Most emotionally tense class ever

Friday, April 6, 2007 1:05 AM

Hey Blue (you've been the only consistent reader of my blogs, so I might as well address you)

Yesterday was the day that I would show my first rough cut of my final project entitled THEOLOGY AND GROCERY (I've decided to drop the CROSSING BORDERS hyphen since it's become a bit of a stand alone film for the purpose of this class) to the class. I was nervous (it's gotten to the point where the film is almost out of my hands and has a life of its own) but at the same time excited. Yes there were some technical details that still need to be ironed out, but for the most part the film is what it is. I was hoping for some positive feedback and constructive criticism. What I end up getting was "The sound needs more work, you broke the 180 line, the Bono monologue lost me, there's no moment of weakness from Riley. But your actors were really good." So I new have to get my actors together again for an hour to do a poor man ADR and looping with the DAT recorders, which are actually outdated pieces of crap that we barely could get to work for us when we used them for an assignment.

I guess it's just frustrating when you put so much of yourself into something that's been living in your head for nine months and work on for five days nonstop.

But I guess I kind of knew that coming in, so I can't really say I was surprised. What I was surprised with was that the stress that we were all having with our projects started to spill over in full display.

One guys project I worked on was compromised despite having two camera and a full lighting scheme because his "actors" weren't fully prepared and rehearsed. At the end of every take one of the actors burst out laughing. And this was a very beautiful but emotionally intense film they were doing, so it was affecting the final result. Fortunately, he still hadn't shot the majority of the film, so he still has that opportunity to make something great. But he said that after this, he was done with directing. He just wants to write from now on.

Another guys project was a really edgy, irreverent comedy (the subtitle was "Guns, Violence and Intoxication" which is an inside joke for us) that our teacher actually got worked up over. It's all narration and it gets pretty funny on that ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT level, but it has a joke about pussies (both kinds) that's said to demonstrate how gutless the two characters were. Well she just ripped into it and said it was sexist and crude and just awful. She actually sent us all an e-mail talking about it.

Hi Everyone,

Upon further reflection after our conversation about blank's film
yesterday, I realised we did not take the time to discuss the actual
word "pussy." In the slang form that blank uses in his film, the word
refers to a weak person with negative qualities. Thus, a weak person
is equivalent to a woman's vagina, nicknamed pussy. The term gets
extended to mean that women in general are weak and possess negative
qualities. A degrading view of women; a horror for men to be compared
to.

Likely, in any person's life, the most courageous and deeply strong
people they meet and know will be women. Also, what is weak or
negative about growing a human being inside one's body, enduring the
difficulty of that, and giving birth to her or him through that
vagina which is regarded so negatively? It is clearly an act of
strength, commitment and courage for a woman to have a child. We have
all
come from this positive place.

The word "pussy" stems from antiquated patriarchal views of women that
misconstrue the truth. This is just more propaganda blank.. it would be
nice if you didn't spread it.

Thanks,
Blank

You have to understand. This guy is not in any way crude, boisterous or sexist or any "ist" for that matter. In regular life he's pretty quiet and meek. When he's in front or behind the camera, he's incredibly funny. I call him our resident Mel Brooks. When the issue was brought up, I had made a suggestion that would have shortened the joke and made it less offensive, thus making it fun

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