Public Speaking

For film, we generally have to write papers on low budget films. This time, however, he gave us an alternative; write a two page paper on a micro budget film, or write a two page screenplay of a scene in proper format. I obviously opted for the latter, though I was mildly worried in class when a couple of the guys were saying they didn't because the man grading it was a man who did not like "Dark Knight". I mean, everyone liked "Dark Knight". Yeah, It was a long movie, but it was good for the entire three hours. But that is not the point of this blost.

Anyways, I got more worried when he said that he was going to have people come up and talk about the movie we watched. I had a brief moment where I thought, having not watched a film, I would be exempt, but someone immediately brought that to his attention. Well, we would have to get up and talk about our scene.

As much as I've been thinking about Eryk Valen of late, I didn't want to write a scene that was all action. So I opted for a story that I don't even ever imagine as a movie. I haven't talked about "Calc" yet on the blog, but I think I might have mentioned Graham. I'm too lazy to look for him now. Anyways, it's coming, soon, but just without saying anything about it at all, it should be stated that it's my only story that isn't rooted in fantasy or science fiction, and it's the only one that is in first person.

So I wrote a scene from that, a scene I will be blosting on here once I clean it up a bit. I was after all, limited to two pages, so it wasn't exactly what I wanted, but I do want to blost it here, regardless of whether I envision it as a movie or not.

Back to class, where he had four people come up and talk about the low budget films they had watched. Every time he was calling people, I was of course trying not to be noticed, and it seemed to be working. Then, after the fourth, he said he'd go ahead and do someone who had written a scene. He asked those who had to raise their hands, and there were only three of us. I'm trying desperately to find that perfect mixture of not drawing attention to myself, but not trying to look too much like I don't want to do it, and not succeeding at all. I was probably doing both, I know for sure looked like I didn't want to. And of course, he looks back and forth between the other two, and then zeros in on me.

So I got up, and in front of twenty people, proceeded to tell them a very general synopsis of Calc, and describe my scene. I got a lot of technical questions, I guess, about the layout and scene length and stuff like that, and so the story itself wasn't delved into that much, but man, it was great. I'm not a great public speaker, or a speaker in general. But, well, I'm sure if I saw myself, I'd think differently, but compared to past experiences from my own viewpoint, I did rather well. I was soaked in sweat, but I actually looked at my audience, didn't fidget with my hands, and kept the stuttering to a minimum.

I was glad I had done it, even as minimal as it was, and after class, I stuck around to talk to my teacher, to thank him. He said that he picked me because he had read the other guys last week, and it was just kind of, I believe the phrase he used was "hokey pokey", and the other chick looked too excited. He said I captured the opposite look from what I was going for. I looked scared, but at the same time, needing to do it. And that was the truth of it. I mean, I got this tattoo partly as a reason to tell people, and I haven't told a soul yet, except Alfie, the guy who did the tattoo, but I was sitting there with him for almost three hours while he jammed a needle into my arm millions of times.

I wanted to tell my teacher, Adam Frey, who is a great guy, a bit more. It was just me and one other guy left, and while I'm still not comfortable, the more personal, the better. But the thing about Adam is, the guy can talk. The past two weeks, we haven't watched a single film. this is partly because the projector in the classroom barely and rarely works. In fact, after I talked, he just talked for the next hour and a half, and no one else even went. And honestly, that's fine by me. He's very interesting, and his voice is very easy for me to pay attention to. It''s preferable to watching films. I don't fall asleep as I tend to do at ten at night, when the lights are out, and I've been up since five.

So, he's an English Major, so I wanted to talk to him about writing some, and, well, I listened to him talk about writing for another half hour after class was over. So I didn't get to talk any more about my own writing as I had wanted to, but still, I said a lot more than usually do. And tomorrow is Pizza Night with the neighbors, who I'm sure will love to hear about my tattoo, and the reasoning behind it. I'll bust out some Eryk Valen and Graham then.