koolman's Journal

Took on a big video editing project for a local credit union, mostly because I need the money, partly because I needed something to take my mind off my personal state, which drifts in and out of gray fog to black melancholy.  The project has been a challenge, to say the least...while there are moments in the project that call for my passion, overall, the projectr is about quantity, not quality, and I feel like a machine.  It's almost done thank the Lord living God.  Much as it's nice to be a steely hard man of lust and machinery, it's important to keep that tender part of the heart alive as well. 

Since a potential relationship hasn't surfaced, that part of the heart is being diverted into a labor of love filmmaking project that I began over 10 years ago and did a partial edit on shortly before my brother died.  It's on the American Civil War.  Some friends and I traveled to several battle reenactments around the U.S., and I captured incredible scenes of battle and camp life in various times of day and night...really beautiful, compelling imagery...guys boiling potatoes and coffee by the light of the fire, tents with lanterns, sunrise in the cold air with breaths being seen as they nail down tent pikes and tend to their similarly mist-breathing horses, and some ferocious battle scenes, some of which I was allowed on the field to capture with the guys, being dressed as a surgeon with my camera hidden in a napsack so as not to destroy the period illusion for the spectactors.  Quite a feeling to be twenty yards away from a column that is leveling their muskets at you and firing, albeit blanks (and all reenactors are required to aim slightly above the heads of the opposing line, for obvious safety reasons).

Right after my brother died, I abandoned this project, because I couldn't deal with any more death (which wars are famous for), and focused instead on getting through the grieiving process and trying to laugh along the way.  Now, understanding this whole aspect of life as I do, a lot better, it's time to delve back into the dark side and complete this project.  I'll provide a link to youtube when it's finished for anyone who desires to take a peek... will be a good holiday project, because the holidays were when my brother was sick, and am anticipating a good, deep, obsessive depression around the holidays, as has been the norm for the last two years, because his absence is sorely, extremely and grievously felt.

For comic relief, there is another video project in the works, editing and archiving to DVD all the family movies that I captured on video, from the late '80s to the present time...surely an epic, but, more importantly, it shows my brother when he was alive and well, and his beautiful car-loving relationship with his daughter and all of us. Brings back a lot of laughs and fond memories...seeing my brother in full-motion and hearing that soothing calm of his voice is wonderful...good for the rest of the family as well...it brings them the same kind of serene calm, as though he's still here and 10 years ago is like yesterday.  They've all expressed extreme gratitutde for my doing this and giving them copies.  So every holiday will be a mixture of laughter and tears...the archiving of family movies continues...