Crazy-A Storm of 2010

A couple of weeks ago we had a massive storm. Power out, floods, trees down everywhere. I was, of course, driving through a large chunk of it, but it wasn't even the storm itself that was the worst thing. The flooding was just unbelievable. Firefighter Friend steered a BOAT down a street where the water was above the mailboxes. And while a lot of cleanup has happened, people are still working on their homes and their yards, especially since we just had another weekend of rain on top of waters that still haven't completely receded.

I snapped this picture today in front of a house in my town. Thank goodness the tree didn't fall *toward* the house.


I would have taken a better picture, but there was someone working in the yard next door, and it was sorta awkward already with the parking and the getting out of the car and the picture taking. You get the point.

Also, still haven't decided about Script Frenzy, which starts tomorrow. I'm sure I can fill the 100 page quota, but I'm not sure I should be focusing on original material right now. And whether it be Screnzy or NaNo, I always have something time consuming and writing-prohibitive to do on the first. This year it's cupcake baking and dinner with friends. Man, such trying obligations!

A Piece of (Cup)Cake

Recent exciting things --

1) I bought a kitchen flame thrower. Well, it's more like a mini torch, but it's amazing fun. I used it yesterday to toast the icing on my s'mores cupcakes.

You wish you knew me for realsies now, don't you?

2) I applied for a job. It's a PA position for Game of Thrones, which I'm cautious of getting too excited about, but I was excited anyway. I thought I wrote a pretty kick-a cover letter, though sometimes it was difficult to convene how no one else is going to be as passionate about this project as I am without sounding like a pandering fangirl. In typical Butler fashion, I wrote my cover letter last night and woke up at 5:15 to do my resume this morning. It's just exciting to start applying for film jobs. This is the first of many (unless I get it!).

3) It was warm here. We had a picnic last week. Even though it's cold again, it's still warmer than Michigan.

4) This week's Lost was an episode to make all of us who stayed proud.

And the Oscar goes to...

Saturday may have been the first day in my 90 days of writing that I didn't do *anything.* Usually, no matter how busy or tired I am, I make sure I do something, even if it's just banging out one sentence. However, I don't feel guilty about missing Day 21. We had wind, rain, floods, near hurricane conditions, and I was driving most of the day. I've never seen such severe flooding. FOUR trees fell on my neighbor's property. Even though the rains have stopped, we're still feeling it. Many people don't have power. We're not allowed to drink our water. Many schools were canceled because of the water problem. I'm so grateful to all the technicians and emergency workers who've been taking care of us all weekend. And there's supposed to be sunshine tomorrow.

Liza asked my thoughts on Kathryn Bigelow winning Best Director this year. I'm thrilled a woman finally won Best Director. Bigelow is only the fourth woman to even be nominated for the award. Now I have more of an incentive to watch The Hurt Locker.

However, I said I'd look for someone who could state my opinion better than myself, and Sarah Fain did a pretty good job. Fantastic that a woman won the Best Director award, but honestly, I don't think it's going to break any great ground for female directors everywhere. Hollywood is a wonderful boys' club. Nora Ephron once said that when she was writing back in the 80s, she would get lists of potential directors, and not one woman would be listed. AFI's 1998 list of the 100 best movies of the century had no movies directed by women. Of the top 250 domestic grossing films in 2007, only 6% were directed by women. The independent route is slightly better for women - and wait, that's how Kathryn Bigelow went with the Hurt Locker.

There's a lot more to be said about women's voices in film, especially when it comes to "women's pictures" and how Hollywood's interpretation of the market diminishes the influence of the female demographic. There's a whole lot of psychology that comes into play in networking, relationships between women and men in the Industry, and relationships between women and women. I wrote a paper on this once, can you tell? If you'd like to read it, just leave a comment with your email or email me.

Is that situation for women improving in Hollywood? I believe it is - but only because some women have fought like hell for their positions and for the rest of us. Bigelow's Oscar is not an event that shatters the glass ceiling. It is the result of all her hard work and the work of the women before her. And from here we keep working.

Sources --
Fournier, Gina. Thelma & Louise and Women in Hollywood.
Lauzen, Ph.D., Martha M. “The Celluloid Ceiling: Behind-the-Scenes Employment of Women on the Top 250 Films of 2007.”
Traister, Rebecca. “Chicks Behind Flicks.”
Walker, Susan. “Women on Top of the Film World.”

Snow day

It started snowing yesterday morning and kept on for 36 hours straight. Crazy amounts of snow. I'm starting to think about maybe considering not all that the weathermen say to be completely bogus.

If it's going to snow like this, it should be socially acceptable to play Christmas music.

Over the last couple days I've finished notecarding Keys to the Garden and the first half of my TV pilot and I've tinkered with my rom com idea, to no great gains. I really need to do some research for the rom com, but I'll admit, the thought of checking out half a dozen books from the library about men and dysfunctional relationships intimidates me.

I've also been majorly productive by watching 30 Rock. I've watched some of the recent episodes on Hulu, but thanks to the beauty of Netflix, I can start back at the beginning. I've watched the first four or five episodes, and they are hil-aaaar-i-ous. And honestly, I swear I'm not making this up just to justify my waste of my life by watching TV, I have been learning a lot about comedy from 30 Rock.

Ms. Fey, if you have a minute, I have an idea for a film that I think you would loooove. Mr. Baldwin, if you have a minute, I'd just like to bask in your presence.

For instance, in 1x02, The Aftermath, Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) starts off with one problem. In her attempt to fix her one small problem, she causes a big problem. In her attempt to fix her big problem, she causes an even bigger problem. One, that's an incredibly smart model to use for rising conflict in general, and two, it's wonderfully funny, especially when Lemon's gone through this whole song and dance and you think she's finally smoothed things over - only to find out she's just got herself into a worse mess than before.

And then in 1x04, Jack the Writer, there is a small but brilliant moment. Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) comes into the writer's room to monitor their efficiency. And of course he says to act like he's not there, and of course we expect him to be anything but inconspicuous. However, I was expecting him to be difficult and demanding, when actually all his interruptions stemmed from him getting too excited and involved in the creative process. (Ok, clearly I was not paying enough attention to the title of the episode here.) A great example of expectation reversal. I was expecting the story to go one way, and instead it took the opposite route.

You may not have realized comedy is so contrived. It's actually "easy" to study, analyze, and deconstruct the structure of a joke and learn how to build your own. Thank goodness it is, for those of us who need to be book funny.

Bada Bing!

Yesterday I took the director's chair. It was super cool. I'm in the Introduction to TV, Film, and Video Production class this semester, and we just started actually working in the studio. The first of the three units (Film, Video, and TV) that we're doing is Video. We had a three minute interview that we were filming live for tape and we were all going to rotate the positions, director, AD, tech director, floor manager, camera people, etc. etc. We marked up all our scripts for when we're the director, and I even practiced the commands aloud. I was going to be fine, I was sure, as long as I wasn't the first one.

We got our rotation charts first thing in class on Wednesday. I was most definitely the director for the first set.

In a live (or live for tape) TV show, the director calls all the shots as they're happening. We had a monitor in the control room with all three camera shots going and a bigger picture of what was actually going out. So the director gets to sit there and say things like, "Ready [camera] 1. Take 1. (pause) Ready 3. Take 3." and so on, trying to make the three minutes of people ad libbing look interesting. That's not the hard part of the director's job. The hard part is getting into the program and getting out. In a three minute program we had the clock set for three minutes and ten seconds, and when the AD got to "2" in the ten count, the director starts spewing forth all the ready and real commands to fade up picture, sound, graphics, open mics, cue talent, take camera 2, fade music down, lose graphics, etc. etc. etc. That was so stressful because the talent doesn't talk until they're cued and you can just read the commands in one big breath until you get past the intro into the actual segment. Getting out is stressful because you have to get out AT ZERO and sometimes the talent isn't quite done talking. We rehearsed the segment a couple of times before actually filming it for my grade, and we never nailed the ending quite right. And I'm already nervous because I'm the first one, and our instructors have been assuring us over and over again that we're going to make mistakes. Well, really -

I nailed it.

I wasn't perfect, but as soon as I cried "Fade sound and picture out!" because the tension at this point is ridiculous as you have your AD counting down next to you like an atomic bombs about to go off, the audio guy all the way in the other room, the talent on screen rambling about something, and your professor in your ear whispering instructions and warnings - really, quite a lot of stimulus for an already overstimulated girl. But we faded out, and my professor goes "Great job! This girl is one cool cat!" (Or something along those ridiculous lines. I love the phrases older people use. My boss sent me an email the other day and ended it with "You're a GEM!" It made me smile. Yup, that's me. I am one freaking precious rock, baby!). I think everyone else was relieved, too, that the first shoot went pretty well, because it was their first time working their positions too.

Next week I am going to be the host of the show. Oh I am so excited.

We have been having gorgeous weather out here. My favourite type, really, occasional rain notwithstanding. Thursdays are a little stressful for me because it's really go go go from 830 to 5, and then I have a TON of Spanish homework because I neglected it all week. But I have an excuse to enjoy the weather with a picnic instead of doing homework, and I finally got to see the army guys repel down the side of the dental building, which I've heard about extensively but never actually seen. I couldn't stop and watch, because that would just be awkward, but I got in a few backward glances. It was impressive, but really, I think I could have repelled down a little quicker. : P

How to listen to U2 on a broken shuffle

My iPod wasn't working today. I have a shuffle, so it won't even tell me what's wrong. I ran errands and such today, walking of course, and my iPod stopped working after a while. So when I started walking back and, in frustration, did what I do to technology that's trying to revolt - I shook it. And that worked! Amazing.

Today was a positively beautiful day.

I didn't write again on Whatever You Ask yesterday after I posted. Because I'm lazy. Today I wrote 1200 words, though, so I made up for it, I think. Finished Act I. Act II will be difficult, getting those complications rolling, but hopefully once started it will go along, er, smoothly.

I caught an episode of On the Lot finally. I'd only heard things before tonight, mostly that it wasn't really very filmmaker realistic. Tonight they showcased 5 of 15 after they had five days to write, shoot, and edit their own shorts. They weren't too bad. Better than I could do in five days. My favourite one, for anyone who saw it, was the baker musical. But seriously, my first thought was, Oh my gosh Carrie Fisher looks so old!

I met her once, you know. Got to shake her hand. Stood in line three hours to do so, but I was star struck like I said I never would be.

I'm trying to get into Zoetrope, Francis Ford Coppola's writing community. You review others' scripts so that they'll review yours. I just don't know. From the batch they sent me, none of the loglines are that appealing, and the one I'm reading now is, well, not slow going, but not engaging either.

Finished watching Sideways. It didn't necessarily redeem itself after I picked it up again, but the story definitely improved. If it could have held that tone and style throughout the entire film, I would have enjoyed it a lot more.

I got my paperwork for my camp job sent off today. It's not that I'm not doing things here, I'm working and writing and spending time with friends and family. I just have too much time. Things would be easier with a license. I really should work on that...

Did I mention that it was a gorgeous day?

Insert Cute Title Here

Note to self (and all others listening): even in case of extreme and sweltering heat, beware opening a window sans screen to catch that cool summer breeze. Not only will the breeze come in, but all the other crap that's floating in around the air. I may wake up in a blanket of leaves.

I'm happy to see that the number of posts labeled "real life" exceeds the number labeled "song lyrics." Though I have yet to finish labeling.

My excessive need to organize things is so fickle. Where was this in the middle of the school year when I had two notebooks and four legal pads for five classes?

I've been spending some time on the Script Frenzy forums (let's just be honest. The past three weeks I have been spending waaaay too much time online), and someone started a thread about people who write more than just SF and NaNo. I am so far the only person who's responded. The thread is titled "Writers for Real." Aren't we presumptuous? And it gets better - both of us are only students. We're too cocky, too confident for our own good (more on this later). It may all end in tears.

Nah.

I've been dialogging with another Frenzier about plots. Remarkably, I've come up with a whole slew of ideas for character development/interaction from examples from my own life. I'm very excited about the potential for his script. I just hope now that mine doesn't turn into a dud.

Poor people who have only been coming to my blog for the past month or so. You must think that all I really ever talk about or think about is writing. If only it were so.

Tomorrow I am flying back to Old School Land for a wedding of my old roomie. This will be the first time I've been back on campus since I left a year ago to go to England and then the cold, strange land of Michigan. The last day I was there was a huge rush of activity, and then there was a few quiet moments in the Valley with my friend Jeremiah while we waited for my mom and aunt. And it was when he started chasing a squirrel that I finally started crying. I blame the beautiful day and the absurdity of the squirrel. I don't regret leaving Old School Land, but I miss it. I am super excited, practically bouncing. And yes, Ben Titter, you can quote me on that, like you have before.

Sunny Days and Rain

Today was definitely an umbrella and galoshes day, a fact I was oblivious to until I was standing on the corner of where I work in the coldest shower I've had in months, waiting for the five minute long light to change to let me catch my bus. It's definitely one of those days where you are more likely to giggle about it than freak out. However, it rained so much on me that my jeans turned a completely different color.

Music is surprisingly important in my life considering I'm not that musical or involved in musical things anymore. Music is my memory. I'm the kind of person who instantly loves a song and plays it over and over again and completely makes it my own. So instead of smelling baking cookies and being instantly transported back to my Christmas time or something, I hear a song and can practically enter an exact memory of my life at the time. When I hear certain DC Talk or Newboys songs (old school, right), I go back to summers in our house in Leonia with the window open and the smells and sounds of summer coming in, the checked curtains, the breeze, and whatever nerdy things I did when I was fourteen (I'll never tell...). Love Don't Let Me Go or Put Your Hands Up for Detroit is instantaneous transportation to going out with my girls in England. Star Mile reminds me of quiet nights in my room in England. Over and Over Again was always playing on the radio in the bathroom freshman year. Breathe goes back to the smell and feel of Rice Hall last summer when I was an au pair. Any Coldplay song, the last three or four years of my life. Ben Folds, the Fray, and Regina Spektor are these seasons memory makers. I have an actual playlist on iTunes called Songs of my Life.

When Jeremiah was up here last week (yay AU!), he introduced me to Regina Spektor. One of her songs has been on repeat a lot on my iPod and computer, and today I realized that it would be the perfect closing song to one of my shorts that I'm working on. I don't know what it's like to get rights to a song for a student short, but if I end up making this before I graduate, which I'm going to try, I'm also going to try to get the rights. Or maybe I'll just use it without permission. : ) These are the lyrics to the song, but I also put up the link to the youTube video, because I think if you just read the lyrics, you might get a completely wrong impression of the song. It's a HAPPY song. It's like the Fray's Cable Car or Ben Folds Still Fighting It, where it *looks* sorta depressing, but in a strange way, it makes you feel better. I don't know; I've created a new genre for music called Happy Sad songs. Because that's what they are. And I love them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wigqKfLWjvM

"Fidelity" by Regina Spektor

(Shake it up)

I never loved nobody fully
Always one foot on the ground
And by protecting my heart truly
I got lost in the sounds
I hear in my mind
All these voices
I hear in my mind all these words
I hear in my mind all this music

And it breaks my heart
And it breaks my heart
And it breaks my heart
It breaks my heart

And suppose I never met you
Suppose we never fell in love
Suppose I never ever let you kiss me so sweet and so soft
Suppose I never ever saw you
Suppose we never ever called
Suppose I kept on singing love songs just to break my own fall
Just to break my fall
Just to break my fall
Break my fall
Break my fall

All my friends say that of course its gonna get better
Gonna get better
Better better better better
Better better better

I never love nobody fully
Always one foot on the ground
And by protecting by heart truly
I got lost
In the sounds
I hear in my mind
All these voices
I hear in my mind all these words
I hear in my mind
All this music
And it breaks my heart
It breaks my heart
Breaks my
Heart
Breaks my heart