March 2010

Back to the Start was my most earnest attempt at filmmaking.  I had previously tried my hand at writing a couple screenplays and started dabbling in shooting and editing video.  While attending a short film festival in Mexico, I decided it was time to give filmmaking a real shot.  I moved to New York City and enrolled in a few classes at School of Visual Arts.  This short, Back to the Start, was the product of my time there.

It was also my last filmmaking project.  I am quite proud of what I made, but the process taught me that what I actually enjoyed about filmmaking was the writing and the planning.  The editing, and definitely the actual shooting, were not my thing.

Nevertheless, it was a good project.  I shot the film on 16mm, got a few actor friends to help me out (and turn in great performances), and edited the short on my home computer.

Note: Project entry created well after project was finished. It refers to MatchFlick, which I created but I sold and is no longer under my control. For the most part, it looks and functions the same as I left it, though.

MatchFlick was supposed to be my opus, and perhaps in some ways, it was. When I came up with the idea while sitting in a movie Heater in New York City, I decided it would be the culmination of every thing I had learned previously, about programming and about business. And I was going to tie it all in with my love of movies.

I feel I succeeded in creating about as advanced of a website as I was able to create. And I excelled in other areas I was not expecting, namely writing (MatchFlick Friday, for those of you that recall).  Where I failed was on the business side, and in understanding myself and social networking. I did not enjoy business development, and quite frankly, I ended up seeing little value in talking to strangers about movies. Those are two pretty big flaws in running a movie-based social networking site all by yourself.

I sold the site in 2006.  Nevertheless, it remains one of my favorite projects. It occupied me for three years and was a constant supply of engaging problem solving. I built a robust social networking site from scratch that got over 2,500 people to join the service and had a high of 36,000 visitors in a month.  Users wrote 1,823 movie reviews.  I created a movie database of 14,500 films and 20,000 people in film. In the end, the project produced 35,000 lines of code, all written by me.

Note: Project entry created well after project was finished.

This was the first CD I produced.  I had put out a crappy tape when I was 18, but this was my first more finished product.  The title for the album comes from a Chief Seattle quote about "the end of living and the beginning of survival."  I was doing the native american spirituality thing at the time, and my album was pretty dark, so it made sense.  Just now, while I was searching for info on the album (it's weird when the internet can serve as a better archive of your personal creations than you can), I found out that Joni Mitchell had an album of the same name.  No doubt, hers is far better than mine.

One funny thing about this album: I actually secretly recorded my friends while we were hanging out, and a couple "samples" of those conversations appear on the album.

Combined with Vexations of the Thinker, these two albums are pretty much the beginning and end of my musical career.  I at times find myself a little embarrassed by these albums, this one in particular, since they seem so different from what/where I am now.  But I also recognize that they were something I was extremely proud of at the time, and they reflect earlier sides of myself.  And sometimes that helps paint a picture of who I am now.

All the lyrics can be found here.