Illuminati Members Distinguished Branch (IMDb)

No time for chit chat.  No rest for the weary.  Work has been crazy busy this month.  It has the madman all tied up, but I just wanted to have a quickie with you dimwits before I get back to the grindstone.

One of these days I’ll share the story of how I broke into the biz.  How I took the film industry by storm.  It’s a pretty cool story.  It involves lots of prostitution, a donkey, and piles of cocaine.   I’m only kidding.  The donkey had nothing to do with it, but it’s still a pretty wild story as you might have guessed.  It’s been some bizarre life.

I don’t have time to respond to emails at the moment, but some of you have written me some incredibly endearing ones.  It blows my mind.  How could strangers be so kind to another stranger?  How could they know just the right words to say at the right time?  How could one man receive so many marriage proposals from married women in their 40’s and 50’s?  Who the hell knows, but I’ll take it.  Thank you to whoever you are.   I’ve read your words, and one day when the dust settles, I’ll respond with some of my own.

Some people in the emails were curious what films I’ve worked on, so I thought instead of listing them out, I’d just include a link to my IMDb.  I don’t know what the hell an IMDb stands for.  I think it means I’m part of the Illuminati Members Distinguished Branch.  Something like that.  IMDb’s are only reserved for really smart, prestigious types, so that’s gotta be it.  Click the link here if you wanna see what movies I’ve worked on.  There’s some real stinkers in there, but a few okay ones, too.

Now, I’m not big into film myself.  I rarely watch movies and I don’t own a television.  I couldn’t tell you who’s who and what actor acted in what.  I don’t follow that stuff even though I work in the film industry.  I gotta leave room inside my head for other things.  Like researching slang words for wieners and looking up funny, black people’s names.

I met a Lajuawna the other day.  She has a daughter named Jacquilla.   I had to ask her how to spell both names and it took up an entire page of my notebook to write it down.  There were vowels and consonants all over the damn place, so I just gave up and called her Tina.  I can spell Tina no problem.

Well, I gotta run.  I’ll leave you with a behind the scenes photo booth session I had with Emma Watson back when I worked with her on “Perks of Being a Wallflower.”  She was a real dear.  We woulda made for a handsome couple, but it turns out Emma is allergic to donkeys and not so keen on my vast knowledge of slang words of the wiener variety.  Her loss.  She could’ve woken up to a face like this everyday.

A Day In the Life of a Movie Location Scout

Well, Pittsburgh’s no Qatar, but it is definitely a beautiful city.  This is a shot taken from the rooftop of the Convention Center in downtown.  You should see it all lit up at night.  I love my city.  I love Pittsburgh.

I worked 20 hours yesterday.  Ah, yeah.  I’m officially back to scouting on the movies, and it feels good, if only for just this week.  There’s more work coming down the pike and I’ll be back at it full time very soon.  Making that ca$h monies, living the dream.

Scouting on movies is wild.  It’s full throttle, action packed, hustling, on the go.  Seeing some of the most interesting and beautiful locations all over the city and surrounding areas, and meeting all sorts of people.  Just to give you an example of an average day, a few of yesterday’s highlights went like this:

– Scouted several ornate churches built in the early 1900’s.  Got the history on Tiffany Glass stained windows, and got to see the windows up close and personal.  Climbed to the bell tower, got pigeon poop in my eye, but the view was worth it.  Not too many people get to climb the bell tower.

– Scouted the Convention Center.  Security guard told me all about how her daughter was an extra in a movie.  She wants to be an extra in a movie, too.  Everyone everywhere you go wants to be an extra and wants you to keep them informed when the movie fires up.  It’s exhausting, but people are so friendly and nice.

– Scouted a hotel restaurant.  The one waitress gave me the history of the giant mural painted on the wall.  She pointed out several flaws in the painting then insisted I check out their new speak easy restaurant and led me downstairs to peek in the window.  The gal was pretty, blond and enthusiastic.  I think she liked me.  I took a photo of her and two of the other waiters, and told her I’d be back sometime to say hello.

– Ran into a homeless person.  She wanted me to take her photo sitting on a bench.  I did. Then she asked me what I was doing.  I explained I was scouting on a movie, and she told me of her concerns that if we choose this particular church for a location, she and the other homeless people won’t have a place to sleep on the adjacent hidden sidewalk at night.  I assured her I would take care of her, and see to it that she has a place to sleep somewhere else if we end up filming here.  Said goodbye.  Had to run.

Speaking of having to run, gotta go.  I had a short break in between making phone calls to set up appointments today.  I have a list of 20 locations to try and get into today and tomorrow.  Many more adventures to be had.  Just wanted to check in.  I’ll respond to comments and such maybe this weekend.  I have another 20 hour day ahead of me.   Cheers.

One last thing, please do me a favor.  I like to help people out when I can.  This really talented artist that goes by the name Alexandra is in a competition.  She’s so sweet and talented (and super cute!)  She’s just got a great spirit about her and very humble.   I want to help her win this competition, so could you please click the link and vote for her on Facebook.  It will only take less than 2 minutes of your time.  I worked a 20 hour day, but I took the time to try and help her out.  It would mean a lot if you dimwits did the same.

Click the link here to go vote for her.  Also, check out her site.  She has this favorite series of mine with these cities of miniature houses she makes out of paper receipts and candy wrappers.  It’s truly amazing.  Give it a look when you get some time.  Thanks so much.  Off for some more adventuring…

2,000 Followers – A Thank You

Woooo doggie!  Alert the presses and fire up the ticker tape parade!  The Dimwit has gone and done it.  2,000 followers.  2,000 real genuine, funny, thoughtful, kind, and incredibly beautiful ding dong dingalings.  Nice.

We haven’t officially met, but I can confidently say that I love you all.   What a crew of misfits we’ve managed to put together that really seem to get this strange and precious thing we call life, and what a life it’s been for the Dimwit these past few months.

I attended a wedding last night.  It was something.  Two of my friends from the film industry got hitched, and well, a film industry wedding is very much like what you’d expect.  Lots of creative types, colorful outfits, beautiful decorations, open-minded sentiments being shared, gay couples, straight couples, lots of love, an open bar, plenty of dancing, and the Dimwit right in the middle of it all, just having a ball and making plenty of embarrassing moments to regret the following day.  Thank goodness I passed out in my wedding clothes face down on my bed before I left too many Facebook messages and sent out too many texts.  I sent one to this really pretty girl that told me I smelled nice and I’m pretty sure that I blew it.  That’s the way it goes.

I was talking to one of my friends last night before I took one to many visits to the open bar.  I was telling her a little bit about my blog.  What an awfully lame thing to talk about at a wedding, but here’s the thing.  It was just nice to have a discussion with other creative people about writing and art, and all that sort of stuff.

I’ve been holed up in my apartment for a while and haven’t been doing a lot of socializing lately.  It’s been a little tough on me, because I’m a normally a fairly sociable guy.  But that’s just the way it’s gotta be when I do writing.  I can’t have distractions and a million people texting and calling me to come over to eat perogies for dinner.  Sorry, but the Dimwits gone mad and he’s busy writing Photoshop tutorials.   Hope you understand, but you probably won’t, but you’ll just have to get over it anyways.

So I was sharing with my friend a little about my writing process.  It’s really crazy.  My apartment looks like a bomb went off.  Empty cartons of Franzia boxed wine on the floor, stacks of clothes piled to the ceiling from two months of neglecting laundry, papers and unopened mail strewn all over the place, garbage overflowing, stacks of photo albums taking up half my bed, piles of dirty dishes, ect, ect, ect.  If anyone saw it, they’d surely know that a madman lives there, and they would probably slowly back away.  It’s a sight to behold, but that’s just how I write.  I let everything else go for a few weeks or a few months, and I let myself go truly mad.

I’m back to work now on a TV pilot, so the madness has come to an end pretty much.  I’ve got to be presentable.  My job requires me to deal a lot with the public and I’m the face of the company.  I meet with the police, borough officials, business owners, principals, pastors, real estate agents, and I have to knock on strangers’ doors to ask if we can use their house for filming.  I can’t be a total madman out in the public!  So I’ve pulled it together, cleaned up my apartment, did the dishes, washed 8 loads of laundry, and now I’m back to mixing it up and meeting all kinds of folks along the way while I’m out scouting for locations.  What a life indeed.

Well, anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to lately.  Super busy, but not too busy to offer up a thank you to my fellow dimwits.  I really appreciate reading all your comments, all the likes, shares, reblogs, and such.  It means a lot to me.  But once again, a simple thank you isn’t quite enough to show my appreciation.  So how’s about an autographed photo of the Dimwit out on a nice picnic with Jennifer Love Hewitt, laying on the blanket next to one another, doing a little nuzzling while staring away at the puffy clouds.

Sending my love to all of you wonderful guys and gals.  Thanks dimwits.  You’re the best.  

So I promised  some shout outs for this next round.  A promise is a promise is a promise, and I try to make good on my promises.  So here you go.  Here’s some other sites that you dimwits should check out.

1.  Parallel Universe –  It’s my friend Debz!  Besides being super cute and being a delightful soul, she’s also a great writer.  She writes these awesome poems and I’m jealous.  If you’re not a poetry person, fret not.  She also has reviews, excerpts from her book, and a variety of other postings.  Debz would love to have you around, I’m sure.   So go check out her blog please.

2.  Sound Hippy – I’m a music lover.  Can’t get enough of it, so I wanted to give some love for my musician friend, Becky.  She has a video of this really great cover she did of a Nick Drake song, but her originals are freaking sweet too.  So go give Becky’s music a listen and offer to buy her a granola bar or something.  Isn’t that what you hippies eat??  It’s gotta be better than the peanut butter & jelly sandwiches that I lived on the past few months.  Jeez Louise.  It’s good to be working again.

3.  25 To Fly –  Imagine the odds?  Here’s another rock star with the name Becca.  She’s a redheaded twenty-something year old southern ballerina turned business student with a mean set of drums.  Tell me if that isn’t a lethal combination of skills and traits!  Her blog is good for a lot of laughs for sure.   Leave it to those fiery redheads to stir up some trouble.  In the good way, of course.

Well, like I said, I’m super busy but I plan to keep writing and posting whenever I can, when I’m not out mixing it up, making a fool of myself to pretty girls and eating pierogi dinners with these sweet, old ladies that seem to take a liking to the Dimwit.  Perks of the job.  I meet all these nice people when I’m out scouting locations and I get fed well.  I’m about to gain 30 pounds in the next few months.  It’s gonna be awesome just like you dimwits.  Thanks again.

 

Chris Hinton’s Pathway To Success

Ahhhhh, I’m so pumped right now!  I just got a call an hour ago for work.  This is incredibly exciting news.  I can’t even begin to tell you why, but I’m going to try anyhow.

I don’t know many of the details about the project just yet.  I just know it’s a TV pilot of some sort and I have to read the script and begin preparing for work tonight.  I’ll be working on the project the next three days and possibly the next few weeks and beyond.  That’s how it goes in the film industry.  One minute you’re busy writing and creating a blog, avoiding friends and social obligations to focus all your energies into doing something that you really love, and the next minute you get a call at 6:30 PM on a Friday evening.

“What are you doing this weekend?  How about the next few months?  You busy, or you wanna start scouting tomorrow on a TV pilot?”

Hell yeah, I wanna start scouting tomorrow on a TV pilot!  If you dimwits only knew how challenging the past few months have been for me.  I’ve been out of work for a long time.  Without boring you with all the details, the state of Pennsylvania had a major snafu with our film tax incentive this year, which meant that me and a lot of my friends were without work.  No work means funds dwindle quickly, bills go unpaid, and you eat lots of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  And worse yet, it leaves you with no money to drink booze.  Being broke sucks a fat one.

Boo hoo, you putz.  Get another job.  But it’s not that easy, and I didn’t want to get another job making $7 an hour.  It’s a waste of time.  I realize some people have to do it to support their families, which kudos to them, but I don’t have a family to support, so I’d rather have my bills go unpaid than work at a crummy job taking home $200 a week.  Instead of working at a job for slave wages, I used the opportunity to do some writing and maybe begin establishing my future.

The film industry is a great gig, but it’s too unpredictable.  One year you make great money, and the next year you make jack crap.  I’m terrible at budgeting money, so this year I ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, holed myself up in my apartment, and wrote my ass off the past few months trying to establish a future for the next time I’m out of work.

I don’t know where any of it’s headed.  Maybe there isn’t a future in writing for me, but I have to find out.  So that’s why I started this blog.  To practice writing, to put my creative talents to work, and to build up a network of fellow writers, artists, and creative spirits.

It seems to be going well so far.  I’ve gotten nearly 2,000 followers in two months, and the  feedback has been very kind.  It gives me encouragement to keep writing, so I just wanted to say thanks.  The peanut butter and jelly sandwiches taste extra good after hearing things like, “This is my new favorite blog.”  “You’re really hilarious!”  “OMG, I want to totally marry you and have six of your curly headed babies.”

Well, all right.  This has been a very good day.  It’s maybe premature, but I’m going to use my credit card to go buy some whiskey tonight, and read through a script until 3 in the morning, make some notes, wake up 3 hours later, and go to work.  I might not be available to reply to comments as much in the next few weeks, but I’ll try my best, because your comments are what kept me going these past few months.  It might sound like BS, but it’s true.  So keep commenting if you’d like, but don’t take offense if I don’t respond for a while.  It just means I’m busy with work, or drunk on whiskey, dancing around my apartment naked at 2 AM, which happens more than I’d like to admit.

Anyway, since you guys have been so cool to me, I wanted to leave you with my keys for a pathway to success.  I realize someone who just spent the past few months eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches probably isn’t the best spokesperson for success, but I can feel it just around the bend.  I think I’m a few years away from accomplishing some big things, so I’m going to let you in on my secrets so you can achieve success as well.

It’s time to go buy some whiskey and read a script.  I’ll leave you with Chris Hinton’s Pathway To Success.  Print it out, hang it on your fridge.  Look at it everyday.  Cheers, you dimwits.  Thanks for being awesome.  

Photoshop Lessons – How To Photoshop A Mary Poppins Flying Umbrella Witch Poster

Well, first off, let me begin with an apology.  I was not myself the last tutorial.  I was angry.  I was furious.  I wanted to smash Jon Bon Jovi’s face off the side of a curb and bury his Olivia Newton-John looking hair into the bowels of the sewers of New Jersey.  It was just a very bad day, but nothing that a lot of whiskey and a few jagerbombs can’t fix.  So, sorry for that.   Pulled it together, dusted myself off, and ready to go.  It’s time to begin our supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Mary Poppins lesson.

So let me be the first to admit that I’ve never seen this damn movie in my entire life.  You’d have to shoot me first before I go around watching Mary Poppins.  But somebody made the request that since we did ferocious wolves in pop up tents the last time, this time could I do one more for the ladies and gay gentlemen.  So I said, “Fine.  It would be my pleasure.”

Since I’m not familiar with Mary Poppins, I did a little fishing around online.  As far as I can tell, it’s about some super nanny that flies around like a witch, wearing floppy hats, except for using brooms to fly around in, she uses an umbrella.  Sounds like a winner.  I’ll be sure to check it out sometime, right after I finish up my will and swallow a fist full of pills.

Let’s begin today’s Photoshop lesson and get it over with, shall we?  I suppose we shall.

Step 1:  Pray To Jesus

This step is self explanatory, so no need to ramble on.  In addition to praying to Jesus, I will be listening to lots of Pantera.  Ladies and gay gentlemen, feel free to substitute Pantera with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.  Whatever floats your boat.  To each their own.

Step 2:  Selecting Flying Umbrella Witch Images To Combine

Above are the two primary images I’ll be combining together to make our Mary Poppins flying umbrella witch poster.  On the far right is a photo of my Mom and my youngest sister.  As you can see, my Mom is making her usual goofy face, holding an umbrella the size of Jupiter, and doing her best to embarrass me in public.  She will make a perfect Mary Poppins flying umbrella witch for the purpose of this demonstration for sure.

Step 3:  Getting Rid Of The Floppy Hat Flying Umbrella Witch

So by now, you’ve already learned to do enough lassoing of ferocious wolf heads and smoking hot blonds in previous lessons, so I’m going to skip that portion.  I will teach you some new tricks to become a Photoshop master like me, so one day all of your friends will bow down to you in mighty awe.

Go to the upper, left hand corner and select the Clone Stamp Tool.  Here is a visual of where you can find the tool.  Take a good look, cause it’s the last time you’ll be seeing super nanny flying through the air, toting around her oversized duffle bag, and looking pensively off into the distance with her rosy cheeked witch face.

So basically, I’ll try to walk you through this as best I can in as few words as possible.  I don’t feel like being here all day looking at flying umbrella witches, as I’m sure you don’t either.

Make a new layer of the Mary Poppins original photo.  Once you’ve got a new layer, select a sample of the clouds using the Clone Stamp Tool by pressing Option click.  Once you’ve got a sample to clone with, you will essentially be copying portions of the sky and clouds to cover up super nanny extraordinaire.  Here is a visual of what the process should look like.

Son of a bitch, not again.  Sorry for the screaming bald-headed eagle Photoshoppers.  That’s my mistake, so just ignore.  We will get to you in a minute baldy, so shut your beak and give it a rest with all the screaming before I lasso that beak shut for good.  I already have enough of a pounding headache between Pantera and flying umbrella witches, and honest to God.

I have no idea why I do this crap to myself.  Making these Photoshop tutorials.  I never liked Photoshop in college to begin with, so here I am teaching Photoshop lessons on Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bangs.  I swear it’s like I lived another life and was sent back to teach Photoshop lessons as a punishment or something.  Well, just ignore the screaming bald-headed eagle, and let’s move on before I have another nervous breakdown and have to go see my doctor again.

So as you can see from the photo above, I replaced the rosy cheeked witch face with a cloud.  If you look closely, you can see that I sampled the cloud to the immediate left, and basically just cloned that cloud to cover up Poppins’ floppy hat wearing face, which if you ask me is an improvement.   No offense to any Marry Poppins fans out there.  All things aside, I’m sure she’s a terrific nanny.

So that’s what you’ll wanna do.  Keep taking samples of the sky and clouds near the area that you want to cover over, so it matches up pretty close.  Doesn’t have to be perfect, because most of it will be covered up with my Mom and her umbrella the size of Jupiter in the next step.

Step 4:  Superimposing My Mom And Her Umbrella The Size Of Jupiter

Welp, that’s it.  I hate to cut this short, but I’ve reached my limit and we’re only 5 minutes into this godforsaken thing.  There’s only so much of flying umbrella witches a person can take.  I’ve got some frisbee to go play, so here’s the deal.  Basically, I lassoed my Mom and her big ass umbrella and made a new layer.  I took that image, and imported it into the Poppins photo.

It’s gets complicated from there, so you know what.  If you want a futher lesson, then how about you dimwits give me a call.  I’ll come over, we’ll drink some whiskey, smoke a cigar, and Photoshop flying umbrella witches all night until the sun comes up.  It’ll be a great time.  And if you’re a nice lady and you want a lesson, it will be an even greater time, except for I’ll either be passed out drunk or probably just be puking in the bathroom after staring at floppy hat witches all day, so probably won’t be as great of a time on second thought.  But just call me or something, cause this is getting to be a real headache for me to keep typing it out like this.  Whatever I did in the past life musta been something major, that’s all I can figure.

I’m wrapping this nightmare Poppins witchfest up, and getting sloshed.

Here’s your Mary Poppins flying umbrella witch poster.  I added in a screaming bald-headed eagle, because I saw in a few photos that Mary Poppins likes birds.  Just for good measure, I added a wicked thunderstorm and a couple of fierce lightening bolts, cause I thought it looked pretty cool, and more like something that super nanny witches would probably be into.  I also gave my Mom a rosy cheeked witch face, so here you go.

Congratulations on making a Mary Poppins flying umbrella witch poster.  That concludes the tutorial for today.  Join me next lesson as I teach you how to Photoshop yourself into the previous life, and correct all the mistakes you’ve made using the Magic Eraser Tool found in the upper, left hand corner.  Can’t wait.