a blast making it but I think we all knew that I did not have my heart in this film and that I hadn’t planned it out as much as my previous film. I guess it goes to show that you can make one really good film and then make an absolute mess if you aren’t focused. So all in all I think my story suffered from my lack of planning and care about the film but it did succeed in creating some strong visuals through the use of three-point lighting.
Despite all of this my teacher still gave me my highest grade I've gotten in the class. I guess I'll never understand.
As a side note: Someone took a dump on the floor of my bathroom.
Yes, this is true. I came back from shooting this morning to find a pile in my bathroom. I asked around and no one is claiming it, so I put a sign on the door asking that whoever did it take responsibility and clean it up. I don't care who did it as long as it gets cleaned up. I mean come on, this is going way too far, who does something like this? God I want to get my own place, I can't stand people who like to live in filth, quite literally.
Oh, and for those wondering, I won't be posting pictures of it.
Well a lot has gone on since I last updated. I'm in a far better mood but that doesn't mean I'm not still exhausted. I've been doing a ton of work over the past couple of days, including filming 2 new movies of my own and a bunch of other ones with my group. We filmed a movie for my buddy Matt about a woman who is being chased and she goes to her friend's apartment to get away. The project was off-screen sound effects so the person coming after her had to be created using sounds. The shoot was good but there wasn't much for me to do except for lighting. This wasn't so bad because I was so exhausted anyway. While I was up there I went to this place Big Nick's for lunch and it was cheap and amazing, turns out it was the place my Aunt Nancy told me I had to go because I'd love it. I've got to find an apartment closer to this place, would easily become my new hangout spot which is currently occupied by Hon Wong's, who have been overcharging me recently.
On Sunday I spent the entire day writing a script for my fourth film to make it funny. I was also freaking out because I had to edit it on Monday night after we had our Sound Tech, not to mention do my Production Book (which I still haven't done, but that's for tonight,) write and storyboard my final project, and film my final project by 2:30 on Tuesday. Let's just say I was a little stressed.
Well I woke up early Monday morning and went into the studio where I recorded my voice over and then transferred it onto a Mag tape 
(sound film for those who don't know, a.k.a everyone who reads this.) I got all this done, so that I wouldn't have to wait in line to use the machine later, allowing me to work on my editing earlier. After initial confusion on how to use the machine, I quickly figured out how to work everything (except levels, audio isn't my thing yet.)
I then decided it was time to treat myself to a comicbook before class started, to relieve the stress before the workload began. Enter paradise (of the comic kind,) Midtown Comics is the best comicbook store I've ever been to. They are fully stocked with thousands of trade-paperbacks and for every $100 you spend over an unlimited stretch of time you get $20 from them. What a great way to fuel an addiction... Sigh... So anyway I got the newest Spiderman where he revealed himself to the public, I find it kind of hard to believe that he would finally do that after 45 years of saying he wouldn't. The Marvel Universe is getting really messed up and I think they are trying to turn Spiderman into a dark character, should be interesting if they pull it off right.
Anyway, I randomly got into a conversation with this guy named Nelson and we bought comics, me Spectacular Spiderman (surprise!) and we went to lunch. I then ran back to NYU for the Sound Tech, which sort of straightened out what I already knew. Since I learned how to do it over the weekend I was a step ahead of everyone else and I was able to get onto the equipment before everyone. This let me finish my project earlier than everyone, at 11 o'clock (still not that early.)
With my fourth project done it was back to my place to write my final project, which I learned was postponed from its original due date of Monday to Thursday (thank God!) I promptly passed out when I got back, after 14 hours of filmmaking, and got no work on my final done. I did however manage to get an e-mail out to everyone postponing my shoot until Wednesday. This meant that I spent all yesterday, Tuesday, writing my final project and getting other tasks done. I spent most of the afternoon wandering around Brooklyn trying to find sketchy looking places near Bedford Avenue. I was looking at this particular place because all of the areas around it look run down because all the businesses moved to the ever-popular Bedford Avenue, so they aren't actually sketchy they are just unused. My new digital camera came in really handy, as I took pictures of all the locations that I wanted to film at and the street signs nearby so I could remember where they were. With these amazing locations spotted it was time to begin my writing. I went out to Hon Wong's, ordered my regular (Beef and Broccoli,) and started to write my storyboard. It all came into my head really quickly, could have been the Miso soup or the fact that I had done an awesome job location hunting, and I soon had a storyboard near completion when the restaurant began to close around me. I paid and they overcharged me but I figured since I had been there so long it was worth it as a place where I could escape from certain temptation of my computer.
I finished up my storyboard and e-mailed my group to tell them that we'd meet at 9:30 AM this morning and got to bed around 2AM in the morning. I woke up, bought everyone donuts and got on the train to Bedford. Everyone got a coffee and ate my donuts and we started shooting. Some of our shots we had to move because people told us we were on private propert but other than that it went really well. It was absolutely scorching out and I got an amazing tan, and lost a lot of weight in sweat.
The best part of the shoot was the final shot of the entire thing. The shot had to be really long, about 2 minutes of film, and we only had one chance at getting it or all of my previous footage would have been for nothing (hard to explain but just take my word for it.) What made this even more difficult was that we were shooting across the street with my subject on the other side of the street. Cars drove back and forth and we had to find a way to stop them for a couple of minutes. 
So Matt and I walked out into the middle of the street and faked him breaking his leg. Cars stopped as I attempted to drag him across the street. We stopped trucks and cars dead in their tracks as he screamed in pain.
Pablo shouted, "I'm done!" and we were done with the shot. Matt stood up straight like nothing had just happened and then we walked casually to the other side of the street. The people in the cars and trucks were so confused, one of the truckers was laughing really hard. We packed up our stuff and ran to the Subway.
In class I got to show off my fourth film, which I thought would bomb because I'm not particularily happy about it. However, the class loved it and my professor who had been particularily emotionless about my works that I really liked really seemed to like this one. He said he wanted more, and the class was all laughing at my jokes. It made me so happy to see them responding to this one even though I didn't think it was that great. I guess I should try and do that kind of humor again. They even compared me to Woody Allen in their criticisms afterwards, it could not have been a better compliment.
So, that's basically it for now, I've spent my afternoon relaxing and thinking about how to edit the sound for my final project. I'm trying to do some foleying to create a portal sound effect (you'll just have to see the movie to understand.) I am currently having Matt Osbourne convert my movies to smaller file sizes so I can fit my entire library on this site with the same if not slightly reduced quality (I think we can all admit the quality isn't that great anyway!)
Well the weather in New York has been pretty bad over the past couple of days. Lots of rain off and on, all in all I'd call the weather... wet.I've been doing a lot of nonstop filmmaking, as much as is possible in this weather. Not to mention all the editing I've been doing on my movies. My fourth film didn't come out the way I had planned, the shots are all way too wide. I've spent my whole day writing a script for it that will hopefully save it.
In order to get ahead and get my work done early so I can work on filming my final film on Tuesday I went to learn how to do sound editing. I very friendly girl named Michelle helped me learn and then we got into an epic battle over which trilogy is better, Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. I backed Star Wars of coarse and will back it until I die.
I filmed a couple of movies with my group over the past couple days, including a film about a costume party with the "Pope" and a nun. It was pretty fun and we got it done rather quickly.
Over the past couple of days I've discovered the greatest feeling in the world. I don't care what anyone else's take on the greatest feeling is but for me its entering a Subway train after waiting for 10 minutes for the train. The Subway has gotten so hot from the heat it is like stepping into an oven but the wonderful AC in the Subway train is so great you want to spend the rest of your life there. Nothing could feel better than this and if you haven't experienced it you are missing out.
I've recently taken to wandering around the city late at night by myself, probably not the best idea but don't worry I'm staying in safe places. Tonight I went to Times Square, Macy's, and Midtown Comics. Midtown was a letdown because it closed at 9 so I went to Times Square and then Macy's. Macy's was huge I never realized how huge it was until I saw it in person.
Well I would finish this update but I'm so exhausted that I am going to go to sleep. Tomorrow I will do a full update. Sorry and goodnight.
The last few days have been a lot of fun and tons of work. Ryan came up to visit for the weekend and we had a lot of fun. I had to film a bunch of movies so that took up most of our time but we did our regular walk around the town. We tried to go out for Russian food and found this place called "Pravda." The bouncer asked for our IDs and then let us go in. It's atmosphere was very cool and very pop-Russian (never thought I'd say that) but the menu consisted of 5 highly priced food items and like 20 pages of alcoholic drinks. Ryan said, "Let's get the %*#@ out of here!" So we did. The next morning we went out to Ess-a-Bagel, amazing, and went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I had a movie to film that afternoon so he left.Oh! We actually went out for coffee late at night and he brought me a present from my Mom, it was a new pair of nice loafers. Very Brasilian and just like the ones my Dad wears, so that was nice. I figured, its time to take them out on the town and since they are loafers I don't need socks. WRONG! Once we got out they started to cut into my ankles so I had to take them off. We then proceeded to walk from NYU to Chinatown with me barefoot. When I got back my feet were pitch black! Gross!
When we went to shoot Andrea (seen in the middle in the picture below) and I left the battery belt in the Taxi Cab. Really bad idea and we both feel super guilty about it. We reported it missing and there has been no word about it yet but if we don't get it back its going to cost us $500. Ouch! Also without the belt we couldn't film the movie and had to postpone production.
Monday was my 20th birthday and thanks to everyone who called, left me messages, or even thought about me. Everyone made my day special and it feels great and somewhat frightening to be out of my teens. My birthday wasn't anything super special but that doesn't matter to me because I see this Summer as the "Summer of Dan" where my birthday has been stretched over the whole thing. I woke up and filmed Andrea's movie where I was in the starring role, I'll try to post it later. I then went to class and enjoyed the movies that the rest of the class had to present. When I returned from class I called my parents and opened the rest of my presents. I was completely shocked to find that my birthday present was a digital camera (seen above.) I'm already taking tons of pictures and just got a memory card for it earlier today, so expect tons more pictures from me. I think I might start putting a picture of the view out my window on the page to chronicle the time when I last updated the site. We'll see.
Ryan Perez, my suitemate, and I went out to dinner at Little Brasil to celebrate my 20th and the food was pretty good. They gave us free extra food because they knew that I knew what I was talking about, pays to be Brasilian. Anyway, enough about my birthday.
The weather here on Monday and Tuesday was ridiculously hot, reaching 102 degrees on Tuesday and a high of 98 on Monday. It doesn't help that the city magnifies the heat even in the shade. Also I found that when it gets hotter here the horrible smells get intensified and parts around my campus were really smelling. Most affected were the Subway systems, temperatures underground aren't cooler as you would imagine but intensified to an insane degree. So basically what I am trying to say is that it sucked to be a New Yorker on Monday and Tuesday.
I decided to do the most intelligent thing ever on these two days, film outside. On Tuesday I decided to film my movie early so I could get it done. My project was "voice over" so I am doing a movie that is very representative of how my mind works. Should be funny. Except to make it my groupmate Pablo (on the left in the above picture) and I went from the Statue of Libery to Central Park in a couple hours in the morning in the scalding heat, carrying tripod, camera, and all. Quite an exercise and life endangering situation. Not only that but almost every shot we took was illegal because I didn't get a permit. We had to be sneaky and I made Pablo hide behind bushes and only once did a cop approach us and Pablo showed off how good his lying skills are. The film will be great and I'll post it once I get it digitized. So after we about died it was classtime and then off to the editing room for me.
It is official, I've sold my soul to the editing Gods. In the picture to the right is what we call a Steenbeck. It is the machine we use to edit film and isn't as complicated as it looks. Tons of fun but the hours are long. I spent from 6 to 11 editing my most recent film which ended up being a minute and a half long! I got to show my movie this morning and everyone thought that the visuals were great but the story wasn't fully fleshed out. I thought it was terrible so at least the visuals were good. I thought the story up last minute because I was so busy working on my previous film which is the one I think is the best I've ever done.
Well that was a huge update, but it isn't over just yet. Check out the movies page because for a limited time you can watch the Groin Public Service Announcement in its online debut. This will only stay up for a little while as I plan on putting up my films that I made over the Summer up. With these new films coming on the site a lot of other movies will be removed. So you have to tell me what you want to stay and what you feel can be removed. I already removed Matrix Calculator because people didn't seem to think it was as good as the rest of the stuff. However if you really want it back tell me! Anyway that's it from me for now! Have a great one.
Well things are continuing along at a breakneck pace up here at NYU. My group has gotten through 9 movies and just yesterday I completed another one of my movies. This one is probably my best film yet and far better than most of my videos. I cannot wait to upload it on the internet so that everyone can enjoy it. Today I screened it in class and it jumped off the projector at a place where everyone thought it was the end. I got a round of applause and everyone came to me after class and was like, that film was great! However the best part of the film hadn't even come yet so I can't wait to reshow it tomorrow for the full duration.I once again ran into Sam Raimi on the set of Spiderman 3 and this time it did not end so well. I actually got yelled at to leave the set, my plans are only beginning to be set into motion.
I am set to film a movie tomorrow morning and I am totally not prepared. I've been so busy working on this new film, I spent 12 hours in the editing room yesterday, that I haven't even thought about it yet.
I have a lighting kit that is larger than myself that I have to carry around the city, I am cheap and don't want to pay for a cab, and last night I got caught in a torrential downpour (not fun.) I have an idea for my film tomorrow morning and if I can pull it off it could be quite funny. It is a cheap laugh and I hate to do something this cheap, not like my other ones aren't cheap laughs, but I spent so much time on my last film I think I deserve a creative rest.
This weekend I am filming 2 films and starring in another quite provocative film so it will be busy, plus Louis and Ryan are coming up to visit. I hope they like hanging around film sets because that's how it looks to be shaping up.
There will be new movies on this site soon I promise! Keep checking back new content will come!
Well I've had another great week up in New York City. Dave and Jenna came to visit and that was a lot of fun. We did everything from Central Park to the World Trade Center to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I've been filming movies all week and I filmed what I think may become my favorite movie I've ever made yesterday. I should have them on this site at the end of the month.My class is hilarious and so are all the insane things that I've seen in the city. The other day I had a guy on the subway dancing and singing to me with his iPod on. It was quite bizarre. I also had the luck to see a drug bust in the middle of a magic show in Washington Square Park.
The city is in a wierd state right now, what with the Holland Tunnel threats. Since I live near the tunnel there are people walking the streets with AK's so that's a bit odd to see.
I got to see the Macy's fireworks over the water and it was amazing. It was one of those moments where I realized how awesome the city is. The bombs bursting over the river for over an hour and their lights reflecting off the buildings in the city. Absolutely beautiful.
Central Park has quickly become my favorite place on Earth. It is so beautiful and large, and filled with tons of interesting people. I am trying to organize a large game of Ultimate Frisbee.
All the fun is starting to wind down as I get into the meat of my course and start making tons of movies a week, not that making movies isn't the coolest thing ever because it is.
Anyway I'm off to the park with Dave Vilgos, he brought some friends up to visit me. I'll update soon!
Well I've been here in NYC for a week and things have remained pretty crazy at a pretty consistant rate. First off this city is exhausting me, even my teacher made a couple comments about me nodding off in his class. My classes are really interesting, in one day I relearned everything I'd been taught over the past 6 months. Talk about a ton of information. Our teacher is this Russian guy who refers to when he made movies in the Soviet Union. He also made a comment that my hair is "white," which prompted me to wonder if I had suddenly contracted Steve Martin disease in class. My other teacher is named Michael Burke and you can look him up on IMDB and he has won all kinds of awards including top prize at the Sundance Film Festival so he is highly qualified.
While I've been here I've seen tons of celebrities so I am going to list them off now:
1.Tobey Maguire
2.Boy George
3.Ashley Olsen
4.The guy who played Dev in Pulp Fiction and Dorian from The Mask
5.Bill Murray
I'm sure there are more but I'm so overwhelmed by my upcoming filming that I'm forgetting.
Speaking of my upcoming filming I am directing a quick film today at Thomas Payne Park, where I saw them filming Spiderman 3 (hopefully at least one good film will come out of this.)
I have to leave to get some work done before my shoot but I'll leave you with this insane advertisement I found in Soho.
Hey whoever is reading this... that'd be you.Sorry for not talking to you for awhile, things have been a bit crazy...
I'd really like to apologize...
Now back to me! This past month has been amazing, so many good times in Severna Park with everyone, you know who you are. However, the good times must come to an end...
I will update all my info soon so you can drop me a line, those of you planning on coming up to visit me need to figure out what you are doing soon because my schedule has me making 20 movies this month, so I need to get cracking. Anyway, contact me and I'll fill you in on all the craziness and you can fill me in on what's going on with you!
I just finished my first "film" and it cost me around $250. It is called "Moebius" and I'll have it up shortly. I enjoyed making it and it was a great new experience. It isn't as great as I envisioned but it was worth every dollar.
For my Visual Concepts 3 class I have to put pictures of my latest project on my website so here it is.
The CAmm College Film/Video Bake-Off is on April 21st at 7PM. I can take a couple of people for free otherwise entrance is $5. Should be a lot of fun, and there is free cake, supposedly. Anyway the more people that come the more likely of a chance there is that I will win. Contact me at AIM: Danimalclan or through e-mail gvozden1@umbc.edu
Let the great times begin!
I moved into NYU yesterday and its absolutely nuts. My view is crazy out my window, just take a look for yourself. The first day alone I went to 3 shows and experienced more gayiety than I'd care to experience for the rest of my life.
Well it is my final day at UMBC and I'm already starting to miss everyone. I am currently packing up my room and I decided I'd update the site because I don't know when the next available time to update it will be. Also since I am headed up to NYU I don't know how long my account will last on UMBC's server so this site might suddenly disappear this summer. So download the movies if you really want them. Also I should be moving up to New York City in June and I welcome anyone who wants to stay at my place, its right in downtown Manhattan. I don't know the exact date of when I move but I'd imagine in late June. I never had the chance to digitize my final film project so you won't be seeing it until I get a chance to do it at NYU. Everyone have a great summer if I don't get to talk to you before I leave and I hope everything is going as smoothly for you as it is for me!
I know it has been awhile since I've updated and I'm sorry. Here is what is new:
I made these pretty bad websites for class but the second one is really amazing. Pretty soon it will be your homepage. Check them out:
Internet Project
I went to the CAMM film festival and didn't win anything but I had a great time. I'm sure my piece was right up there with the winners. I did however get the greatest compliment that any filmmaker can get, a woman came up to me and told me that my piece touched her and she felt very close to it. UMBC won all the awards except for audience favorite, which went to this horrible film with tons of fans in the audience. The event was tons of fun! Thanks to everyone who came out you made it that much better.
Oh, and today I just got word that I GOT INTO NYU! I guess that is pretty cool... I guess...
Just kidding, I'm sooooo excited I'm practically bouncing off the walls! I'm going to miss UMBC so much because I had a great semester and it saddens me to leave, but we are talking Tisch School of the Arts here, one of the top art schools in the nation.
I haven't even gotten an acceptance letter they called Mr. Markowitz who wrote a letter of recommendation for me and is running with the Democrats for mayor of New York City. They called him to thank him for recommending me and told him that I was an amazing applicant and they wanted to personally tell him that I was getting in.
So he passed the word down the line and in other words.... amazing. NYU is excited to have me attending!
What?!?!?
So basically my life rocks about now...
Today in class I made a bunch of new animations with Processing. I'm getting a bit better at it, check them out:
Animation 1
Animation 2
Animation 3
I just added the Matrix Calculator movie. I hope you enjoy and don't forget to send me your reviews. Now I'm off to class and then I'm going to film my personal diary starring Lauren Koppelmann.
Daytime
So my weekend was extremely busy and full of work at Blockbuster. I've added Come Sail Away to the site which is quite exciting. I haven't heard anything about it from anyone so I guess everyone had as full a weekend as myself. I have to film a movie today but its not really going quite as planned. Film is such a hassle, I am really contemplating if the quality of the picture is really worth it; the ease of video is quite compelling.
Classtime
I made this processing during class, nothing too fancy. Check it out.
Well, lots going on today. Lots added and taken away since yesterday. Things have been cleaned up, movies have been added. Today I added a link to my friend Josh's site, check it out. I'm trying to learn how to do a random generator for the rhino page. In class today I got another assignment for this page, I have to put one of my old projects on here in image format hopefully I still have those pictures otherwise I'm in trouble. Also I got into my first Film Festival today, they only select 13 from all the film schools in Maryland and I got chosen. I never would have believed this to happen as I am going up against all undergrad and grad students, and I'm only a sophmore and this is my first video project. This gives me added confidence in myself as I hope to get into NYU. Check back soon I'm going to put Come Sail Away and Mortal Kombat up in the movies soon! Enjoy the Dance Video as it has made its online debut, don't forget to send your reviews to me I'll post anything I get negative or positive as long as it makes sense. I will not post anything like, "I EAT POO" so don't even bother sending it to me.
Today the new website was born, with many problems I might add. So please bear with me while I attempt to solve them. On this page you will slowly find my journal that will be updated as often as I feel like it. So basically everytime something funny or noteworthy happens. Right now the only page who's navigation works is the main page so if you want to visit the site you will have to keep coming back to the main page. Check out the movie page, a couple of movies are making their online debut today! Keep checking back for more updates.
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