Clips

3 Ideas Week 1

1. I like the idea of following a homeless person around for a day to see what their lives are really like. Milwaukee has a big population of people living off the grid so I could try following around a lot of different folks then I would try and follow up on one or two of the people I find most interesting. It could be a difficult task to actually get them to talk about their lives because I'm sure a lot of them are either disgruntled about it or even damaged mentally but I still think I would get some good footage of some interesting characters. There's this one man who, maybe, lives out of his car or just collects cans/random junk for extra money. He has a truck and I see him pretty often and my roommates and I even let him use our spigot on the side of our house so he can have water. He's asked us once and we didn't mind so know he just does it without asking which seemed weird at first but after awhile we didn't seem to care because he wasn't causing any harm or stealing anything from our back yard. He doesn't speak much English but maybe I could talk to him or even work up the courage to ask him to ride along with him for awhile.

2. There is a man at my job (I'm an Asst. Manager at the Marcus North Shore Cinema in Mequon) who is somewhat of a mascot of our theatre. His name is Mike Ryan but everybody, even customers, call him "Spider". It's a nickname he got when he was younger and he tells me that he got it because of his love for comic book heroes (i.e.: Spider-Man). He has a gimp arm and only does one thing at our theatre: rip tickets. He does this with one hand and is pretty good at it. He also recommends movies and food to customers and will talk with you for hours about film. He sees pretty much everything that comes out and is always tells you to come back out after the movie and tell him "yes or no" meaning if you enjoyed the film or not. He is disabled but I'm not sure in what way. He repeats himself a lot and has a lot of catch phrases. For the film I would basically do a profile on him. It would try not to make it go a cliche route and have it seem like a inspirational fluff story that a new station would do but rather a deeper look into his thoughts on things, not just movies. But mainly movies. I wouldn't mind for it to be inspirational but I don't want it to seem hokey.

3. Since I've worked in a movie theatre for 6 years I've always thought I could make a good comedy about working in a movie theatre. I have a good idea how I would open the movie.

You would see a black screen in silence then cut to a close up of a man's face being completely dead pan. Suddenly the man bursts out in hysterical laughter, cut to a different man's face being dead pan but more sad. Then cut to a profile medium shot of both of the men revealing they are in a stock room with candy and popcorn tubs, men both dressed in a tuxedo. Eventually the first man stops laughing and says "Seriously?! That's your idea for a movie? Who's going to want to watch that? <Laughs more> Who's going to want to watch a movie about what happens in the lobby of a movie theatre? A movie about a movie theatre...yeah good luck with that!" The first man would then leave the stock room and as the door shuts it would cut to the opening credits.

I've thought about this idea a lot and have a good amount of chicken scratch in some notebooks but the more I think about it the more it seems unrealistic. Not in terms of plot or story or characters but in terms of a student film. It would be a cross between "Clerks" and "Waiting..." but set in a movie theatre. I've only told a few people about this idea, all of which are close friends so they might be biased so I'm not sure if the laughing man is right or not. It would have to be a real funny script which I have yet to start.

NY Times Scrapbook Entry #1

Killer Penguins, Asteroids and Maple Leaves"In more than 14 hours of filming using cameras strapped to 11 Adélie penguins, not once did a bird fail to capture its prey." Watch it all on Penguin-Cam.

This article, which includes 10 other short blurbs of science news, caught my eye with its title "Killer Penguins, Asteroids and Maple Leaves". Science, mainly astronomy, interests me a lot because it can, usually, boggle my mind. The short blurb about Asteroids talk about how we, in the future, will start mining asteroids for rocket fuel, solar panels and components for spacecraft orbiting Earth. All 11 mini articles can be found here on the NY Times website.

 Agency Moves to Retire Most Research Chimps 

"The report says that for the future, only a small colony of about 50 chimps should be kept for the possibility of new research, which would have to be approved by an independent committee, including representation from the public."

This article caught my eye because I was curious as to how often (and how many) chimps are tested on. It turns out that there are 232 chimps that could potentially be tested on. The National Institution of Health or N.I.H. owns these chimps and have 219 chimps retired already. They plan to change the way the chimps live and the type of tests that are ran on them. I like the idea of the public having a say in the matter because we should have a voice when it comes to these types of things. Full article HERE

A Movie a Day, Without Going Broke

 

"Whether it is worth it, of course, depends on how many times you go to the movies. The company has set its monthly prices to equal roughly three movies a month, so it costs just over $30 in New York City. Subscribers tend to go a lot when they first sign up, and then their activity decreases, Stacy Spikes, MoviePass’s founder, said. "

I work at a movie theatre so I get free movies all the time (except on Saturdays) so I found this article interesting because it's basically like the Movie Fun Packs we sell which is a deal if you go to the movies often. This "Movie Card" idea seems like a good idea but what happens when there isn't any good movies out? You get charged for a month when you maybe only saw one movie that month. The thing with the Movie Fun Packs the Marcus Theatre sells is that, though there are restrictions to newer movies and 3D movies, they don't expire and you only pay once when you buy the pack of tickets. Overall the movie packs could save you 40% potentially in movie tickets. Perhaps it makes more sense in to do it in New York. I don't see it making it's way over to the Midwest anytime soon.

Full Article HERE