and on the inside...

Although these lights are more than able to handle larger bulbs, I decided to go with the 60 watt CFLs just to save a little money. Each pack of four CFLs cost just $7.00, and I got a pack of daylight bulbs, a pack of soft white bulbs, which emit standard tungsten light, and a pack of bright white bulbs, which have a sort of amber temperature. The four yellow things at the bottom are actually work lights, which cost $10.00 each, and are capable of magical results.

Each of these work lights are capable of housing much larger bulbs than the ones I purchased, but even these results prove to offer cheap and effective solutions. The front cage simply pops open and a new bulb can be switched out. Also, and this isn't pictured above, there is another outlet on the back of each of these, meaning they can string together endlessly, or until you run into an unlikely power issue. The hooks on the top of the lights also offer interesting possibilities for fastening these lights around a location without stands or elaborate setups.

In this picture, you can see that I've set up something very basic with just two of the lights, using one daylight bulb and one soft white bulb. They are hooked onto the handlebars of my bike and my chair, respectively.

and here is me standing in this light.

Another interesting opportunity here is the fact that you can leave these lights on all day and they won't get hot, so you can use almost anything to obstruct or diffuse light. In the next picture, I used a sheet of newsprint that I found lying around to diffuse the daylight bulb, and I hooked the second light up onto the curtain rods:

Badass. Seriously. That's all for now! More to come soon!

Welcome to South Carolina, where my hotel room key has an advertisement for chicken and waffles on the back! After a bit of hibernation, my freelance work has taken me to the South to shoot a series of commercials for a prominent fried chicken chain. After my first five hours in this state, it became very clear that poultry would be the running theme of my week.

The adventure has so far taken me through five states: I left Boston, MA at six in the morning on a bus that drove through Connecticut and into New York City, where I stopped for a chicken sandwich before boarding a plane to North Carolina, hopped in the rental car and drove to South Carolina, stopping for some delicious barbecue on the way. I should add that the rental car is hilarious; it's essentially a tank- the kind of car where you don't notice when you hit a woodland critter and marinate the engine and radiator with it. But anyway, I'm sure I could go on endlessly about SUVs, or waking up in a totally different part of the country less than twelve hours after waking up, but instead, as mentioned before, I'm going to discuss chicken.

If you paid attention to the details of that last paragraph, you would have noticed that I ate a delicious chicken sandwich in New York, and had an even more delicious barbecue chicken in North Carolina. Now take a minute to imagine the life of a chicken in this country, up until the point at which it gets killed and eaten. They probably don't have a whole lot to look forward to on a day-to-day basis, but in the case of the two chickens I ate today, one was posthumously given the ability to be so much more delicious and satisfying.

Now, when the spirits of these two chickens meet as their Earth bodies get dissolved in stomach acid, the New York deli sandwich chicken is probably a little disappointed that it'd been rendered boneless, processed, and transformed into cutlets that were pre-cooked and simply re-heated on a grill before being slapped onto some bread with a little lettuce. Up until she met the southern barbecue chicken, maybe it had come to terms with this, and assumed that this was simply the fate that chickens are faced with. The barbecue chicken, however, was taken delicate care of, even after being decapitated and sent off to a restaurant. This one had the kind of taste where you know it's just been on that grill all day long, with some master grill artist making sure that the meal is nothing short of perfect.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, nothing can really ever discover its true place in the universe. Chickens are just chickens, food is just food, and this thought you're reading is just a thought. If ever a chicken becomes concerned with its own fate, by all means, it should feel free to do so.

It should be noted, however, that if one wants to go ahead and get wrapped up in some sort of existential crisis, it might as well be running around like a chicken with its head dissociated from itself.

Then fold each corner down to that crease. It's similar to the first step of making a paper airplane. It looks like this:

Now it's time to fold it in half. This is not difficult in the least bit. If this step gives you trouble, seek help. Either way, I've provided a picture:

Now things may get tricky,so pay close attention to the pictures. Orient the awkward pentagon so the point is facing the right, and fold the bottom-left corner up in a similar manner to the second step. This should make an even more awkward pentagon:

Now do the same thing with the top-left corner, and fold it down so that the right edge is flush with the right edge of the last fold. In other words, make it into a diamond:

Notice how the corner on the left has the top side folded over? Fold the top top part upwards:

Now do a similar fold with the bottom half. It's buried under the top part, so it may be a little tricky, but go for it. It's the last step. Promise.

Now it has feet! Turn it over. It may look a little flat, so find the corners to the sides of the open part and push them together a little. Now set it down on its feet!

It's a frog!

Now get back to work!

So all this was done by around 3:00 pm, and it was time to go to work! I slept through three bus trips and groggily stumbled my tired self into the office and flopped down on a chair, and then a bomb drops. "Hey, we're going to get some cameras tonight. When you get home, pack up. We're going to New York tomorrow."

The subject of the shoot? Diamonds. Lots of them. It's been a whole day and my eyes are still trying to readjust to not being in an enormous room full of brilliant gemstones. I got to shoot the whole process of casting, molding, setting, and selling jewelry.

Now I know my track record for posting promised videos on my blog is pretty shoddy so far, but they are on the way, and this one is included in that. For now, settle for an interesting story.

As it turns out, dropped and missing diamonds are more than common. I got to the set early one day as they were opening and sweeping the floor, and after each pile was swept, the people behind the counter would crouch down and take a careful look. Sure enough, among the dust bunnies and crumbs were six or seven diamonds, and even a silver chain. I don't know what's stranger: the fact that this is so common, or that I was the only one in the room who thought it was weird. Either way, there were lots and lots of diamonds, and a handful of them were probably strewn about the floor somewhere.

That's right, loyal reader(s)! There might actually be some fun and entertaining video work showing up on this very blog sometime in the next few days!

What have you got to look forward to?

So glad you asked! I've actually been collaborating with my brother, comedy writer Max Lance, on a new web series. It humorously depicts very abridged and more-or-less-accurate topics in history, arts, classics, and literature. In the next couple of days, you can look forward to "Art History in Three Minutes", and who knows, maybe some more awesome or hilarious works of cinematic genius.

Currently, I'm supposed to be drawing the images for "Hamlet in Three Minutes", but I took a break to check my email three or four times, watch the first ten minutes of 8 Mile, eat, stare at the ceiling, and write this.

Alright, back to work I go!

Of course, this also calls for a revision of its name, considering the removal of the hot dog element renders the inclusion of "woof" questionable. Thus, it will be called a Salamlet.

Have a nice breakfast!

Today's post is about breakfast.

I am all about cooking, especially when it comes to breakfast, so today, loyal reader(s), you can read this blog and even cook along! Today, I'll be making something that can really only be seen as a college student's kind of breakfast, which is clearly shown by its use of...  whatever happens to be in the fridge after stumbling out of bed on Sunday morning.

Anyway, I now present: The Wooflet, which is a somewhat clever (ish) combination of "woof" and "omelet". I promise it tastes delicious, so now that I've made that promise, don't be alarmed when I reveal the inclusion of a hot dog in an omelet recipe.

Alright! Right off the bat, make sure you have the following: half of an onion, two or three eggs, some milk, a hot dog, butter, crushed red pepper.

Now go ahead and dice up that onion half. Now that I've gotten a handle on uploading photos, I can add that it should look something like this:

Next, cut a hot dog in half, then dice it up sideways, which should leave you with a bunch of half-circle hot dog bits. It might look a little like this:

Now throw some butter into a small, moderately heated frying pan! Just enough to cover the bottom and some of the sides.

Add in the onions first, and let them cook up just a little before adding the hot dog. Then, go ahead and throw it all together.

Next, it's time to add in the eggs. In a separate container, beat two or three eggs, depending on how hungry you are. On this particular morning, I happened to be strikingly hungry, so I opted for a third. Throw in a dash of milk and mix it all together, then pour.

Once you've reached this stage, make sure you are redistributing the contents of the omelet every so often, so as not to overcook any one section of egg. It might even be wise to turn the heat down just a bit. Remember: eggs tend to keep cooking for a little while once the heat is off, and even once they're out of the pan. I think.

Another rule of cooking is to keep the following three words in mind: Crushed Red Pepper.

Add it.

Now once you feel physically and mentally prepared, which you should be, because omelets are enthralling, it's time to flip the omelet. Use whatever method you prefer, whether it be by spatula or simple physics. Unfortunately, I did not get a good picture of this, because one can only multitask so much.

Once the Wooflet is flipped, it only needs to cook a little longer, so fry it up to your heart's content, turn off the burner, and throw your delicious new breakfast indulgence on your favorite plate.

Other optional challenges would be to explain to your half-asleep roommates why you are taking pictures of yourself making breakfast, or for a more delicious option, turn this omelet into a sandwich.

Now go enjoy a delicious Wooflet! I'm going to bed.

Digitizing tapes is really one of the most relaxing parts of editing and it's especially relaxing after a three-day Winter shoot and an eight-hour drive. All I really have to do is change settings and change tapes every half hour or so, and in the meantime, I get the first look at the result of all of our hard work. It's a nice way to decompress and remember all of the events of the shoot. For some reason, I feel like whenever I'm on the actual film shoot, days just seem to stretch themselves out so far, and by even the second day, it's difficult to believe that the previous day happened so recently. Now I'm not sure if that makes the least bit of sense, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person who experiences this, but right now I'm looking at the footage of the host on his motorcycle, and I know that this was shot just three days ago, but it feels like it's been at least a week.

So I really haven't written all that much so far, because I'm looking for ways to keep myself awake through this whole process. I imagine that I'll start to get tired by around four, so I've gotten myself ready for a long night. I'm already on AIM, and having a lovely chat with a friend in Chicago who decided to drink heavily and play Smash Brothers as opposed to joining his roommates at a strip club. I'll probably check facebook a dozen times between now and sunrise. I may try and catch up on a week's worth of FML if I get desperate, but most importantly, I have a whole wall of my boss' DVD collection within arm's reach.

So this might not be the most humorous or insightful entry so far, but I don't really care, because I'm going to go watch Blood Diamond.

Then Sin City.

Then Collateral.

Then A History of Violence.

What I'm trying to say is, being a part of the crew or just having shared the experience of being involved in production is a lot like being in on some big secret. I might just be tired from day two of this Gettysburg shoot, but for some reason it reminds me of elementary school, when the big joke was to convince other kids to join the Pen Fifteen club by writing it on their own forehead with a sharpie (go ahead, give it a shot).

I guess that's a bit of a stretch. What I'm really getting at is that it's refreshing to be reminded of all the people who see media production as some inexplicable magic, or maybe even the work of voodoo, in some extreme cases. Of course, many of these people will probably get to experience such luxuries as job security and regular sleep schedules, but they'll never really know what it's like to wait outside in the freezing cold at five in the morning for the perfect glint of sunrise in order to get a shot that won't be on screen for more than ten seconds. They'll never find themselves screaming at clouds to move once they blocked the sun at the exact moment when the camera team finally got ready.

Some people climb mountains or travel the world just to get a stunning look at the setting sun, but the way I see it, you'll never truly appreciate a sunset until there are three crucial shots that need to be captured in the twenty minutes of perfect golden light at the very end of a long day. What will make it even more appreciated is when these shots don't all get finished and you have to work on Saturday, which means you have to reschedule that date.

Well it looks like call time is 6:00. Maybe she's around on Sunday.