Another day, another adventure

So, most of you should have heard one way or another now that I’ll be in New York next week for the NFL Draft for work. Frankly, I’m honored that I get to attend. Not everyone from the office goes to these events, and this is the first one I’ll be a part of. I’m also extremely excited, as I’ve a) never been on a “business trip” before, and b) never been to New York City! How crazy is that? My first business trip and trip to NYC all wrapped up into one thanks to the NFL. Have I mentioned how much I love this job?

As for the trip itself, I leave bright and early tomorrow morning and will return to Los Angeles the Sunday after the draft. All week long I’ll be covering various events leading up to the draft, like the Madden cover release party where they announce whether Adrian Peterson or Barry Sanders will be on the cover of the 2014 Madden game, as well as the draft itself. I won’t be writing, but shooting and editing short videos, which has grown to become a substantial part of my job these days.

It’s been fun mixing it up with video again. I definitely had to knock the rust off, as I hadn’t been behind or operated a high-quality camera in well over a year before I started working at NFL.com, but thanks to the endless videos I shot and produced during my days at Marquette, slowly but surely I’ve been getting all of those old skills back.

Robbie – A sci-fi short film worth your attention

Highlighting creative film-making is something I wish I did more on this blog. So there’s no time like the present to get back into it! Last summer when I was still with RCR Pictures, as we were searching for a director for one of our projects my co-worker stumbled upon the short film embedded below. It’s called ROBBIE and was made by an Australian director named Neil Harvey as an anniversary present to his girlfriend. The best part, is that he created this short using only downloaded footage from NASA archives. It’s an awesome little sci-fi short, so check it out before reading on:

Alex’s Top 10 Movies of 2012

Hot damn. The annual kudos fests have all passed, and I’ve yet to put out my top 10 movies of 2012! And now we’re already into April and I’m looking like some sort of miserable blogging failure. I tend to wear that look well, mind you. If you read my post last year, you’ll know I’ve shied away from making “best” lists, and instead compile a favorites list. This list will inevitably still feature some of what I believe are the best films of the year, but also films that I just found wildly entertaining. For instance, in 2010 my favorite film of the year was Fast Five, and the frontrunner for 2013 is already Fast & Furious 6. I mean, did you see the trailer?

Anyway, I’m prattling on. Here is a very quick, gut-reactionary favorite films of 2012 list by yours truly. Admittedly, not as much thought and tinkering went into this list as in years past. This is more or less the list my gut churned out when my conscience put a gun to it and forced it to write this list. So maybe that makes it more true? Who knows. Enjoy!

Exit Through the sidewalk

It’s been awhile since I added another iteration to this new series of posts on street art in Los Angeles that I’m legitimately excited about. Thankfully, I’ve been savvy enough to snap numerous photos of street art the past few months, and now have a backlog of art to get up on this blog. So let’s get things started with a piece of street art that puts the Hollywood complex under the microscope. Here’s a teaser, and you can see the rest deeper in the post.

Fast & Furious 6: Trailer Breakdown

If you’ve read this blog in the past year, or talked to me for more than ten minutes, you likely know Fast Five rekindled my long dormant love for the Fast and the Furious franchise. So much so, that Fast Five was my favorite movie of last year. And I’ve recently learned, I’m not alone in my fandom for what has become arguably the most entertaining franchise in recent memory (note: entertaining, not best, most profitable, or anything else of that ilk). For instance, check out this podcast where Bill Simmons and Adam Carolla gush about Fast Five for over an hour. Needless to say the moment I was most anticipating during last night’s fantastic Super Bowl game wasn’t the game itself, or Beyonce shaking it, or the commercials. It was the world premiere of the Fast & Furious 6 trailer.

And boy, was it fantastic. So much so, that I’ve decided to breakdown the awesomeness as there was so much compacted into that one minute spot. Before we get to the analysis, take a moment to re-acquaint yourself with this glorious piece of work:

Ah. Wasn’t that refreshing? Is your heart still thumping with adrenaline? Is your fist still pumping with excitement? Good, mine is too. Now let’s get into it.

Avoiding the busy trap: a lesson in living life

Image courtesy of the NYTimes/Brecht Vandenbroucke

I read a very interesting article back when I was working in development that really hit home. However, it’s taken me until now to actually blog about it. Ironically enough, the piece was called The Busy Trap and I believe it speaks directly to the unseemly way most of us are living our lives today.

“‘Cause I love football. Football is fun.” In other words, how Alex started working for the NFL

Alright. It’s time I told the full story of how I landed my new position as an Associate Writer/Editor for NFL.com. Here we go:

Let’s not beat around the bush. I was unhappy at my job at RCR Pictures. I had come to realize I didn’t want to do development as a career because the hours were long, the pay was low to start and I wasn’t creatively satisfied. I really liked the people I worked with, but I was in desperate need of a change.

I wasn’t quite at “burn down the building” status, but that’s because no one had stolen my red stapler… yet.

“INDYYYYYYYYY!” – Willie Scott, TEMPLE OF DOOM

For those of you who don’t know, a few years ago several of the men in my family and our close friends decided to start a tradition where we’d travel to one road Packer game a year. Last year, our inaugural year, we traveled to Kansas City… where we watched the Packers lose their only game of the year. This year, we traveled to Indianapolis… and suffered a similar result. That being said, we still had a great weekend both times in spite of the disappointing results of the games! Here’s a censored look at what went down in Indy:

11:47 pm PDT

I board a flight from LAX to O’Hare International Airport en route to Indianapolis. In order to get to Indy in time to meet the rest of the crew affordably, I had to take the good old red-eye.

5:40am CST

I arrive in O’Hare safe and sound. I grab some much needed coffee and breakfast from Starbucks, but not before I walk behind this curious fellow who, in an apparent effort of hipster resilience, decided against using the wheels on his luggage.

It has wheels, dumb ass!

This wouldn’t have been so curious if he didn’t walk like this for the better part of 10 min.  Oh well. I called the rest of the crew who were just getting on the road, and then I passed the rest of the time mingling with some Seattle fans on their way to South Carolina, and reading for work.

“Sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world, I feel like I can’t take it.” – Ricky Fitts, AMERICAN BEAUTY

One thing I’ve striven for on this blog is to remain A-political. I hate the state of politics in America today, and prefer to not shed light on either side’s penchant for slinging bull-shit. However, I read something political today that reminded me of the groan inducing quote from AMERICAN BEAUTY that this post is named after, so I had to write about it here.

You remember the scene, right? Wes Bentley plays Thora Birch the home video he made of the plastic bag dancing in the wind, and then spits that line of B.S. about the beauty in the world. It SCREAMS pretentious d-bag from the get-go, yet something about it always resonated with me. I felt there was some truth to it; there is so much beauty in this world, and often it is in over-looked places. For one such example, I present you with the following article: An Open Letter to Ann Coulter.

Exit Through the Roberto Cavalli

Here is the inaugural entry in a series of posts I’d been meaning to start for months: my collection of street art pictures from around LA. For those of you who don’t know, it’s named after the outstanding documentary EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP, which offered audiences a fascinating and comical look inside the world of street art.

The below images were taken outside a Roberto Cavalli store on Robertson Blvd in Los Angeles. Funny enough, it has been so long since I took these pictures that the store is now out of business! Nevertheless, they seemed a fitting place to start what should be a frequent series of posts for my blog.