Back in early 2000, I was introduced to a local entertainment magazine in the best possible way, by being featured on the cover. A few months later, I happened to meet the editor and publisher and eventually got involved in the publication myself. It was quite the adventure for a while, but in the end it was more trouble than it was worth for something that wasn't really what I wanted to be doing. I hadn't heard anything from the original publisher since he left the publication a year or two later, and I hadn't even heard anything to speak of about him until I got a note this past week from Jared Jacang Maher, a writer at Westword, a local weekly publication, letting me know that Gary was the subject of this week's cover story, Big Trouble. In case you're not familiar with Westword and the types of stories they cover, let me point out that, unlike Go-Go, being on the cover of Westword is generally not where you want to be.

Scary stuff. Pretty shocking, too. My own exploits since those days seem much more tame by comparison.

I think I'll keep it that way.

Even though production on the movie, "The Wrong House" is on hold, I've still got two films coming up in the next couple of months that are planned to be shot at least partially out here at the treehouse.

In some ways it's a little like hosting a party--especially one of those Hollywood parties where you spend the evening hangout out with various actors, directors, and movie producers. Film production involves more (and more expensive) equipment and (ideally) less alcohol, but there's always plenty of refreshments, whether it's a party or a movie.

One big difference, though, is that when it's a movie, the production company typically takes care of cleaning your house before and afterwards. Sort of like one of those maid services, except you don't have to pay for it. If "The Wrong House" was getting shot out here, they might even have dressed up in frilly French maid outfits to do it...'cause that's what was in the script.

And, you know, there is definitely something to be said for a script that actually calls for the actors to be dusting, cleaning, and stuff like that.

...except, now that I think about it, there's the one major drawback that they'd have to put all the dust *back* between takes. That part's not so great. Hmmmm....

Oh, well. I've got the director and a couple of lighting people for one of the upcoming movies coming by in a couple of hours. I wonder if I can convince them that a new paint job on the back hallway is critical to the plot....

Since more and more of what I'll be working with will be in high-definition video, I figured it was about time to add a high-definition "home theater PC" to the treehouse stable.

Meet "Jagular," an AMD x2 3800 based machine built on the ASUS AN832-SLI mainboard. Currently I'm using a single XFX GeForce 7800GT for the video card and I have no particular plans to actually install a second to make use of the board's dual x16 SLI capability. I actually decided to use this particular board because of its passive heatpipe cooling system and the lack of noise-generating fans that entails. It still does use some conventional cooloing fans, but at least they're all of the large, slow, and quiet variety. I used a Zalman CNPS-9500 copper CPU cooler that's nearly as big as the power supply for the processor and I've mounted a 120mm low-noise fan outside the case on an 80-to-120mm fan adapter. I thought about using one of the new fanless, passively-cooled power supplies, but, since I have to exhaust the heated air from the case interior *anyway*, not having a power supply fan would simply mean that I'd need to produce the same amount of airflow some other way. I might as well spend a bunch less on a supply with a large, quiet fan of its own.

I ended up picking the CoolerMaster RealPower 550 because it's 1) quiet and 2) rated the most efficient across the benchmarks I found on the net. It's not without its drawbacks, though: it's a bit pricey and it's not especially attractive. There are no cable sleeves or anything else that would help make the interior of your case tidy and clean-looking. On the one hand, it does come with a myriad of power connectors suitable for all the common mainboard types so whether you're using a modern Intel-based board, a current model AMD-based board, or a workstation or server EPS-style board, you're set. On the other hand, it comes with a myriad of power connectors suitable for all the common mainboard types, so you have to stick all those extra cables and connectors *somewhere*.

For the hard drive I picked up a Samsung SP2504C 250GB SATA II drive. It's relatively quiet, fairly cheap, supports 300MBps SATA II (as does the mainboard), and did well in benchmark tests, faring better--relative to comparable models from other manufacturers--than earlier models from Samsung. It's concealed in a CoolerMaster CoolDrive 6, which combines a hard-drive-enshrouding heatsink, a front-panel display, four temperature probes, and a four-channel fan speed controller, which allows you to adjust the speed of up to three fans besides the one internal to the unit itself. It also comes with software that's mostly nonfunctional, but it doesn't look like it would do anything terribly useful anyway even if it did work. Mostly it just starts up automatically when you boot your system and then crashes randomly after a while.

All told, the video card fan is a lot noisier than everything else put together, but even that isn't all that noisy once the system has finished booting up. Like the rest of the fans, it adapts to the temperature, so it's possible that it'll get noisier once it gets more of a workout than I've put it through so far. I could replace the stock fan with a quieter aftermarket cooling system, but I haven't decided how long I'll be using this particular video card in this system. That'll depend on what ATI and NVidia do with high-definition video support in the coming months.

But it'll do for now. I still have to do some more tinkering, especially with the software end of things, but it's a start. With luck I'll have it ready for prime time in the next couple of weeks.

I've come to the realization that making a movie is a lot like building a fancy custom automobile. There's a lot of parts that go into a movie, but eventually it all has to come together in a form that a distributor can sell. If you've ever sat through the credits at the end of a film, you have a rough idea of just how many people it takes to make a movie (a lot) and some moments make it more obvious than others that the different tasks have been assigned to a vast horde of talented, creatve individuals who turn their skill and inspiration into a collection of remarkable components...without, necessarily, anywhere near enough coordination between the people working on different parts of the project or, for that matter, anyone who has a clear idea of how all those parts are supposed to fit together.

And so you end up with a large collection of parts: expertly detailed and finished pistons that look like flamingos; an elegant neo-classical style engine block that, unfortunately, does not have flamingo-shaped cylinders; an aerodynamically-designed hood that, for reasons unknown, covers the passenger compartment; three crystal-clear plexiglas tires; axles that are only six inches long; and an eighteen-inch scale model of Stonehenge hand-crafted in stunning faux-rock finished foam.

...which all needs to be turned into a vehicle capable of driving in the same direction. At the same time, even.

I've given variations on the "things you should should keep in mind when planning your movie shoot" speech so many times I'm sure I could do it in my sleep. Given the way I talk, that would pose a potential safety hazard to anyone within about five feet, so it's just as well that filmmakers never try sneaking up on me while I'm snoozing.

But, speech or no speech, I've never managed to escape without at least a few "what were they thinking?" moments when trying to help filmmakers put the parts they have together into a form that a distributor can sell and, therefore, be willing to pay for.

Sometimes technology makes it easier to put all the parts together--it would be a lot harder to be doing the audio and video edits with razor blades and splicing tape--but it adds new challenges, too. In this week's adventure, the task is to get all the different video and audio elements collected together and over to a service house where all the necessary masters can be created when everything was shot and edited in high-definition.