I have re-arranged some posts, and tidied up the journal a little. The ‘scheduling’ category is now deleted, and I’m working on re-grouping some writings in different categories such as ‘creative’ and ‘ideas’. Both of them should serve different purposes, I believe. I’m not entirely happy with the journal yet; I think this also contributed to the fact that I didn’t use it as often as I wanted it to. Now I make it appealing, so that it lures me into writing.

Oh, by the way! There is a fantastic book by Charles Koppelman, entitled Behind the Seen, which discusses how Walter Murch edited the first feature film on FCP. The book gives a great insight to Murch’s genius working methods; one of them is keeping a personal diary. Utterly inspirational! I would recomend reading it for those who are interested in how post production can be turned into more creative and for those who are seeking an enlightening read. The behind the scenes story of the post-production stage of ‘Cold Mountain‘.

There are too many things on my mind. Or in my mind, rather. It regularily happens to me that I think of something, and by the time I would say it, the though has already disappeared. Just like now. The annyoing side of this phenomena is that I KNOW that I wanted to say something important.

It’ll come back to me. I’ll patiently wait for it.

of sleep. I hope that this helped me to recover.

Next, it is the Future Directions that I’m handing in.

Some advice I heard from graduates in regards to sucessful big essays:

• highligh, read, organise, write
• 1 month solid work
• read whenever you have a spare minute
• read the brief, and maintain your enthusiasm about your subject area (audio in my case)

I came across a book a week ago about the London Underground. I had no time to have a look until today, when I found out that it’s not just about the Underground.

It’s about graphics design, and how Mr Beck came up with the current design of the unnique London Underground map. The book explains that he decided to go against the concept of depicting reality. The Underground got so extensive in the 1930’s already, that representing the network on a realisitc map got too confusing. Mr Beck decided to simplify the look of the map and borrowed the symbols from electric engineering. The map started to look like a circuit.

His bosses were concerned that the map wasn’t detailed enough and so they added extra details to the map, which resulted in creating confusion among the travellling public. Mr Beck eventually redesigned the map in the 50’s. His design got rejected in the 60’s, but in the end London Transport went back to the Beck’s design in 1994. Why? Because it seemed the easiest to read, use and simple.

I found this whole story instructive: concentrate on simplicity and not the annoying (pointless, useless) details does pay off.

I took some photos during my summer break. I know it’s totally unrelated. They are on flickr. How they got there, I don’t know. I didn’t upload them, that’s for sure.

…I believe Norman knew what he had done for me was priceless, but he would never let me repay him with money, so I tried to with kindness instead.

Norman, you changed my life! I would not have been able to get to where I am now if I hadn’t met you! I feel lucky to have known you and blessed that you shared your wisdom with me. Thank you very much, Norman!

In memoriam Norman William Bellew (1941 – 2008)