a compliment

today i received a compliment. one of my professors wrote a message on a photo assignment returned to us today where we had to take 5 photos featuring different visual elements (ie., color, shape, line, space, etc.) his note reads:

"Nick--

You sure have an eye for creating great composition within the frame. It always intrigues me how sometimes the ones who don't make many comments in class are the ones who really understand what I'm trying to teach. May I recommend you look into taking some other photography classes along with the cinematography classes. I think you will find them fascinating and extremely helpful.

B.U."

i'm not trying to hide his name, that's really how he signs everything. haha. but anyway, i always like when what i do is validated. granted i have an awesome camera, but i don't think i can give it all the credit :)

it wouldn't be a true post if it wasn't one in the morning, or close to it. michelle you can be proud, although i won't be coming north this weekend. i will be patiently waiting to hold annie when you guys come down for thanksgiving. :)

ain't gonna lie...school is busy! i'm frantically trying to finish projects and turn things in early so that i can have a fun "fall break" in new york starting next thursday. i think for the most part i have everything under control.

saw sweeney todd last night in park city. it made me happy inside. i just love that show! hopefully the castle will put it on next october (if i have anything to say about it...which really i don't.) when i got home i crawled into bed and turned on the halloween movie marathon on amc. here i was preparing to go to bed, but was so intrigued by the no name slasher film that i had to stay up and watch it! :) tonight amc is showing alien. not my favorite, so i don't feel like i have to stay up, plus i have class in less than eight hours. yummy.

another thought on school work and dedication. recently i have had a change in thought process when it comes to homework, projects, assignments, etc. and i've wondered if it is just me copping out. maybe a little, but then "carol of the bells" came up on my random playlist on itunes and i took a moment to listen remembering being in the studio with jules as she played while i sat in the booth. i am really proud of that project, and put a lot of effort into it. and who's to say that i shouldn't concentrate most of my efforts on the classes and projects that mean the most to me while making sure that I atleast pass the other classes which are not as important? d's get degrees, and so do c's. haha. what happened to the guy who freaked out if his grades weren't straight a's!? gone....long gone. and i don't think i miss him.

more hot PIES, more HOT, more PIES, MORE HOT PIES! -- sweeney todd the musical

i'm blogging instead of writing my papers. figures.

i spent the weekend up in logan to see urinetown, as well as some college friends. i need to stop going up to logan when it is so pleasant and pretty. a small part of me regrets my decision to come back south, but then i actually compare apples to apples of the actual schooling in my program of choice and know i'm where i should be, plus i have had some amazing experiences, adventures, and opportunities only because of deciding to transfer to the Y. i guess i just need to get up and visit logan more often, it's not so far away and a quick trip if you have someone to talk to on the phone. :)

today is a good day. i haven't exactly put my finger on why i feel like i need to proclaim it. maybe because of the changing leaves? maybe because one of my classes ended? maybe because timp is snow covered but it's not freezing down here in the valley? i don't really know...but today is a good day.

also i'm glad that the jonstone clan gets to experience what season changes are all about! again, i don't know why, but i'm glad they get to freeze during january like the rest of us! mmmm....

byu characters -- library security

i'm starting a new segment on my blog called byu characters. they will highlight people that i run into or just observe walking or working on campus.

today's character is the library's security guards. dressed in a white uniform shirt with dress slacks and usually boots they sport a walkie talkie attached to their shoulder, and (if properly certified) a container of mace attached to their belt. besides looking extremely "intimidating" as people come and go from the library, what do these security guards actually do? ...glorified book return. i'm guessing its actually 99% of their job. correction 95% of their job. the other 5% is to look intimidating.

weekend roundup

I had a very successful weekend. Success, i guess, is a relative word. I would say I was successful because I was able to focus long enough to finish all my midterm assignments along with having some time to have a little fun. griff wanted me to go hunting with him on saturday. i laughed when he asked because i didn't think he was serious -- he was. oh well. I still didn't go. we're not a family of hunters!

stacey and i had an interesting conversation this weekend about global warming. neither of us really know what we're talking about. it's something that i'm really starting to find interest in. what is and isn't true about what people say on this topic?

also i was watching 60 minutes tonight (don't really know why...) and this story http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/17/60minutes/main3378089.shtml (sorry i can't make it clickable right now.) valerie wilson used to work undercover for the cia. her story is about being directly involved years ago when they were making claims about iraq buying uranium from niger for weapons of mass destruction and how what we were hearing from our country's leaders wasn't exactly matching up with the information she was finding... anyway. fascinating stuff i think!

and now i must start preparing for a very busy two weeks as i try and turn assignments and take a test early so i can go to new york without having any worries, and have a personal fall break. haha.

my family is hot

i'm so glad we have an annie in our family!


seth, zane, maryn, jonas, and annie. if we follow this trend, michelle you have to get pregnant again here soon...

lucidity

Here is our 24 hr film. The quality online isn't that great, but you'll get the idea.

24 hrs film festival

it's seven am, and i'm just going to bed.

goodnight! (the film festival video to be posted soon...)

me and my hat.

i've never met a carrot i didn't like. except for this one!

plans for after graduation: work in an equity theatre for a year (mas o menos...that's spanish in honor of eric.) gain enough points to join AEA as a stage manager, then see where life takes me.

"then why am i in the film program?!"

i've been asking myself this question for the past few weeks. the only answer i can give myself is that a media arts degree will only compliment the experience i have in the theatre. graduate in film, work in theatre.




ironic isn't it?

a little bard

i spent the weekend in cedar city as a chaperone for the high school. it was Shakespeare competition, and not surprisingly, american fork took an overall first place in its division. i had the opportunity to see the fall show series while i was down there. as a whole group we saw Henry V. an interesting rendition of the show, but it was mainly SUU students. the following day i saw three shows. the mousetrap, the tempest, and art. all were great shows! the tempest isn't my favorite shakespeare play (ironically it was on my reading list from a few weeks ago) but it was a great production. technically speaking, changing between sets for each show is a NIGHTMARE! i can't imagine having to do it everyday. i went and watched the change over from mousetrap to tempest, and all i can say is that i shouldn't have complained so much about having to set up and take down the speaker system for caesar. it takes 1hr 15 minutes to change sets, change light gels, and then run through the lights and sound to make everything has been correctly set for the change over. insane!

it was nice to get away for a few days. almost so nice that i hated the part where i had to come back and do homework. the desire to continue school is a hard one sometimes. i look at my older brother and wonder how it is that he's been able to keep his nose to the grind and continue schooling. but he has a family to support, and so i know there has to be motivation from them to continue in school. i guess i just get frustrated sometimes because in some aspects i feel like some classes are a waist of my time and money. read this book, write this paper, take this test, rinse and repeat, and at the end of the semester forget everything. just so that at the end of the process i can get a piece of paper that says i'm a well rounded individual and more capable of a job because i took some general ed classes. i've adapted a phrase from julianna (who is one year ahead of me in graduating.) in these classes which fill her life only with extra busy work she says "eh, it's good enough." and i don't know whether i should feel good or bad about adapting such a phrase into my attitude towards school. granted, i put a lot of effort into classes and projects i see worth my time and effort. but as for the others, as long as i pass that's all i really care about.

i guess a lot of how i'm feeling stems from this job i have. i don't enjoy it. i get paid really well, but i don't enjoy it. it adds unneeded stress in my life. i know i've asked for more to do to help the speeches part be acceptable, but i don't think anyone in the department talks about which students they have helping out on which projects. in the last week (on top of usual speeches crap and my computer crashing) joyce has asked me to help her with some alumni house updates, jeff has asked me to help with some music selections and other things for an upcoming spread in the magazine (for the web) about musicians on campus and hunting down different bands, artists, etc who go to byu, jed and i have to do another video segment for the psychology video since when we had them OK the video so we could lock it for editing they didn't have a problem with the fact that there were more men being interviewed than women and now they do, chad wants me to create some video commercials from old footage with new titles that i got from dave which are going to look like crap with the old footage and the old raw footage was from a project from charles which no one can seem to find so i'll have to use the compressed video, and hopefully brandon did the color correction for the marriott school so i can give them a final copy to send to the printer for distribution (which they originally were not planning on.), and all of this while staying on top of my classes and only working 20 hrs a week. what a joke! this is a work load for a full time employee. work that would be manageable during the summer when i don't have school. the secretary for publications and graphics wrote me an email saying that apparently a couple of people (probably old people) have called some byu relations office wherever that is saying that they are frustrated because there isn't always someone answering the phone when they try to make an order. well can they see why!? i do my best to stay on top of it all, but i really just want it all to go away. i feel validated that so many people need my help for projects, but it's like they don't realize that i'm also in charge of speeches and need to be around to answer the stupid phone for the old people.

i guess being in cedar city made me yearn to be somewhere else with a whole new set of problems and a whole new set of complaints. working backstage on a show at a professional theater being fully dedicated in a much more concentrated environment rather than having 6 different people expecting me to cram 40 hours of week into 20 hours a week (oh and not to mention i only work tues, thursdays, and fridays.) as much as i enjoy my pay check i'm still not sure it's worth it. i guess i do know that it was the better choice between staying and doing speeches and going to work for byu broadcasting.

time warp, two years from now. life will be better! and i will be in the position (with a degree under my belt) i want to be to go work anywhere i want! for now i just have to keep telling myself to suck it up (and to frequent the job board byu's website just in case something amazing appears)

the ulcer can go away now

For the past two weeks I have been regretting waking up and coming to work because my computer crashed (not my fault!) and everyday when i come to work I have been trying to figure out how the heck I was supposed to salvage my files. i won't go into detail about how final cut works, but basically my two big project files were missing all their media. Projects which have cost a lot of money! i wasn't at fault, but i was expected to fix the problem (because our programmer has no knowledge of final cut.) well today, two weeks later, i finally FINALLY found a way to make Final Cut recognize all the files again. basically i had to reimport every missing file, and then manually relink them to where they belong on the time line keeping in mind that there were hundreds of files to relink. something that may sound easy, oh no. it took me all day. i've just finished the marriott video, and now it's on to the psych film. oh well. at least it's fixable and the nasty pain in my side can go away.