(no subject)
University day has come and gone again, with only subtle changes to report. After the lecture and tutorial were over, my favourite classmate revealed that it was her birthday today. So although I really do not want her to read what I have written in here, I will wish her a happy birthday here. Considering how fatigued she has reported being with some of her work, I am wishing her all the happiness she can find. Not just for this event, but for the future and hopefully many more years to come. A bit later after the lecture and tutorial business came to an end, I sat down with my copy of the script she had written for the video project and started needling through it myself, rewriting, adding, or subtracting bits as I thought necessary to visualise it into a good story. I feel a wee bit guilty for not having done this sooner, in fact, as it might have saved a bit of agony with the lecturers about the content and what still needed to be put in. But unfortunately, I was not really ready to make any changes to the script in question until today. It had a bit to do with being bereft of ideas, so it was not like I was just being lazy. Still, I want to apologise to her for not having thought the ideas up earlier in the week.
The lecture was very interesting, too. The entire focus of it was editing, and how changes in facets of editing such as shot length, sound composition, and content can change an audience's entire reaction to a film. A good example of this is the Unicorn sequence in Blade Runner. Without it, the origami unicorn at the end of the film is just a weird calling card. In the first version where it appears, it gives the audience the impression that Gaff knows what Deckard dreams about. In the second version where it appears, the Final Cut, it tells the audience that Gaff knows the contents of Deckard's subconscious or imaginative thoughts. If that does not tell you something about the power of the editor, then nothing will. We also were shown a film made by some students that was shot in California (I think the guest lecturer said it was in Southern California, not sure where that is in relation to your new dwellings, Dana). Now, wait until you hear this. It was a comedy set in the West Bank, as in Israel. And it was a comedy that paralleled West Side Story in its plot. Now, I know what you are thinking: this sounds like the makings of a disaster. And in some ways it felt like a disaster on the second viewing.
Apparently, the makers of West Bank Story (that is what this film was called) are Jewish, and kept a lot of representatives of the Muslim community in their neighbourhood involved in the process of making the film. And I have to hand it to them, in spite of being rather superficial, and not merely about the conflict it is questioning the wisdom of, it presents the point they are trying to make in a very fair and even manner. No cheap shots are taken, the leads from both sides are treated as fully-realised Human beings, and the supports are made to look despicable in equal amounts. It was just that... I do not know. In the middle the pacing seemed off and the story really needed more time to be fleshed out. It has a very "Jewish soldier guy meets Palestinian cashier girl, their families hate each other, they fall in love, the families are forced by disaster to stop fighting, the end" feel to it. But that happens when your film is only about ten minutes long, I suppose. For those who are curious, you can see the official site for the film here. The IMDB listing for it is here. It won awards, not least of which is the 2007 Oscar for best short film, so it is well worth checking out in spite of its flaws (and it does have a few I will not go into here).
Then the tutorial began, and it was a bit of a harrowing experience, especially for the young lady who has been writing the script. Basically, the problem stemmed from the fact that in spite of weeks of trying, we are still no closer to a finished script and working out the shotlist or production schedule, which were due today according to the summary of the subject that is available on the university's website. So the lecturers grilled our screenwriter at length about the content of the script, what the story is about, who is going to do what in it and why, and so forth. I did my best to chime in and offer some suggestions or insights of my own in order to get their attention away from her a bit and give her a bit of a break, but I really felt for her. I know they are doing it as part of the learning process, but there is a point when too much really is too much. So the first thing I decided to do when I got home was sit with the script as it existed then and see what I could add to or alter in it. One of the lecturers offered suggestions as to how the story could go in order to promote better flow, and I incorporated some of them into my amendments. Others came from ideas I had whilst listening to the rest of the group talk.
There are still things I am not terribly happy with about the script, but that is just my visualising sense talking. When I read the script proposal and discussed the idea at length with the screenwriter (among others), I had a vague picture in mind about how the story would proceed. The current version of the script does not really reflect that in any way, but that is just tough shit for me since I am not really the one doing the writing. As I read the script that exists now, with my tweaks and all, I can picture the finished product in my head a bit and say that I would be happy to watch it. I still feel some concern as to whether it is lengthy enough to sustain a five minute short, but that is just a hangover from last semester when our leader's script really was not enough to sustain the required length. Once I have a bad experience with anything, however minor, it stays in the forefront of my mind for years. If not forever. What I would really like at the end of this semester is for this woman to receive a high mark for the finished product and the ability to look at herself whilst saying "I did something I can be proud of". Even if she ends up the only person in the group (and all six of us turned up for the lecture/tutorial this week for a change) who can do so at the end, that would make me happy.
So yeah, I went and bought a copy of Terminator 2, the Skynet Edition, at the local shopping centre today. Against my better judgement, of course. I am pretty much broke for six days, now, but that is fine since I do not really have anything that could be called plans in that time, anyway. I was a bit wary, truth be told, but I had just updated the firmware on the player and wanted to test if it would have the desired effect. It did. The disc played back just fine. And even though it was a Studio Canal/Universal release, the picture and sound quality were actually exactly what you would expect of a Blu-ray Disc of a 1991 film. The picture is clean and crisp enough that if you did not know better, you could be forgiven for thinking the film was shot in 2005 or later. And the sound mix is powerful enough that it does not contradict that illusion at any point. Or at least that was how the theatrical edit of the film came across. In a similar manner to Blade Runner or Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, Terminator 2 is offered with two other edits, delivered via seamless branching, that the user can watch at their discretion, too. If I have any further insights into the disc after watching either of them, I will post a quick edit here about them.
Anyway, that is another week of my life and my studying habit in text. Hopefully I can make it through the rest of the week without wondering why I swore off the vodka. Until next week, keep the following words of wisdom in mind: What you want is never as important as what you already have.
The lecture was very interesting, too. The entire focus of it was editing, and how changes in facets of editing such as shot length, sound composition, and content can change an audience's entire reaction to a film. A good example of this is the Unicorn sequence in Blade Runner. Without it, the origami unicorn at the end of the film is just a weird calling card. In the first version where it appears, it gives the audience the impression that Gaff knows what Deckard dreams about. In the second version where it appears, the Final Cut, it tells the audience that Gaff knows the contents of Deckard's subconscious or imaginative thoughts. If that does not tell you something about the power of the editor, then nothing will. We also were shown a film made by some students that was shot in California (I think the guest lecturer said it was in Southern California, not sure where that is in relation to your new dwellings, Dana). Now, wait until you hear this. It was a comedy set in the West Bank, as in Israel. And it was a comedy that paralleled West Side Story in its plot. Now, I know what you are thinking: this sounds like the makings of a disaster. And in some ways it felt like a disaster on the second viewing.
Apparently, the makers of West Bank Story (that is what this film was called) are Jewish, and kept a lot of representatives of the Muslim community in their neighbourhood involved in the process of making the film. And I have to hand it to them, in spite of being rather superficial, and not merely about the conflict it is questioning the wisdom of, it presents the point they are trying to make in a very fair and even manner. No cheap shots are taken, the leads from both sides are treated as fully-realised Human beings, and the supports are made to look despicable in equal amounts. It was just that... I do not know. In the middle the pacing seemed off and the story really needed more time to be fleshed out. It has a very "Jewish soldier guy meets Palestinian cashier girl, their families hate each other, they fall in love, the families are forced by disaster to stop fighting, the end" feel to it. But that happens when your film is only about ten minutes long, I suppose. For those who are curious, you can see the official site for the film here. The IMDB listing for it is here. It won awards, not least of which is the 2007 Oscar for best short film, so it is well worth checking out in spite of its flaws (and it does have a few I will not go into here).
Then the tutorial began, and it was a bit of a harrowing experience, especially for the young lady who has been writing the script. Basically, the problem stemmed from the fact that in spite of weeks of trying, we are still no closer to a finished script and working out the shotlist or production schedule, which were due today according to the summary of the subject that is available on the university's website. So the lecturers grilled our screenwriter at length about the content of the script, what the story is about, who is going to do what in it and why, and so forth. I did my best to chime in and offer some suggestions or insights of my own in order to get their attention away from her a bit and give her a bit of a break, but I really felt for her. I know they are doing it as part of the learning process, but there is a point when too much really is too much. So the first thing I decided to do when I got home was sit with the script as it existed then and see what I could add to or alter in it. One of the lecturers offered suggestions as to how the story could go in order to promote better flow, and I incorporated some of them into my amendments. Others came from ideas I had whilst listening to the rest of the group talk.
There are still things I am not terribly happy with about the script, but that is just my visualising sense talking. When I read the script proposal and discussed the idea at length with the screenwriter (among others), I had a vague picture in mind about how the story would proceed. The current version of the script does not really reflect that in any way, but that is just tough shit for me since I am not really the one doing the writing. As I read the script that exists now, with my tweaks and all, I can picture the finished product in my head a bit and say that I would be happy to watch it. I still feel some concern as to whether it is lengthy enough to sustain a five minute short, but that is just a hangover from last semester when our leader's script really was not enough to sustain the required length. Once I have a bad experience with anything, however minor, it stays in the forefront of my mind for years. If not forever. What I would really like at the end of this semester is for this woman to receive a high mark for the finished product and the ability to look at herself whilst saying "I did something I can be proud of". Even if she ends up the only person in the group (and all six of us turned up for the lecture/tutorial this week for a change) who can do so at the end, that would make me happy.
So yeah, I went and bought a copy of Terminator 2, the Skynet Edition, at the local shopping centre today. Against my better judgement, of course. I am pretty much broke for six days, now, but that is fine since I do not really have anything that could be called plans in that time, anyway. I was a bit wary, truth be told, but I had just updated the firmware on the player and wanted to test if it would have the desired effect. It did. The disc played back just fine. And even though it was a Studio Canal/Universal release, the picture and sound quality were actually exactly what you would expect of a Blu-ray Disc of a 1991 film. The picture is clean and crisp enough that if you did not know better, you could be forgiven for thinking the film was shot in 2005 or later. And the sound mix is powerful enough that it does not contradict that illusion at any point. Or at least that was how the theatrical edit of the film came across. In a similar manner to Blade Runner or Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, Terminator 2 is offered with two other edits, delivered via seamless branching, that the user can watch at their discretion, too. If I have any further insights into the disc after watching either of them, I will post a quick edit here about them.
Anyway, that is another week of my life and my studying habit in text. Hopefully I can make it through the rest of the week without wondering why I swore off the vodka. Until next week, keep the following words of wisdom in mind: What you want is never as important as what you already have.