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the yak occidental

work, play, and renewal from a wild young yak

Contact & Comments Policy

Contact Information

I assume this blog will be read mostly/entirely by people who know me, so if you want to chat about anything just um, text me or message me.

Comments Policy

I'm allowing comments on certain posts only, though I will probably remove it altogether.

Tbh, monitoring comments and moderating conversations online is, in my experience, a pain since it's mostly dealing with bots and spam.

9 Reasons Why Zack on Gilmore Girls is the Worst

Of all the men in the Gilmore Girls world, I think Zack was the worst. Here's nine reasons why. I'm currently re-watching Gilmore girls for the umpteenth time, and once more I find myself loathing Zack in particular. Normally we all get caught up in Luke vs. Christopher, Dean vs. Jess vs. Logan, etc, but I think these debates distract viewers from realizing that Zack is the worst Significant Other of all the women in the show. I think the actor Todd Lowe does a great job portraying Zack, so my critique is def not his performance , my issue is the character of Zack who is sooo contemptible. In a way, Lowe's performance of Zack is all the more remarkable - when it comes to the Bad Men of Gilmore Girls, Zack rarely tops the list. I think it's because his many flaws are so *shrug* boys will be boys. As viewers I think we're meant to be distracted by the explosive incidents related to Logan's elitism, Mitchum's tyranny, Dean's cheating, Marty's obvio

VIDEO: Tips for Better Dailies Notes

Here are 11 tips for taking better notes in dailies. If you’re in Production, good note-taking practices are essential and it never stops. As a coordinator, you might take notes for dailies. As a Production Manager or Producer you might have Production reports, all of these tasks rely on good note-taking. A huge part of our role is data entry and management. Getting specific, let’s take a look at what you can do to take better notes in lighting/comp dailies. Even if your artists are in dailies, still make sure your notes are as specific as possible, don’t leave it to them to take their own notes, let them have that time to answer their supervisor’s questions or to focus on the feedback. Let me be very clear: if you are in production and you are taking notes in dailies, it is your job to take accurate, efficient notes. Wherever possible, give the frame range. Don’t just say ‘near the beginning of a shot’, say F8-12 if you can. If there are multiple characters in a scene, use their na

VIDEO: Why Not Why

I really don't like 'why' questions at work and some experts agree! We all have our particular quirks and workplace hangups. One of mine is that I don’t like 'why' questions. Interestingly, I have found over the course of the pandemic that I’ve been getting a lot more 'why' questions, and so for this video I want to offer a couple of perspectives. First, I want to be clear that when I was being trained in Production, it was many years ago and a different world. When I was learning about Production, the common, if old-school way for me to learn to do something was to do so without knowing the ‘why’ behind it. I just did something because I was told to do it that particular way, no questions asked. I admit, I have inherited this old-school attitude, and my current attitude (which is perhaps a bad one) is that sometimes, we aren’t entitled to an answer. It’s our job and duty in Production to carry something out with minimal questions. Not everything is going