The Following: My Thoughts On A New Show

Mid season, typically not my favorite time for a new show to pop up because we usually don't get A-list television.  This January gave me a nice surprise with Kevin Bacon headlining a brand new show with a much different spin on the detective genre.  The Following is a new hour long crime thriller that dives into the circumstances that arises when a serial killer, played by James Purefoy, escapes from prison to finish what he started ten years prior.  Kevin Bacon plays a retired FBI agent, a man whose down on his luck and living on water bottles filled with vodka.  His expertise is needed once more to find the man he put away. 
If you're not wanting to know what will happen in the pilot episode then read no further, spoilers are ahead.  Maggie Grace plays the last surviving victim of Joe Carroll; she's the reason why he escaped so he can finish his work.  Joe Carroll was, at one time, a professor who has a passion for the Gothic workings of Edgar Allen Poe.  The famous authors stories and books were a road map to how he would kill his victims. 
The FBI soon need Ryan Hardy, the FBI agent who put Joe Carroll away.  The story of how things came to be are told in flashbacks throughout the episode, some of which I won't dive into.  Need to leave some things a mystery so you'll go actually watch the episode.  Ryan is soon surrounded by young and eager agents, wanting in on every little detail in order to find the killer. 
We soon meet the Carroll family, the wife and two kids that Joe left behind after throwing his life away.  A nice little twist is when you realize that Ryan and Joe's wife had a relationship, presumably after Joe's incarceration.  As the story progresses, we soon realize the Joe Carroll has built a cult following while in prison.  His cult is now a bunch of people who plan to follow his way of life, by killing innocence.  The reasons are not known and the villains goal is still a mystery, but wouldn't that just be a buzz kill to know that little tidbit so soon?
Eventually the last surviving victim is taken from her home by her gay next door neighbors, followers of the serial killer.  Ryan uses his detective skills to find where she was taken, but by the time he finds her, its to late.  Ryan and Joe meet face to face, and soon Joe is taken back to prison.  Most would believe that a show couldn't go on after the main villain was placed back in prison.  It turns out that his plan is just beginning.  We find out that one of his followers is his own daughter.  Joe's daughter abducts her younger brother in order to have leverage to talk with his ex-wife in the next episode.  We also learn that an apprentice of Joe's is now ready to set out on his own and begin his rampage of death.  The show ends, basically giving us a glimpse at how the show will proceed, with Joe playing puppet master from prison as his followers do his bidding.
The show was graphic in its content, something not normally seen on television.  The villain is smart and sophisticated in his approach to things, acting as if he's fives steps ahead of everyone else.  The bloody messages and the way victims are killed, I'm getting the vibe that this show had some push in this direction by movies like Se7en and The Silence of the Lambs.  The show is dark and keeps you guessing as to what will happen next.  A great show and worth a look.

Solace: Our New Independent Film

Hey there to all my readers.  I know I haven't been on top of the blog in the last month or so, but I've been a tad busy with life.  Around July of last year I wrote that my friend and I were developing a film called Polybius.  This film is something we still plan on doing but we've basically come to the conclusion that what we wanted to do with it would cost to much.  So we decided to put it on hold until we have the budget needed to do it correctly.

Don't fret though, as we do have a project in the works, something that hasn't been done before.  We're developing a movie that's basically based on six short films, all of which range from the year 1938 to present day.  The basic concept of the project revolves around a haunted piece of property with a supernatural force that effects the town of Solace and a family over the course of 75 years.  The interesting part of all this is that each short film takes place in a different decade and each short film will be filmed the way it would have been with in that time frame.  For example, the story taking place in the eighties will be filmed a lot like a Friday the 13th film, the nineties version will be filmed like The Blair Witch Project.  I think you get the picture.  Below is a teaser poster of the film.

 

 If you haven't guessed by the poster, a monster is involved with whats happening around the town of Solace.  I won't go into specifics as to why the monster is killing and what exactly will happen to him, but I will say that the first short film is being shot next week and we might possibly will give you a glimpse as to what we're trying to do.  The first film is based in 1938, and though I can't give you details I can give you a glimpse as to what the creatures arm will look like in a concept drawing.

 

No color or exactly what the texture will be, but it gives you an idea of what it could be.  Let your imaginations run wild.  If you have questions and would like to know more, just comment.  Anyways, we plan on putting up a Kickstarter in a month or so, and I'll be sure to post a link in due time.

Hoax Morgan Freeman Thoughts On Connecticut Shooting

There's a statement online that's circulating on Facebook and Reddit stating an opinion on the shooting that happened Friday in Connecticut.  The statement is being linked to a well known Hollywood actor, Morgan Freeman.  The statement, in actuality, comes from a man by the name of Mark from Vancouver.  Even though the statement doesn't come from a well respected Oscar winner, it still rings true.  This is what Mark had to say about the shooting and why the news reports primarily focuses on the killer rather than the victims:

"You want to know why. This may sound cynical, but here's why.


It's because of the way the media reports it. Flip on the news and watch how we treat the Batman theater shooter and the Oregon mall shooter like celebrities. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names, but do you know the name of a single *victim* of Columbine? Disturbed people who would otherwise just off themselves in their basements see the news and want to top it by doing something worse, and going out in a memorable way. Why a grade school? Why children? Because he'll be remembered as a horrible monster, instead of a sad nobody.

CNN's article says that if the body count "holds up", this will rank as the second deadliest shooting behind Virginia Tech, as if statistics somehow make one shooting worse than another. Then they post a video interview of third-graders for all the details of what they saw and heard while the shootings were happening. Fox News has plastered the killer's face on all their reports for hours. Any articles or news stories yet that focus on the victims and ignore the killer's identity? None that I've seen yet. Because they don't sell. So congratulations, sensationalist media, you've just lit the fire for someone to top this and knock off a day care center or a maternity ward next.

You can help by forgetting you ever read this man's name, and remembering the name of at least one victim. You can help by donating to mental health research instead of pointing to gun control as the problem. You can help by turning off the news.

Now isn't that advise that every news corespondent, anchor, and television station should take into consideration?  I totally agree with his statement, and even though I know his advise will probably be overlooked, the majority of the public probably agrees with him as well. 

If your wanting to know about the names of the victims and read about them individually, go to:   http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/15/us/connecticut-shooting-victims/index.html

Need a Photographer?

I just recently made a page on Facebook for my photography.  Are you in need of a Photographer and not sure exactly where you can find one?  Well if your in need of a photographer then I'm your guy.  I specialize in event, wedding, product, model, and portrait photography.  I also work as a graphic and creative artist, and I'm able to create murals, portraits, logos, t-shirt, and Photoshop designs.  I also have a website you can check out at Livingstonoden.com.  You can find my facebook page here, and while your at it like my page.  Take a look at a couple examples below.

This was taken at a wedding, last year in October.

A Photoshopped picture for a musician to post on her website.

HDR (High Dynamic Range) photo.  Edited in Photoshop.

Thorns of Passion

Its been awhile since I've written in my blog, my apologizes.  Recently a friend of mine sent me a link to a short story on Amazon that's a little racy and slightly graphic in detail.  I'm not one to read a novel on sex and smut but since she pointed it out to me I figured I'd give it a look.  Its called Thorns of Passion: Short Stories of Temptation and written by an author by the name of Crystal Barnes.  I liked the story and liked that these short stories will be linked, basically creating a series of stories with the same characters.  It kind of falls in the lines of Fifty Shades of Grey and the writer promises a different short story every week until there's a conclusion.  Take a look, I think its worth it to see what the next story will bring.

Its A Good Day To Die Hard

One of my favorite action heroes is back in the fifth installment of the Die Hard franchise.  I don't typically post a blog unless I have a lot to say on a topic; but since this teaser trailer just came out and I'm pretty happy about the release of this movie, I thought I would share it with all of you.  Check it out at the link below.

It's A Good Day To Die Hard Trailer

The World Isn't All Bad...It Just Feels Like It Is.

I hear things all the time that the world is in total chaos, the end is near, and doomsday is upon us.  It's true that things are looking dismal lately, but I seriously doubt that the end of the world is just around the corner.  In reality nobody knows exactly when the end of the world will happen, it's not even stated in the Bible.  Things seem bad in the world.  Our government spends money as if we have an endless supply of it, while our deficit grows with every passing day.  Terrorist's want the U.S. to burn, while we fight a war that's very unpredictable with no end in sight.  Bombings happen daily overseas, and random shootings at schools and movie theaters are plastered all over the television.  After all I have mentioned and with the upcoming ending of the Mayan calender, people seem to get the idea that everything will end soon, and honestly I don't blame them. 

Lets go back about seventy years and take a look at how the world was then.  World War 2 was just beginning for the United States after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  Our government was in debt, people were poor, and things were looking grim.  The Nazi's were slowly taking control of Europe.  There were even random shootings happening in schools, city streets, and anywhere else you can think of.  Now if you compare what was happening then with whats going on now, doesn't the comparison almost parallel each other?

Now go back another seventy to eighty years.  Our country was split into two parts, the civil war was in full force, slavery was welcomed in the south, the government was slaughtering Native Americans, and a president was assassinated as the country was slowly falling apart with no hope for the United States.  Doesn't it almost look as if a pattern is forming here?  The farther you go back into our history, the worse things seem to get.  Before the civil war we had the Revolutionary War as the U.S. fought for independence from England.  Things were even worse in the century where Christopher Columbus sailed across the Atlantic.  The Black Plague killed close to 75 to 200 million people in the four years that it was at its peak, which is close to sixty percent of the worlds population at that time.

Today the argument that things are bad in these modern times because of how rapidly the environment is changing around us still arises.  It's true that the polar ice caps are melting and even some weather patterns around the world are different than they were twenty years ago.  The devastation the record setting outbreak of tornadoes caused last year in the south east of the United States made religious fanatics go in a tizzy, stating it was Gods wrath at work.  What most don't seem to remember is that a record setting outbreak of tornadoes also struck the south east in the early seventies, killing quite a few people.  The same goes for hurricane Katrina.  One of the worst hurricanes in the last twenty years, but go back to the early nineties and you get hurricane Andrew.  What made Katrina so bad were the levy's that broke, killing most of the population that stayed behind.  As a storm goes though, hurricane Andrew was a worse storm in terms of strength.  One hundred years prior to Katrina, another hurricane hit the east coast of the U.S. killing thousands.  Bad weather happens all the time and like anything else it comes in phases.  Our National Weather Service has only been keeping records for the last 150 years.  There is close to a couple billion years before records were even kept that we have no idea how bad weather patterns might have been before a human being was able to comprehend his surroundings.  There is scientific findings throughout the history of the world were the earth went through drastic climate changes, either getting very hot or very cold in a short amount of time.  Scientists have come to the conclusion that the earth has gone through at least three ice age's in the last one-hundred thousand years.  Things change!

What I'm basically getting at is the world seems to be in a bad place right now, and a lot of it should be blamed on our technology. The internet, television, and cell phones feed us all of this bad information from around the world, which gives us the impression that everything is going straight to hell.  In World War 2 we had no idea how bad things were over seas until the solders were sent back home and they told their families and friends just how bad things were.  Today we see people dying on cobble stoned streets on CNN and a daily death toll of our solders through internet postings.  Its sad to see the statistics and the news reels, but its true that we're constantly fed bad news on a daily bases.  Sometimes its nice to just turn off your television, close your laptop, put you cell in your pocket, and just walk away from the bad news from time to time.  As for the weather and how things are changing, its happened before just as its happening now.  The world isn't ending just because the temperature has risen a few degree's or a major storm kills hundreds; these things happen and will keep happening.  Just go with the flow, and don't worry so much.