tiistai 2. elokuuta 2011

Night between August 1st and 2nd.

I was auditioning for a new TV sitcom and there were two women interviewing me. One of them was Fiona Allen, who was the creator of the series and the other one was the producer of the show who I did not recognize. The interview consisted of the producer blowing aire with some kind of device on my face to create an atmosphere and then I was supposed to make appropriate sound effects. This was somehow related to the main character of the show, but I think they hadn't made their mind up about that yet. I sucked at that. I got the atmosphere "hints" all wrong and my sound effects weren't any good. For example, I tried to make storm noises when they were thinking about rock concert. I said that since I'm no good at this, there is no point in continuing the interview. This must have been a BBC production, because on the elevator there were Simon Mayo who talked with a third guy about The Exorcist sequel currently in the making. I commented how he and Mark Kermode seem to often meet Exorcist fans. I knew this because he sometimes records his elevator conversations for his podcast I listen to.

Another dream was about stunt that was being filmed for a movie. It was in a style of documentaries about these things. So there was a narrator explaining things and lots of aerial shots. The stunt was a guy jumping on top of Shinkansen train. At this point I should point out that for some reason I for long time thought that trains use parallel overhead lines. The stuntman jumped from a platform he put on top of the overhead lines (or rather, messenger wires) to make it easier to aim between the parallel overhead lines. Also to add safety the power would be cut from a section of the overhead lines. Adam Savage and two kids were on the side of the track to do that. The narrator explained that the train could still move because at the end of the train there is another drive unit that would still get power and when the end of the train reaches the point where power is cut, the head of train once again has power because the section for witch the power is cut is shorter than the train. In addition to that drive units have battery power for reserve.

I also had lots of other dreams, but I don't remember exact details. In one dream I had to get off rail tracks because of oncoming train. Then I was in a bus an acquaintance gave me some candy and from a window I saw a train with moving cars. (I mean cargo cars with moving company's logo on them) Then the bus started to swing and swivel and I think we almost hit a tram. Then I went to a shopping center even though I didn't have any money. It was an old stone building and with high gothic doorways looked more like a cathedral. I went around a coner to see if there was something interesting, but it was only a restaurant (or café) and I run away before they asked me to order something. Then the ceiling started to leak water and we tried to break windows to let the water and us out before we drown. I got a narrow horizontal window open, but I had to keep it open with my fingers and not much water got out. I managed to get out somehow. There was also a dream about teenaged girl chasing assassin. It was more like Nancy Drew than Hanna to not give any wrong impressions. I also talked with my sister about my dreams and she told about her dream of growing plants in a backyard that grew houses.

maanantai 1. elokuuta 2011

The Best Galactica Episode Ever!

This post have different title because I had this dream already couple of nights ago and can't remember exactly when. Our local science fiction television channel (MTV3 Scifi) show's original Galactica. (This tells you something about the quality of the channel.) They seem to have run out of it because last time I watched it, it was the second episode of Galactica 1980. Before that I saw the episode where they blew up Cylon Basestar. Which lead to following dream. (May contain spoilers for original Galactica)

So, Galactica has found the Earth, but it is modern day Earth (well, 1980) and can't help against Cylons. The investigators on Earth have however found a clue:"Follow the desolation road." I was very proud that I realized before characters that one of the Apollo astronauts (Buzz Aldrin) described moonscape as "magnificent desolation" and the "desolation road" must be the tracks left by moon buggy. ("Desolation Road" is also a title of a book by Ian McDonald, probably a reference to Bob Dylan's song "Desolation Row", which is on "Watchmen" movie soundtrack performed by My Chemical Romance. "Follow the road" itself is from The Wizard of Oz, to complete the list of cultural references.)

Next we see the moon and then Earth behind it and I was thinking that the special effects are pretty impressive for a tv show from 1980. Meanwhile, Cylons attach Galactica with round disks that attach to side of Galactica and drill a hole on it. From the holes come Cylons that have no legs. Probably because the disks are so small that they don't fit full sized Cylons. It turns out that on the moon lives technically vastly advanced alien colony that promises to help Galactica and they send heros of the show (I don't think they are Starbuck and Apollo from original series or Troy and Dillon from Galactica 1980) go to Cylon Basestar to disable it (or it's weapons). At this point I realized that I was dreaming and started thinking about how to make my own version. This had some interesting side effects.

First of all, Cylons stopped to be Cylons and their Basestar turned into generic space station. The space station had hangar on level 9 and main control station on level 10, so our people needed to go only one level up on elevator that looked like pretty normal elevator with metall walls. Unfortunately I don't have access to 10-story (or higher) building, which complicates filming a bit. Corridors looked like normal office corridor. So, only problem would be the hangar, but that can be done with CGI. And that was pretty much it.

Night between July 30th and 31st

A guy I knew at University was giving joke presents to people. He had left me a small cardboard package for kid's colouring book and small set of colour pencils. Inside he had put lots of thick marker pens (mostly blue) and a thick pile of overhead transparencies that had either typewritten text or cartoons on them. The text was about some conspiracy theory, but I have forgotten details. Cartoons were all different. There was 6 or 8 panels per page and they were in simple line draw style similar to IKEA assembly instructions or airplane safety instructions.