avni_tigin

Turkumdur toprak ceker.

Turkumdur isyanlardayim.

Turkumdur ne bu halimiz derim yakinirim.

Elim kolum bagli.

Ararim bir cikis.

Umut derki belki gurbette.

Denerim sansimi.

Anlarimki;

Burun kivirdigim soyum, kanim hep kara gun dostu.

As per requirements for my screen writing class I am continuing to chronicle my adventures in film making.

The writing group our esteemed instructor put together to create a 3 page pitch sheet and pitch it was a disasterous venture from my perspective. The bunch we represented had nothing in common this reflected very poorly to our work. My fears of not seeing eye to eye on anything about the way we were going to carry out this project was realized when we finally had Tara, our instructor give us her feedback.

There was couple of things about the whole schindig that made me happy. I realized my instinct were spot on because Tara called us on what I have repeatedly told to our group. The real test of how good my hunches will be the solo pitch I will be doing in two weeks. I am working on sci-fi fantasy piece. It is quite exciting but to conform it into to 8 to 10 page short script will be a bitch.

On a better note I finished the rough cut for my first 16mm film called "Hypocrisy" it doesn't look half as bad as I figured it would. It was a very exciting moment for me. I am having a lot of firsts this year. They almost seem auspicious.

We are having a Halloween party at our communal habitat tonite I am drinking a cold one as I am making this entry. Life is good. I have to shape up soon though it can't go on like this. I think the coast is clear on the osap situation. I feel bad but I have insider from the loan office I approached to get the necessary information about being able to get a job and not muck up my loan situation. I did not misinform or mislead her though I was very clear about everything. She seems to be cool. Plus she knows Final Cut better than I do. She will tutor me on what she knows this way I can start using Final Cut for editing my stuff instead of Imovies. With couple of clicks she was able to import an episode of Heroes to the Final Cut. Playing around with it was a blast it will continue being a blast as long as I have a say in it.

My screen writing instructor asked us to chronicle our experiences in her class through a journal. What better place is there for me to carry out my academic obligation? So from now on my live journal will be used as my Screen Writing journal.

On our first class we got paired with a classmate. Objective was to interview each other and come up with a 15 line description of a fictional character based on the information gleaned from the classmate. Luckily for me I got an almost 60 year old socialist gay telemarketing lady with leopard skin pants. I was worried about my character description being offensive. After a half an hour long interview I had more than enough material to create the character named Elizabeth Baumer. The name did not come to me at first but after the second part of assignment was given and we were formed into our final writing teams and had the chance to bounce ideas off each other I managed to finalize the character and come up with a name for her. Also my worries about my character description being offensive was not an issue any longer. The characters based off of my interview were not that flattering either. I realized a tendency that most of the people in my group had; we all warped the information we got from our interviewees into something radical or negative. It seemed like we all suffered from the eccentric characters syndrome or what I call the dysfunctionality loop which is a constant occurence of events that are perfect sparks for certain character flaws in the protagonists of most of the story telling mediums we see around ourselves (Nip/Tuck, Little Miss Sun Shine).

Frankly I think his approach is getting old where most of the characters in any story telling attempts nowadays have major flaws and issues which leads them to repeatedly experience catastrophic events almost every episode of their tv shows or throughout a feature length movie. Don't get me wrong I am all for this approach if the story teller can set up the universe these events are unfolding properly. When you are trying to tell a story that is based on every day life in our world it takes away from beleivability for me when same family looses a loved one, repeatedly receive life altering bad news and managed to persevere. James Cameron one of my ideals does manage to pull of this effect. He manages it because the worlds he creates in his stories are not trying to be replikas of the world live in. Aliens was one of the first movies that had 45 minutes of climaxing scenes back to back. Aliens succesfully pulled this story telling off because it was a sci-fi piece with an alternate universe to our own.

Also another thing I am beginning to learn is it is mighty diffucult to get bunch of people with different tastes to see eye to eye on things. When we were done fleshing out our characters we had to come up with a 4 line synopsis for our script. We couldn't agree on anything. We also had items we picked out of a table full of articles, pictures and other objects that we had to use as inspiration. The two items we had were a lottery ticket and a picture of very young kid whispering something into the ear of his or her grandpa. So we decided to give it some time and meet up again to compare ideas that came to us during or down time. When we met again I learned that I don't care much about telling stories purely based on our reality. I like to take our reality and expand upon them. Mo one of my group members had a brilliant idea of making my character into a sort of a martyr who is being tried for embezzling the company money and re-distributing it amongst her co-workers like robin hood. So our script was going to be the case of my character where the other characters going to be figured into the equation as jurors. Jenny another member of the group expanded on the idea of making it into something more utopic. Where powers to be of this new universe are after our group of people who because of not complying to a lottery draft are fugitives. I decided expand further on the idea by twisting it a bit further by suggesting maybe our was drafted into a new military system by lottery system where countries after devastating warfare through out the centuries wise up and agree to settle their disputes by declaring champions for their causes. These champions are every day people who are picked randomly by a draft lottery. So instead of all out warfare straining economies of the nations involved disputes are settled in arenas specifically designed for this purpose. Where the games that will be played by the champions to decide the fate of their nations or their alliances are randomly decided. Games for limited warfare with small arms to simple game of chess or even monopoly. I already had an story I was working on similar to this one so it all came really easy to me. It was suprising because during down time I could not come up with any idea to bring these characters together. The fact that we could play off each others ideas to get our creative juices flowing was mesmerizing to me. I was very excited. Then came the frustration. We had Robyn anothmer member of the group not being happy with Mo's idea because of the fact the character being tried is a woman. She was very persistent on her insistence we had to repeatedly to tell her the issues she was raising were things that could be determined later had no bearing on the 4 line synopsis we needed to come up with now. Because of my frustration with her behaviour I think my body language became more obnoxious so the idea that I pitched did not get any sort of feed back or was not even considered. It basically flew over the group members head. It was totally ignored. That really upset me.

Out of these experiences I beleive I came out a bit more wiser. I realized my ideas do not appeal to broad audiences. My ideas are more for the taste of a niche market and I need to learn to be less zealous with my overexcited body language or the way I present myself when I am pitching an idea. The need to come into a group screen writing project with a very open mind was the most important lesson I learned from this experience. At times when I was ready lock in Mo's idea so we could move on prompted me to not to even want to listen to other ideas. Especially Jenn's I was saying to myself what else can she add to this that could make it any better. To my suprise the idea she came up with triggered my creative process to come with an idea that got me very excited. Even though at the end my idea as not the one chosen to be pursued the whole experience opened my eyes to many other possibilities. I am very grateful for that.

Here is the break down of my classes.

Film Technology:

A bit too theoritical for me. Luckily the teach has informed us it will be very hands on with lots of different equipment being brought into class. I think this class will cover the theory side of things more than anything. Disgustingly enough has multiple choice exams that needs to be taken. I mean two of them for crying out loud. Two!


Screen Writing I:

This wil be my meat and potatons. My primary focus. I keep reading all ove the place screen writing can not be though its a waste of money to enroll in screen writing classes blah blah. I have a good feeling about this one. For once I did not drift off to other realms after 20th minute mark in a class. That says a lot. Our first assignment was pretty kick arse as well.

We got paired with other students from class. We are to write down a 15 line character description based on our interviews and first impressions of the persons we are paired up with. Make characters out of these descriptions than create a 20 line story based on them. My impressions and character description is already done. Am working on the story.


Film Production:

To my suprise I found out we will not be using any computers to edit any of our films in this course. We will be shooting four 16mm black and white silent films. Our editing tools our tapes and scissors. You need to learn to break down your weapon and put it together before you can fire it right? It feels like bootcamp all over again.

Our first short has already got my creative juices flowing. It will be a 40 second short with a static camera. We are to pitch our story next week than move on to the shot list. Also required is to put together a synopsis for our shorts mine is already ready. It will be called hypocrisy.

Here is my synopsis:

Hypocrisy:

Canada is proud of its very consciable approach to animal rights. On the fore front of this hypocritical display of affection is Canadian dog lovers zeal to day after day without faltering managing to clean up after their dog as it shits its way through Toronto. You got it, they are the ones who walk around with small plastic bags and bag their dogs feces out of respect to their neighbours and affection towards their beloved dog.

These same folks who go through the hassle of picking up after their dogs night and day also claim to be animal lovers. But these same animal lovers consume more meat a year per capita than combination of bunch of 3rd world countries.

Every year millions of other animals that are not as cute are being processed in slaughterhouses in a very inhumane manner.

'What will your obituary say?' at QuizGalaxy.com

I OSAPPED up.

Armed with the necessary funds to start my Ryerson Film Certificate program adventure.

Hoping to take Film Production I, Film Technology i, Screenwriting, and Digital Film Production this fall semester.

Now that I found Final Draft 7, Happy Grief is coming along nicely.

The plan is to have the first draft ready by December. As I am writing the draft I will coordinate with my screen writing class which I am sure will provide me with useful notes on my script as I hammer away at it. Translating between languages is gonna be fun.

I have a return ticket deadline for February 2007.

Insallah I will be flying home with a script that I can take to producers in February 2007.

Also need to get my hands on regular version of Final Draft 7. My one was a demo.

I am praying that Ryerson has a cheap program bundle that includes the likes of Adobe Premiere and Final Draft 7.

Or by sheer luck if anoyne one of you e-stragglers end up reading my little e-message-in-a- bottle could provide me with pointers on how to get a free or cheap version of Final Draft's latest version.

My girl needs to be flawed. No sharp facial angles, Ken or barbie dolls. Flaws with a character. When I take her in I need to feel like we can expand together.

I need to be able to have comfortable silences with her.

Take a break from channel surfing in our living room to watch her read a book and be perfectly content. Slap on an in awe grin on as I feel, smell and experience her from a distance.

I need to revel in the glory of her curvaciousness.

Know her white lies from her true lies. Know they aren't malicious.

Her knowing mine.

Have bad days with her.

Obstacles to overcome.

So 10 years from now I can say to her "Do you remember that time......".

Big interview came and went. It wasn't really an interview. I basically told the guy from which angle he would prefer me to pick up the soap? Nonetheless he gave me the job. The catch is they work on a project basis. Told me to check back with him periodically to see if there is any openings.

My glorious PA days are having a crawl of a start. I was so excited about taking any directors "mocha-latte-puccino" with whip cream on top oh look at me I am so hip drink of the day order :( .

Walked into Indigo browsed through screen writing books for the first time. Since school is not option I decided to educate myself. Indigo is shit. They got nottin. Amazon was up next but it takes forever for them to bring the book I need to my door step. Plus I am still mad at them because of their little screw up on my last order. Wankers cheated me 11 bucks!

As far as the dear-old-script-of-mine goes, I need more scenes to formalize in my head. I can't just fart them out. It's not like I am taking a dump you know. It's a process. Or its me rationalizing my sloth. We all have our vices it's not like I drink or smoke or anything...... I digress.

I think I am quasi depressed. I lost a month waiting for the meeting with the production company owner guy. Did not look for other jobs or the interview I went to was not one in which I shined. Why? Because I don't want another stinkin job. From the looks of it I am gonna have to get one of those other stinkin jobs though.

Just pray for me folks.

Since may 1st I have my Boo (Base Of Operations aka place of residence (meaning a room)). I lurked here for a while but did not actively participate but I think its time for me to jump back in. In couple of weeks I will have my broadband and everything setup and I will be 100 percent operational. Which will coincide with my bros graduation in U.S which I will be in attendance of. I am excited about the notion of going back to my home town. Even though its only for a week. After May 14th I plan to heat things up. I have done my recon. Got me a very cozy place in downtown core. Its not bad at all. Ofcourse after the 5 star hotel I was living in, there is much to be desired. But interestingly enough I am more happier in my quasi shit hole than I ever was in the grand palace (barring my love for my parents from that equation).

This place is surreal. Its pleasentville in color. I can get a job to get by. But I want to get into the field I am interested in. So job search will intensify with the establishment of the boo! I qualify for the federal loan after the first year. I am seriously considering attending Ryerson Film School. Canadians are too friggin nice. They keep tickling the cynical in me. But when I talk to other Turkish immigrants who have been here for a long time they all have the same answer "Its all sincere and it will get better"

So in conclusion I am trying to get manual labor positions or anything I can utilize my work experience around the film industry. I learned that it is very diffucult to effectively look for a job unless you have a place you can call your own. I spent couple of weeks in a hostel. Commonwealth people are really cool. So many stories are floating in my head its not even funny. It will be great for my script writing.


I have some leads into my industry. Wish me luck. Take care.

I am in Toronto. 33 months of wait is over. Its been 12 days I am getting the hang of things. Frantically looking for a job. After I am settled in I am going to start volunteering at the sets. I have a huge entry saved here somewhere. I will post it later.

Kaan

Nope.

I decided not to tell her because if I do there won't be anything left to make our eventual(hopefully)seperation easier.

Otherwise she is it.

Here you go my e-time capsule;

"I am afraid of falling for her."

So I am sitting around in my room killing time right.


My mom passes by my door. She is holding something that I can't really make out what it is because she has her back to me. All I see is these little feet sticking out. So I'am thinkin holy shit did she just kidnap someones new born? Don't get me wrong, kidnapping I am talking about would be a very light hearted consensual affair my mom loves playing with kids especially the ones that are within the age bracket of 0 to 3. Since she is in charge of the R&R facility of the police force in a sense for the whole country, her collegaues come in with their kids, newborns, cousins, sisters in law, and etc..... So she preys on their youngins to parade her maternal instincts infront of his own kids, subtly hinting it is our time to do the deed.

So I walk up to her and ask her "What did you do? Brought an infant up here just so you can play with her?" She goes "He was perfect I had to buy him!" she turns around for me to realize she has a boy doll in her hands(Probably the doll of a 2 to 3 year old). She continues "I couldn't resist it, he is such a cute baby so I bought him" So far so good its mom she is prone to these episodes of subliminal warfare.

In comes the shock; Because of the fuss I am making in the hall way, dad walks in looks at me, mom and the baby. Takes the baby from mom kisses his both cheeks and goes "Emir". Thats the name my mom wants us to give to our first born son (she wants our first born to be a son. It is not because of the expected cultural reasons. She says its only because she has envisioned it to be that way. She doesn't care about the gender of the ones to follow). Dad, I mean colonel is not a man of emotions. He is a retired navy judges advocate general core prosecutor. Too see him like that, I mean smiling, foregoing his I am your superior officer holier than thou attitude for one second has made me realize their unquenchable desire for grand children. They are so desperate to see their legacy continue maybe a chance to redeem the mistakes they thought they have made when raising us. It is so obvious that they are in an inexplicable need to find an outlet for their love that out of fear of spoiling us they decided not to expend on us. They are safe with the assumption, since they will be loving grand parents, the parents that won't be as responsible with the out come of our attempts to mold our children into indiviuals who will make them everyone proud. Or as my mom states "Since I worked so much, I feel like I haven't spent enough time with you when you are very young. I feel the need to make up for that".

How can I deny them that. As huge lump forms in my throat me "the chronic foot in the mouth when it comes straight up honesty I don't care if I hurt your feelings Kaan" can't muster the strenght to tell them "I am not going to have children, so you should concentrate your subliminal messaging on my brother because he is your best bet".

I was planning making a huge entry about my time in the service but this really bizarre lazyness has taken me over. I am almost lethargic. I had the last week off. It was suppose to be the week of finishing my script. I only wrote two scenes for a grand total of a page and a half. I have other pages from before though, which makes the grand total a whopping 5 pages.

Luck would have it all my girl toys decided to experience their monthly thing around the time I had the house to myself. I think its a karmic message. I trying desperately to figure out what I have done wrong to deserve this.

Oh wait I know what I need to do!

I need to go George on my karmic retributions arse! You know George started not to think about sex all the time in that one episode of Seinfeld only to become the next Einstein, the poster bald headed guy for indiviuals with a vision. He was so focused. I think thats what I need. I need to get rid of all the pollution in my life. Create a safe habitat for my writing.


Seriously though I need help.

I need someone to snap me out of this sorry state I am in. I need someone to scrooge me back to life.

On a side note I went to Rock N Coke on saturday. I realized I am past my rock festivals age as well. It sucked. I was there for "The Cure" but by time they got around to perform I was dead tired so we decided to leave early. So we spent the next 30 mins looking for my car. We finally found it. Then the only good part of my festival started. It was mostly because I was able start my own festival in my nether regions with the help of my very yummy lady friend ;). Overall it was well worth the experience so I have no complaints there.

So I guess I am just gonna chill and wait for that cathartic event to beat my nose down with a rolled news paper so I can stop pooping on my goals.

On a positive note. All my medical examination crap is over. I did my medical check up. I was so scared I might have an STD or something because of the recent spike in my carnal activities. Luckily I am clean so unless I have felony in my record that I am not aware of I would be down in Van in around 12 months (Even if the visa gets approved early I can't just take off. I love my job the peeps I work with and my boss. I play checkers with him through msn messenger as I drink my freshly made capuccino with our office cappucino machine. Does it get any better than that? Plus I need to finish my film.



P.S: Lorenia I swear to gawd this post has nothing to the with the reply you have fired away as I was typing this. It was never my intention leave my update joke as it was. I was planning to support it with a regular post. So there you go.

I just wanted to update.

So here it is;

Ta ta!.

It was about time I got back into chronicling my life. Create my e-time capsule so I can open it up 30 years from today to have nostalgia bites.

I am gonna start off with a quick run down of where I am at. As far as the immigration to Canada is concerned I am at the receiving end of these karmic messages from whatever a Deist such as myself would call the creator. The process is like this:


1 - You add up your score on this point based system where they inquire into your education, language skills, and work experience. They each have a point value. At the end if youre cumulative score is over 67 you qualify to apply for a skilled worker visa. Which is basically an immigrant visa. I always had these "Once Upon a Time in America" fresh off the boat beginning of 20th century building of a nation from scratch via the strenghts of multi-culturalism moments(minus the organized crime part). So it has always been a dream of mine to migrate into one of those nations with a lot of potential, that needed the immigrant power to accelerate its growth.

2 - Ofcourse you have to prove to the Canadian goverment whatever you have declared in the survey is true. So you prepare an application form with confirmation of your language skills (taking IELTS), letters from the companies you worked with verfying your employment periods. School diplomas and as such. It takes Canadian goverment around 1 to 3 years to do background checks in order to affirm what you have stated is true.

3 - Then your files goes before the final arbiter your case worker at the immigration services he or she decides if you need an interview or they should send you your medical papers right away. This is a critical point in the process because if you are asked for an interview you wait for an interview date which could cost you another year or so. But if they decide to send you your medical papers it takes around two weeks to receive them.

4 - Once you are done with your medicals where they make sure you do not have an terminal ilness, something contagious, or a disaese that could cost Canadian goverment a lot of money. Since Canada is a semi-socialist country health services are for free. But from what I gather the quality of service is not that impressive when there isn't any real incoming revenues for the hospitals. Anyways since they have a socialized health system they dont want their immigrant to be a burden from the get go. Once you are done with your medical examination they send your results to the embassy you applied from. In 4 to 12 months unless you are a potential burden on their health system they issue your immigrant visa.


You might guess where I am at the moment. Well I think me and my god are text messaging on that at the moment. Cuz DHL cork suckers have lost my medical papers. So that means I am gonna loose some more months. Hey dont feel bad for me. It does not really make me upset because after the military service all I have to do when something really depressing happens to me is just tell myself "At least you are not in the military anymore. But I seriously do think this might be a sign of sorts. I basically put my whole life on hold for these papers only to find out something that happens once in every blue moon has actually occurred with me having to pay the price for it. Come on seriously how many times did DHL lost any of yous documents. One in a million baby? Me and my reverse lotteries always keep biting me in the arse.

No biggie though. I am over it. Next weekend I am going to finish up my room. It wont be a sterilized hotel room looking living quarters anymore. It will be personalized, so I can seriously start living it. I have a feeling it will really help me get into a writing mood so I can finish my script.

As far as the chicks are concerned. I get tids and bits of sex every now and then. Thats about it regarding that matter. I dont want to mislead any femmes. Or start something serious when I am not interested in settling down. Majority of the women around these parts are not into I am in love let me leave everything I care about behind so I can start a new life with my loved one spiel. To be perfectly fair opposite of that would be foregoing all my dreams just stay where I am at and be in love. So I dont blame them. Miracles could happen though. You probably can guess the miracle I'd prefer.

Well thats about it for today. Next up will be my views on mandatory military service. Write to you all soon. Hopefully.

I am a journalaholic.

My original journal is a blurty journal and is under the name cynicalhope. It used to do it for me because my original purpose in writing about my life was not about exposing it to other people and waiting for their comments and thoughts.

Originally I started up my journal because a lot of people kept telling me why dont you write down all this stuff that you talk about.

I said to myself that might be a good idea this way i can come back to what i have written in the past and use them if needed for my feature screenwriting attempts (I am a wanna be screen writer/director).

For the longest time I kept lurking around the well reputed journals of LJ.

I read about the experiences of lots of different peoples from a variety of backgrounds.

Some of what I read made me happy.

Some made me furious.

The density of message trafficking between people from all over the world mesmerized me. The frequency at which LJ people communicated regarding their ideas about their take on different religions, cultures, ideologies, and everyday events made be wanna be a part of it.

I beleive through communication and understanding we can make this mudball a better place no matter what our credo, ethnicity or ideology is.

So here I am another livejournalian amongst your ranks.

I will continue to post on http://www.blurty.com/users/cynicalhope and will use this account to comment on what people post on LJ.