Quiet on set?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This film was pretty cute, even though it wasn't my favorite. The first thing I noticed when I watched it was the old timey feel of it. Its in black and white and the film quality isn't that great. And then there's the kids singing in the background, which reminded me of the Empire of the Sun for some reason, so that put me in the old timey feeling as well.

I felt like this short was a little bit too easy, in a way, but I loved it nonetheless because it was also absolutely adorable. It reminds me of something that my friend Haleigh and I would do - whenever one of us was a having a bad day, the other would make them something out of post-its. One time she wrote out the chorus of "The Middle" by Jimmy Eat World and it made my day. So I could really connect with the ability something as simple as post-it notes can have on a modern day relationship.

The first thing that really struck me about this short was the coloring. There were a lot of blues, purples, pinks, oranges - soft colors. These created an all-over romantic theme for the film. The cutesy music also helped to create this feeling of an eccentric and off-beat romance. And in general I really just enjoyed the irony of the sign at the supply closet that says "Can you please make sure that any stationary you take is solely for work purposes".

I'm not entirely sure that I liked that this short. At times it was kind of funny in an eccentric way, at times it was weird, and at time it was confusing. It was about the creative writing process - how difficult it is to create a story line, how to deal with the question of why the plot goes this way. The camera shots did a good job of representing what the man was talking about and giving us insight to his thoughts. For example, when he talks about what is daughter is up to now, he is uncertain, so the shot of her in the hospital is blurry.

I also think maybe this film is about life. The writer was struggling to make a story line that would avoid merely "sensationalist means," but instead weave together the things he experienced in life in order to make sense of it all and our purpose. The old man also kept inserting himself in the story - so I think this was a way for him to make sense of his life and make some meaning of it. At one point he looks at his reflection and states that he sees an old man, so I think this is his way of reflecting on his life and giving it meaning.

I liked the old man. He was rather eccentric, and had some odd habits, like "hmm"ing to himself a lot, and ringing the bell when he wrote something. I got the feeling that he was a monk or something, because he was wearing a brown robe with the rope around the waist, and he was writing with a quill and ink, like in the old timey days. Yet he clearly lived in a world that was at least somewhat modern, because he had these memories and when he's talking at points we can hear stuff in the background, like sirens.

I loved this short. I thought it was going to be really monotonous and boring from the get-go, because the opening shot was of a ceiling with the sounds of people being checked out in a grocery store. But I guess that was the point - mirroring the monotony that these people felt during the 8 hour night shift.

From the beginning I learned two very crucial things about the boy: 1) He really likes women. He stared at a girl walking by while he mopped, and he does this to other women until he finally explains his fascination. 2) He goes to art school and has bee studying the "fundamentals of still life." This we can clearly see when he just stares at a spilled bag of peas and then again later when he stops time and studies the women. He also talks about the "art" of making time go by fast, and how everyone has a different style.

There were a few kind of random things that I noticed while watching. First, the second time they show the pictures of the employees, the manager's picture has been defiled. Secondly, all of the women that he saw naked were of similar body structure. Does he only find beauty in thin women?