Charloween (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
charloween) wrote2007-09-13 04:05 pm
charloween) wrote2007-09-13 04:05 pm
Entry tags:
Rosh Hashannah
I'm not of the faith, but I'm enjoying the holiday 'cause we get it off from school. YAY! And also because Dee dragged us to her parents for a feat last night.
I'm spending the day sitting around because I've got the beginnings of a cold, and it feels like it could be one persistent bugger, too. I wonder if it's not a proper cold and just nine-ish months of stress, overwork and grouchiness sneaking in for one last walloping now that I've let my guard down and everything seems to be going all right.
The point: I'm kinda dopey today and am v. much enjoying the fact that I don't have to be lucid or interesting or participate in class discussions or stay awake in class.
(The soundtrack of the week: New York Dolls' "Subway Train" and John Vanderslice's "Time to Go". Iggy Pop's "TV Eye" is also getting honourable mention.)
My Music of the Avant-Garde professor has approved a paper on versions of "Tainted Love" - the Gloria Jones version, the Soft Cell cover and the sampled bits in "S.O.S." - and I should start typing raw thoughts on that this weekend, too. I should also resist calling the paper "Aspects of Tainted Love" because an Andrew Lloyd Webber reference is probably grounds for expulsion from a uni-level music class.
Academically, I also have to:
- run to the Toronto Reference Library to spend some quality time with a book called Future Cinema in preparation for my meeting with Prof. Scott next week
- email my screenplay ideas to my assigned feedback-buddy guy
- type out the thesis statement and some themes/topics for my thesis and meeting with McCullough next week (I'm enamored with this book, so I'm thinking it'll be that + the stuff about paradigms of reality in The X-Files and sf television in general... you'd better believe that SPN and Doctor Who and Firefly will make it in there somehow)
- locate about 30 significant cities in the Middle East and plot them on a map in anticipation of my quiz on the 24th
- locate and print out general definitions of expressionism and impressionism to take to music class for Wednesday
- read about a zillion pages of stuff
- compile an Essential Screening List of fanvids and video-based fanworks for Prof. Scott, too.
...
I took that career meme that's all over my flist and it told me I should either be in arts & culture as an academic or enter politics as a professional minion. Silly computer! Tell me something I don't know!
...
Thanks to my boss's prowess, I've figured out how to download and save streamed video. I've also got a whatsit program that involved futzing with command lines that chews up .flv files and spits them out as .avi files. Bwahahaha. Take that, YouTube. I tested my newevil powers awesome abilities on David Tennant's Doctor Who video diary thing... and that's quite an interesting body of work, there.
Most of the video diary special features I've seen have been recorded by supporting cast, the actors whose characters need to be in the background of every scene but don't actually have anything to do. The idea being that they have lots of free time to Document the Wackiness of being on set while they're not actually being important to the plot.
The appeal is to see the actors out of character, being the goofy, sweet, funny and lovely humans we all know they are. (Matthew Gray Gubler plays with this idea on the series of "unauthorized documentaries" he's made about himself and his work on Criminal Minds. V. funny. On YouTube.)
But David Tennant is the star of the series. His perspective is (understandably) a bit different than your typical three-lines-per-episode bit player. They started him recording this thing (supposedly) right before they start read-throughs on the first episodes and are a mix of Tennant talking right to the camera a la your typical vlog, of finished episode bits mixed with camcordered footage of them filming the scenes and of home movie-style stuff filmed around the set.
It's all very adorable. He kept the camera on when he went to his parents' place for Christmas and had the whole family gathered 'round the television to watch his first episode as the Doctor. His horrified fascination with the prosthetics worn by the faceless victims of "Idiot's Lantern" is an interesting addition. His candid admissions of nerves, his reactions to the evidence of his own sudden celebrity and his stressed-out flailings to being behind schedule in filming are all very humanizing. And cute. He also keeps saying "fantastic" like Nine. :)
Now, the really interesting part (or, what I think is the interesting part) is that a few hours of DT's reflections and ramblings and interviews have been edited together for a DVD extra. The supposedly-private but still very public version of this "David Tennant" fellow has been constructed by an unnamed body of PR monkeys. (As an unnamed PR monkey myself with lots of propaganda materials in my portfolio that I don't get official credit for, you can see why I'm interested.)
The assumption made (or rather, the argument implicit in the style of presentation) is that this is the work of the actor himself. The "credits" at the end of the hour+ long work is a list of thank-yous, but no roles defined. I highly doubt that in addition to being a gifted actor, DT is also an accomplished editor. These segments have plot to them. I don't doubt he had a role in shaping the final product, but it's a professionally-produced piece. [ETA: And, I forgot to mention, there's a soundtrack: sometimes it's the score from episodes, sometimes it's pop songs, but still: totally produced to have touching strings in the soundtrack at just the right moment, that kind of thing.]
So I have to wonder about these video diaries. The film kid in me that paid attention during lectures on documentary wonders exactly how scripted his heart-to-camera (rather than heart-to-heart) one-sided babbling was, or what was cut out.
On the other hand, this is a fascinatingly candid(-seeming) access to Tennant's particular situation. For example, they filmed him getting shown the Ten action figures, and he alternately geeks out over the fact that there are Doctor Who action figures - something he says he really wanted as a kid - and all the while he's freaking out about there's an action figure of him, a tiny plastic him with complete with a sonic screwdriver.
It's all very interesting to watch, with an eye to documentary theory (and also fangirling!) ...I'm working on papers about alternate/new media and cinematic forms. With this (and DVD extras like it) on one hand and vlogging (like Brotherhood 2.0) on the other, I'm going to have a lot to think about. *explosion of geek*
The first part is here, with the rest of the parts browsable from that user's page.
ETA: I also seem to be able to download streamed audio from MySpace. BWAHHAHAHA. (Which I totally feel okay about, considering the Jive Kings' CD appears to be out of print and the version of "Summertime" they do with Measha Brueggergosman kicks serious ass and now I have my own copy! And thanks to sendspace, so do you! [here!])
I'm spending the day sitting around because I've got the beginnings of a cold, and it feels like it could be one persistent bugger, too. I wonder if it's not a proper cold and just nine-ish months of stress, overwork and grouchiness sneaking in for one last walloping now that I've let my guard down and everything seems to be going all right.
The point: I'm kinda dopey today and am v. much enjoying the fact that I don't have to be lucid or interesting or participate in class discussions or stay awake in class.
(The soundtrack of the week: New York Dolls' "Subway Train" and John Vanderslice's "Time to Go". Iggy Pop's "TV Eye" is also getting honourable mention.)
My Music of the Avant-Garde professor has approved a paper on versions of "Tainted Love" - the Gloria Jones version, the Soft Cell cover and the sampled bits in "S.O.S." - and I should start typing raw thoughts on that this weekend, too. I should also resist calling the paper "Aspects of Tainted Love" because an Andrew Lloyd Webber reference is probably grounds for expulsion from a uni-level music class.
Academically, I also have to:
- run to the Toronto Reference Library to spend some quality time with a book called Future Cinema in preparation for my meeting with Prof. Scott next week
- email my screenplay ideas to my assigned feedback-buddy guy
- type out the thesis statement and some themes/topics for my thesis and meeting with McCullough next week (I'm enamored with this book, so I'm thinking it'll be that + the stuff about paradigms of reality in The X-Files and sf television in general... you'd better believe that SPN and Doctor Who and Firefly will make it in there somehow)
- locate about 30 significant cities in the Middle East and plot them on a map in anticipation of my quiz on the 24th
- locate and print out general definitions of expressionism and impressionism to take to music class for Wednesday
- read about a zillion pages of stuff
- compile an Essential Screening List of fanvids and video-based fanworks for Prof. Scott, too.
...
I took that career meme that's all over my flist and it told me I should either be in arts & culture as an academic or enter politics as a professional minion. Silly computer! Tell me something I don't know!
...
Thanks to my boss's prowess, I've figured out how to download and save streamed video. I've also got a whatsit program that involved futzing with command lines that chews up .flv files and spits them out as .avi files. Bwahahaha. Take that, YouTube. I tested my new
Most of the video diary special features I've seen have been recorded by supporting cast, the actors whose characters need to be in the background of every scene but don't actually have anything to do. The idea being that they have lots of free time to Document the Wackiness of being on set while they're not actually being important to the plot.
The appeal is to see the actors out of character, being the goofy, sweet, funny and lovely humans we all know they are. (Matthew Gray Gubler plays with this idea on the series of "unauthorized documentaries" he's made about himself and his work on Criminal Minds. V. funny. On YouTube.)
But David Tennant is the star of the series. His perspective is (understandably) a bit different than your typical three-lines-per-episode bit player. They started him recording this thing (supposedly) right before they start read-throughs on the first episodes and are a mix of Tennant talking right to the camera a la your typical vlog, of finished episode bits mixed with camcordered footage of them filming the scenes and of home movie-style stuff filmed around the set.
It's all very adorable. He kept the camera on when he went to his parents' place for Christmas and had the whole family gathered 'round the television to watch his first episode as the Doctor. His horrified fascination with the prosthetics worn by the faceless victims of "Idiot's Lantern" is an interesting addition. His candid admissions of nerves, his reactions to the evidence of his own sudden celebrity and his stressed-out flailings to being behind schedule in filming are all very humanizing. And cute. He also keeps saying "fantastic" like Nine. :)
Now, the really interesting part (or, what I think is the interesting part) is that a few hours of DT's reflections and ramblings and interviews have been edited together for a DVD extra. The supposedly-private but still very public version of this "David Tennant" fellow has been constructed by an unnamed body of PR monkeys. (As an unnamed PR monkey myself with lots of propaganda materials in my portfolio that I don't get official credit for, you can see why I'm interested.)
The assumption made (or rather, the argument implicit in the style of presentation) is that this is the work of the actor himself. The "credits" at the end of the hour+ long work is a list of thank-yous, but no roles defined. I highly doubt that in addition to being a gifted actor, DT is also an accomplished editor. These segments have plot to them. I don't doubt he had a role in shaping the final product, but it's a professionally-produced piece. [ETA: And, I forgot to mention, there's a soundtrack: sometimes it's the score from episodes, sometimes it's pop songs, but still: totally produced to have touching strings in the soundtrack at just the right moment, that kind of thing.]
So I have to wonder about these video diaries. The film kid in me that paid attention during lectures on documentary wonders exactly how scripted his heart-to-camera (rather than heart-to-heart) one-sided babbling was, or what was cut out.
On the other hand, this is a fascinatingly candid(-seeming) access to Tennant's particular situation. For example, they filmed him getting shown the Ten action figures, and he alternately geeks out over the fact that there are Doctor Who action figures - something he says he really wanted as a kid - and all the while he's freaking out about there's an action figure of him, a tiny plastic him with complete with a sonic screwdriver.
It's all very interesting to watch, with an eye to documentary theory (and also fangirling!) ...I'm working on papers about alternate/new media and cinematic forms. With this (and DVD extras like it) on one hand and vlogging (like Brotherhood 2.0) on the other, I'm going to have a lot to think about. *explosion of geek*
The first part is here, with the rest of the parts browsable from that user's page.
ETA: I also seem to be able to download streamed audio from MySpace. BWAHHAHAHA. (Which I totally feel okay about, considering the Jive Kings' CD appears to be out of print and the version of "Summertime" they do with Measha Brueggergosman kicks serious ass and now I have my own copy! And thanks to sendspace, so do you! [here!])
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Oh...and hope you feel better :)
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I guess it's why we don't have a fall break. We just eaaaaaaase into the year and then work like gangbusters for nine straight weeks.
And thanks, I hope so too!
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I won't deny, though - these four days off have been glorious.
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