Thursday, May 11, 2006
The Act Released!
Yes, I know this is 2.5 months late. But it's finally out.
The script didn't win anything. In fact, it didn't even place in the top 3 in terms of votes, which surprised me. The feedback was mostly positive, but there was a large spectrum of reactions. The main issue seemed to be with the religious elements - some people felt it was too preachy, which I did my best not to do. Other people didn't find it preachy at all, and these were usually the people that ended up really liking it.
Some examples of comments:
"While reading the script, I actually found myself wanting to know what the hell was going on. I was eagerly reading on to find out what was the secret that he was hiding. But then after we find out what that secret was it starts to slow down a bit.... Overall nice job."
"I loved it. I couldn't put it down. A couple of lines briefly took me out of the story, but it's all good."
"Where do you religious freaks come from? I don't understand the process. But there you are, writing preachy redemption crap that is... it makes me uncomfortable reading it, and not because I'm going to go to hell. It makes me uncomfortable because I'm assuming this is a tribute to God, a testament to your faith.... and I gotta say, God must be in as much pain as I am when he reads this script."
"It was pretty by-the-book, not horrible or anything, but I too was chagrined by the 'and then God blessed everyone' stuff."
"WOOOOO!!! I say that as an avowed atheist. Why would non-god-fearing folk not enjoy this? I didn't find it preachy or anything. (Aside from his wife being being named Faith...) In fact, I thought it was one of the better scripts of the contest. Real CONFLICT. YES. Too many stories about boys wanting girls or people doing bad things to each other without a worthy purpose. Well this hits the nail on the head. The situation is dire, it is immediate, and unfortuantely, totally believable. This is a nice story of redemption for someone who really needs it to go on living. I would have appreciated an additional scene showing how (or IF) the man's churching career gets back on track, but it still works alright ending where it does. Nice work all around. Very entertaining."
So yay. Overall I'm glad to see it was reasonably well-received.
Unfortunately, the final film is getting a merely mediocre response thus far. I'm not surprised - there are a lot of scenes that were cut out (the entire spiritual crisis and "message" about what "the act" actually is has completely disappeared, for whatever reason), and the editing definitely needs work. I think the directing was fairly solid, considering how pressed for time Deej was. Some things are strong, others aren't. Personally, I prefer the script. However, James Monegan (the actor who plays David) will hopefully be compiling his own edit of the film over the summer, so I'm looking forward to seeing his take on the script and the footage.
You can find the link to the film here. You can read more comments on the script (as well as a rather long post by me going into more details about the writing process) here.
Enjoy!
Oh, and Pride and Prejudice is a pretty good movie.
The script didn't win anything. In fact, it didn't even place in the top 3 in terms of votes, which surprised me. The feedback was mostly positive, but there was a large spectrum of reactions. The main issue seemed to be with the religious elements - some people felt it was too preachy, which I did my best not to do. Other people didn't find it preachy at all, and these were usually the people that ended up really liking it.
Some examples of comments:
"While reading the script, I actually found myself wanting to know what the hell was going on. I was eagerly reading on to find out what was the secret that he was hiding. But then after we find out what that secret was it starts to slow down a bit.... Overall nice job."
"I loved it. I couldn't put it down. A couple of lines briefly took me out of the story, but it's all good."
"Where do you religious freaks come from? I don't understand the process. But there you are, writing preachy redemption crap that is... it makes me uncomfortable reading it, and not because I'm going to go to hell. It makes me uncomfortable because I'm assuming this is a tribute to God, a testament to your faith.... and I gotta say, God must be in as much pain as I am when he reads this script."
"It was pretty by-the-book, not horrible or anything, but I too was chagrined by the 'and then God blessed everyone' stuff."
"WOOOOO!!! I say that as an avowed atheist. Why would non-god-fearing folk not enjoy this? I didn't find it preachy or anything. (Aside from his wife being being named Faith...) In fact, I thought it was one of the better scripts of the contest. Real CONFLICT. YES. Too many stories about boys wanting girls or people doing bad things to each other without a worthy purpose. Well this hits the nail on the head. The situation is dire, it is immediate, and unfortuantely, totally believable. This is a nice story of redemption for someone who really needs it to go on living. I would have appreciated an additional scene showing how (or IF) the man's churching career gets back on track, but it still works alright ending where it does. Nice work all around. Very entertaining."
So yay. Overall I'm glad to see it was reasonably well-received.
Unfortunately, the final film is getting a merely mediocre response thus far. I'm not surprised - there are a lot of scenes that were cut out (the entire spiritual crisis and "message" about what "the act" actually is has completely disappeared, for whatever reason), and the editing definitely needs work. I think the directing was fairly solid, considering how pressed for time Deej was. Some things are strong, others aren't. Personally, I prefer the script. However, James Monegan (the actor who plays David) will hopefully be compiling his own edit of the film over the summer, so I'm looking forward to seeing his take on the script and the footage.
You can find the link to the film here. You can read more comments on the script (as well as a rather long post by me going into more details about the writing process) here.
Enjoy!
Oh, and Pride and Prejudice is a pretty good movie.
# posted by Andrew Johnson : 5/11/2006 07:39:00 AM 
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Psychology How I Loathe Thee
Had a great weekend with Souwa. Now I'm back... and I'm supposed to be studying for my psychology final. Note the italics. I'm not studying very hard. I've basically just been sleeping, eating, playing GameCube and watching television.
It turns out a lot of the stuff on the test is going to be taken straight from a few of the practice tests in our Study Guide. That's great, right? Wrong. I left the Study Guide in High Point. I've never used it, much like I think I've only picked up the book once this whole semester. Hopefully Aunt Brenda will be able to scan a few of the tests and send them to me tomorrow for the exam. But if she doesn't....I'm honestly not quite sure if I care at this point. I don't want to study. I hate my psychology class. I'm tired, tired, tired of my freshman year of college. If you want me to study, make it a class worth studying for.
My psychology class has been the worst class I've taken this year. And yes, that includes Calculus. Calculus was hard and boring. My psychology class has been boring, poorly taught, poorly structured, and as a result somewhat difficult. Difficult enough to challenge me, but not difficult enough to make me feel like I need to study my butt off, especially when I'm pissed off.
Let's count the reasons this class sucks and I don't feel like studying, shall we?
1) It's a large class. Now that's not inherently a bad thing - I've had plenty of large classes that were great, like my Sociology classes. However, large classes are much worse than small classes when handled improperly.
2) The teacher is boring. You can tell he's trying, but he just doesn't know how to present the information in an interesting way. He's a young guy, probably not very experienced. He uses PowerPoint slides - this is a good idea, but all I really use it for is to fill in the blanks on the Guided Notes he so graciously provided us. I have no other reason to pay attention. It's not flashy, it's not witty, it's not intriguing. The only really "fun" times are when he shows clips from movies and television shows to demonstrate certain concepts. Those actually keep me awake for a few minutes.
3) He makes us buy stuff we don't use. The textbook was expensive. None of the other psychology sections were required to buy it, but we were. He doesn't even teach it. We're supposed to go home and read it on our spare time, but I have yet to meet anybody who actually does that. I'm sorry, but if you're going to test us on certain material, you should actually teach that material. Don't expect us to miraculously understand everything. The book came with a CD-ROM and a Study Guide. I've used neither. I've never needed to, except for now when all of a sudden he's decided those practice tests will come in handy. Wonderful. I don't want to think about how much money I wasted on stuff I touched twice, maximum.
So yeah. I'm not motivated. Why should I study material he doesn't teach well from a book he doesn't teach at all using a study guide I've never used before? Yeah, I don't know either.
My goal for tomorrow: Pass. Just pass. That way I can get credit and not have taken this terrible class for nothing.
On a better note: Mission Impossible 3 is fantastic. It more than makes up for that sub-par first sequel. Philip Seymour Hoffman is one of the best villains I've seen in a long time. This movie is fun, thrilling, emotional, and extremely dark. I loved it. Go see it.
It turns out a lot of the stuff on the test is going to be taken straight from a few of the practice tests in our Study Guide. That's great, right? Wrong. I left the Study Guide in High Point. I've never used it, much like I think I've only picked up the book once this whole semester. Hopefully Aunt Brenda will be able to scan a few of the tests and send them to me tomorrow for the exam. But if she doesn't....I'm honestly not quite sure if I care at this point. I don't want to study. I hate my psychology class. I'm tired, tired, tired of my freshman year of college. If you want me to study, make it a class worth studying for.
My psychology class has been the worst class I've taken this year. And yes, that includes Calculus. Calculus was hard and boring. My psychology class has been boring, poorly taught, poorly structured, and as a result somewhat difficult. Difficult enough to challenge me, but not difficult enough to make me feel like I need to study my butt off, especially when I'm pissed off.
Let's count the reasons this class sucks and I don't feel like studying, shall we?
1) It's a large class. Now that's not inherently a bad thing - I've had plenty of large classes that were great, like my Sociology classes. However, large classes are much worse than small classes when handled improperly.
2) The teacher is boring. You can tell he's trying, but he just doesn't know how to present the information in an interesting way. He's a young guy, probably not very experienced. He uses PowerPoint slides - this is a good idea, but all I really use it for is to fill in the blanks on the Guided Notes he so graciously provided us. I have no other reason to pay attention. It's not flashy, it's not witty, it's not intriguing. The only really "fun" times are when he shows clips from movies and television shows to demonstrate certain concepts. Those actually keep me awake for a few minutes.
3) He makes us buy stuff we don't use. The textbook was expensive. None of the other psychology sections were required to buy it, but we were. He doesn't even teach it. We're supposed to go home and read it on our spare time, but I have yet to meet anybody who actually does that. I'm sorry, but if you're going to test us on certain material, you should actually teach that material. Don't expect us to miraculously understand everything. The book came with a CD-ROM and a Study Guide. I've used neither. I've never needed to, except for now when all of a sudden he's decided those practice tests will come in handy. Wonderful. I don't want to think about how much money I wasted on stuff I touched twice, maximum.
So yeah. I'm not motivated. Why should I study material he doesn't teach well from a book he doesn't teach at all using a study guide I've never used before? Yeah, I don't know either.
My goal for tomorrow: Pass. Just pass. That way I can get credit and not have taken this terrible class for nothing.
On a better note: Mission Impossible 3 is fantastic. It more than makes up for that sub-par first sequel. Philip Seymour Hoffman is one of the best villains I've seen in a long time. This movie is fun, thrilling, emotional, and extremely dark. I loved it. Go see it.
# posted by Andrew Johnson : 5/07/2006 11:24:00 PM
Monday, May 01, 2006
Let It End Soon
I haven't updated in a while because I've been insanely busy. It seems like all my teachers scheduled their final projects/papers/presentations/tests for the same period.
And it's not over. I start finals this week. Tomorrow I've got my film exam, followed by Genetics on Wednesday. Wednesday evening I'm going to go to High Point and relax with Souwa until Sunday. But before then I've got to catch up on all the job work I'm behind on, plus do a Psychology report I completely forgot about. And find time to study. Not good. I have no motivation at all. I just want to sit around and do nothing. School doesn't mean anything to me anymore. I've had to work too hard in too little time. Working 80 hours a week will be heaven after this. At least then I'll be outside.
In the meantime: here is my article on Full Frame. And here is my review of RV, which was actually so-so instead of the total piece of crap I thought it would be.
Last night I saw Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance, from the director of Oldboy. It was good, but not as good as the latter.
One day this week Souwa and I are going to watch all three Matrix movies back-to-back. Not only is it because I've always said I would do it one day, but because my Religion final is going to involve analyzing them from the perspectives of both Western and Eastern religions. It is going to be the best final I ever take.
Tomorrow the votes for the screenplays in the film festival will be counted up. I'm positive The Act won't win either of the two prizes (one for Most Creative Screenplay and the other for Best Overall Screenplay), but I won't be surprised if it's one of the runners-up in the top three. It seems to have gotten a generally positive response, which is good. We'll see what happens. After that, it should finally be posted online for you all to see.
Back to work!
And it's not over. I start finals this week. Tomorrow I've got my film exam, followed by Genetics on Wednesday. Wednesday evening I'm going to go to High Point and relax with Souwa until Sunday. But before then I've got to catch up on all the job work I'm behind on, plus do a Psychology report I completely forgot about. And find time to study. Not good. I have no motivation at all. I just want to sit around and do nothing. School doesn't mean anything to me anymore. I've had to work too hard in too little time. Working 80 hours a week will be heaven after this. At least then I'll be outside.
In the meantime: here is my article on Full Frame. And here is my review of RV, which was actually so-so instead of the total piece of crap I thought it would be.
Last night I saw Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance, from the director of Oldboy. It was good, but not as good as the latter.
One day this week Souwa and I are going to watch all three Matrix movies back-to-back. Not only is it because I've always said I would do it one day, but because my Religion final is going to involve analyzing them from the perspectives of both Western and Eastern religions. It is going to be the best final I ever take.
Tomorrow the votes for the screenplays in the film festival will be counted up. I'm positive The Act won't win either of the two prizes (one for Most Creative Screenplay and the other for Best Overall Screenplay), but I won't be surprised if it's one of the runners-up in the top three. It seems to have gotten a generally positive response, which is good. We'll see what happens. After that, it should finally be posted online for you all to see.
Back to work!
# posted by Andrew Johnson : 5/01/2006 07:15:00 PM
