For a first attempt at making a short film, I think it has turned out really really well. The entire team did an amazing job. Even the music is original, which I think is rare for the 48 hour film project competition.

Check out my previous posts for background and photos: “48h film project – Filming on location”, “The 48 hour film project”.

And now, here’s the movie...

I am back in London now. Glastonbury was another amazing experience.

I arrived in London on Thursday evening with a plan on how to reach the festival fields but without having booked anything. BIG MISTAKE. I knew it was going to be an adventure getting there given my late arrival into Heathrow. Unfortunately, the coaches to Taunton (a small town 30 mins drive from Glastonbury) were all booked. I was planning to spend the night traveling and getting the first train there. Instead, I got a coach to Reading, a train to Taunton, and then shared a taxi to Glastonbury with someone I met at the train station.

Arrived at the grounds around 2am and started the search for somewhere to camp. Another BIG MISTAKE! :-) It was raining all night so I thought that I should play it safe and set my tent at high grounds, which I did. I hadn’t noticed how steep it was. I was sliding towards the entrance of my tent every night :-)

The festival was absolutely amazing. I spent lots of time absorbing the vibe and atmosphere of all the shows and stand up comedy in tends on Friday. Lots of ethnic food and moving around. I did see The Ting Tings on Friday and some other bands but that was really about it. Mostly comedy till very very late. Friday was raining almost all day/night. It started to get muddy.

Saturday and Sunday was a mixture of music and outdoor shows. The weather was gorgeous throughout.

Music-wise, I liked Bruce Springsteen, Spinal Tap but I really really liked The Ting Tings, Madness, and Blur. Blur, in particular, were amazing at the very end. As always, I was at the very front for most of the performances :-)

After Blur, I queued for the first buses to the train station at 3am. That’s when the skies opened again :-)

I am spending the night and Jim’s and Kath’s place in London before heading back to Seattle tomorrow. Good opportunity to catch up with my co-authors as well (Jim and Ian). After they finished with their day job, we were able to coordinate the next steps for our Web book and have technical discussions over beer :-) Went for some great Indian food with Jim and Kath at the end of the night.

Another great Glastonbury experience ended. I’ll try my best to be back next year!

How could one possibly choose between all these bands in the concurrent stages? If you have any recommendations from the line up, I’d love to hear it (either a comment or drop me a line). I am going into “digital silence” from Thursday evening (UK time).

Glastonbury 2009 lineup.

I guess it wouldn’t be a Glastonbury festival if it didn’t rain :-( It appears that showers are forecast for the weekend, even though it’s beautiful and clear now. I just hope that we won’t have to fight through the mud again (camera got wet in 2008, 2007 photos 1, 2007 photos 2, I didn’t post any photos from Glasto in the previous years).

(source BBC Weather for Glastonbury)

I am writing this while on a plane to London and then to Frankfurt. I am going to Germany to visit relatives for a day, close to Manheim, before heading to Munich to give a talk about Zentity at the “Repository Systems” workshop. Then, on Thursday I am going to flight back to London and make my way for this year’s Glastonbury :-) Woooo hooo! I can’t wait!

Unfortunately, Carole is not going to be there this year :-( but I am hoping to catch up with David. I am soooooo looking forward to all the bands, the dancing, the comedy, the circus, the clubs, the ethnic food, the atmosphere, the vibe. I hope it’s not going to rain and that I will not damage my camera before I even get there, like I did last year.

The shooting of our 48h film project entry was amazing (check out my previous post). On Friday, David (the director) and Arthur (the script writer) met with the rest of the teams to find out (through a draw) the genre of the film that we had to shoot plus the name of a character, a prop, and a line. Immediately after that, the three of us met for pizza and a brainstorming session to come up with the story.

Our genre was “detective/cop”, the name of the character was “Kristy Brown” (an illustrator), the prop was a “tie”, and the line “Wrong! Guess again”. Coming out with the story line was a challenge. I came up with the an idea around a writer who investigated a murder. The movie would be a mashup of her real time experience and her imagination as to what happened in a house. The guys took the idea and further developed into a script.

We got together around 6.30am on Saturday and started planning/shooting. We didn’t finish until around 9.30pm but it was a LOT of fun. Montana (our main actress and a friend of mine) was amazing. We had lots of people helping. The location was fantastic for what we wanted to shoot.

I was “playing” the role of the “first assistant director” to David. Effectively, I was supposed to coordinate all the different crews, keep everything in order, make sure that we were shooting the right thing, prepare the next scene, etc. It was like project management :-) Apparently I was good at it, according to David :-) I think I am going to do it again if the opportunity arises.

The film is going to be shown on Tue but unfortunately I am going to miss it :-( traveling to Europe... see subsequent post). David and Arthur will fix few minor problems and then we’ll post it so that people can watch online. That’s probably going to happen sometime next week. In the meantime, here are few photos from the shooting.

Getting together in the morning and planning meeting before the start of the filming...
   

The day of shooting starts outside...
     

And then we move inside the house...
    

David directing (and thinking)...
    

Greg filming...
   

Montana acting (and getting ready)...
  

Jonah getting ready...
  

Fooling around...
   

Arthur (writer) and David making changes to the scenes and script on the fly (very annoying if you are the first assistant director and are trying to coordinate everything :-)...

Savas trying to put everyone in order...

Lunch...

Beautiful and talented Montana...
  

The ad-hoc editing studio (there was an editing team while we were shooting in order to speed things up)...

The scene in the ballroom is amazing. I think you’ll agree when you see the movie...
   

It was another wonderful adventure in my crazy life of late :-) Many thanks to David for asking me to take part in this and trusting me with such an important role in his endeavor. I had LOTS of fun.

I just arrived in San Jose for the Semantic Technologies conference. It’s been a while since I’ve been to a conference on a subject that I am VERY excited about so I do hope that the program is interesting. I am going to be at the Microsoft booth as well to demo Zentity and talk about the other stuff that MSR has been doing related to semantics.

My friend David is very much into film directing. While he was taking classes, he asked me to act in his film projects with his wife Sophie in the first one and other friends in the second one. It was a looooooot of fun and we even shot the “making of” :-)))

Last year, David and some of his fellow film friends participated in the 48 hour film project competition and did ok. We had few laughs when we went to the opening night of their short movie with a banner and cheers :-)

This year, David is doing the directing himself and asked me to be the first assistant director :-) (I don’t know what that really means but, from what he told me, it seems that I just need to do everything so that he can be ready to say “action” :-))) Anyway... it’s going to be a lot of fun so expect few posts around here about the experience. If you are around Seattle on Tue, June 23rd, come and see our movie and vote for it (if it’s any good).

We are the “SoDa” group and are in Group A.

Seattle 48 Hour Film Project Screening Info:
The screenings will be held on Tuesday and Thursday, June 23rd and 25th at the Harvard Exit: 807 East Roy at Harvard, Seattle 98102

Unfortunately I am going to be traveling (perhaps for the best... avoiding the tomatoes et al :-)

Last Sunday we went scouting for the shooting location. Great place!

I enjoyed reading the “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Data” article by Alon Halevy, Peter Norvig, and Fernando Pereira of Google. Recommended.

It’s been a week since my parents left (they visited for 30 days). It was great having them around. If you’ve been following my twitter updates, you’d probably know that it was a bit hectic trying to balance work, parents, and a bit of social life. No matter how crazy life was, though, it was absolutely fantastic having my parents (Giorgos and Fotini) around. I haven’t lived under the same roof with them for so long (since I left home at the age of 18). Yes, I was visiting in between academic years but I was always just a visitor/guest :-) It worked out really really well and I enjoyed every moment of it. I am now looking forward to their next visit! :-))

Here are some photographs (from the MANY... ~950) documenting their visit.

We walked a LOT around parks in Seattle.
   

At Snoqualmie
  

Our very brief visit in Vancouver
 

At the Pike Market (and random encounters)
      

My parents love flowers, trees, nature...
   

Dinner with some friends
 

Space needle

Folk balkan dancing at the Seattle Center (that was soooo random :-)

Alki beach
 

Leavenworth – Walla Walla – Portland
        

Folklife festival

Freemont, Ballard, and the Docks
    

My mother liked the big tracks in the US :-)

Giorgos “TopGun” Parastatidis (at the Museum of Flight), Concorde, and Air Force One
  

Seattle as seen from Queen Anne
 

Visiting Microsoft (and meeting Tony Hey). My dad with the first of Microsoft’s 11. And that’s Dennis in the middle :-)))
   

Last dinner in Seattle (sushi at Wasabi Bistro) on my parents’ 37th wedding anniversary. Amazing!

I am now looking forward to their visit again and, hopefully, I can persuade my brother too! ;-) Fillipos... Are you reading this?!!!

I would ordinary have included this as an update to my previous post about Microsoft’s Project “Natal” but I am soooo excited about the potential of the technology that I am posting a new entry.

Double WOW WOW!!! I know that when Microsoft shoots a video and says that it’s not made up, they really mean it. So, if they say that it’s technology that works, then I believe them. And it’s absolutely AMAZING. Check out this video from the BBC News and wait until the very end. Now, imagine some Semantic technologies as well in there to link with the world’s data and knowledge, to have worlds that are dynamically created using cloud technologies and the latest information that is out there.

Beautiful.

Source: BBC News story “Microsoft unveils new controller”

Remember about a couple of years ago when I was considering to buy a motorbike? Few months later I went through a safety course and got my US rider endorsement. Then, last year I came very close to buying the 2008 BMW R1200GS (even put down a deposit) but then I decided that it was wiser to pay off my car loan first. Well, that happened a couple of months ago :-)

Sometime in May I started looking for a deal on the 2009 BMW R1200GS. I took delivery of it on Saturday. It’s absolutely fantastic!!! I love it. At around the same time I also met Susan who happened to be a vivid rider (she has a BMW 800ST) so on Sunday we did our first tour (Bainbridge Island, Kingston, Edmonds, Monroe, Duvall, and then back via Redmond and 520). It was absolutely fantastic to be on the road and a great choice for a first ride.

Today, I did my first commute to work with the bike and it felt great! Not only it was faster to come back (HOV lane) but it was soooooo much more enjoyable.

Now, I only need to sort out the music in my helmet and I am ready to explore!!! :-) I am planning to take a safety course for off-road riding so that I can take the bike away from the paved roads for “adventure” weekends, building up towards a “long way around”-style holiday at some point.

At popular demand, here are few photos.

Seattle through the morning mist from the Seattle-Bainbridge ferry and Susan.
 

Parked at Kingston for lunch (very tasty crepes).

Parked for ice cream at Duval (I think).

Outside my place
 

And finally, this from Saturday… I just received delivery of the bike and I am ready to set off... :-)