The taste of shame
Money is a sick muse or, in this case, it’s the fantasy of a dream date with Emily Haines.
To say that Dan “Myrmidon” Putnam wasn’t at least somewhat inspired by the dream of contact with Miss Haines would be a bit of a fabrication. After all, who’s to say that a winning entry in a contest put on by her band wouldn’t end up twisting the skeins of fate such that a rabid fan would end up on the band’s radar? Who’s to say that winning their video contest wouldn’t mean that Dan and Emily end up at a romantic restaurant, chatting about their next project together?
Alas, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start over and properly introduce the players in this fine drama.
There is a band called Metric. They have a song called “Sick Muse”. There is an Icrontian named Dan who is a fan. One day, Metric announced a contest: Fans could make a video for Sick Muse and the best would be chosen to win a prize package, and ostensibly 15 minutes of fame. Dan decided to enter this contest, despite the fact that he is not a videographer, filmmaker, photographer, script writer, or lighting expert.
We here at Icrontic first noticed Dan’s disappearance about three weeks ago. He stopped posting on the forums, stopped playing games with us, and essentially dropped off the face of the internet. Finally, some details began to emerge. He was working on a video. It was a mystery project. Eventually he posted a short blog entry letting us know that he was still alive:
I am not gone. In fact, all my free time (including, to my professor’s chagrin, my homework time) has been going to a certain creative project to be unveiled in the coming weeks.
Today, he unleashed his video:
I finally had a chance to talk to Dan about some of the challenges he encountered while creating his video.
Conversion was a bear—it took around eight hours to get all the raw footage down to something usable. The money man scene was a pain, too—we taped a bunch of dollar bills to a cardboard cutout of Orlando Bloom, and I spent eleven hours Photoshopping him out of every single photo. And, of course, if you’ve never tasted a dollar bill… well, that’s a challenge in itself. It’s like pocket lint and shame, Brian. Pocket lint and shame.
Eleven hours of staring at Orlando Bloom aside, there were other challenges. Learning how to shoot while shooting is never easy, and hindsight is 20/20. In retrospect, Dan wishes he had done some of the shots differently. We are always our own worst critics.
Having seen some of the other entries, things are looking good for Dan’s interpretation of Sick Muse.
When inspiration strikes, art flows. The power of creativity can overwhelm and astound. These are the moments when we realize what we can achieve, what we can be. If money is a sick muse, then inspiration is doubly so.
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