A Creature of Creative Zen.

Are you equal to the means of creative self-expression that are currently available to you?

With a new year quickly approaching, I have been ah' pondering a-lot lately.
Life presents humans with challenges be they socioeconomic, emotional, mental or interpersonal and can a person attempting to live the life creative see these challenges as borders that contain or borders within which to push towards unexpected horizons?
Is a piece of canvas "constrained" by a set of stretcher bars or are the stretcher bars simply a framework to hold the canvas in order to open a window of color, line, texture and assorted other sensory goodness?

Where should a filmmaker let the lines be drawn that separate unattainable flights of fancy from competent if uninspired work or work that is attainable but does not push against ones own creative limits in order to inspire growth?

What about money? Does being given 10 dollars make a piece or art or a film work better? Does being given 100 million dollars suddenly make the creation of art anymore valid? If the greatest painter in the world can only afford a pencil is that artist doomed from the start or could it be that the limitation of having only a pencil pushes the artist to create art that redefines the interaction between wood, lead and paper?

So, many things to think about Pooh, think, think, think I need some honey.

Dreams - No I.

I had this wonderfully screwy dream that I needed to do something with.
So I ran out into the night and quickly while it was still fresh shot and played around with a little footage to express it.
I put a little more description about the dream on the Vimeo synopsis but the gist of it is that I dreamed I disappeared and weirdly enough that turned from being mind-melting scary to incredibly liberating once I let be. It also gave me an excuse to listen some more music that I just discovered from a group called Health.

No I Dream from Chris Beltran on Vimeo.

The Hound's Christmas Hunt

The Great Hound,
That Carnivorous Clown,
Maker of Laughter,
Set forth to hunt his Christmas Prey,
Blue and Orange,
Known as Kong,
Chaplin the Dog,
Nary Could wait for Long,
With a whipper-snap clap of his Jaws,
The Hunt was over,
But the game was afoot.

Chaplin The Dog very much enjoyed his Christmas treat, a brand new chew toy, all the more so when I consented to throw it for him to catch, over, and over and over and over........

A new dimension...

Twas the day before Christmas,
And the day was quite fine,
With no work to do,
Why not expand the creative mind,
So off to the theater I went with a bound,
To enter a brand new dimension of life, sight and sound,
Not 1-d or 2-d or 3-d my friend,
It was brain altering 3--B can you even comprehend,
Now Jimmy Cameron has changed my psyche,
What film, what a time, my goodness, CRIKEY,
Oh Avatar, my dear sweet pal,
You've raised up my spirits my very morale,
With my heart filled with magical 3--b air and light,
I'm feeling so Christmas-y, so fine and so right,
So a very Merry Christmas, I wish you all tonight.

Hero of Legend...Lover of Honey.. HONEY BEAR.

He's a bad mother lover with a taste for honey and love for money. He's the one, the only, HONEY BEAR!!!!!

We've been friends for a long time and I only recently re-discovered him and his awesomeness, had no choice (literally, no choice that bear is strong and could snap me like a twig with his crazy Drunken Bear style Kung-Fu) but to snap a few photos of him and let the authorities know the BEAR was back in the game.

Ladies, you can guard that honey, but the bear is all butter and no one can resist him for long.

Yo Gabba..WHAT??!!?

So, I'll admit it, I love the Nickelodeon show Yo Gabba Gabba, it's surreal and wrong in the most oh so right way, plus they have better musical guests than say Saturday Night Live. Which SNL must of heard about, because they did this awesomely twisted Battle Royale Version of a Gabba skit.

Time Passage

I've never been one to place much emphasis on the coming of the new year. It seems to me that each day, each moment, is as filled with important and possibility as any other day and it sort of our duty to take advantage of the time allotted to us and not place all the responsibility on the annual rebirth of Father Time. At least that is how it seemed to me in the past, but now for some reason this upcoming new year seems to be especially ripe and filled with changes. Perhaps it is so or perhaps I have simply been drinking too much eggnog.

Good Day.

Today, was an unexpectedly fine day.
Full of the sort of surprises that might lead somewhere grand.
It was a little bit like life was winking at me, thus I made the enclosed image in celebration of the day.

The Cove

When utilized properly the documentary form, it seems to me, can be as gripping if not more so than any film ever conceived for the simple reason that the gossamer thin layer known as fiction no longer stand between the viewer and his or her subconscious interactions with the images presented on the screen. The film I just watched known as The Cove, was just such experience. Detailing in the most taut, suspenseful way possible a small group of motivated individuals trying to stop the wholesale slaughter of a dolphins in the small Japanese fishing town of Taiji. The underlying dread that the filmmakers are able to infuse some of the most beautiful scenery of all of Japan is a testament to power of the film and the urgent need to put a stop to the horrific actions taking place there. Why not take part and remove one more needless bit of sadness and insanity from the world?

The Memory Machine Dispatches 121209-Friendly Visitors

There are these wonderful, machines capable of capturing memory fragments, raw pristine perspective. In fact I have one of these marvelous machines (as does much of the world) and I've decided to start using it. The Machine, this obscura, this third eye, this cinematoscope, known as a camera here and there, now and again, with wonder I look upon what was but will never quite be again. These are the Memory Dispatches.

The Memory Machine Dispatches 121209-Friendly Visitors
"Two old friends, who've chosen to live with me, so different from me four legs and furry, but so welcome."

The Memory Machine Dispatches 121209-Friendly Visitors from Chris Beltran on Vimeo.

The Memory Machine Dispatches -120909 Rockettes

There are these wonderful, machines capable of capturing memory fragments, raw pristine perspective. In fact I have one of these marvelous machines (as does much of the world) and I've decided to start using it. The Machine, this obscura, this third eye, this cinematoscope, known as a camera here and there, now and again, with wonder I look upon what was but will never quite be again. These are the Memory Dispatches.

The Memory Machine Dispatches 120909-Rockettes.
"...took Mom to see The Radio City Rockettes Christmas Spectacular. Had no desire to go, but while there was reminded about original non-commercial point to Christmas, had more fun than will ever admit."

The Memory Machine Dispatches -120909 Rockettes from Chris Beltran on Vimeo.

Hey, Natalie um...

Is it just me or is Natalie Portman like a sexy, cyborg princess sent from the future of an alternate timeline in order to reach into the minds of men and devastate there sexual fantasies with four or possibly even ten+ excruciating words, " You'll never have me over for cupcakes and eggnog."

Curse you future-cyborg-princess-seductress and all snack cake denying hotness too!!!

In cased you missed it, let me recap for you fine folks at home: it turns out Natalie Portman is one of the founders of one of my favorite behind the scenes movie websites Makingof.com. I realized that there was nothing she could not do and following the logical thread from there came upon the conclusion that she must be a deadly envoy sent from a parallel universe to reign havok upon me!!!!!!

Though whenever I am at a creative roadblock all I have to do think of Natalie and everything seems to be just fine. So, I guess I take back that whole curse dealio.

Un-curse you beautiful siren, Un-curse you all to heck!!

Poor Sad Uwe Bool Missing Out on all the Sexy Greatness.

There are very, very, few things I agree with Bay-Stache of Transformers infamy on, but he was right about one things: Uwe Boll is a sad being.


I know this for a fact now.

Poor Uwe Boll.
He's missed his chance at greatness.
He's missed his chance to meet me.
Sad, sad, Uwe.

Unfortunately for him, my entry in the G4TV win-trip-to-meet-Uwe-Boll-by-turning-a-video-game-into-a-movie-trailer-contest, did not win.

My friends agreed to my wild scheme, starred in my short and we had a blast making it.
So in the end the only person who loses is Uwe Boll.

Poor Uwe, lost again.

G4TV AND UWE BOLL DONT KNOW WHAT THERE MISSING. from Chris Beltran on Vimeo.