Dean D'Agati (dotcom)

Above is Taylor Slingerland’s Color Slideshow Project for Photography at CCHS, and when I saw it, not only was I amazed (clearly I’m a sucker for photography), but I knew immediately that Taylor had to be this month’s awesome person.

(Yeah, I’m turning Awesome People into a monthly thing. Sling gets February.)

When Pichardo, the CTV officers and I were choosing people to enter CTV in 2008, Pichardo raved about this kid Taylor Slingerland in his TV1 class. We watched his music video project and my first response was “I don’t want this annoying sophomore in CTV.”

It took until I graduated, but that “annoying sophomore” eventually became one of my best friends.

His photography and film skills are ridiculous and I want him to come to NYU. While he did actually apply here, he also applied to 983 other schools and claims he probably won’t be coming to New York. I’m keeping my hopes up though because A.Katz and I really want him around.

For more Slingerland Photography, check out his Flickr here.

If you’re also a sucker for photography like me, check out the Color Slideshow Projects of Julie Weintraub (here) and Jon Cohen (here) because they are both awesome, as well.

One last thing is that Taylor hates nicknames, so I say we all post some creative nicknames in the comments and I’ll have a poll for the best one next week. Just for you Sling ;)

dean Text, Videos awesome people, cchs, ctv, film, Friend's Blogs & Sites, nicknames, photography, sling, talent, taylor

I made deandagati.com a fan page on Facebook. While that’s obviously insanely awesome (slash pathetic) I just wanted to say what’s up to anyone who has never been here before.

Here’s what you can find on this website…

The part that you’re reading right now is a pretty standard blog. All of my recent posts are about Cooper City related things since that’s where I’ve been chillin this Winter Break, but normally you’ll find posts here about New York and NYU. (Click some of the tags like “nyc” on the right hand column to see what I mean.)

I also try to include at least one picture with every post, so if you don’t like reading, feel free to just scroll down and look at the pretty pics. (And click that Facebook-esqe “I like this” button!)

If you want to see videos, click on the links right under that huge ass logo (shut up maxie/alex/taylor) with my name on it at the top of the page. Click on CTV to watch old segments and episodes from my days at CCHS, click on NYU to see what I’ve been working on in New York, or click on ORIGINALS to watch other stuff like the Trip to Florida videos that aren’t for school.

Here’s the fan page link:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/deandagaticom/416941340327

PS. If you wan’t a t-shirt, click here!

dean Text blog, cooper city, ctv, facebook, fan page, help, nyc, nyu, originals, Pictures

A lot of people ask me why I go back to CCHS so much. I graduated the year before last, I’m no longer a part of CTV, and I don’t even technically live in the state of Florida anymore. But I don’t care what people say because if I can show up at 9, have absolutely no work required of me, take pictures and learn the ukulele in CTV, go to both lunches, have story time in yearbook, advertise for deandagati.com, and watch CTV at the end of the day all in a place where I get to see people that I don’t get to see for the majority of the year, then I think I’m gunna do it.

CCHS is fun. And I’ll be back ;)

dean Pictures, Text blog, cchs, cooper city, ctv, fun, story time, ukulele, yearbook

In my first post about Chris Byrd, I said that I didn’t really know him, but over the past few days with memories and dedications respectfully flooding my Facebook news feed, I’ve discovered that I actually had more interactions with him than I had originally thought. So I’m writing this post today, the day of Chris Byrd’s memorial service, in honor of him and his family.

Last night, Noa reminded me that Chris was actually in the last CTV segment I ever made. A segment from the 2008 Senior Finale about CTV The Musical 2 (watch it here), I interviewed him asking for his thoughts about the musical. Only a short clip from the interview was actually used, but I remember how enthusiastic and excited he was about the show. Here’s a screenshot:

My other memory of Chris is actually really strange. Sometime last year, Chris drew a graffiti picture on my Facebook wall. It’s clearly some kind of inside joke, but Chris and I don’t have any inside jokes. Chelsea and I have concluded that it was meant for somebody else, so if anybody has any idea what this means, I’d love to know. I never asked.

It’s been a rough week for everyone, especially for those who were close with him.
If anyone came across this page from Google or whatever and are looking for more information, I posted it here.
RIP Chris. Don’t waste the cookie.

dean Pictures, Text chris byrd, cooper city, ctv, facebook, funeral, graffiti, memorial, rip

One of the best parts about redesigning deandagati.com was that I got to re-watch all of my old videos. This one is definitely one of my favorites …and most depressing. Click below to watch.

CTV <3

dean Text, Videos cchs, cooper city, ctv, last day, rewind

If you haven’t noticed, deandagati.com has been offline for the past week or so.
Why?
For my Expanding Cinema class, our mid-term is basically to do anything we want as long as it relates to new media (awesome, right?). So I decided that for my project, I’d update my website with new video pages and a new design. I thought it’d be an easy A. It turns out, it was insanely difficult and made me 100% sure that I never want to be a professional web designer.

NEVER THE LESS…
deandagati.com is now the place to go not only to read about my boring everyday life, but now you can watch videos… lots of videos… and let’s face it, video > reading.

Check out the new “WATCH” section by clicking on “ctv” “nyu” or “originals” along the top of the page and let me know what you think!

Cool new stuff is coming to the blog too, like a new recurring blog post called “AWESOME PEOPLE.”
Stay tuned.

PS. My latest NYU project has been posted on the new “nyu” page!

dean Pictures, Text awesome people, blog, ctv, film, nyc, nyu, tisch, vengeance, video

Anytime you go to CTV’s website, cchsctv.com, you’re first shown a simple welcome page with a little Cowboy on it that you have to click enter to get past. When I designed that website 3 years ago, I made that welcome page to show CTV-related announcements and school spirit. They don’t ever update the page anymore, but I recently found a folder full of graphics that I had made during Senior year for the homepage. It was pretty cool to look through them, so if you want to too, click “read more” (there’s 30 of them!).

Read more…

dean Pictures, Text cchs, cooper city, ctv, index page

Okay. I know what you’re going to say. “Dean, you graduated from high school already. Move on.” Well, I’m working on that… but for now I’ve redesigned the CTV Specials page (cchsctv.com/specials)!! It now includes much more from both the senior classes of 2008 (the best) and 2009 (almost as good but not quite). All of the musicals and senior finales are available on this page as well as Best of CTV 2008 and even some of CTV’s live webcasts.

The alumni page (cchsctv.com/alumni) has also been redesigned. In fact, everyone has been deleted from it… so if you want to be back on, send me an e-mail. Check it out and you’ll see what I mean.

One more thing. All of the episodes of CTV from the beginning of the 2007-2008 school year that have always said “Video unavailable” if you tried to play them, are all online now. So go to the video page (cchsctv.com/video), scroll all the way down, and check out some CTV classics.

That’s all.
Have a good last few days of summer!
…unless you go to NYU, then you can have a good last few weeks of summer ;)

dean Text cchs, cooper city, ctv

dean Text, Videos cooper city, ctv, reunion

(lol the only picture I took today…)

I like to think of last year’s CTV: The Musical 2 (which you can watch HERE) as one of the best experiences of my high school career. Well today, I went to CCHS for the premier of the continuation of that tradition: CTV: The Musical 3! I don’t think there is any better way to make a fool of yourself than to rewrite popular songs to relate to Cooper City. I mean Fresh Prince of Da Coop? ahaha. While the original musical was Disney themed, ours last year was Ghetto themed (lol), and this year’s was 90’s themed, CTV: The Musical is definitely the highlight of CTV every year. Plus, it was really great to see everyone at CCHS today because I’ve been home all week and today was my first time going (and that’s quite an accomplishment, thank you very much). The Musical 3 isn’t online yet, but I’ll post a link when it is.

But no, it doesn’t end there!
This musical day continues tonight with COLDPLAY - LIVE IN WEST PALM!!
(more on that later…)

I’m heading back to NYC tomorrow (wow I just realized that there have been NO videos this trip) for 6 weeks, and then back to the Coop on June 28th for 2 months!

PS. SAY NO TO GMB! hahahah

dean Pictures, Text coldplay, cooper city, ctv, musical