Quiet on set?

FYOS Event #3

Yay last event!

So tonight I went to the Astronomy Observatory Open house at the Physics building from 7 - 9. It was actually pretty cool, even though it was mostly just waiting in lines. They are two different sized telescopes. The 24 in one was set to look at Jupiter. If you look at the sky right now, you can actually see Jupiter - it looks like a really bright star. But with the telescope you could see some details, and that was really cool. Three of it’s satellites were visible - Io, Europa, and Callisto. You could also see the two equatorial bands encircling the planet, which looked pretty cool.

On the roof they had 10 in telescopes set up. These telescopes were directed at a constellation. (I can’t remember the next of this constellation because I couldn’t really understand what the guy was saying in the first place.) What I did learn that was really cool was that all constellations start out really small (like this one) because the stars are all born around the same time. Then, over time, the constellation expands and the stars move farther and farther apart until it gets to a certain size and stops. So apparently the big dipper started out as a small group of stars and expanded until it became what we see today. There is no uniform speed at which they expand - it varies. But I just thought that was pretty cool.

FYOS Event 2

For my second FYOS I went to the Cinematic Showdown tonight at the Tate Theater. Basically, a few weeks ago the Filmmaking Union and Cinematic Arts Club sponsored a competition for all students across campus to make and submit short films, which were shown tonight. Before showing the films, though, reps from Cine Club, the Filmmaking Union, and the Cinematic Arts Club all talked about their organizations and what opportunities they offer around campus. Then they showed two premieres for films that wil be shown soon. I know one of them was called “Waltz for One” and it looked really cool (something about an astronaut in outer space) but I didn’t catch the name of the other one. Then they showed the short that won a film festival last year. That one was called “Partial Justice” and it was two cops questioning a puppet about whether or not he murdered his barbie doll girlfriend. It was soooo funny.

The winner of the Cinematic Showdown was a film called “1847,” where two gold miners look like they’re in a dire situation, and they find some valuable looking coins, and then one goes and kills the other and takes the coins and also the dead guy’s cross. Not sure that I totally understood that one. My two favorites were “La Tortura de la Muerta” and “Detour.” “La Tortura de la Muerta” was just really silly and I laughed my butt off. “Detour” was moving, and I have to say it put tears in my eyes. It was about a cab driver who wins a ticket to the 7th World Series game and right when he’s about to go to the game, this little girl gets in the car and asks him to drive her somewhere. He caves and she talks to him the whole ride there, telling him that she got flowers for her mom, and he ignores her. Finally, they get there and she asks him to wait for her for a minute, and he’s like “Get your mom to drive you home.” and the little girl looks sad and is like “oh”. She runs off and he sees that she was visiting her mom’s grave to put flowers there, and it touches him and he skips the game to take the girl home. So. Cute.

The only one that I really didn’t like was the last one (IDK the name). It was supposed to be a scary movie, which was obvious from the get-go, but it took like 20 minutes before anything remotely scary happened. And then when it finally got to the scary part where the dude in the mask jumps out and kills the two college girls at home alone, it wasn’t even scary. The whole thing was just painful to watch. But the rest of the shorts were pretty good and I enjoyed it overall.

Critique for Maddie

Hey Maddie! I was really intrigued by your pitch for the screenplay, and I was looking forward to hearing it in class. And you definitely did not disappoint! I really like the whole idea behind it. However, as with anything, there is some room for improvement. I’m not sure that I understood some of what happened in the first few scenes before we went inside her mind. Like, when she went outside to get the garbage (sorry if that’s not actually what happened, I’m having trouble remembering) - I don’t really understand why that happened.

I read some of the other critiques for yours and some people said that once we went into her mind, the dialogue didn’t seem realistic, but I actually think it was ok as you had it. The thing is, when we think about things like that in our mind, we tend to blow them out of proportion and they don’t actually sound like issues that make sense outside of our minds. (If that sentence made any sense at all.) I think its ok that the main character heard them saying things that people wouldn’t actually say, because when we’re upset, that is what we imagine, that people find the most ridiculous things and blatantly call us out for it. I’m not sure that I would go so far as killing the main character though.

Other than that, I really loved your screenplay. Good luck finishing it!

whatbecomesofus:

Hi guys, 

I am pretty sure that you are supposed to reblog this with your critiques.

but that might not be correct.

I am a little dense when it comes to tumblr.

But, anyways, thank you for your critiques and ideas! 

Critique for Erin

Hey! Let me start off by saying that I really like the idea behind your screenplay. However, there were some things that I had a problem with, mostly the dialogue. I know dialogue is hard to write without being cheesy (every critique I’ve gotten has said that :P) but its still important to make it sound more realistic. A lot of your dialogue just sounded unnatural. And, when the kid wakes up and realizes he’s been given a second chance, he kind of overdoes it. Honestly, if that happened to me, instead of being super happy and nice, I would probably be really confused and cautious. Like, not knowing what’s going on, but at the same time attempting to avoid all the same mistakes I made in the first one. I’m not saying that I don’t like how you did it, I’m just suggesting this as something to think about. Good luck finishing it up!

ernxxx:

Make this better, please. 

Critique for Daniel

Hey Daniel! Sorry you were sick and couldn’t come to class last week. I liked your screenplay, but there are a few suggestions I would like to make.

First of all, there were some things that the class found funny that you probably did not intend to be funny. It might have been different if other people were reading the roles, but I think you need to be careful in the opening scene where the mom and her boyfriend and the main character are all arguing. Its easy to go too far almost in a scene like that and turn it from serious into comically overdone. I know I myself could not stop giggling when Randy said “Shut up, Janice” but then again that could have just been me.

Also, I feel like your idea would shine through a lot better if you cut down on some of the dialogue, and maybe replaced it with more action. I find it hard to believe that a boy who is being so oppressed by him mother’s boyfriend will go and just accept this religious idea that some random man is pushing on him. So I think if you could show the guy touching the main character instead of using all of that dialogue, that would be more effective. Other than that, I really liked your screenplay, especially when you mentioned that make and model of the cars ;)

Critique my screenplay!

Hey guys. I’m posting this so everyone can reblog and critique me or whatever. If you don’t remember which one is mine, it was the one about the woman who is married but falls in love with a man she met in a dream, and he ends up being the one who hit her in the car accident, but she still loves him. Critique away!

“Doodlebug” Review

So, the title of this film was really misleading. I saw “Doodlebug” and thought that it was going to be another cute film, like last week. Boy was I wrong. I did really like the way that the eyes were put in the title in the place of O’s.

The first thing that struck me about the film itself was the feeling it gave me. It looked and sounded like an old horror film. Which, in a way, I guess it was - a film about the horror that our own mind can unleash upon us. The film was oddly silent - he knocks over a chair at the beginning and it doesn’t make a sound. Maybe this mimics the ability of the mind to block out the sensible world when its focusing so intently on something (blocking out the sanity when you’re going crazy?). Even though the character didn’t speak, we learned a lot of him and what he was going through by his facial expressions and body movements.

The part where the clock started ticking really loudly freaked me out, because sometimes when I’m stressed out or can’t sleep, that sound creeps into my head and its all I can hear and focus on. Creepy. And then the part where he throws the phone in the water to stop it from ringing - I think that really showed how far gone  past sensibility he was. At the end, when he killed himself and then got killed by himself, I kept thinking of the book Metamorphosis, where the guy turns into a bug. Except this was the opposite. Killing the bug had driven him so crazy that it was killing him. (I think?) This film was really weird, but I liked it.

“Incident” Review

I really liked this film, even though it was super long…

First of all, I really felt for the main character. You could tell that he didn’t intend to kill the man, and that he wasn’t a bad person. Obviously, he had no idea how to cover up a murder, because he put his fingerprints all over the guy and dragged him through the leaves, leaving a pretty obvious trail. And then he visited the guy, and broke down crying about killing him. Michal was definitely a good guy who did something in defense that had disastrous consequences.

There were several things I noticed about this film. It took place in fall - which is a time when the world is changing, and nature is kind of dying. Which is what happened in Michal’s life - a change that led to death. I also noticed a lot of circles throughout the film - the legs on the benches, the pin on his jacket, the way his bike lock is wrapped around his bike. Maybe its just me being overly critical, but these circles stood out to me. It made me think about the circle of life, which is kind of what I thought this film might be about. Michal kills this man and must figure out how to deal with it, he has to come to terms with the fact that life goes on, that he can stil have a happy life with his girlfriend and new job, that after spring and new life comes after fall. This theme was strengthened to me by the scene playing during the credits - an old couple is walking down the bridge, and they’re followed by a woman pushing a stroller. Circle of life.

There was something else visually that I noticed about this film - the use of light and darkness. When we first see Michal’s apartment, its really bright. There’s a lot of sunlight shining through the windows, and the apartment is really clean and white. But after the murder, the apartment seems to be filled with shadows. It’s like Michal physically brings the darkness of what happened into his apartment with him. It was pretty interesting to see that.

Overall, I thought this film was beautifully done and I really liked it. :)