University of North Texas (UNT) Advanced Film Production Films - 1997

 Hopefully YouTube won't take these down. I've finally, after years, uploaded and posted the short films we made in the spring of 1997 in North Texas. 

Here's the one I was in:

Here's the one I edited:

Here's the whole playlist:

UNT - Advanced Film Studies Playlist

Here's what I posted under the videos:

University of North Texas (UNT) Advanced Film Studies - 1997

This is one of several of the final student films produced by the UNT advanced film studies class in 1997. I don’t remember everyone involved. I’ve pulled names from the credits on each of the films and will assume these are the students from the class. If you would like to see the specific credit received, and additional cast/crew credits, please watch the credits on the individual short films. If you were in the class and your name is missing, let me know and I’ll add it. If you weren’t in the class and your name is here, congratulations! If your name is spelled wrong, it was probably wrong in the credits of at least one of the films, where I copied these names from.

UNT Advanced Film Studies Students:

Seale Adams

Steve Andrews

Heath Banks

Chris Blackledge

Melinda Buckley

Will Chen

Shane Clark

Tad Dennis (Thomas A. Dennis)

Brandon Dodd

Richard Doss

Jim Driskell

Cindy Edgemon

Elisa Farrell

Deedee Freeman

Matt Hirsch

Ben Hogan

Norma Inocencio

Jeremy Jimenez

Katherine “Katy” Kirby

Diane Lowe

Jariya “Jun” Manoonkulchai

Heather Matson

Keith Miller

Clay Mills

Mike Moe

J. Michael Owen

Fernando Perez Del Rio

Heidi Quintero

Dan Riddle

Paul Salinas

Kristi Sandoval

Joe Scott

Chris Switzer

Camille Sharon Thien

Nathaniel Torson

Devrin Usta

Jeff Valeri

Matt Walters

Chris Weatherly

LouAnn Wu

Jack Young

I can’t recall, but I assume these films were all shot on 16mm silent film. The audio was recorded to mag and the editors had to work with reels of synced film and mag stock. This transfer was completely out of sync, so I’ve done what I can without making myself crazy to adjust the sync before uploading.  The way these films were made is much more expensive, time consuming and difficult than making the equivalent films would be today with digital recording and editing options.

All of these were shot in and around Denton, Texas, near the University of North Texas, in 1997. I think this was a spring semester class only, because I actually graduated in 1996 but stayed at school after graduating so I could participate in this class.

My VHS copy - which I don’t think I’d ever played prior to this conversion - has suffered from age. The films which were later in the tape look better than the ones which were early on the tape. The quality, therefore, varies from one film to the next just because of the VHS. If you were part of this group and have a better copy, please let me know! I had lunch with a couple of the guys from class and they prompted me to upload these films since they couldn’t locate them. I’d be happy to share a better version, if it exits.

Also, to the people who made these films, please drop a comment or find me on other social medias! I’d love to hear what you’ve been up to.

Don’t forget to like this video and to subscribe to my channel. It may not seem like a very big thing to you, but it is the most important thing you can do to show support for people who create videos on YouTube.

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Ruth Allen Sings English Music Hall Songs (Mostly)

 

Ruth Allen was born on January 20, 1929.

On October 26, 2021, I asked her to sing some songs for me. She’s 92.

Here’s what she sang:

WITH MY LITTLE WIGGER-WAGGER IN MY HAND (1909)

Fred Earle, Frank Carter & Gilbert Wells

 WHEN FATHER PAPERED THE PARLOUR (1910)

R.P. Weston and Fred J. Barnes

 FIVE EYES (1922)

Poem by Walter de la Mare published in 1913

 DON’T DILLY DALLY ON THE WAY (1919)

Fred W. Leigh and Charles Collins

 JUST A WEE DEOCH & DORIS (1911)

Harry Lauder

 WAITING AT THE CHURCH (1906)

Fred W. Leigh and Henry E. Pether

 AT THE DEVIL’S BALL (1913)

Irving Berlin

 HE’D HAVE TO GET UNDER - GET OUT AND GET UNDER (TO FIX UP HIS AUTOMOBILE) (1913)

Maurice Abrahams, Grant Clarke and Edgar Leslie

 HE NEVER RETOUCHES ME

Ruth Allen

Book Report - Foundation by Isaac Asimov

It is the future. People have spread out all across the universe and the Galactic Empire rules. No, this is not Star Wars. That’s set in the past.

 In the future, a science has developed which is akin to fortune telling. One man, Hari Seldon, is an expert in this science and he has seen the end of the Empire. He sets in motion an elaborate, century-spanning plan to build a better ruling outcome for the universe, hopefully sparing centuries of war and unrest in the process. The start of his plan it to be exiled to the farthest end of the universe with a group of intellectuals, under the pretense of writing the perfect, all-encompassing encyclopedia of everything ever. And to not tell them the rest of the plan. Hari Seldon has recorded holograms of himself which play at pre-determined times, when he has predicted a great conflict or crisis will have just been overcome. They provide the only clue if his vision of the future is happening as he predicted or not. (It is.)

 The whole book is like a game a chess. You know how in chess, before you make your move, you try to calculate all the other moves your opponent could make as a result? Yes. Boring and time consuming. And when done properly, not very surprising. (I’m not very good and chess and never really understood why it was fun. I have not watched the Queen’s Gambit yet.)

 Let me get this out of they way. I counted two female characters in the whole book. A secretary who got one or two lines of mention, and a Commdora. The Commdora got two whole scenes, maybe totaling four pages, but she was just there to be snippy. The rest of the time, any new character who gets introduced - no matter how unfamiliar their name - don’t worry! It’s a man.

 The story is told primarily through dialogue, which makes it not very interesting and difficult to follow at times. At the start of each chapter, a paragraph or two of set-up is presented and then the characters chat. And at the start of each section of the book (there are four), just go ahead and forget all the characters you were just getting to know. They are long dead and it is now dozens of years later. But don’t forget them completely. Their names might come up. But while you try to remember the names of characters who have disappeared and died, also learn the names of all the new characters in the new section of the novel. Names, names, names.

 None of the characters are fully developed. The action, predicted, but kept secret, by Hari Seldon, is not exciting. Things just work out. Wars don’t happen. And if it looks like a war is about to happen, turn the page and it is fifty years later and the first sentence makes it clear the war was, in fact, avoided. The story is all lining up dominoes, but the reader never gets the satisfaction of seeing them knocked down.

 It does have some interesting parallels to modern-day politics. Part of one successful war-avoiding tactic is to build a religion. They use missionaries to infiltrate surrounding worlds, or train priests on those worlds, and ultimately disable power supplies. It is hard to read how the religion is weaponized in Foundation and not see similarities to how Evangelical Christians and Republicans currently work together to push an agenda. It works until the missionaries and priests are no longer welcome on nearby worlds, because they have been revealed to be more loyal to their religion than anything else.

 If putting plans in motion, politics, discussions and a universe where women are virtually nonexistent sounds good to you, then you might like Foundation. It didn’t work for me.

More About Perfume: Trying to Appreciate House of Sillage

 

After showing some love for Fragonard, I’ve been thinking more about the perfumes in my life.

 Perfume is tied into many of my memories. I can remember what perfumes I wore in middle school and high school. How my mom loved to buy perfume and would give me and my sister a bottle each Christmas. It wasn’t Christmas to her if she couldn’t buy some perfume.

She had a few favorites. When I was really little, my mom wore L’Air du Temps. I’ll always associate the scent with her.

After church every Sunday, we would go to eat, more often than not at the mall food court where our (me, my mom and my sister) diverse tastes could be accommodated. Usually that meant parking at a major department store and walking through it on the way to the main inside of the mall, always passing the fragrance counter. Always stopping to smell at least a few of them on the way by.

I wore White Diamonds for a time. Then Passion. Or vice-versa. Elizabeth Taylor was big in the perfume world when I was growing up. Perry Ellis 360 had a short stint on my dresser counter. It was a complicated fragrance, though. Some days I liked it, other days not so much. Followed by Tuscany by Lancôme. It was much too mature for me at the time, and still a little stodgy.

One year my mom gifted me a bottle of Red Door. I was confused. It was because I had gone on a vacation and taken a small sample-sized bottle of red door with me as my travel perfume. It was out of convenience that I took it, not because I liked the fragrance. We returned that bottle and got something else.

When I was in France in 1996, I found Eau Belle d’Azzaro. It had light citrus notes with deep pepper underneath. At least it smelled like pepper to me. (It doesn’t have any pepper in it.) I stuck with that as my main fragrance for many years. I still have two bottles from those Christmases.

Then came Le Monde Est Beau by Kenzo. It smelled like magnolias to me. My mom liked a lot of the same perfumes I did. Then Light Blue by Dolce and Gabbana. I often return to light citrus scents, even though they don’t linger.

 

Anyway, targeted Facebook ads. Sometime last year, I started getting targeted ads by House of Sillage. The company offered two things I love: perfume and excellent packaging. I browsed the website, but was discouraged by the prices. Could I afford to spend $1000 on one bottle of perfume? Maybe? And if I decide to get one, you can bet I’m splurging on a limited-edition bottle. But was I willing to take the chance on it, nose unknown? No.

But the ads kept coming, and I was constantly tempted. Lucky for me, they have travel sprays which are much more affordable. And a good way to try something before making a real investment in it.

The first travel spray I bought was The Trend #5 (Tropical Jungle). It’s supposed to be Tunisian neroli, Bulgarian rose and Tolu balsam. I have misplaced the box with the second refill bottle in it, but meh. Did I like it? Not at all. Did I like the travel container? You bet. Was I done trying out these perfumes? No.

 

I have bought two more travel sprays. The Trend #3 and The Trend #10. I’ll admit it. I’m shopping based on packaging and not at all on what the perfume might smell like. Luckily, these were much more to my taste.

I adore the packaging on The Trend #3 (Beauty & Grace). According to the website it is orange flower, black tea and powdered sugar. I’ve had it for several weeks, but it isn’t my go-to scent. And as an aside, those cute little boxes are difficult to open.

 

 

I just got The Trend #10 (Lace Up). Calla Lily, jonquil and freesia musk. I like this one the best, so far. My biggest problem is that the scent disappears on me almost instantly.

 

 

I also got some samples with my purchases. I have a sample of the limited-edition Mickey & Minnie Collection fragrance. Bergamot, mandarin, orange blossom, coconut milk, amber and vanilla. The vanilla comes through the strongest for me at first, settling into coconut, cut with sharp notes of the mandarin.

 

 

And I have a sample of The Trend #9 (City Dreams). Jasmine, praline, musk. Thoughts on it, so far, is that it is ok. Maybe I’ll buy a travel version of it next. I'm still not convinced that the House of Sillage products are worth the money. They are beautiful, but I haven't found the scent that blows me away, yet. I'll keep trying.

 

 

One thing a lot of these perfumes have in common, in addition to sparking memories, is that they make me long for a different scent. Lately, I’ve been trying to catch a memory of the scent of Japanese honeysuckle. We had a large bush growing in our backyard in Texas. I would go outside, pick the flowers and suck out the sweet drop of nectar from them when I was little. I’d like to get a more tangible version of that memory back.