Doing the Homework and Open-Closedness

The first section reminded me of a scene from a student film a friend of mine made. In it, the main character gets a call during one scene. She answers the phone, and, in a throw-away line, mentions something about "spreadsheets" and "memos." This line always rang really false to me, and I think it was because the writer did not actually know anything about what this character's job actually was; he just threw in some businessy-sounding words and figured that would be enough. The line didn't sound real to me because the neither the writer or the director had bothered to research it. I think this happens very often in movies. Even if the audience is not an expert on the subject, they will still be able to tell  if a director has not done his homework.

The second section is really hard to write about, because what the author is trying to get is really hard to explain. I think what all the filmmakers are getting at is this "something-ness" (what I like to call it) that occurs when a really good idea is formed, and how to achieve this "something-ness." Unfortunately, way to find this form of inspiration is completely different for every person, and there's not really a good English word that describes it. The Germans probably have a word for it.

Visual Clustering: And Nobody Knew What Happened That Night

Originally the story started with "one weekend in 1941," but we got rid of that once we realized that almost every other group had chosen the same beginning. Our story starts with two people, a man and a woman - let's call them Jeremiah and Bermuda. These two people, two lovers, attend a fancy party at an art gallery in New York. This art gallery is having a special exhibition on some rare jewels, which the couple steals. They escape on a motorcycle (which they had planted the night before) and ride across the country to evade the police. To help hide their tracks, they don't stay in any hotels; instead they camp outside, under train bridges and in chicken coops. Eventually, they reach their destination: the Pacific coast. They take a boat out to an island with an abandoned lighthouse, where they bury the treasure. They then steal an old biplane and fly across the Mexican border, where they hide out in a small Mexican village. This is almost a second honeymoon to them, and they spend their days and nights living life to the fullest. However, Jeremiah accidentally pisses off a Mexican drug lord, and they are forced to return to the States. They have no money at this point, so they return to the abandoned lighthouse to retrieve the jewels. Unfortunately, the Mexican drug lord tipped off the police, who are waiting for them at the lighthouse. The head police officer, who always has a cigarette and wears big, dark glasses, tells them that they will receive leniency if they come quietly. This, however, is not in their nature, and they both are killed in the ensuing firefight.

Location, Location, Location

The courtyard in the Art Department building on campus is a strange place, like some sort of surrealist painting. The walls of the courtyard, like the rest of the building, are a deep, dark red, which contrasts with the blue New Mexico sky. The ground is made up of white pebbles, a much wiser choice than the green grass seen elsewhere on campus, considering we are in a desert. There is a tree growing in one corner, which looks odd growing out of the white pebbles. Probably the thing that makes it most interesting is the square room in the middle, with the same red walls as the sides. This makes the courtyard into an odd shape, more like a set of triangles than the normal square. This also means that anywhere you look, the building seems to be made up of solid geometric shapes, with bits of nature poking out. It would be impossible to take a picture here and not have it look like a piece of modern art.

Get Into My Dreams Get Out of My Car

My first thought on the readings was that I should take a walk somewhere, and experience this stuff that the writers were talking about. Of course, then I remembered that I had more homework to do, so I probably would not be able to do that.

Honestly, I think I sort of do what they are talking about already. When I am writing a character, it's helpful to base that character on someone I know, and to imagine what they would do in certain situations. However, this does mean that I might have trouble writing about an impoverished Mexican immigrant family, especially compared to writing about a white American high school student. I would say that the stories of impoverished Mexican immigrants should be told by people who know that world; I will tell the stories about the world I know.

Raw Material into Story: Mystery of the Hava Java

A small hut in the middle of a parking lot which sells coffee. Unbeknownst to its customers, it conceals an ancient spring, from which pours the most delicious coffee known to man. This coffee is so delicious that it can grant the drinker his deepest, darkest desires. The keeper of this coffee hut is an old man, who has taken it upon himself to protect the spring from the modern world. He dilutes the coffee with tap water, so it no longer grants wishes, it only tastes very good. Though he has been kept alive much longer than normal by the aroma of the coffee, his strength is fading, so he hires a young man to help him. The young man discovers the secret and drinks the coffee, only to have his darkest desires destroy his life. The old man explains the he once drank the coffee many years ago, which is how he is aware of its terrible power. The old man drinks the coffee again, which undoes the young man's wish, but also seals the spring forever and ends the old man's life.

Some Lists

Top Ten Cars from my childhood

1. 1963 Pontiac Grand Prix
2. Bright yellow Scion xB
3. Izuzu Trooper
4. Honda CRV
5. Volkswagen Rabbit
6. Volkswagen Passat
7. Grandfather's old Mazda van
8. Lamborghini Murcielago
9. Other grandfather's Mercedes SUV
10. blue Renault hatchback

Top Ten places I really liked to visit in my earlier days

1. Toy store
2. Disneyworld
3. Europe
4. New York
5. Southwestern US
6. California
7. Dairy Queen
8. Comic book store
9. Magazine section of book store
10. Creek behind my school

Top Ten places I disliked going in my earlier days

1. Art Museums
2. Folk Art Festivals
3. Aunt and Uncle's house
4. the doctor
5. the dentist
6. school
7. upstairs, at night, when the lights were off
8. high school soccer practice
9. morning marching band practice
10. Clothing Stores

Top Ten things that make me angry

1. Loud stupid people
2. Stubbing my toe
3. Bumping my head
4. The music of Ke$ha
5. Busywork
6. working as a lifeguard
7. The Tea Party
8. mosquitos
9. unfairness towards me
10. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Limberin' Up

I have always found history to be interesting. Not the "this is how people lived back then" part of history, but history as a series of events, each event causing the next event, until eventually we end up where we are today. It's interesting to understand famous events as they really are thought to happen, not as popular culture tells us they happened.

I know the zombie genre is sort of played out by now, but I think it would be really interesting to make a zombie film set during the Vietnam War. The US government accidentally releases a zombie virus into Vietnam, which winds up decimating the country as well as the American soldiers stationed there. The zombies could be a big (if a bit heavy-handed) metaphor for the war itself - friends turning into murderous monsters, an enemy that is perceived as less than human, the destruction of Vietnam for ill-defined reasons. The movie would follow a platoon of soldiers who are sent to discover the fate of a military base, and who then find themselves in the middle of a zombie epidemic which they try to understand and escape. A sequel could be set in early 1970s Washington DC, where another outbreak has broken out, and it could examine the Watergate scandal and the "war at home."

Observational Notebook: Am I Funny to You?

I met the man known as "Cliff" when he auditioned for my directing class. The casting call was for a 25-35 year old male, a description Cliff very much did not fit. He was an old New Yorker type, with thinning gray hair and giant old-man sunglasses. His personality was Woody Allen crossed with Martin Scorcese; he looked a bit like a very old Joe Pesci. He spoke with the authoritative air of someone who realizes that he has seen far more than anyone else in the room. He acted like an old pro: a bit hammy at times, but always entertaining, and game for anything we suggested. All the other actors lingered a bit after they were finished, before we told them they were done. Not Cliff. As soon as he was finished, he left. He had obviously done this many times before.

Family Story: Dead Man's Chest

Family Story: The Curse of the Black Pearl

When my dad was a kid, he lived in Sierra Leone for a year. My grandfather was a college professor, and he had gotten an offer to teach at a school there, so the whole family moved to Africa. Because his family was white and (relative to the native Africans) wealthy, they lived on top of a hill, with the other white families, while the native Africans lived at the bottom of the hill. That Christmas, my grandfather took the family to see Santa. Now this wasn't America, and there weren't any shopping malls, so they went to the local grocery store, which had a Santa that people (probably mostly white people) could visit. Outside of the store were dirt-poor Africans, begging to the white patrons. Inside the store was Santa Claus. This Santa was not an elderly white man with an appropriate beard; instead it was a black man, in a Santa costume, wearing a plastic Santa mask. They went through the ritual. The kids all sat on his lap, told him what they wanted for Christmas, and left.

The most important thematic part of this story is the incredible disparity between the rich whites and the poor natives. There is, of course, the visual of the white's houses, which are physically above the black neighborhoods, and would be much nicer. My dad's family would be dressed nice, but not fancy, while the begging Africans would be dressed in dirty, ragged clothing. Finally, there would be the indelible image of a young white child asking an older black man for something the black man would probably never be able to afford.

Diez Autos

I didn't do the "10 Cars" exercise exactly as intended; instead of coming up with an image I came up with a series of images, or, more accurately, a movie. The movie largely consisted of the car I chose, a 1959 Cadillac Eldorado, driving through a city being chased by helicopters. Once I realized what Barry was asking for, I decided to focus on the final image of the chase sequence. For the blog, however, I think I'll back up the sequence a few seconds, to the get the image I think I would have originally chosen.

I am standing next to a river, facing the opposite side. The Cadillac is suspended over the river, frozen in time. Its wheels spin slowly, in slow motion. It is slowly hurtling towards me, but I am at a safe distance. Its metallic paint, chipped by bullet holes, reflects the surrounding area. I am standing in the middle of a large, nondescript city. Long avenues and tall buildings stretch out into the distance. It is mid-afternoon. Behind the Cadillac, a gigantic fireball has erupted, as the building the Cadillac has just smashed through has exploded. Orange and yellow flames expand out in all direction, as do various bits of glass and concreted. A helicopter flies overhead, its spotlight reflecting off the Cadillac's shiny paint. In the driver's seat is an unidentified man in a leather jacket. One hand grips the steering wheel, while the other waves a cowboy hat in the air.

Roots Rediscovered

I'm bothered by the assumption that I'm a stodgy old adult who's forgotten how to play. I don't think I ever really stopped playing, though admittedly I do it much less often. Playing for me is really a form of stress relief, and also a bit of procrastination. I actually happen to have two toy cars on my desk, which I brought with me as a little reminder of home (my room at home is covered in toy cars. Literally every surface has toy cars on it. Many of them aren't even that old). I'll play with my toys anyway, usually when I have something else important to do.

It was actually more difficult for me to play for this assignment, because I wasn't doing it because I wanted to, I was doing it because I had to. This made me a bit more self-conscious than usual, especially since I had to analyze and think about what I was doing. Eventually I settled into the familiar groove, though, and I played with my toys. Sometimes, if I come up with an interesting scenario, I'll write it down as a movie idea. Unfortunately, most of these ideas would require enormous budgets and advanced stunts and special effects, but they're still fun to think about.

Criminal Conversation

I was riding the bus downtown, and this guy standing behind me started a conversation with some other people on the bus he knew. I don't remember exactly what he said, but apparently two days before, he was walking home from work when he was arrested. He had forgotten to pay all of some fine, and he was put in jail for the day because of it. He missed a day of work, and he was unable to call in and tell them what happened. He seemed to have just been released, and he seemed worried that he wouldn't have a job to go back to the next day.

I don't know what crime he originally committed, but it couldn't have been that terrible if the punishment was only a fine. Now, because of a small mistake, he was in danger of losing his job, which I imagine is fairly important to him. The whole situation sounded, for lack of a better word, sucky.

It actually reminded me of a similar situation I'm currently in. I got a traffic ticket for a fairly small traffic infraction, and I thought I paid the ticket, but because my city's website was stupid apparently I didn't. Now I have to pay another fine on top of the original ticket. It sucks a lot, because the original infraction was so insignificant. Of course, I'm not losing my one source of income, and my parents will probably help me pay for it. I was fairly pissed off about this until I heard this guy's story, which put it into perspective. No matter how bad you have it, someone else has it worse.

Rhymes With Blornge

My main thought during the Orange Exercise was "I really want to eat this orange." The tastiest part of the orange is the juice; every other part pales in comparison. Eating the orange slowly made me realize this. When I eat the orange quickly, I get maximum deliciousness as I bite into a slice and the juice pours out. I quickly swallow the rest. Eating it slowly, I noticed the taste of the rest of the orange, and it doesn't taste very good. If I were to experience the world with this kind of mindfulness, I would definitely gain a greater understanding of how things work. It would also take me a really long time to do most things.

An Image... Or a Moment?

A lone Wendy's cup, half-filled with flat, warm Coke, sitting on the sidewalk.

Like this, minus the cap and straw.

The interesting thing about this cup is that it is half-full (or half-empty? you decide). If it was just an empty cup, it could have been blown out of a trash can, or off of a picnic table, or maybe just dropped by an inconsiderate person finished with their drink. But the fact that it is standing upright and half-filled with Coke means that it only could have been placed there. If it was dropped, it almost certainly would have spilled. Someone set this cup of coke down and left it there. Why? What was so important to them that they would not only neglect to to finish half a cup of Coke, but also leave it in a place where it could cause irrevocable harm to nature? Whatever it was, they had time to set the drink on the ground, but not enough time to pick it up again and deposit it into a trash can.

On the plus side, a lot of ants probably had the best day of their lives.