Father Wrote the Play: by Leeland Greenmess

TA-DAH!

Here it is...the long awaited premiere of Father Wrote the Play: by Leeland Greenmess. If you haven't heard of it then that's okay but now that it's here you should definately tune in. If you want up to date ... updates on progress made in the series then get a Vimeo account at www.Vimeo.com and join the Father wrote the play channel! The story follows Leeland Greenmess on his quest to direct his fathers last play: The Haunted Conifer. Leelas journey begins when his father dies and bids him to go and direct the play. Although Leeland is hesitant at first he knows that as his father's dying wish he must go through with directing his father's play. Enjoy!

The Death of Father from Adam Robinson on Vimeo.

Cahoots

Cahoots from Joseph Griffin on Vimeo.

Well here it is...My first 16mm film. I think I did alright. although exposure seems a bit overexposed at time I promise that when you watch the straight projection it's fine...stupid DV. Anyway watch for the scene where I'm running behind Sam and you might see a glimpse of the tree that I hit and then try and find my one continuity error.

Hamlet

The long awaited release of one of my first ever feature length (approx. 8min) films is here. I found this forgotten project a long time ago. I saved all my video projects onto my external hard drive before moving out for school even before I went to BG and I have just recently started mulling through the archives. The embedded film is one of those archived creations. I made this abridged version of Hamlet for a group project for British Lit. during my senior year of high-school. Tig was my partner and to be honest...I don't know where he's gone now after school. Anyway, here's the film and be sure to watch it through to the end for the special reading by my brother Ryan.



Hamlet from Joseph Griffin on Vimeo.

Ground Zero

Here's some pictures my T.A. Evan took a few minutes after the catastrophe:

Hi8...Bye8

So my roommate and I were having a conversation when the topic of Hi8 camcorders came up. Everyone remembers the damn things from that wedding or birth or crappy zombie thriller they shot in their backyard in the 90s. Hell, I can recall one Christmas in specific where my brother, myself and the family's Hi8 cam ruined Christmas for the whole family. Probably my first attempt as a filmmaker, as far as I can remember, I dressed my little bro Andrew up in a big puffy vest and sunglasses. The idea was a sort of James Bond thriller in the arctic tundra of Siberia (Wisconsin in the winter time was an obvious choice for the location to get this effect across). Andrew slinked around the porch and down into the yard improvising as he went along. The bomb that he was supposed to disarm was in the shed connected to our house and underneath the porch. Mind you this is like Christmas eve now. Andrew goes in to open the shed door and instead of the bomb we discover every single Christmas present unwrapped and exposed to our curious little eyes. Yes we were in shock and yes we thought about just closing the door and leaving...but then...what if the bomb went off....right? So we continued in and at this point I broke the silence and began the commentary on the early unveiling. Me being that avid little filmmaker I was I forgot to turn off the camera and one present in specific I remember was one of those little plastic play kitchens with the little plastic burgers and hotdogs, Andrew wanted it, He noticed the picture on the box and felt no shame in going right up to it and approving of its presence. After we had scoured the shed we finally left and without stirring Mom or Dad. We thought we were in the clear! It wasn't until later however that we found that our efforts for being undetected were in vein. Mom found the tape in the Hi8 camcorder and along with it all the evidence that "Christmas was ruined". I don't remember a more sullen and remorseful Christmas in my life. Mom was mad and we knew it. Actually, to this day I don't think my mom has been more mad than she was on that fateful Christmas day. To be honest though, they should've just wrapped the presents instead of leaving them exposed for us to walk in on like that. I digress. Back to the original topic. Hi8. Not only does the quality of the Hi8 camcorder suck but my memories of it suck. It's funny to think about the bastardized medium now that we have DV and more recently P2 card technology. I made a joke to Adam saying if I ever make it in the film business I'm going to shoot my first and subsequent movies all on Hi8. It's amazing that they are still selling like hot on eBay and other marketplace websites. Then while I did a search on Hi8s I came across this link to a posting where a guy is set on transferring Hi8 to 35mm...which is a freaking joke! I thought it was funny and if you've ever used Hi8 and understand the superiority of 35 then check this link out and try not to laugh:

http://www.likeastory.com/boards/cgi/noncgi/Forum8/HTML/000373.html

Poor guy.

Edit: Then again the post was made in '98. Maybe he was serious...all the more hilarious!

The Big Zero - Five

Long time no update, so here it is:

I turned 5 this last Friday! My fifth leap-year birthday was kicked off as such that the year can only get better from here on.

The following series of photos depicts the results of my first film shoot here at Columbia. The shot was of my main character running to a woman who was hurt. I followed over his right shoulder as he ran. In retrospect I believe I had made a mistake and whereas I wanted a wide shot with a 16mm lens I in the process of winding the camera up had moved the turret so that I was looking through the 25mm lens. This vastly reduced my field of view but I decided to compensate by simply backing myself up a bit in order to get the desired framing. This decision would lead to a tree with a hole cut out of it and my whole face becoming very bruised. As I ran behind the actor I all of a sudden came to a complete stop and pain surged through my face. After coming to my senses I noticed I had run into one of the park trees and tore a chunk of it out with the sun shade on the 75mm yvar lens. Luckily the camera was alright...the only thing I was truly worried about after hitting the tree was the camera. Opposite the tree and it's injuries were me and my injuries:


I didn't black out and I never got any sort of a headache besides the initial dazedness that I experienced the whole thing was really no big deal. We continued the shoot as usual and the camera clicked of film just fine. After a bit we took a 30 min break in the nearby Dearborn Station and two off duty bike police had some sanitizer and a band-aid. The rest of the shoot went smoothly and once I got back to my apartment I simply iced the wound for about half an hour and then went on with my day. I couldn't have asked for a more eventful 20th birthday.

Back in Oswego this weekend I got the chance to help in a fellow scouts Eagle Court of Honor. Dave Stewart and I were good friends back when I was in troop 63 and to have the opportunity to see him get his wings was quite special.

I bought three movies while I was in Oswego since I got some money for my birthday.

1. The Third Man (Criterion Edition)
2. Hard Candy (creepy thriller gone controversial with a young Ellen Page)
and
3. Heat (a personal favorite featuring a scene with Al Pacino AND Robert Dinero)

All long awaited additions to my collection! :)

Other than all this my birthday was rather lax. No party but now that I think about it my mother sent me some cookies that have my name plastered all over them in the kitchen and that to me sounds like a good enough party so I'm out for now. Stay tuned for more details as things progress.

Red Car

Today was the long anticipated first day for me as an intern at Red Car Productions. It was a long day from the start but very exciting. I got up extra early so that I could walk the 30 minutes it takes to get to E Illinois street and the River East building where the Chicago Red Car Offices are. I got to Red Car a little bit early and that was a good thing since I got a bit lost in the River East building. I met the other intern, Chris, and all day I found myself running around northern Chicago. Food runs, coffee runs, deliveries...everything. I am beat. The people at Red Car are incredibly kind and their attitudes are anything but pompous. Tomorrow is my second day and with all the buzz that I was subject to my first day of work I expect tomorrow to be no different.

After work I caught the El up north and bought an old bike off Gunnar since my Huffy is a POS. Hopefully the bike will help make my errand running a bit quicker at Red Car. I only wish that I could someday work at a place like Red Car. I'd go into details about the building and the Offices but I'm tired as hell. I'll provide a detailed analysis of those and more subjects tomorrow...if I can muster the strength. Goodnight!

Fatal Feline II

So over the past two days I've been working hard at a little project for my future filming endeavors. My big bro and my sister in law have stopped into town this week and so I got my big brother to help me out with building a PVC pipe camera dolly. The finished product is pretty nice. We did some research online and came up with a hybrid design for the dolly and the track. I'm quite impressed with the end product. It all comes apart and can be stored in a bag and hefted around. even the track has been cut into 5' pieces. For the wheels my little brother Andrew gave me the wheels from his old skateboards. here's some picthahs -

Dave cutting angle irons to mount the wheels onto

Mounting the wheels

All the pieces of the dolly

The dolly on the track - Perfect fit!

we used doorstoppers fot the tripod legs to rest on.
later we're going to add eye holes to the PVC so we can fasten the tripod down securely with rope or bungie cords.

Perfect!

Each 5' track piece has a male and female connector end. This makes for easy assembly and makes the track portable.

Beautiful!

The next day right after our new years celebration with fireworks and confetti I got my brother and cat together to make a short film so I could test out my dolly. I don't own a professional camera, or tripod but I was able to slap something decent together. I used my dad's old Kalimar 960 tripod (not a fluid head) and my Casio Exilim digital camera to make my short which I've titled: Fatal Feline II. There isn't a Fatal Feline I but that's all part of the fun of it. It's a sort of Dramatic/thriller/horror/comedy that I think anyone, who owns a pesky cat, can find something to laugh about in it. Check it out on Youtube!

Fatal Feline II

Post Holiday Assessment

Alright...semi-long hiatus here from the old blog but I'm back!

Fall semester is over with no difficulty. Next semester I'm looking forward to shooting some film finally. Christmas yielded a Krasnogorsk 3 16mm film camera for myself and so I feel rather prepared. :)

If one can't tell I'm rather enamored with this hunk of Russian metal. I can't wait to shoot some footage with it!

In other news - Rock Band. I don't know if any of you have been graced with the opportunity to try this game but , for lack of better words, it rocks! Take your standard guitar hero game and then add a bass, a mic, and a drum set and that is rock band. This game, unlike the others in the genre, relies on multiplayer participation. Guitar hero is mostly a single player game where you have the option as an added bonus to plug in a second guitar and play your homies. Rock band does this as well but you can also choose to do a band tour where you and your buddies play and progress to the goal of rockin' the world. My brothers and I named our band "teh Griffin" and I have to admit we do rock. My character is a pirate with nimble fingers made for sliding through solos. Andrew's character is a hardcore hitter who isn't afraid to spank his drum set in public. Then finally there is Ryan...we put him on mic and he does pretty well...granted he doesn't always know the words. His Character is a bit emo but that doesn't hold him back from affecting the crowd with his mass vocals!

My favorite song in the whole game has to be Boston's Foreplay/long time. I was SOOO excited when I first got a chance to play it. I always thought to myself that that song would be a great one for guitar hero. I absolutely love that now with rock band I can play just about every instruments' part in that song now, save for the organ...watch that's coming next I bet.

Rock band is no doubt a great game but one must ask one's self whilst playing...well, why don't I just get real instruments and play those...

It is a bit silly I think to look at yourself while playing and realize that - except for the singer - you're not really playing these instruments....they're toys. They might as well just sell a big box with the actual instruments. Wanna start a band? Okay lets go buy....blahblahblah and start one. Could that be rock band's founding company Harmonix's goal...world wide rockouts! A world where those that can't rock are labeled obsolete and then exterminated...maybe we would live in a better world. At least there would be good music before we die.

I know it has been on all your minds...why the crazy villain 'stache. Because! I've been called Luigi, Dali, Snidely Whiplash, and sinister. I've been called pretentious, over-zealous, and shameless. I agree with you all. I don't use hairspray as doing so would 'cause brain damage and provide trips that I just don't want to go on. I use Clubman Mustache Wax:

It is simple to apply and smells like the air after a light rain. My reason for growing the 'stache is quite unclear even to me. Everyone wants a reason especially since I've been curling the ends lately. I just like it. My favorite characters from the old silent, noir, and western films I believe have a large subconscious influence on me. I also believe that Brandon Flowers, the lead singer for The Killers, and his recent mustache growth was a trigger for me. Whatever the reason may be the fact remains...I like my mustache. Your last and final question, I'm sure is how long will this "phase" of mine last...here's your answer:

(All in due time! Muahaha!)

The Columbian Review

Hello my faithful readers (I think I can pluralize that...),

Just putting out a notice for a new project that I'm working on. My roommate Adam and I have started a restaurant review page and have titled the project the Columbian review. We originally named it the Bearnaise Buddies but I believe that name to be a bit too cheeky. So far all we have posted is our mission statement but our first Vlog is in the woodworks and will be posted as our first video review of a place called the Thai Spice. Be sure to check out the link under my Friendlies section on the right column of this page. If you like what you see bookmark it and be sure to keep an eye out for new reviews as our restaurant quest matures. I'm honestly quite excited about the idea. As we progress through our reviews you may find other tidbits such as mini cooking show segments where Adam and I will show easy and tasty ways to make some of our own favorite dishes. Production is still pretty early as far as the site goes so expect changes and additions as time goes on and as I have a more free schedule to fiddle around with the layout. Until we get things going spread the word and keep checking the site for any new developments.

Nick & Susan

Here's our three minute film:

Nick & Susan

Feel free to leave comments and give a rating.

Again thanks to everyone who helped out!

Insomnia

Thanks everyone!

Although our efforts were in vain, working with you all was exciting and a privelage that no award from any big name company could ever award.About a week or two ago my roommate sent me an e-mail regarding an Apple sponsored contest called the 24 hour insomnia film festival. The idea was intriguing enough...24 hours to write-shoot-edit-post a 3 minute film using 3 of 10 prompts that are given to you at 9a.m. eastern time. The winning teams would be picked by the public for one prize package and by a panel of judges containing renowned directors and other such "pros". The prizes themselves were 5 apple mac book pros with a myriad of apps for editing and such.

Well Adam and I got a team together and started off. The team consisted of 5 people -

Adam
Myself
Gunnar Jebsen
David Aragoni
and
Jordon Hoeft

Since Gunnar is a graduate he couldn't technically be in the festival so we just credited him as our sound guy in the credits and had Adam's GF Erin (whom was basically already a team member with all the work she had put in) register herself in lieu of Gunnar.

We've spent the past week planning and getting everything together from elaborating on an idea of Adam's to pooling equipment and people. At the film building here at Columbia there was a flyer offering the rental of a Panasonic HVX...very nice camera to say the least. Our five man team was all thumbs up for renting the Camera despite the $200 a day fee. I called the liaison's name which was printed on the flyer and told him of our interest.

Now we couldn't do much until the festival started even in regards to writing but we decided to go ahead and write up a loose idea of an idea that Adam had wanted to film for and decided we could just amend it when we got the prompts so that it could cater to the requirements.

Friday came around and it was time to get the HVX. I called the liaison Jamieson again and told him we were ready to pick it up...then he mentioned he didn't feel like lending it to us since he realized we were rather inexperienced...his advice was to hire him to come along with us and watch the camera for an extra 50 to which I said...NO! thus began the problems. Although we didn't have an HVX we had an old mini DV cam that Adam owned and we decided that for our purposes it was all we needed anyway.

Saturday came and we all woke at the crack of dawn. Breakfast was served - cinnamon swirls - and the prompts were received. the prompts were as follows:

Location: Park Bench

Prop: Bird Cage

Character Name: Robin Darjeeling

Background Sound: Radio Static *

Costume: Tuxedo

Camera Angle: Dutch Angle *

Narrative Device: Dream Sequence

Editing Technique: Match Cut *

Dialogue: “Don’t tempt me.”

Makeup: Old Person

* We chose these

The dutch angle was easy since at the end of our film there is a part where the girl stands the guy up and also because it is one of my favorite filmic techniques.

The match cut was simple enough since it's such a standard editing technique.

and the radio static was all too perfect since what we had written even before we got the prompts was for there to be a split screen of two radios in the first and last shots.

Filming started at 10a.m. and ended near 7p.m. -

we rode the el to Gunnar's house where I edited the video and Gunnar mixed the sound and did some Foley sound.

from 8p.m. to 5 A.M the next morning we confined ourselves to Gunnar's studio except for two leg stretching breaks one of which consisted of a trip to El Taco Loco. there were a few scary points throughout the night that made for locked muscles and shouts of profanity. Earlt on in the video editing I lost all of my work when the power on Adam's Mac Book went out...someone had kicked the power cable out and I had forgotten to save. I was only about halfway through though and I was quick about getting everything back to where it was. Gunnar's sound mixing had also provided some mini heart attacks since after we loaded all the video onto Adam's external hard drive we realized Gunnar's computer had no firewire port so transferring the audio to him was mired by this. Thanks to Gunnar's 2 gig lexar thumb drive that problem was a non-problem. Then when he began mixing another problem occurred when all the drivers on his audio mixing program uninstalled themselves. Restart -reinstall - fixed -OKAY! once 5 a.m. rolled around it was time to upload!

5a.m.
.
.loading....
.
6a.m.
.
.error - file too large
.reloading........ :I
7a.m
.
.
.recompress resubmit
.recompress resubmit
.recompress resubmit
8a.m..................... shit.

Apparently Apple hate us. The file was supposed to be 15 mb and we had compressed our film down to about 2 mb...looked like shit but even so despite our accommodation the site kept telling us that the file was too large. We felt so good about our film and to have worked for so long to have it never shown just outright stinks. Many screams and clenched fists waved at the air as if Apple was some deity this morning here in sleepy Chicago. I was the loudest and most vicious of them.

Thank goodness we didn't end up renting that $200 HVX...that woulda sucked.

On the bright side we have this real cool little film. :-)

I'll post it up here in the next day or two...for now I'm going to bed. Maybe I'll get back on a regular sleep schedule tomorrow...

Till then here's some pics to hold ya over:

Erin's amazing set design work

We had an issue figuring out how we could match the dialogue we recorded earlier of Jordon (Nick) talking to Kim (Susan)
Gunnar came up with an instant solution - the sound genius that he is

Just inert earbuds here

Viola! The new Iphone. we made an audio file of Jordon's dialogue loaded it to an Ipod and just played it to her. Quite the technical feat.

Gunnar was pretty impressed with himself.. as was I

?????

...we're not stressed... :/

Mixing

Nice

The Darjeeling Limited

Spooky...absolutely spooky!

I won some tickets in a raffle to see Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited advance screening this previous weekend and tonight me and my collegiate friends went to go see it. I won't give away any plot since I'm sure you're all going to see it...you should. It was funny and it struck a very personal chord within me. For those of you who don't know the premise of the film it follows the story of the three Whitman brothers who set out to reunite on a spiritual journey through India via the Darjeeling LMT, a train line. The movie was artfully shot and although Wes did a spectacular job of orchestrating the mise en scène it's really hard to go wrong shooting in the beautiful countryside of India. The Whitman brothers played by Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Jason Schwartzman are met as they resurrect their relationship after a 1 year hiatus since the death of their father and this sets the scene for sibling feuds, absolutely hilarious bloopers, and moments of monumental camaraderie.

One theme that follows through to the end of the movie is the importance of family. Despite time and space family is always family. Sometimes life leads family apart but to keep those ties is an inherent goal and to some is worth traveling across India and risking your life for.

The spooky part comes where I could absolutely relate with the brothers, minus the whole traveling across India thing. My father is quite alive, thankfully, but my father's father died in April of 2007 after fighting cancer. Since his funeral there hasn't been a large scale family reunion. I don't want to say our family has grown apart but I feel that since our loss there hasn't been a moment for us to all sit around a table and have our own spiritual adventure. I love all my family tremendously and I used to look forward to having large get togethers and Grandma and Grandpa's house. Grandpa was always the center and seemed to hold us together. I lie in saying that I haven't seen family since his death because I have but those reunions filled with endless platters of food, hearty laughs, and games of backyard baseball where all the balls would innevitably end up in the neighbors yard are so long passed. I feel I have lost touch with some family and would absolutely love to just catch up. Mrs. Whitman put it best...I forget word by word what she said but something along the lines of maybe we should try not talking and just show how we feel. I feel my family needs to stop using words and just be. Just share being. Sitting together eating together and best of all laughing together. Grandpa would want that. thoughts lead to words and words are the worst means of communication.

I'm done. I feel really good being so moved by a film. It has been a long time since that has happened to me.

Aside from the D.L. I've had an altogether spectacular time here in the windy city. I went to a tea party where I won the advance screening tickets, movie poster, and other assorted D.L. merchandise and then I had two cookouts. I LOVE COOKOUTS! I promised you some pictures ma so here they are...wish you could be here to share in the festivities!

Me with my buddy Roman Coppola son of Francis Ford Coppola and producer/co-writer for D.L.
This was from the previous previous weekend at the screening of part one of D.L.
Hotel Chevalier
After the clip there was a Q&A, very interesting to say the least.

we were there starting the line at 4

stoop sitting till 6

Adam and Erin

watching the sitarist

The Sitarist

First one in the door and the holder of the winning raffle ticket shown here

me burning myself

Sipping on Darjeeling

Joe Griffin + fire - fear = good

We are go for cook

Adam surveying the damage

Shopping for consumables

mmmm

Hey

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/eae26bb96d - Watch this

Mic Night at the Fixx

Today (yesterday) was perfect.

I slept in until work at noon. Did barely anything the whole time. Got off at 4. Went to the Film meet and greet and got my name and number passed around to a few directors that need help with films this semester. Met up with Mars (short for Marshall [ A friend from my Development and preproduction class]). Met Gunnar up north off the Belmont stop and signed up for an open mic night slot (we've been practicing here and there). Mars being the savvy photographer that he is took pictures of us at the show - I'll have to get some pics to post. Gunnar and I did two of three songs we prepared (kinda miffed about being cutoff before our show stopper) - Gunnar was on guitar and sang and I sang harmony vocals and accompanied with mouth harp. our lineup was:

1. Kings of Convenience - Manhattan Skyline
2. Gunnar Jebson - Caught a cold in my bed
3. Jim Croce - One less set of footsteps ( : ( stupid two song limit)

Granted not all my days are this eventful but still ...

Right here is perfect.

School is exciting, work is easy and pays well, and in my free time I do things that I absolutely love to do, with other people! Sounds sad in a way but when I juxtapose my summer happenings to what's happening right now I honestly feel as though my feet can touch the bottom and my head is above the water. I'll die before I ever have to go back to the way things were this past summer - No friends, underpaid for painstaking work, and no sense of direction. I hated it!

but I'm here now. Finally.

I can't wait for next week's open mic night!

In Retrospect

Alright...long week

1st line of business - Columbia is everything I hoped it would be and more.

For the first time since high school I feel I'm at a place that will lead me to where I need to go. Classes are amazing and my profs. make it all the better. My Development and Preproduction prof. looks like Ed Harris and talks like Billy Bob Thornton and my History of Cinema prof.'s name is Ben Hur Uribe, no kidding. I got a job through the school doing bitch work but I'm being paid 8 bucks an hour (25¢ more than my job as a security guard) and I've learned more in these first 2 weeks at Columbia than I did over the course of a complete year at BG - FACT.

My roommates are the shiz and I've done massive networking, taking names and promising to kick ass.

Gunnar and I have been chilling out anytime I've had free time. Just the other day we went over to the beach by the aquarium and played Aerobie for a couple of hours. Earlier last week Toyoyom Cound came up and visiting and we just meandered around town...not lighting fireworks off. Then earlier this week I got a phone call from Josh Huppert who was in town auditioning with two of his buddies for the musical Wicked. I of course gave them a place to stay for the night.

I feel at ease finally despite a myriad of issues I've faced as well.

• My camera is broke and can't be fixed - this means no pictures for awhile
• A package my mom sent me is forever lost amongst the postal service
• I still have butt-loads of financial malarkey to sort out

and

• I still can't fly my kite because the strings that go with it were in the package my mother sent me (refer to bullet point 2)

Still despite all that stuff I find solace in knowing that...HEY I'm in Chicago! I love what I'm doing and what better way to enjoy it than without a way to document it pictorially, without the aid of foodstuffs a pillow and kite strings that were lost in a package, and with little to no money!

Hell I don't know how I could be more optimistic.

P.S. any thoughts on me shaving my head?

Columbia

Here I come.

Troop 817

So this last weekend was pretty good.

It's kinda late in the Summer but I decided to finally begin my service to the society that has made such a huge difference in my life...no this time it isn't SPEBSQSA... The BSA - Boy Scouts (of) America.








At first I found myself pretty rusty in the outdoors. I haven't been camping since before I got my eagle award back in November of 2005. I had just signed the forms that state that I am now a working assistant scout master the week before the campout and I've only been to one or two of the meetings before then and so this was quite the crash course back into scouting not to mention I had a lot of people to meet and get to know. I feel a bit at a loss since now I have to leave for school. The personality I've portrayed and the ones that I was presented with are still fresh and I have a lot of work before I am considered a next of kin among these scouts. No worries. I plan on spending more time with them in the future.

I've already planned far in advance and will be a camp counselor at the nearby Scout Camp. I applied and as soon as I told them I was over 18 years old they kinda hinted that the job was pretty much a guarantee. The pay is good and the housing and food is provided by them. All I have to do is do what I love and whatever they require of me. I told one of the camp counselors that my favorite merit badge to learn was sailing. I felt so at ease and free with the wind as my power and the boat as my guide across the water. This being said when I received my acceptance letter I was quite pleased to see that my area of expertise will be water Sports (that means I'll be teaching sailing while getting to do it myself) AHHH! Next summer will be simply perfect! Besides that from what I've seen the camp is an amazing complex and the staff are all tightly knit. Just what I'm looking for.

Well, I digress. This is much farther in the future than I should be concentrating on. in just three days begins my intensive study at my dream school. I just can't lose sight of that open lake. That's my drive.