300

This is going to be the bloodiest, goriest, limb losingest, highest contrast post I have ever made. This is my 300th post.

I actually loved 300. Yes, it was over the top. Yes, it was gory. Yes, it had bizarre sword armed giants with no explanation. But, that was sort of its root, so I am fine with it. Truthfully, the film is beautifully shot. The lighting was stunning. And they maintained the high contrast guttural feel throughout, so I bow to the intentional representation of yet another comic book on film. So far both of the films based on Frank Miller's work have been visually stunning in their own right. Sin City had some wonderful cinematography. It was a comic book come to life, no doubt.

At any rate, I had no intention of writing about 300 until I saw that it was to be my 300th blog, so there you have it.

In reality I was going to write about school and my incredible life over the past six weeks, and counting...

There are two main culminating points in this class. The first is the group comp book, which I designed, wrote, printed, edited, compiled, and delivered on behalf of my "group." I take the blame for doing the work, because if I didn't do it, I didn't have any confidence that the quality of work would be up to my standards, so I did it. I forced my fellow teammates to meet and discuss the write up so that I could incorporate their feelings about the project, which cost me three hours of my life that I will never get back, but I ended up writing what I wanted to write anyway.

The second is the individual comp book. This is where I shine, for several reasons. One, I have already created templates, basic write-ups, and lighting diagrams for the group book, so a great deal of the individual book is already written and ready to go. Two, since this book is entirely mine, I am the only one accountable for its appearance and overall presentation. This book is a thing of organized and calculated beauty. My analytical mind has been working overtime in this class figuring out optics, geometry, diffraction, incidence, reflection, and the inverse square law of light; but for some reason it longed for the simple beauty of writing clean, concise conclusions about the class work that I have done up until this point in the session. Concise I am not good at, but I did my best. Honestly, I don't feel as though you should skimp on explanation when someone has asked you to explain something. I did edit out some of the "flourish" though. I like big words and modifiers, and I think that might get old if you have to read twenty two books. (Which I did have to do while grading LT work, so I can appreciate brevity.) So I presented the information in as simple a form as I could while still saying everything I wanted to say and providing some freaking beautiful lighting diagrams. The book was due today. Well, half of it. The presentation and half of the assignments had to be completed today. Everything else is due during my Final Crit next week. So, five images including two Black Glass III images, two Background images, and one Theme Assembly were turned in today. Everything else I will turn in next week.

Unfortunately for me, most of the remaining images have yet to be shot. I had some trouble with two of my Backgrounds and one Black Glass III, so now I am reshooting like a rabid dog. But, no worries. My final crit is late in the week, so I should be able to get everything accomplished that I want to and hopefully some extra stuff just for me. I like shooting stuff just for me. I have this concept for a Background involving a woman in a red dress that I think would be fun, so I have to get that organized, if I have time. If not, no worries. I am not made of a mixture of time and money. At any rate, I think that my overall comp book presentation and current images should at least get my foot in the door, and then I can hopefully move on to bigger and better things outside this class with a solid "A". I do want an "A". "A". "A". They are like juicy, juicy candy to me. I want to bring my GPA back up to a 4.0. But that will take several more "A's" to balance out the one "A-." (Oh, the shame. Shame!!)


At any rate, for those of you that are interested, I did not win the Territory Ahead scholarship and have not yet heard about the ME internship, so I will let you know when I do. I may or may not be a TA again next session, depending on RSB and possibly depending on DW. I would prefer to work for RSB, but DW would offer an interesting opportunity because he teaches 102 and LS, both classes that I wouldn't mind revisiting the material. But now I feel as though I would be more help to RSB since I have done the grading and refamiliarizing with the LT material once already, so the next time through would be a breeze. Plus he is fun and quirky and I like hanging out with him I think more than I would like hanging out with DW, just because he is slightly intimidating. Actually, he is really intimidating. But nice. In an intimidating kind of way.

I still haven't slept much, so I am going to leave you now. Too much gobbledy gook.