Just a quick little clip of how Family Guy is written.

Cartoons always seem to be the most fun to write.

Or any comedy for that matter. Happy Leap Day!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcRYnmYJNHc&feature=related

10:30 Dismissal? Best Day Ever!

Since I have a car and am obligated to drive people home, I'm stuck in school during a free. But that's ok because that means I can blog!

Now what did I think about this year's Oscars? I'm glad you asked. A lot of people seemed to like them. I found them quite boring. Don't they have some kind of acrobatic act every year? And a tribute to the movies? Really? Did we run out of themes here? I guess it makes sense to not have this ultimate ceremony, seeing how it was a pretty weak movie year. While I loved The Artist and thought it was amazing, it wasn't THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER, you know? The other nominees as well weren't chill-inducing, holy-smokeballs-never-seen-that-before kind of movies. They haven't been like that since 2008 if you ask me. We really need to get rid of this ten movie nomination system here.

And wasn't I so good with the winners? Actually, it was fairly predictable this year. No surprises. Last Monday on the 20th, I went to the Jacob Burns Center in Pleastanville, NY to attend an Oscar Talk with Mark Harris, one of the columnests of Entertainment Weekly (and husband to Angels in America playwright Tony Kushner). He talked with former head film critic of The New York Times Janey Maslin on stage and showed clips of all the nominees. Now I found them to be condescending, but as my friend Erika Panzerino pointed out, they are critics. And critics are like hipsters: they don't like what everyone else likes. For example, most critics love The Tree of Life and Glee despite their general awfulness.

Anyway they didn't seem too thrilled with The Artist, which they predicted to win based on the fact that it has won every single non (and totally useless) Oscar award. They spoke of it as if it was that movie that won everything. And they hated Extreme Loud & Incredibly Close. They believed it shouldn't have been nominated at all, and like me, hated the main character. Did anyone else notice that during the ceremony, like, one person cheered for the movie when announcing the nominees for Best Picture? So...awkward...

I myself got to ask them a question (and no, Erika and I weren't the youngest ones attending). I asked what they thought was the best well written movie of the nominees. They told me they believed A Separation was great for Best Original Screenplay, and for Adapted Screenplay they liked Money Ball. They wouldn't elaborate on why they thought so.I can see Money Ball as a good one. I liked the dialogue in that movie because most of what they were saying seemed to be an accurate depiction of how baseball guys would talk. Neither of those won. The Descendants won for Best Adapted Screenplay, and, much to my excitement, Midnight in Paris won Best Original Screenplay. I got excited. Yes. Yes I did. I really love that movie. Yeah...my birthday is Sunday if anyone is thinking about gift ideas...I have a blu ray player...

No real surprises either at this year's awards. The only one I was off about was Meryl Streep winning. I knew she could do it but I honestly thought it wasn't her night. Viola Davis seemed to be the one to win it. I really can't tell though if Streep deserved it, because I haven't seen The Iron Lady and I've only seen the same clip whenever they talk about her performance. But her speech was wonderful, no? I didn't sigh Meryl,  I swear!

You know what we haven't talked about yet? Snubs! This year a lot of people were snubbed, and when I say a lot of people, I mean Ryan Gosling. Seriously? The dude was nominated in both acting categories at the Golden Globes, starred in three critically and audience acclaimed films and is overall the most attractive person in the entire world. And the Academy snubbed him! They refuse to acknowledge all things Gosling! They even cut him out of a clip of The Ides of March when it was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. Seriously? At the Oscar talk they believed that because Ryan was in so many movies, it hurt him. Well Jessica Chastain was in like, thirty movies this year and yet she was still nominated? And you know who else is missing? Michael Fassbender for Shame, even though he was nominated in every award. I guess the Academy hates young, attractive men. Which is awful. Because attractiveness aside, both actors are good at their professions. If you've seen Ryan Gosling in Lars and the Real Girl you couldn't tell that he was the suave and polished cool guy in Crazy Stupid Love. Michael Fassbender can go from playing a kick-ass villain in X-Men First Class to sweet and caring boyfriend in Fish Tank.

Sometimes, I live up to the stereotypical teenage girl.  

And yet the Academy snubbed them both. Also snubbed? Kristen Dunst for Melancholia, Elizabeth Olsen, and Michael Shannon. A study showed that 94% of the 5,800 Academy members are old, white, and LA based men. Something tells me they don't like young people too much.

Alright, I'll have to get back to writing and working on that first vlog again now that the Oscars are over. Now I know how my family feels when Football Season is over...oh wait...movies are all year long. HA!

Look at how dapper Jean is! Look! Also the people I babysit for know the designer of Meryl's dress...pretty cool right?

I made this little blog before the big ceremony tonight, didn't get to finish editing till after. I was mostly right though. I'm just that awesome.

Watching this again, I am a proven example of a stereotypical teenager: I only know three adjectives apparently.


Thoughts on the ceremony tomorrow when I'm not half awake! It was so boring this year, no?

Best Pictures Part II

I, Grace Michaud, for the first time have seen all nine Best Picture nominees for this year's Academy Awards. I finished my list yesterday with Hugo and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Unlike last Saturday where we watched four films, this day was the big one: we watched five.

First on our list is Hugo in 3D. Where do I start? For one, this movie was marketed all wrong. Not only did it feature a cheesy-radio-worthy song (a no-no if you want your movie to be taken seriously), it was advertised as a children's movie. Fair enough, but kids don't know who in the world Martin Scorsese is. Because of how it was portrayed, I was totally turned off by it and was peeved that this film received the nod for Best Picture (as well as earning the most nominations with 13 I believe). I met the author of the book, Brian Selznick, back in third grade but never read The Invention of Hugo Cabret. I was expecting it to be terrible and overrated but I found myself enjoying it! The 3D was really good which I was also surprised about (I don't know why I go see 3D movies, I keep thinking: "Hey maybe they did a good job this time," only to wish I had my 13 bucks back). The characters looked crystal clear and the colors popped during the film scenes. Now I thought this movie would be about clockwork and solving some mystery. It was actually an ode to old cinema. I know right? Wouldn't think that looking at the poster or trailer. It really was about a nostalgic old man dreaming about the glory days of his films pre-World War I. That's where the movie is flawed. It doesn't have a direct plot, only a moral. You don't know how the characters really get to that moral and if they really went on an adventure (unless you count getting chased by Sacha Baron Cohen in literally every other scene). All the same it didn't bother me as much because I loved the music (which should have been used in the trailer instead of folk-y acoustic guitars) and the CGI didn't look as fake as I expected. That probably was because of the 3D. The dialogue was super cheesy though (say dreams one more time, I dare you) so it will not be taking that award. Hugo, I hope, doesn't take home a lot of awards because I honestly can name the better movie in each category that it is nominated for. Hey, a lot of films with the most nominations didn't take home any.

Oh The Help! I love, love, love this movie. This was my third time seeing it but first time seeing it after I finished the book. I love this movie because it is so satisfying. It takes a not-so-new plot and makes the issue of civil rights its own. Civil rights and cruelty is not in your face, rather for the viewer to decide. You see these people as people, not because of color... despite the movie being just about that. Each character is her own (and I say she because let's face it, the women in this movie dominate over every scarce male performance). No one is one-sided, as we see in most films. We see two sides: the good, the bad, and the dark, in each character. Jessica Chastain's character, Celia Foote, may be a blonde bimbo, but we see she's not as happy as she looks. Even our main villain, Hilly Holbrook isn't so bad. She's actually a really good mother. She is played by Bryce Dallas Howard (Ron Howard's daughter) and she so so so deserved a nod, more so (I hate to say it) than Jessica Chastain. She's evil at times, and you believe it. And when her world crashes on top of her, you feel it. That's why I feel I loved it so much, every character seems real to me as if I know them personally. And when you just want one of the maids to tell off her boss, she listens to you and does, leaving you to nod your head in approval. Could The Help win? No. I'm saying this because 94% of the Academy is made up of old white men and something tells me they're not too keen on a movie full of women. If only there was a category for Best Ensemble, because The Help could win in a landslide, and yes, I'm looking at you Bridesmaids.

We now come to my least favorite film: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. I knew that a lot of people believed it did not deserve a nomination, but I ignored the criticism and watched with an open mind. My mind quickly shut. The main character, Oscar, is so annoying to the point you want to yell at him, but you know there has to be something wrong with him so you patiently watch. Turns out there is nothing wrong with him. He's just not likable at all. The actor tried too hard to sound deep and he was the same character during the narration and his actual dialogue.He carries around this tambourine to calm him when he gets nervous, but it has the opposite effect on the audience. Tom Hanks (the Tom Hanks who is flawless in every movie ever except for this one) didn't do it for me. I honestly did not believe the relationship between the two. Despite what the trailer may say, there is no story. It's just a film about a boy who is really upset at random times because his father is dead. I can see why it's nominated. It's ten years after 9/11 and this film is about Oscar's dad dying in the World Trade Center. It had to be nominated for sentimental reasons. Best Supporting actor Max von Sydow wasn't all that great either. He didn't speak but you could so tell he was overacting with his expressions it annoyed me to no end. Sandra Bullock looked like she didn't want to be in the film, nor did John Goodman. At the end of the film you see so many holes and you come out of there wondering if there was any point to what you just watched. It's just a witnessing of a mental breakdown of a boy. And that is all there is to say.

The Artist. It's going to win. And it should. It says something if you are completely mesmerize by a movie that doesn't even mutter one word. It is totally different from all the other nominees. That includes Hugo. While Hugo may have been an "ode" to films ten years before The Artist, then The Artist puts that ode to shame. Hugo tributes old films with new film technology, like 3D. The Artist pays tribute to silent films by actually being a silent film and copying almost everything from them, including the opening cards. There is not one modern thing in it, yet if feels like a modern movie. Jean Dujardin, who I'm hoping will win Best Actor, is so so so so so charming and lovable you just want to hug him when everything goes up in...smoke (you have to see the movie to get the humor in this). I'm really interested to see how they went in writing this. Even when everyone is mouthing dialogue, do you still have to write it down? Is the script different? Do I have to wait for the DVD to find this out? Anyway the music doesn't always fit with the movie, but it fits with the times. It has a perfect late 1920s to early 30s feel which I love. Berenice Bejo is perfect in the movie as well because she acts just how I pictures a movie star during this time period would act: peppy, humble, and for lack of creative adjective here, charming once again. How many times can I say charming in one movie review? A lot apparently. A lot. Short story short: Is going to win tonight, and it deserves it.

AND FINALLY WE COME TO MY FAVORITE OF ONE OF THEM ALL.

Corey Stoll as Hemingway

How I loved Midnight in Paris. If the gorgeous opening shots of Paris don't draw you in, at least the music does right? The colors are like from a painting. They're soft but bright at the same time and make everything look romantic and just plain wonderful. And being a nerd, I get excited every time the Fitzgeralds and Hemingway pop up. Hemingway is played exactly as you think he would be in real life, always with the deep monologues all while looking devilishly handsome, as well as drinking and challenging people to fights. Have I mentioned that I love every actor in this movie? I even ended liking Rachel McAdams in this movie even if her character was unlikable, just because of the banter between her fiancee Gil (Own Wilson) and her parents. Besides it all coming out of a perfect dream, I love the story too. It's one I can relate to. The character's deal with the belief that the present is in ruins and that the past was a better time. For Gil, that "Golden Age" was Paris in the 1920s (and this I do not disagree with Gil, although there are a lot of downsides we are not going to discuss). The girl he ends up falling in love with, even though the 1920s is her present she believes that Paris in the 1890s was the true "Golden Age." So no matter how awful and bland the present looks, everyone feels the same way. Even in the past. Why I also love this movie besides  the originality of it all (it better win Best Original Screenplay because the movie is like a visual short story) is because of the time I watched it. The first time I watched it was Christmas Eve around the time I was reading Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. In the novel the character's basically do the same thing as the character's in the film do: they drink, they dance, and they wonder from place to place. Ugh. Perfection. And everyone who's seen me and my Great Gatsby bag know why I loved when F. Scott Fitzgerald popped up. To make it ten times better my favorite person ever Tom Hiddleston portrays him! There is no one better in my mind! No one!

Every scene with you in it my friend...

While I would love for Midnight in Paris to win, I know it won't. In my mind though, it's my favorite. And that means a lot, since I adored The Artist. 

Well I have seen all ten and reel accomplished! Sure my neck hurt and I ate so much movie junk but it was worth it! Now I can feel all accomplished around the time of the awards! So here are my favorites in order of well...favorites:

1.) Midnight in Paris

2.) The Artist 

3.) War Horse

4.) The Help

5.) The Descendants

6.) Hugo

7.) Money Ball

8.) The Tree of Life

9.) Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

In between movies, a staff member would come in for trivia and hand out free prizes. I got this XL thermal The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo for correcting answering Wings as being the last silent film to win Best Picture.

It is a great lazy Sunday shirt.

 

AND TO MAKE IT ALL THE MORE BETTER, CHECK OUT THE AWESOME POSTER I GOT:

This is going right next to that ugly Eli Manning fat head in the basement...

 You know what's interesting about these films? Four of the nine take place around the same time, that being 1914-1931. The Artist, Hugo, War Horse, and Midnight in Paris all deal with the 20s or the Great War in some way or the other. Hugo and Midnight in Paris are set in Paris, The Artist is technically a French film, and War Horse and one point is in France. So what's with so many movies dealing with France in the 20s? Some weird coincidence? Or has that time period been so overlooked, what with the Great Depression and World War II that it was finally time to showcase the turning point occuring during this time period? I mean if you think about it, World War I opened a lot of people's eyes about the horrors of war. It produced some of the finest American authors (HI HEMINGWAY!). Before World War I people glorified war. And because of the harsh realization of dulce et decorum est, it hit people harder. I personally find post- World War I themes fascinating: What do you do after a life changing event? Your view on the world has now been cruelly morphed...and now things are supposedly back to normal. As a person, however, you are not. So what do you do? It's a great theme that's so refreshing from repression and prejudice, themes that are so overused in high school English. And now when I learn more about this, these movies come out. That Easy A quote is starting to look so true right about now...

"The literature you read in  class always seems to have a strong  connection  with  whatever  angsty  adolescent drama  is  being recounted."    

Also interesting! A lot of the actors in the nominated films also appear in the other nominated films.

Viola Davis (The Help, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close)
John Goodman (The Artist, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close)
Tom Hiddleston (Midnight in Paris, War Horse)
Brad Pitt (Money Ball, The Tree of Life)
Jessica Chastain (The Help, The Tree of Life) 

GRACE MICHAUD! OH HOW WE MISSED YOU

I know I know.
A week has been too long! So you're probably wondering:

Grace, did you intern at all this week?

 As it turns out, a lot of things came up preventing me from doing so. But all is alright, because it's OSCAR WEEK EVERYONE!



Ok ok ok so I have quite to blog about.

Last Saturday I went to Day 1 of the AMC theaters Best Picture showcase. As in, they showed the first four movies nominated for Best Picture at this year's Oscars. I went with my lovely friend Erika Panzerino. That's right folks, we watched four movies from 11am to 9:30 pm. And was it awesome? You know it! Not only did we get $5 gift cards just for coming, but we got these official looking passes too!

Legit.

First on the agenda was Steven Spielberg's War Horse. The film is set during World War I (aka the Great War that inspired the writings of Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald) in Britain. A boy forms a heart-warming bond with Joey the horse. Long story short the horse gets sold into the battlefield (to my boy Tom Hiddleston). The rest of the movie follows the journey of the horse to get back home to his owner through several different scenarios. Now it may seem really cheesy. And yes, yes it is. But Erika and I both agree that it was our favorite of the day. I loved it for several reasons. One, I loved all the actors.

Yes. I loved the actors.

 Have I mentioned that I love the actors and had a fit during one scene that I am not going to spoil because this is a spoil-free blog?

Second: the cinematography was breathtaking. But you know me, I'm a sucker for wide shots of Birtish landscapes as the next guy. Third: it's an epic film. No seriously, it's an epic. Good old fashion Spielberg. Lastly, I loved it because if you are like me and can't handle intense and gory war movies (left the room during the D-Day scene in Saving Private Ryan only to be haunted again by it in US History three years later why life), then this movie is a perfect demonstration of why war is absolutely terrible and awful and you question how we even still engage in it. I mean that one was to end all wars but hey, twenty years later we're going to make a second one. There's one scene that's really powerful. At one point the horse, Joey, gets tangled in barbed wire in the middle on no man's land. A British solider and a German solider both work together to free it. Now yes that sounds cheesy but the scene is done perfectly. The two soldiers are tense, but engage in conversation like two ordinary men. Two men who are both just human beings, forced to kill one another. Deep. Stuff. Seriously, this one is absolutely worth seeing, and deserves its place in Best Picture.

Next we we saw Money Ball. I already saw the film so I thought seeing it a second time, I would be really bored because it's not one of those movies (or so I believed) that you can see twice. I ended up enjoying in the second time around. If you know me and my family, then you know that I detest sports more than Kim Kardashian. I was not looking forward to seeing it. At all. I hate all sports movies. Rocky is overrated and I didn't even like Gracie; a movie about a girl with my name playing soccer (which is hilarious because I play soccer. HAAHAHAH oh irony you are funny). But Money Ball isn't really an inspirational sports movie in a sense. It's just a well made movie. The dialogue flows quick and sharp. Brad Pitt, I will say, pulled off acting like a normal human being.

Looking at him you wouldn't know he has six children half being from different countries with a formally insane woman. You wouldn't!

 Jonah Hill is alright, he's got a few good scenes but I don't think he deserved a Best Supporting Actor nod. Sure I had no idea what was going on half the time because I don't speak baseball or math, but after seeing it the second time I kind of get a general sense of it. A must see? Eh. A very well made movie. Worthy of Oscar? Not going to win. It was made well but so was War Horse and The Artist (which we will get to this Saturday) and they had way better stories. But Brad Pitt actually had to say something about that in an article on Entertainment Weekly :

For ­inspiration, Pitt and ­director Bennett Miller looked to a time when filmmakers were as suspicious of the established rules 
as Beane is. ''I love this ­character because it's ­reminiscent to me of '70s films,'' says Pitt. ''Looking back at my favorites, it's All the President's Men, it's Dog Day Afternoon. In the late 
'80s and '90s, we got caught up in this idea that a character had to learn a lesson and be someone else in the end. If you look at the '70s films
 I was weaned on, it's not [the character] that changed, 
it's the world around them — just sent it off its axis 
a few degrees. That's what I saw in Moneyball.''

This poster literally explains the whole freakin movie

WHAT AM I EVEN WATCHING

NOW THAT BRINGS US TO THE ONE MOVIE LUCKY ENOUGH TO GIVE ME A HEADACHE.WHY AM I WRITING IN CAPS? BECAUSE THIS MOVIE IS SO FRUSTRATING IT IS WORTHY OF SPEAKING IN CAPS. I'M TALKING ABOUT THE TREE OF LIFE HERE. Oh my goodness. Now I knew a lot about this movie pre-nomination. It got booed at the Cannes festival, and was rejected by audiences everywhere but loved by critics. I heard it was about creation and growing up or something like that but I really got no story line. Now I finally got to see this oh-so controversial movie. You know how in movies they'll show a montage of clips involving the character to background music? Maybe some voice over? Ok that is the entire movie but with a 20 minute sequence of the creation of Earth. Then they throw in some random dinosaur scene that literally has nothing to do with the entire movie. Then we just watch glimpses of this kid's like in the 1950's, and then sometimes we'll see his present self just walking around aimlessly. And the whole time people whisper. And you're just waiting for something to happen...and nothing does. Right when you think it ends...BOOM it keeps going and you find yourself more interested in if your brother is feeding the dog or not. You know how like, in TV shows a character will drag the other characters to an "artsy" film where it's just shots of stupid things that have no connection? Yeah. That was this artsy film.

Now I can't tell if I hated it or not. It was well made. I really want to know how they filmed the creation scenes, and if it was CGI then heck, those were awesome. The music was wonderful, as well as Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain (both of which are nominated for Oscars but not for this movie). I in a way get the movie. You don't need a story because the film is about...well...life. Life itself is a story, even if it is not planned exactly to the bone. We just sit, and we wait. Movies, at least Oscar movies, should make you think. Tree of Life? That makes you think. Hard. Like the age old question: What does life mean to me?



But oh...it was so long. Too long. Way too long. Once I got the true meaning (or at least believed I did, I'm trying to make myself seem smart here) then I got sick of it. I was resisting the urge to just scream OH BE DONE WITH IT ALREADY. It didn't help to put weird afterlife scenes in there either. When it finally was finished, the entire audience just went ugh. No one clapped.

 Interesting? I think so? Best Picture? Hard to say, because it is definitely gutsy and different, but maybe I don't like its yeah-mainstream-is-too-stupid-to-get-this-film attitude. But it makes you think...tough one. Tough. One.

Erika and I were so annoyed by the movie that during our hour-long dinner break we got lost because we couldn't turn left to get to Taco Bell. It was just such a frustrating movie. It really was.

But after one burrito and some Sour Patch Kids, we headed into our final film for the day. The Descendants. This was again, my second time seeing it (actually the first time I saw it I went by myself and was the only person in the theater under the age of 65...NO REGRETS). There is not much to say about this movie, only that I liked George Clooney in it a lot and feel he is seriously underused as a narrator. When he spoke, despite the chaos in his life, he really made you feel calm, about everything. Shailene Woodley? Yeah the preggers girl on The Secret Life of the American Teenager? She was good. Not good as in good for a teen soap star, but I mean good for any actress. I liked the juxtaposition of how Hawaii is the backdrop to this story that is no vacation. I really thought it could give The Artist a run for its money, until I went to this Oscar talk at the Jacob Burns Center (a post I'll be saving for day of Oscars thank you very much). The story is very...overboard. My wife is in a coma! And she's cheating on me! One of my kids drinks and does drugs! My other kid swears and is a bully! To add to the fire I have to sell this huge piece of land for millions of dollars! And oh yeah, I'm secretly a millionaire but I like to keep it real by only using money from my law practice! From that perspective I realize that maybe this wasn't what I cracked it out to be. But it was written well enough that I connected and believed these characters without seeing the over dramatics of it all. So that in itself makes it a good movie because you're just consumed by the movie. The climax (if it can be considered as such) is predictable, but the ending is sweet. A tear-jerker if you are feeling really sensitive.

AND FUN FACT! One of the screen writers for this film (and is also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay) is none other than Jim Rash.

Yeah...the Dean on Community

So day one is over! And I have seen seven of the nine Best Picture nominees. I just have Hugo and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close left. I'll be seeing them again Saturday when we take on Day 2! YES!

Good night folks!

I went back to the city today

Today I went back to my internship at the Audio Department for the afternoon.

I got to order lunch, and deliver lunch,
and oh yeah:

BECAUSE I COULDN'T HOLD IT BACK

So why am I dancing you may ask?

Well guess what?

Tomorrow

I

get

to

meet

Liam

Neeson.

Yes. 

The

Liam.

Neeson.

That is right folks, he's coming in tomorrow. And as a dedicated intern I can't be all:

       Heeeeey Liam Neeson did you know that
I  think you are  in my top 5 badasses?

I have to play it cool. 

 BUT RIGHT NOW I CAN:

Let us hope I don't take the wrong subway again...

Because Murph Is Asking Us To Write an Entry

Let's see...what can I write about? Wait no...this is good. I don't get home till six today and I have three chapters of APES notes to do...

Time to use this time...wisely

Before we get into any research (because I only have ten minutes here), let me talk what I look for in television writing based on shows I've seen. First, let's talk about:

Is it weird that I find Hugh Laurie a dapper man?

"Okay, so every episode is essentially the same (crisis at the end of Act 1, House's ''aha!'' moment during Act 4), but the dialogue snaps, and House's arrogance occasionally reaches Shakespearean heights. The man's a boor but never a bore." -Stephen King for Entertainment Weekly

This is appropriate, seeing how it's ending in May. Now House is one of those shows that can quickly get old. It repeats the same formula for almost every show: Someone faints and/or something weird is happening to them. ER can't figure it out, go to House and his team. They think it's one thing (but never Lupus), treat it, everything seems fine then BOOM. Something terrible happens, people get emotional. Just when everything seems to point towards death, House suddenly has an epiphany in the middle of a conversation. And we have a cured patient! So you would think after 8 seasons this would get pretty old? After a while yes, but the reason why it's stayed on the air so long is not because of what happens to the patients, but what is happening to the doctors. These main characters develop after each episode, and in House's case we see this through dialogue.

Why I love House M.D. is that it's philosophical almost. While the situation may be the same, what's going on with the characters isn't. Well, some argue that House really never changes. Yes, it seems he is always angry, but we get to see different sides to why he's so angry. What I like about House is that they raise a question I ask myself sometimes: Are we unhappy because we think we deserve it? House is angry because he's in constant pain with his leg and he had some daddy issues growing up (thank goodness he isn't a stripper). Through the things he says we learn he's so mean because he lets the negative in not just in his life, but life in general, consume him. And he's accepting of that. As a result, he's cynical.

"I choose to believe that the white light people sometimes see... they're all just chemical reactions that take place when the brain shuts down.... There's no conclusive science. My choice has no practical relevance to my life, I choose the outcome I find more comforting.... I find it more comforting to believe that this isn't simply a test."

What's so genius is that even though in reality we would dread having him as our doctor, through the development penned by the writers, we have grown to love House.


Good television writing, in my opinion, has to flow. Every line has to have meaning behind even empty words...kind of like good literature right? Good example in literature would be Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway. The dialogue, when read for the first time, seems pointless and you can't really understand what is going on. But read again and closely, you discover what the story, and what these two characters are going through, is really about.

But television dialogue is obviously, very different. For one, you can't read it over and over again. You have to listen to it once, and that's it (unless you like to rewind a million times *cough* DAD *cough*). You also have a voice, like, an actual voice, so the actors you choose are key here. They have to deliver the dialogue at a fair pace and they must do this well. Great example of this? Gilmore Girls. That show is based solely on what the characters are saying. They speak so fast you have to pause and let your head slow down from spinning. Right as you process one witty comment another one is thrown right back at you. Wit has to have perfect delivery, and Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel did this perfectly for seven straight years.

It's hard to come up with an interesting plot every time. Believe me, what haven't we seen in this day and age? All in the Family was huge back then because it was considered "raunchy." Believe it or not, the show marked the first time a toilet was heard flushing on television. Yeah. Flushing broke ground in the 70s. Again, if a writer can come up with a new perspective, then they are deserving of the title.

So if you have a seen-that-done-that kind of show, what makes it a hit? Why does NCIS and Nurse Jackie stand out in dozens of cop, criminal, and medical shows? One word: characters. If you have good characters, your show will become a hit. People want to see people they can connect to and, funny enough, people they can't connect to. When a writer has the difficulty of a character that viewers cannot connect to, it's the writer's job to make the viewer want to. Why do you think Star Trek was so popular?

Sure there is no one in the world who physically cannot feel emotion, but I'm  one of the most famous television figures of all time. Live long and suck it.

OF ALL TIME.

A character must grow from the beginning of a season, to the end. As a viewer, we must partake in the character's journey together. Another great example? One of my favorite shows of all time. Lost. That show is perfection. Anyway, while there was all this crazy stuff going on the island (A smoke monster! Creepy people! Numbers!) we also had to follow a dozen or so characters. The writer's decided to ease the confusion by having each episode centered around a character. That way, we learn about the character's past through flashbacks (queue the sound effects) and why they are the way they are...for now. But as the series grows, so does the characters. We see our hero, Jack Shepard, grow into a leader and solve his own issues. We see Kate slowly learn to face her problems instead of running from them. John Locke begins to accept himself. Some character's are like a roller coaster: Sayid goes from badass torturer, to sweet guy, to insane killer, to finally ending in him *SPOILER ALERT* heroically sacrificing himself to save his buddies. But the best character development on that show is the always-telling-lies Benjamin Linus. From season 2 to season 3 we see him as this creepy bug-eyed villain. But at the end of the series, he becomes one of the new Jacobs (honestly, watch the show to know what I'm talking about...it makes a lot of literary allusions). And I grew to love him. You know why? Because he didn't stay the same guy the whole time. We like our character's to be like our own character...always developing for the better. Another good example of character development? Avatar the Last Airbender. Great show...just...great...

Benjamin Linus. Trust him.

Well well well I have written for 44 minutes now and not a scrap of APES notes has been done. I get way too into this, and sometimes what I feel like I'm typing is me just trying to sound intelligent. For some people this may be the case. And ugh! I have so much more to write! Like I was watching Inside the Actor's Studio today (yes I am that cool, I DVR it) and they featured Seth MacFarlane, the creator of Family Guy as well as the other actors, and they said that they don't really improvise with the show. Now if you have ever seen Family Guy when it's 3 o'clock on a weekend night and you can't sleep, you know how weird, yet clever, that show really is. The fact that the whole thing is written down word from word, especially a show like Family Guy quite impresses me. I think you have to watch the show to see what I mean. Most comedy shows rely on improvisation these days.

Well happy Valentine's Day everyone! To celebrate, let us check out 26 True (Fictional) Lovers: Pop Culture's Best Couples

And of course:

HEY GRACE MICHAUD WHERE IS YOUR VLOG THAT YOU HAVE BEEN WORKING ON?

AS IT TURNS OUT it takes a long time to put together 20 minutes of footage. It also is very hard to access your computer in the Mac lab, since it is occupied pretty much every period. I'm so close though! So...close.

It also doesn't help that I lose tomorrow to go to Michigan...

That's what you said last week, Michaud. 

Say hi to Don!

Besides me apologizing for not getting that in quicker, I shall get to explaining! Goody!

The Audio Department specializes in post-production sound. A client sends an already edited and visually done promo or commercial over, and the engineers mix the sound together. That basically means putting the sound effects, voice overs, and sound bits together.

One of the engineers, Don, invited me to watch him create a promo for Comedy Central.

What is looks like on the computer monitor

This particular promo was for the show Key & Peele. The client, or the producer in this case over at Comedy Central, sent Don an already put together promo, sound included. Not only do they send the video, but they send every single piece of sound in the promo for Don to work with. They're even organized. How efficient! All the pieces must be checked, however, to see if they are synced with the picture. Don basically was improving the clarity of the sound, like the announcer's EQ, and changed the volume of the background to better hear what the actors and voice over are saying. He even switched a helicopter sound effect to one he already had because it sounded more helicopter-y.

Here's the promo:

Once Don is finished with the first draft, it is exported into Quicktime format (a phrase I hear daily in Studio 18). He then he puts it in this FTP link, which is basically the company's private file sharing website that they use to send all drafts and finished products. My aunt receives the FTP link and sends it to the client. The client will either get back in 5 to 60 minutes. They'll give their feedback about what they like and what they don't like.

In this case, Don added little swooshing effects when "New Episodes Tuesday" appeared and a little sound effect to when the Comedy Central logo popped up in the end. The music was also supposed to stop when the guy says "Always better in black" and then start up again when the other guy began to dance (I saw the promo so many times I memorized it...I don't know how they can stand to hear the same things over and over again). The producer over at Comedy Central didn't like it. I don't know why...I liked it. Gave it some flare...

Whatchu going to do?

So that is just one example of how the mixing of the audio all goes down. I was pretty impressed, especially since there are a lot of smaller technical details involved as well.

There was this great presentation of audio mixing at the 2010 Oscars...I'm having trouble finding it but I'll be sure to post it as soon as I do. 

Alright so that's it for today...actually I may come up with a Salinger post a little later. Next week I begin my research into the life of a television and film writer...


I know you are dying in anticipation.

It's funny, because I hate Dickens. I really do. But this is quite interesting...nevermore

Raven That Inspired The Raven

My PSA!

So back in the Fall, for Studio 18 ( a great class taught by Ms. Reilly which you really should take) we were assigned to make a PSA (Public Service Announcement) on distracted driving. The PSA was for a contest for NYCM insurance.

Well I made one and guess what? It made the top 30! And if I get the most "likes" on youtube, I can get $500 prize. Yeah...500 big ones.

SO LIKE LIKE LIKE!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiJvlJ9d3V4

Well as it turns out

...it takes a long time to put together a video describing your first day on the job. Seriously, my reflection alone is 20 minutes of footage, and I'm pretty sure 10 of those 20 minutes is just me going "ummm." Nonetheless, it will be done. Soon.

I promise I will not procrastinate.

ALSO, the Swamp People promo I saw being mixed aired during the Super Bowl Sunday. Pretty cool right?
Super Bowl Swamp People Ad.
Doug, one of the engineers, showed me how first he had to add all the sounds, which were either prerecorded or made himself, then he showed me the promo with the voice-over.

So yeah, I got to see some exclusive stuff, NBD.