Blarbus

The new sword and shield

I was digging around the old desk today and came across this drawing I made last fall.  The day in which I drew it was a strange day, being as it was that I could not stop thinking about how interesting it would be if soldiers carried bullet proof shields in one hand and guns in the other.

You might say, "But this is scandalous!  I always see police carrying shields when I'm rioting!"  This is true.  Every police force in the world uses clear, plastic shields to keep deviants at bay, but these are more designed to protect from cabbages and rocks than bullets.

"But you are ridiculous!  Modern ballistic shields are both bullet proof and light."  That is true.  And these have been used very extensively in law enforcement to give a little protection against handguns and shotguns.  But they are pretty useless in today's modern battlefield of armor-piercing ammunition, rocket propelled grenades and high explosives.

However, if the discovery of some fictitious, abundant, light, absolutely bullet-proof metal had preceded the modern flood of complex, deadly weaponry, I'm absolutely convinced that we would have seen Napoleon's armies maneuvering around the open fields with Romanesque shield tactics.

More importantly, it would look amazing on film.

Hot off the press

What?  A professionally case-wrapped hardcover book with a shmee on the front and the name "Alexander Cooney" on the spine?  Did that fellow get published?  Is this truly a legitimate piece of literature?

Yes, yes, and no.  This little baby, which popped up at the post office monday afternoon, is the latest manifestation of my sudden fascination with online self publishing.  It came from lulu.com, a website that sends you a real, live, legitimate book after you virtually send them a bunch of text and cover art images.  It's incredible.  I could have even swapped the casewrap with three different kinds of paper back, dust jacket hard-cover, saddle stitch and/or color printed variations.  In addition to actually printing and manufacturing books on-demand, it also allows you post your masterpiece on Amazon.com and create an online storefront, much like what I've been doing with the shmee tees.  

After I set my mind on ordering a book of my own, I soon realized I was going to need some text to fill it.  Luckily, screenplays count as text, and since I have plenty of those guys hanging around, I gathered them up and sent them off to the press.  This guy's not for sale, but just the fact that I could write some trashy sci fi novel and sell it online gets the wheels turning.

But the possibilities don't just stop at books and shirts.  Additional websites can provide anybody willing to pay a reasonable price with professionally replicated dvds, cases, covers, coffee mugs, full size color posters, and many other forms of media that would normally be a far reach for the hobbyist.

So fire up the puter and get to work on that great American novel, because the only thing that's physically separating your idea from your sexy masterpiece on the shelf is about eighteen dollars (plus shipping and handling).

Spring Update

The last couple of weeks have been a little sparse post-wise, largely due to the fact that there isn't much to post--yet.  I've got about five projects on my plate at the moment, four of which should be done by the end of the term.

The glamorous HVX-200 has taken up residence on campus and has so far proved itself to be well worth it's tapeless quirks.  I'm so happy with the images I've seen, in fact, that I think I might be able to use it to pull off my first serious dramatic short.

One of my favorite songs is a Kenyan Folk song called "Wana Baraka"  Which I sang with my choir at Armstrong High School.  A Swahili spiritual, it starts extremely soft, with a haunting, melancholy melody, then builds the voice parts one by one until the sound becomes hopeful.  By the end, everybody's chanting Hallelujah at the top of their lungs and the world couldn't be better.  It's a remarkable progression--and as I'd sing, I'd often find myself trying to visualize its awesomeness.

My favorite image became that of a mother who has lost her child in a nearby forest.  Search and rescue personnel and vehicles litter her yard, all unable to find the missing boy.  Everything seems hopeless.  But then we move to the forest itself, with the beautiful Wana Baraka suddenly silencing the hustle and bustle of the rescue operation.  It's a quiet, gentle forest that now seems to be alive with the spirit of the music.  As the voices mingle, a farmer working his field looks up to see the figure of a boy stumbling out of the woods.  We end with the boy on the farmer's shoulders as he's carried past the awestruck rescue workers and placed right in front of the broken mother, who hugs the child on the last chord.

Needless to say, I don't have fifty extras, a little boy, and search and rescue vehicles hanging around my dorm room.  Since that is the case, I've tried to think of different ways I could squeeze it down to a smaller scale, while still keeping the gravitas of what the original looked like in my head.  My solution, at this point, is to have a group of friends suffer a mountain climbing accident that leaves one of them completely separated from the others.  The film begins with the two uninjured friends desperately trying to start a broken car and make calls on a serviceless cell phone.  They are powerless to help their fallen friend, who might be dead for all they know.  But hope returns with the whispers of Wana Baraka.

"The Gift" Storyboard from Alexander Cooney on Vimeo.

I apologize for the stick figures.  Hopefully you still get the idea.  Short and simple.

Some more movies should be coming up this week.