I was driving through Pantops on Thursday, when I realized how utterly dead the world was that day. I don’t think I’d ever been out driving on Thanksgiving before, but as I had to go into NBC this week for my internship, I found myself cruising through town while most people were sitting down to diner with their families. It was very creepy - there were maybe ten cars that I was able to see on Pantops. And then once I got downtown, it was even worse. Five people, along the whole stretch of the mall. No stores open. Wind blowing hundreds of leaves across the uneven bricks, with a slight echo on everything that made a noise. Not even at 1:30 in the morning is it that dead (don’t ask me why I’ve been downtown at 1:30 in the morning).

My family did the whole Thanksgiving thing on Friday - for the second year in a row, actually. We must be rebels…

I finally got my dailies for the American Cinema Editor’s Student Editing Competition today. Every year, ACE holds a competition where they let video editing students cut together a scene from a television pilot. Out of the fifty entrants, the top three get to attend the ACE Eddie Awards in California in February. I entered last year, and had a simply marvelous time editing Scene 34 of the unreleased pilot from NBC Universal, “Haskett’s Chance.”

So imagine my surprise when I got my dailies today, and discovered a daily DVD containing… Scene 34 of Haskett’s Chance. They sent out the same scene as they did last year! I’d been so excited to get my hands on something new, wondering what the scene would be about… I never even considered they’d reuse the one from last year… Ah well, I suppose I can try to work things from a different perspective this time or something… *sigh*

I’ve been slowing down on posts lately, but I though you should all hear this quote from a “top U.S. Intelligence official”, when speaking about the increased surveillance on American Citizens:

It’s “time that people in the United States changed their definition of privacy.”

Love it.

via Yahoo News

I was surprised early Wednesday morning to learn that, due to cancellations, I had been offered a spot in this year’s Film Symposium at the Virginia Film Festival. The Symposium, led by NYU instructor Harry Chotiner, will involve me and 19 others (me being the youngest…again…as in everything I do…) watching a bunch of the films, then discussing them with each other and several of the directors/producers/screenwriters/etc. Basically, I get to talk about film with a bunch of important film people.

We’ve only met once so far, and it seems like the symposium will be fairly informal, meeting about twice each day for discussions, and then turning us loose to go watch the films. Mr. Chotiner actually commented on how we should never be afraid to say what’s on our minds at these discussions - after all, we’re not in high school anymore (after which, of course, I said that I was still in high school, and the usual blend of laughter and awkwardness seeped into the room). Some highlights for the weekend: a workshop with the screenwriter for Rebel Without a Cause, and Actor’s Forum with John Turturro, and Turturros’ new film Romance and Cigarettes.

Honestly, I’m not sure what to expect out of the whole experience - I’ve never even attended a full film festival before. Though I’m already beginning to run into the same problem I run into at conventions: what the crap do I do between events [besides blog]?!?!

I drove for upwards of eight hours on Friday and Saturday, and ended up listening to a lot of music on this wonderful thing called XM (*gasp*, WNRN sacrilege!). And there were a few things I noticed about modern music in general:

First, music used to involved just one person singing. Then, they moved up to including instruments on the records. Harmonies would be accomplished using random backup singers the recording studio hired by the hour. Now, with the wonders of modern technology and artists like Enya and Imogen Heap, we’ve got songs which layer 10-50 tracks of the same artist on top of one another. Should this seem weird to us? I mean, last time I checked, there was only Enya in existence. Shouldn’t listening to one of her songs cause some sort of red flag to go off in our brains? Generally speaking, people can’t sing five notes at once. Or sing five different things at once, for that matter.

And what’s up with the purposefully misused grammatical forms and tenses in rap songs? I’ll let songs like “Crank Dat” slide, since I suppose it’s part of the grammar of the subculture that’s developed around rap. But “The Way I Are?” No one even says that. Oh, so she likes me “just the way I are.” That’s so wonderful. I’m flattered. I love to be a incorrect, second singular version of a verb.

Speaking of music, you guys should all come to CHS’s One Act musical, “How to Eat Like a Child” on Wednesday. Interaction problems aside, it’s a fun play. And you get to see me play a dog - a role at which I’ve become something of an expert, performing as a dog no less than five times during my high school career.

Oh, and the second installment of “Adventures of an NBC Intern” is coming soon - I’m changing it up a bit, since it involves real people.

The street I live on has had an odd little tradition for at least as long as I’ve lived here in Virginia (at I think it’s odd - I don’t actually know how many other neighborhoods do this). Whenever we drive by someone else walking their dog or getting the mail, we always wave at one another. Now, I know this fosters a sense of community, and encourages friendly feelings between neighbors; but despite this “community” that supposedly exists between the 30-40 houses on my street, I’m positive I’ve never actually spoken to a neighbor in at least one, maybe two years. Call me antisocial - I call myself busy.

But even though I’ve never spoken to 98% of the people I wave at, it’s still a nice gesture that, aside from removing a bit of the awkwardness associated with passing by complete strangers, just makes for a happier and less stressful world.

So why can’t we be more like that in real life?

Today marked the “one week left” rehearsal for CHS’s One Act, “How to Eat Like a Child.” And boy is everyone edgy. It’s the first year we’ve done the One Act with a student director, and so things are working a bit differently than what most of the actors are used to. Result: not everyone is as prepared as they should be, making everyone even more stressed. Stress leads to anger, anger leads to students turning against each other.

Today, I counted no less than a dozen instances of the high school favorite, “f–k,” used by one member of the cast against another. Really, guys? Is that really necessary? Whatever happened to cast members working together to overcome any difficulties another actor has? Instead, we’re just getting mad at each other, destroying any community I used to feel with the cast, and creating an environment conducive neither to improvement nor fun (which, correct me if I’m wrong, is what high school theatre should be about).

If people just put a little bit of effort into rebuilding that community - something as simple as a hand wave - we could start having fun again, learning again. Come on people - just wave.