marcusharwell.net

I’ve loved Elbow since I first heard them in 2002. Their last album was a corker, full of beautiful melodies, clever arrangements, and lyrics that made me ache to hear their wit. Guy Garvey has a gift for lyrics, and The Bones of You was my favorite song on The Seldom Seen Kid. I had to learn to play it, and put it on repeat until I knew all the words intimately, like a poem I had to recite in public.

I didn’t get much chance to blog the film while it was in progress, since we were shooting 15 or so pages a day and I was a wreck when I got home every day. But we had a blast, and the cast and crew were all terrific human beings who took their work seriously and tried to make the best movie they could.

There are pictures, of course.

Craft services was a good spread, but since I was in a swimsuit for the whole film, I stayed away from Doritos and cookies.

A few cast members let me snap them in candid moments.

More to come…

As a catchup post, we went to Santa Barbara back in mid-June, just to get away from Los Angeles for a bit and to visit a friend I’ve not seen in quite a while. We hung out with Bruce,

checked out the view,

Had dinner with Bruce, Sr.,

and went to the annual Summerland Solstice parade, which was way gayer than anything we saw at Gay Pride.

I think we’ve found a new getaway spot. Bruce was a great host, and the quick trip made it perfect for a weekend thing.

I’m starting the first day of shooting on the feature film I’m in tomorrow. It’s called Pooltime. I’m excited and a bit anxious, hoping I’ll not only remember my lines, but also how I want to say them, while being open to something different happening in-the-moment with my fellow actors. I’ll be posting a bit when and where I can about it.

Wish for me to break a leg.

Here’s a response to the shouty vlog post Perez Hilton put up a couple of days ago, wherein Breckin Meyer, Robot Chicken writer and capable actor, talks about his kerfuffle with Zac Efron during the Robot Chicken Skate Party:

More proof that Hilton is a giant douche, and Zac Efron is the coolest guy in Hollywood.

Yikes, I’ll try to knock these out in the next few. I had a student film audition in Studio City, just across from the Universal Studios parking lot. I read for a dad in a flashback scene, talking to his son during a hike in the woods. The director really liked what I did, he said, but a few have said that to me, and I’ve gotten into the habit of forgetting about the audition after I finish it (unless I think I did poorly, in which case I try not to beat myself up about it for too long).

Right before I walked into that audition, however, I got a call to audition the following day for a feature. That was exciting, especially since the director had already seen me work, and thought I was right for the lead role. Oh, yeah. That’s the kind of confidence boost I could use just before I do every audition. I did my thing, three or four times to the direction of the, um, director, and left. I hurried home because I had a full script to read before that next day’s audition.

Not much to tell about that one, since it went very well, and I booked the lead in it. What what? Yes, I got the part, and we shoot the second week of July. To undersate it a bit: I. Am. Excited.

Last week was a blur of auditioning, starting with a TMZ-style voice-over audition. Pretty straightforward, except for the rapid-fire nature of the readings. Holy crap. I walked into a room full of guys waiting to be heard, which is not uncommon, but the producer/director in charge was running us through at about two minutes apiece. They called me in, didn’t even want me to slate (in industry lingo, that’s where you say your name, and sometimes the role you’re reading, before the audition so they have a kind of meta-tag to identify your clip amidst a tape full of them), slapped headphones on and pointed for me to begin. I read through four pages of short, snarky quips, they thanked me, and I was out. Whoosh! In the time I was in the little room, another half-dozen guys had shown up. I do not envy the playback.

Wow, so long without a peep. Let’s break the silence with another music vid, even though it’s over a year old. I really like a lot of Bomb the Bass, but this video is my favorite. Anytime cute is combined with disturbing, it’s a win with me.

And so my obsession with Canadian music continues. Montreal’s La Descente du Coude (descent of the elbow, I think) knocks one out for indie rock.

More at their MySpace page.

The New York Times has an article discussing the rebranding of several corporations, notably Wal-Mart. I’m not against a redesign of any brand, provided the company has something new to offer (viz, BP). But what is Wal-Mart trying to say with their new logo (arrows are mine)?

I mean, what the hell is that asterisk for? Wal-Mart calls it a “spark.” Sure. To me, it punctuates many years’ worth of abysmal employee treatment. “Wal-Mart. Yay! Kinda!”

Kraft is trying the same thing, adding lower case letters for a “new” touch, but completely missing the boat with the graphic.

Do they sell flowers? Do they sell fireworks? I have no idea from the logo, but I know I can’t eat those. There was nothing wrong with the old logo, and they’ve trashed its simple power with this elaborate silliness. It just makes me think how apt the phrase “technicolor yawn” is.

In a similar vein, the new Cheer logo has multicolored spooge bursting from itself. I don’t mind the jumbled letters so much, it reminds me of my washing machine agitating the crap out of my clothes, and if they’d left out the splatter, they might have been onto something, particularly because the old logo is nothing special. But no, more is always better, right? Not to mention the tagline, “brightCLEAN” is the fused neologism of a corporation itself, not a description.

Pressing forward, Stop & Shop shot itself in the foot with its redesign.

The old logo is nigh perfect. And how do you rebrand a logo that embodies the name with a literal graphic? Why, you give it to a kid who knows how to use the copy & rotate functions in Illustrator! I don’t know what I can buy at Stop & Shop, but I’ll bet they have candied orange slices.

Super Fresh was on the right track, and they started with a rather bland logo, but the sage green doesn’t bespeak freshness to me, and the graphic is just superfluous. Not everybody needs a graphic with their logotype, guys. IBM, anyone?

Likewise, Sysco’s burning desire to get in on the lower case game wasn’t so bad. Their old logo is, admittedly, a bit clunky.

But they could have kept the instantly recognizable box graphic (which is clever, as Bill Marsh points out in the article, and bespeaks storage and transport), and that semicircle bit on the capital “S” says nothing about them or what they do, and it doesn’t fit in with the rest. Why add whimsy when it has nothing to do with your company? Sysco moves food from supplier to seller quickly and safely. That’s important, necessary work. Make that the focus of your brand, and you have our respect.

The only example I really liked was Aussie supermarket chain Woolworths. Like the font (if maybe a bit thin), like the colors, love the new graphic. Good work, Hans Hulsbosch.

The world is full of banal designers. I’m just amazed that they keep getting hired and paid to produce such ill-considered and counterproductive work.