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Sunday, November 16, 2003
Extra
Tonight I starred as an extra in an upcoming 7-minute UT student film. I played Forrest's side-kick, Chadwick, who doesn't know what look to have on his face when a movie theatre manager bursts onto the scene toting two little girls. My first reaction as an extra in this scene was to look surprised, then giggle. On the second take I didn't giggle, but I smirked. The third take, I just kind of had my mouth hang open a little. After "Stuck in Delaware", my natural reaction in the aforementioned scene would be to open my eyes really wide and say "Awesome!", but this film is supposed to be serious.
In my other scene, I'm supposed to be watching a scary sci-fi movie in an outdoor theatre. In the first take, I stared intently at the movie screen as though it was very captivating. In the next take, I did the same thing, but simultaneously tried to stifle a giggle. In the final take, I looked like I was about to giggle, and then I kind of giggled because Amy (who was doing some lighting effects to simulate a movie being played) said "shit" or something like that when she hit one of the lights with a big plastic thing that she had to wave around. I hope they use the third take.
The filming took place in Wimberley, TX. Filled with the small-town Texas spirit, Matt Carey, Nicole (not my roommate, a different one), and I created a game called "Rock Throw". Matt and I stood facing each other, about 15 feet apart. We would both pick up rocks and throw them at the same time and try to make them collide in the air. This game is really great. We must have played for at least 15 or 20 minutes straight. And you know what? We made the rocks hit each other in the air. And we didn't cheat. None of that, "wait for one person to throw, then the other person tries to hit it in the air." Naw. We threw the rocks at the same time. During the course of the game, we devised two points of strategy:
1. You should both agree on a level at which you're trying to make the rocks collide. We chose chest-level. This choice worked pretty well.
2. When tossing the rocks, toss your rock as if you were trying to toss it into the other person's hand. That way, your rocks should be following the same general path, and should thus collide. The added bonus of this strategy is that most of the time you can catch the rock that the other person threw, so you waste less time picking up new rocks, and achieve your goal more quickly.
I have to say that I felt a little embarrassed when Matt and Nicole gave it a go and made it happen in about 5 minutes. But, I think that's just because Matt and I had already worked out the strategies I was just talking about.
Studying for the Computer Science GRE has reminded me of the dream I used to have of being the first person to come up with a polynomial-time algorithm for solving the set of NP-complete problems. Either that, or proving that it can't be done. Same diff. I heard that you get like a million bucks for figuring that out.
If you or anyone you know speaks French pretty well, come my way. I'm trying to become semi-fluent in French by, say, March. I took it in highschool, so I'm not that far from my goal.
If you're running Windows XP and you're not using ClearType for your font-smoothing, you are really missing out. Right-click on your desktop, click "Properties", go to the "Appearance" tab, click the "Effects" button, and under "Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts" choose ClearType. Suddenly you'll think you've got a Mac... all the text looks really nice.
In my other scene, I'm supposed to be watching a scary sci-fi movie in an outdoor theatre. In the first take, I stared intently at the movie screen as though it was very captivating. In the next take, I did the same thing, but simultaneously tried to stifle a giggle. In the final take, I looked like I was about to giggle, and then I kind of giggled because Amy (who was doing some lighting effects to simulate a movie being played) said "shit" or something like that when she hit one of the lights with a big plastic thing that she had to wave around. I hope they use the third take.
The filming took place in Wimberley, TX. Filled with the small-town Texas spirit, Matt Carey, Nicole (not my roommate, a different one), and I created a game called "Rock Throw". Matt and I stood facing each other, about 15 feet apart. We would both pick up rocks and throw them at the same time and try to make them collide in the air. This game is really great. We must have played for at least 15 or 20 minutes straight. And you know what? We made the rocks hit each other in the air. And we didn't cheat. None of that, "wait for one person to throw, then the other person tries to hit it in the air." Naw. We threw the rocks at the same time. During the course of the game, we devised two points of strategy:
1. You should both agree on a level at which you're trying to make the rocks collide. We chose chest-level. This choice worked pretty well.
2. When tossing the rocks, toss your rock as if you were trying to toss it into the other person's hand. That way, your rocks should be following the same general path, and should thus collide. The added bonus of this strategy is that most of the time you can catch the rock that the other person threw, so you waste less time picking up new rocks, and achieve your goal more quickly.
I have to say that I felt a little embarrassed when Matt and Nicole gave it a go and made it happen in about 5 minutes. But, I think that's just because Matt and I had already worked out the strategies I was just talking about.
Studying for the Computer Science GRE has reminded me of the dream I used to have of being the first person to come up with a polynomial-time algorithm for solving the set of NP-complete problems. Either that, or proving that it can't be done. Same diff. I heard that you get like a million bucks for figuring that out.
If you or anyone you know speaks French pretty well, come my way. I'm trying to become semi-fluent in French by, say, March. I took it in highschool, so I'm not that far from my goal.
If you're running Windows XP and you're not using ClearType for your font-smoothing, you are really missing out. Right-click on your desktop, click "Properties", go to the "Appearance" tab, click the "Effects" button, and under "Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts" choose ClearType. Suddenly you'll think you've got a Mac... all the text looks really nice.
