Category: Life

Yesterday was the first shoot for Botnet, and I’d say it was a success. It was the introductory scene for the movie, which features the character known in the script as Black Hat. But what a marathon run it was to get prepared.

The character is played by DJ IDE, who is one of the driving forces behind this movie. There are three of us: me (writer, director, camera), my boyfriend (producer, lighting, sound, camera), and DJ IDE (organizer, motivator). His help is crucial to get this film off the ground.

It was my initial intent to shoot three scenes yesterday: the black hat introduction, the black hat discovering that his botnet was uncovered, and the recently added closing sequence. Time constrictions (DJ IDE had to leave for a show) meant that we had to leave the two latter scenes for another time.

(more…)

I’ve been using Celtx to write the script for Botnet. It’s a great little application. It has this neat feature whereby it automatically creates a list of characters from your script, and then notes what scenes they appear in.

Unfortunately, Celtx doesn’t have the ability to “refresh” that list of characters. After it’s the characters and the scenes in which they appear are initially indexed, the info stays – even if the characters/scenes are removed.

So I wrote this Python script to keep track of the characters. First it dumps the complete list of characters according to Celtx, and then indexes its own list by reading through the script, and notes in which scenes the said characters have dialog.

Sample Output: Here
Script Available: Here

A while ago, I was asked if I could do a review of Wind Mobile a few months on. I feel like I’m now at the stage where I can talk with more confidence on the service.

For the record, I have two packages with Wind Mobile – the $45/month “Always Shout” (unlimited airtime, unlimited long-distance to Canada, unlimited text messages, voice mail, call waiting) along with the $35/month unlimited data/tethering plan. That’s a total of $80/month I pay.

(more…)

So things have been a little turbulent for me lately. For the last year or so, the company I work for enacted cost-cutting measures. These include:

• A permanent cut to my pay of $5000/year. There was also an additional 20% reduction in 2009 under a work-share program. I lived under the poverty line before they eliminated that 20% cut a few months ago.
• They artificially fluffed up my pay by under-taxing me for all of 2009. I didn’t find out until Revenue Canada required that I pay them $1400 this April. I was also under-taxed for the first half 2010, so I have to dock an additional 15% from my pay to make up for this year’s mismanagement.
• The company also recalled all of the employee’s advances without prior warning. I have to pay back $1650 to be split over the next 4 paycheques. They refuse to extend the payout over a greater period of time. So that’s $825 less a month that I’ll be making for the next two months. This shoots me back beneath the poverty line.

Despite these shitty measures, I’m actually doing quite well. One reason is that for the last month and a half, I’ve been spending my evenings/weekends at a second, seasonal job.

I also now have a boyfriend that lives with me, and that’s been really cutting down on costs – not to mention making me happier in all sorts of other ways. So in the end, I have a nice apartment, a wonderful boyfriend, and enough left over to make this movie.

I’m in good shape guys. All that’s left now is to make a kick ass movie!

The film now has an official site – http://www.botnetmovie.com/ . Right now it’s a description of the project and some links, but eventually it’ll house the screenshots, trailer, and a download link as well.