武道 (budo)
I am proud of this short, especially the fact it was made in such a short time frame and came out better than I had hoped.
This was created on a budget of $0 (can you tell?) in less than 4 days, with my brother Joe. Monday night we were watching Kung-Fu (the old
TV series) and he sort of commented on how the guy who threw the throwing stars in the shows opening, well, sucked at it. Then there was the spear throwing bit, and he asked me about that how that must be hard, I told him no, and had him
throw a chopstick at me to show what was done. I commented then that I indeed had the Kung-Fu, and the short was born.
He made the prop arrows while I made dinner, and we wrote the script while we ate. Then he choreographed the fight scene, and we rehearsed a bit. Tuesday evening we shot the short, and then I made dinner, then I started editing it, and came up with pretty much what you see in the short. Joe watched initially, but quickly became bored and went off to play his guitar. Wednesday night I
made dinner (see a pattern?) and he ran off to bible study. When he came back, we recorded the song, and then sat down to make the credits together. He drew the picture of WARD, and soon after went to bed. I finished the credits about half an hour past midnight, and then did the encoding. It's 6:21am as I write this on August 11th, 2005, the 4th and final day of making this short.
I know I really shouldn't be so full of myself, but I can't help but compare it to some of the works I have seen from my fellow classmates, once who are more advanced than me, and I think that this blows them out of the water. Is it perfect? Fuck no, but I am still learning, and this really does give me confidence
regarding m academic future.
The title, well, that is an interesting story (to me at least). The short keeps claiming I have Kung-Fu, but no where in the short do I demonstrate Kung-Fu, what we show is Karate and a Hollywood martial arts flip. Now, I'm lately had a fascination with the concept of using Japanese characters in things ever since I realized my computer supported them. I came up with the name 武道 (budo for those of you without Japanese language support) after doing very minimal research. I think this is especially funny considering the fact that I am using Japanese characters for a short pertaining to a Chinese fighting style.
But another major influence in the title was the EFF. After them calling "Pride's Cloke" "Pride's Cloak" again and again, I decided to title the shorts in ways that make it deliberately hard for them to write about. My 2005 entry, "xCHOPSTICKSx-Neo!: a non-linear
hyper-drama" is listed on my award as "Chopsticks". Well, I wondered, just what the hell are they gonna call this one? On the entry form I am gonna put down the Japanese characters as the title, if this is my next EFF entry.