Update 91-01
Update 91-01
College Classes
3rd October 2006
9:46 AMAttended college classes for reals yesterday.
COMPARATIVE POLITICS:I get taught by this really interesting English professor with a pretty strong Cockney-Scotish accent. One of the first things he does is compare the rules and regulations of totalitarian states vs that of democracies. After highlighting the USSR and China as examples of the former, guess what?
"Aye. You know there this little tiny Pacific island called... Singapore. Over there, you can't even chew gum!
*Gasps & spasms of horror from the audience* Yep. I'm telling ya - This is an example of EXTREME government interference in people's lives. Here, let me read this to ya"
He fishes into his bag and procures a Straits Times article cut-out. (No, I didn't give it to him)
"In that country, they even tell you when to have babies. At first, they didn't want them to have babies like China, but now they do. They even set up official dating angencies and are encouraging sex.
*Laughter bellows through the audience* Oh? Don't believe me, now? Let's me quote ya...This is some pretty rauchy stuff I must say..."
He proceeds to quote something about the government encouraging people to 'smooch and have sex under the stars' in their cars. I was slumped in my chair in such embarrasment that I forgot what the rest of the article said; except that when I came to, everyone else was slumped in their chair too - With laughter.
Huzzah. Our Global City is finally getting recognition worldwide! Just what gahmen wanted.
FILM STUDIES:We watched the FIRST ever movie screened for a paying audience. It was produced by this French magician and electrician who were among the first filmmakers back in the 1900s. Even facing the limitations they had more than a hundred years ago, they're still much better than me >.< This is despite not only lacking sound and color, but also having to deal with alot of jumped frames because of the slow FPS rate (Frames per second).
Their film was about these 3 French jokers running around in tight suits and umbrellas. They enter a factory and screw up everyone by playing pranks on them and blowing up the machines. After which, they get blasted off to the "Moon". (Yes. That orbiting entity) There, they find strange creatures in skeleton body suits who attack them and bring them before the "Moon-King" to be sacrificed. However, the Frenchies escape and realize that you can kill the creatures by tapping them on their head with umbrellas (Big-ass fight scene ensures with effects of the time that would put George Lucas to shame today). After a pitched battle, the escape and return to earth for a hero's welcome.
After the show, one of the students remarked that he admired the imagination of the people at such an early time.
I, on the other hand, lament the lack of improvement and ingenuity made to films nowadays in terms of plot (Probably because I was guilty of it too). Yes, despite advancing color, sound, and digital effects, nothing much has changed plot-wise.
3 French jokers running around in tight suits and umbrellas. - Three Musketeers/Monthy Pyton Gone More Wrong Than It Already Is
They enter a factory and screw up everyone by playing pranks on them and blowing up machines. - Jackass/Punk'ed
They get blasted off to the "Moon". - Armageddon/Apollo 13
here, they find strange creatures in skeleton body suits who attack them and bring them before the "Moon-King" to be sacrificed. - The Mummy
The Frenchies escape and realize that you can kill the creatures by tapping them on their head with umbrellas. - Indiana Jones/Star Wars Episode I tapping Pit-Droids on the nose
After a pitched battle, the escape and return to earth for a hero's welcome. - Virtually the same ending to any American movie
As you can see, most elements of modern cinema were really derived off these first few films. Nothing you see in the theatre today was a purely 'modern' invention. Back in these hey-days, they even used stuff like SPLIT SCREENS. Yes, split screens. Think 24. Jump-Cut editing (Tony Scott/MTV style) - Essentially everything you can think of in a film that you see today was already done by them. The first directors were really pioneers; their sets and 'special effects' were fantastic and they went to extraordinary lengths to get their picture shot: Including driving a motorcycle one handed with a camera in the other, filming from inside a box above a huge waterfall, and digging a hole under train tracks to caputre the under carriage of a moving train. How many directors would do that today?
Not me.
I went away feeling rather depressed.
Another reason why is because, like literature, film theory is also heavily weighted towards
bullshit theme & technique interpretation and analysis - The only difference is that when your Film Professor starts her first sentence with 'Quintessentially', you know your bullshitting days are numbered.
