Thursday, April 26, 2012

Why do you tease me, you know I can't resist..

I begin this sentence while listening to the softly comical voice of Julian Smith. I've talked a bit about my passion  for film, however Julian is where it all started. He has 90 videos on his channel located here, I'd recommend every single one. He originally started off with stuff that merely involved him and a few close friends, but has since progressed to such overwhelming success that he is probably going to be the next George Lucas or Martin Scorsese. He does his own music, directs, produces, and often stars in his own videos. They are usually hilarious. He releases one every Monday too, some which seem like they would take a lot longer than a week to produce, yet he does it without fail. With his acute sense of humour, a touch of slight irony (nothing is funnier than irony) and such an avid awareness of his audience, he pulls off both entertaining and extremely funny videos on a regular basis. He was my original inspiration - and still is - after being a supporter of his videos for four years now. I stumbled across him when he was only getting a few ten thousand hits on each of his videos, whereas now he gets in the millions. The title of this entry is actually a line in his new music video, Buffering. Yes, you heard me right, he sings too. Truly, a jack of all trades. Even though the video is coming from the perspective of an ironically "punny" choice of words - with his lyrics relating to both videos having to "buffer" (load) as well as relating to a potential love interest - he still has a decent voice, for what it's worth. The directing in this video is superb because it creates a sense of epicness to something that you would usually consider a slightly tedious, monotonous part of our every day lives. Enjoy.


Julian also has an alter ego, a character he created who (in his fictional youtube stories) appears to be Julian's cousin. It really is just him acting like a slower, less subtle version of himself. He names this alter ego Jeffrey Dallas, and also did a really good job with the singing/lyrics (with a rib-tickling performance too). In actual fact, it was an extremely catchy song, and I bought it on itunes, I enjoyed it THAT much. Perhaps you should too. It's almost like an ironic version of a semi mentally-challenged Mumford and Sons (another one of my favourite bands).



Watched a pretty cool movie tonight. I've always been a sci-fi and fantasy fanboy, so it tickled my fancy. Oh yeah, nearly forgot the films name, well here's the trailer too, for Chronicle:




Even just the trailer gives me chills.

On a personal note, got an email back from a college close to where my girlfriend is living, in Ireland. To cut out all the boring shit out, the main problem for any South African - or any non eu student - when trying to find a college or university to study in the UK or EU - is the financial aspect. The prerequisites for many of the colleges aren't too high in terms of marks, so that's not a huge problem for me (even though I could've done way better in high school, lazy!). But the email seemed quite optimistic, at least relatively speaking. A lot of the other colleges/universities I emailed came back with figures like 10 000 -15 000 Pounds, which is like R150 000 + per year, excluding any living expenses, which simply isn't an option for me (as well as many other young middle class South African prospective students). Basically, the gist of the email was that it would cost roughly 5000 euro (+- R50000) which isn't THAT bad compared to South African tertiary education facilities, plus I would be studying something I love (Film, TV, video production) as well as probably working part time too (to support living expenses etc). But the big plus would be that I'm close to the one I love. Assuming everything went to plan, of course.

I find it utterly frightening how difficult it is for a South African to try an attempt any form of studies in the United Kingdom and/or Europe. The prices are so ridiculously high you would either have to be from an amazingly well off family, or receive some kind of grant for your studies (from which government/country I'm not sure).


Hmmm, pretty tired tonight. Probably actually shouldn't have attempted any form of blogging, considering I have work in the morning. I don't like short entries either, so it kinda frustrates me that I'm ending this entry here. Oh well, I'll have another one (hopefully longer) in a day or two. 




"I’ll tell you a riddle. You’re waiting for a train, a train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you don’t know for sure. But it doesn’t matter. How can it not matter to you where that train will take you?"




For now I'm going to leave you with a song from one of my all time favourite, film composers, Hans Zimmer. Plus it was one of the songs in the Inception  score, one of my top ten movies, ever. You know when you watch a movie with someone, it increases the movie's sentimental value tenfold. Yeah well - this movie is kinda like that. The song is brilliant too. Hans Zimmer - Waiting for a train. 






"You're waiting for a train. A train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you. But you can't know for sure. But it doesn't matter - because we'll be together."





2 comments:

  1. Julian Smith is so funny and I see from a film makers perspective that he has great compotsition, lighting etc! Awesome, if you want to be something then put your all into doin whatever it takes to make your dreams come true!

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  2. Hey Kirst, appreciate the comments, hopefully I will achieve the greatness that Julian has achieved - one day! :D

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