Brisson Basement

Statement number 1: I have 2 followers. Now I feel semi-obligated to post something.

Statement number 2: I have accepted the fact that I will be spending the next hour (at least) sitting on this computer in Brisson basement.

Statement 3: FCP projects that are 45-ish minutes long take a long time to render and an even longer time to burn.

Statement 4: The floor cleaner guy walked in here about an hour ago. He judged me. Jerk.

I've deceided the only reason I'm actually updating this right now is because I was just reading Hyperbole and a Half. Heard of it? If you haven't you might want to google it. It's a blog that this girl writes, but it's hysterically funny. My friend introduced me to it a few months back and I now read it whenever I'm trying to waste time. I figured if she can blog about something as silly as velocorapters, I can come up with something to write about in Brisson basement.

Things I have anger towards at this moment:

1. This computer becasue it keeps rebooting
2. DVD's that take 2 hours to burn
3. Starting to burn a 2 hour DVD after midnight when I have a 9am class

This is a silly and pointless blog post. I should stop. Good night.

You're Acting Like A Theater Major

Hello! I made this blog mainly because one of my favorite people, Kaleigh, told me I should. The chances of me keeping it up to date are very slim, but I promised Kay I would blog about my hate tonight, so that's exactly what I'm doing.

To begin, I would just like to say that I hate theater majors. (Note to any theater majors who accidentally stumbled upon this: my hatred for you is nothing personal. Please don't come and act theatrically at me.) I guess I should be more specific. I hate theater faculty members at DSU...and by 'faculty members' I am talking about the bearded man who was rude to my TV/Film friends and I. Since I'm not entirely sure who this enigmatic bearded man is, I have chosen to extend my hatred to the majority of the DSU theater department. Here's the story:

It was a dark and stormy night/perfectly lovely fall day. Three friends and myself had a cinematography shot due for our next class and the only time we were all able to get together to film was Monday evening. My car was loaded up with all the equipment we thought we would need. Christine and I entered the Performing and Fine Arts building and head to the studio theater. As we waited for our partners to arrive, a very nice theater major entered the room and explained that "Junior Director Auditions" were occurring later that evening and we would need to be out of the space within the hour.

We were not surprised at this announcement and we vacated the area without an issue. Our third partner had joined us at this point and the three of us moved to the TV studio. We checked to see if the studio was signed out and were delighted to find that it wasn't! At this joyful news we went outside and began unpacking my car. As I pop the trunk, a fellow film major's car pulls up alongside mine. Two of my friends jump out and begin unloading their car of equipment as well. I question them about what and where they're shooting and 'lo and behold, they are also shooting cinematography in the TV studio, AND they signed it out. (Apparently some poor studio tech was not doing they're job well and forgot to inform the head of the department about this). Dejectedly we moved on from the studio. 

Across the hall from the studio we discover a very empty and very usable conference room. Before we get too excited about this new discovery we look everywhere imaginable to make sure the conference room isn't signed out for something silly like a conference. Lucky for us it wasn't, so we begin to unpack. Approximately 2 hours later our fourth group member had appeared and we were well on our way to shooting our scene. Within this conference room we had essentially built our own room. Our actor was sitting at a table with a light on top of the table and out of frame. Surrounding the table on three sides were fake walls, leaning precariously up against stacks of chairs. Our camera was secured on it's tripod, and the tripod was balanced on top of a makeshift dolly (which I was in charge of pushing the 7-ish inches needed for the shot). It's wasn't perfect, we weren't pretending that it was, but we began shooting. We theorized that if we shot this, we could continue to add/change our lighting setup to our hearts' content, but if we didn't like what we ended up with at least we would have something decent. 


Around 4:30 our friend, Danielle, pops her head into the room and is very surprised to see us. She explains the Film Festival Committee was planning on having a meeting in there. We all talked to her and she spoke with the chair of the department and had their meeting was moved to a different location. A short time after that some random theater boy/man sticks his head in the door announcing "You have twelve minutes..." Theater majors had been lining up in the hallway preparing to enter the studio theater for they JDA's, and we assumed it was some uninformed freshmen trying to be funny so we ignored him. What I can only assume to be 12 minutes passed and the door opened again. In walks the bearded man. He looks around and states "We have a meeting here, you need to leave." Our of the four of us Christine was the only one in a semi-normal position. (I was kneeling on the floor, stretched out pushing a piece of wood with wheels. Our actor was sitting at a table talking into a fake phone. Our remaining group member was standing on top of the table, surrounded by fake walls, holding a light stand. 


Christine begins to explain we looked everywhere for a notice or paper saying that the conference room was reserved and that we were filming a class project. The bearded man said he didn't care, he had a department meeting and was using the room. Christine remained very calm and polite and asked kindly for a few extra minutes to get one more shot and pack up. To this the bearded man responded "No, our meeting starts now" and waltzed into the room, turning the overhead lights on in the process. A few theater kids follow behind him and they all begin moving the chairs back around the table, essentially forcing us to strike our set. We all stared at each other for a few minutes before realizing we didn't have a chance of talking this professor out of this. Reluctantly, if not hatefully, we took down our set and left the conference room. The remainder of that night was a mess of us screaming to our friends, cafeteria, and the heavens about how much hate we had for the DSU theater department. 

The TV/Film program has always been treated like the bastard child of the Performing and Fine Arts Department, but this was really uncalled for. So this is where my hatred for the DSU theater majors comes from. I'm sure I will eventually offend a theater enthusiast with my newest insult of "you're acting like a theater major", but at this point I'm pretty okay with that.