I like your new hair (9/30/09)

Journal:
* Don't Cut Class schedule.
* E-mailed potential extras.
* Revising Shawn's essay.

Grade: 100
5th & 6th & 7th: Scheduling.
8th: Budgeting lecture.

The Pencil Rain (9/29)

Journal:
Letter of rec requests... Worked on revising my essay on Shawn... Started reading Six Characters In Search of An Author... Uh...

Grade: 100
5th: Essay talk. Gave Katelin feedback.
6th & 7th: Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom auditions.
8th: Essay talk. Contemplated our thesis statements.

Thesis: One's creative presence supersedes their physical.

Note to self: Don't be pretentious. It's not my brand.

Your minutes are up now (9/21/09)

Journal:
Read Four by Christopher Shin. No monologue for me. The only character whose type I fit has one monologue and it's extremely passive. Maybe something from True West? I'm not sure. I need a contemporary dramatic...

Grade: 100
5th - 7th period: Headshots
8th: Looked for monologue

Debate Notes:
1. Should art always show good triumphant?
If that is how the events truthfully play out, then yes. While I believe an unhappy ending is fine where it's warranted, an ending completely devoid of hope is very rare. Even if you take some of the unhappiest endings of all time, there are still sparks of hope, however dim, at the end. For example, the Capulets and the Montagues resolve their feud over the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. Horatio lives on to tell Hamlet's story and Fortinbras takes over Denmark.

And even if the ending for the subjects of the work of art are dismal, the hopelessness of it is the hope of changing the way people see things after seeing the hopeless art. For example:
While it seems rather hopeless for the young boy, who is moments from death, but the photo stands as an icon of awareness of the devastating famines that have plagued Africa for years and continue to this day.*

2. Should art follow truth without concern to social codes and moral values?
Yes, of course. Although, I think if there's anything frivolous about the breaking of the conventions, it's just as bad as conforming to bad ones. It's like a high schooler running down the hallway screaming "fuck you" to everyone he passes. There's no real purpose for it besides to shock people.

I think it should have a justifiable (by the artist) reason for breaking the "rules."

* (The photographer of this photo committed suicide three months later. Thought that was an interesting bit of information.)

(9/17)

Journal:
Portfolio work. Looking at all of my plays and screenplays and choosing the best bits and pieces.

Grade: 100
5th: Portfolio work.
6th & 7th: Four minutes of reality.
8th: Portfolio work.

I don't know (9/16/09)

Journal:
* Contact sheet (Google Doc)
* Worked on Common App essay.
* DePaul application.

Grade: 100
5th: Collaboration lecture.
6th & 7th: taught freshmen about chutes catwalks and ladders.
8th: Camera equipment inventory.
Made a date for working on the shot sheet with Katelin.

Illusions (9/15/09)

Journal:
Proposal for showcase
Google Group
E-mailed script

To-Do:
Shot-by-shot schedule

Grade: 100
5th: Essay talk. I wrote a pretty crappy essay in the fifteen minute exercise, but it gave me ideas, so that's good.
6th-7th: History/debate with the freshmen. That kid John is cool.
8th: Got a topic for my common app essay. (Due Tuesday.)

And we're back... (9/14/09)

Journal:
Hammered out scheduling conflicts with Bicsko.
E-mailed Aladren.
Made final revisions to script.

To-do:
Make shot-by-shot schedule.
Send out script.

Grade: 100
Monologue talk 5th period.
Movement/voice with Freshmen. I helped some of them improve their centers. (6th and 7th)
Talked to Bicsko, worked on shot sheet 8th period.