2001: Draft 2

2001: A Space Odyssey is incredibly expansive and deep. In fact, it's so deep that once I fell in, I couldn't see out of it. I may as well have been heading to Jupiter myself. Understandably, it doesn't have that same effect on everyone. Film critic Chris Barsanti put it best long after the film's 1968 release: "2001 certainly is a colossal bore, unless you're on its wavelength, in which case it's one of the greatest films of all time." I couldn't have said it better.

The novel and screenplay based upon it were written simultaneously. Arthur C. Clarke, already a well-known science fiction writer, producing the story while legendary director Stanley Kubrick translated Clarke's thoughts into visuals. During filming for Dr. Strangelove in 1964, Kubrick took on an interest in the possibility of extraterrestrial life and contacted Clarke, famously proclaiming his aim to make "the proverbial good science fiction movie." The two based 2001 on a short story, "The Sentinel", which Clarke had published in 1950.

The story begins in prehistoric times with an ape who, with the aid of an ominous black monolith, discovers bone tools and begins the evolutionary path that would lead to the modern human. Without so much as a fade, the movie throws us into Earth's orbit populated by satellites and space stations. Mankind's tools have come a long way. A buried artifact found on the moon is identical to the monolith that inspired the ape's earlier innovation. As astronauts excavate the buried structure it emits a high-pitched squeal. Another cut and 18 months later, we're somewhere between Earth and Jupiter about the spacecraft Discovery. Aboard are both human astronauts and an artificial intelligence computer, HAL-9000, who has never been known to make a mistake. HAL malfunctions (or does he?) as they reach their destination and the humans will have to battle their own creation while still surrounded by the mystery of the black monolith.

The film's brilliance lies in its attention to detail, and the meaning behind each and every one of those details. Nothing that is presented is an accident and nothing that is seen is there purely for style (though style is definitely present). For example, the spacecraft that carries Dr. Floyd to the space station early in the non-ape part of the movie, has wings. The significance would be lost on many, but this was one of Arthur C. Clarke's many glimpses into the future. He basically predicted the space shuttle, a craft that launches as a rocket, but lands as an airplane. He also was first to describe the geosynchronous communication satellite. There are over 300 of these satellites in orbit today allowing for global communication, television broadcasting, and weather forecasting.

Things are equally brilliant on Kubrick's side of the picture. During the movie, particularly in the pre-man scenes, the camera rarely moves. It stays locked down on a tripod for the most part and the only tracking shots follow a series of still shots. It gives absolutely no reason for the mind to wonder who is behind the camera; there are no people there to hold cameras in prehistoric times!

The year 2001 has come and gone and the world depicted in the film is not quite reality, but even so, the film has an honest quality to it. Any movie's (or any medium's) ability to convince the audience of something that they know not to be real is called suspension of disbelief. 2001 is one of the first, and maybe the best, science fiction film to do this well. Movie-goers, especially in 1968, didn't have to consciously justify what they were seeing. It took itself seriously and was taken seriously.

2001: A Space Odyssey evaluation - First Draft

2001: A Space Odyssey is not an ordinary movie. It is incredibly expansive and deep. In fact, it's so deep that once I fell in, I couldn't see out of it. I may as well have been heading to Jupiter myself. Understandably, it doesn't have that same effect on everyone. Film critic Chris Barsanti put it best long after the film's 1968 release: "2001 certainly is a colossal bore, unless you're on its wavelength, in which case it's one of the greatest films of all time." I couldn't have said it better.
The novel and screenplay based upon it were written simultaneously, Clarke producing the story while legendary director Stanley Kubrick translated Clarke's thoughts into visuals.
The story begins in prehistoric times with an ape who, with the aid of an ominous black monolith, discovers bone tools and begins the evolutionary path that would lead to the modern human. Without so much as a fade, the movie throws us into Earth's orbit populated by satellites and space stations. Mankind's tools have come a long way. A buried artifact found on the moon is identical to the monolith that inspired the ape's earlier innovation. As astronauts excavate the buried structure it emits a high-pitched squeal. Another cut and 18 months later, we're somewhere between Earth and Jupiter about the spacecraft Discovery. Aboard are both human astronauts and an artificial intelligence computer, HAL-9000, who has never been known to make a mistake. HAL malfunctions (or does he?) as they reach their destination and the humans will have to battle their own creation while still surrounded by the mystery of the black monolith.
The film's brilliance lies in its attention to detail, and the meaning behind each and every one of those details. Nothing that is presented is an accident and nothing that is seen is there purely for style (though style is definitely present). For example, the spacecraft that carries Dr. Floyd to the space station early in the non-ape part of the movie, has wings. The significance would be lost on many, but this was one of Arthur C. Clarke's many glimpses into the future. He basically predicted the space shuttle, a craft that launches as a rocket, but lands as an airplane. He also was first to describe the geosynchronous communication satellite. There are over 300 of these satellites in orbit today allowing for global communication, television broadcasting, and weather forecasting.
The year 2001 has come and gone and the world depicted in the film is not quite reality, but even so, the film has an honest quality to it. Any movie's ability to convince the audience of something that they know not to be real is called suspension of disbelief. 2001 is one of the best, and maybe the first, science fiction film to do this well. Movie-goers, especially in 1968, didn't have to consciously justify what they were seeing. It took itself seriously and was taken seriously.

Web Portfolio

A portfolio made up of nothing but paper; where's the fun in that? A website can have videos and that's what makes it the choice for me. That's not to say that the written word doesn't have a place there, but it should have multiple forms of communication included. My YouTube page is something of a literacy portfolio in itself. The first video is absolutely terrible, but gradually they become better and better. I can almost see were we learned something and then fixed it for the next one.

Bracken Tag

Have you ever seen (or been one of...) those people who play tag in Wal-Mart? Everyone's trying to evade whoever is "it" while concurrently hiding from employees. The subject of our how-to video is a step up from that: playing in the sanctuary of vapidity, the library itself.

Transitions in a True Story

On Monday the 12th of October, a contest was held for Cardinal Filmworks that I was a part of. My project was kept on a flash drive along with all of my homework, including a certain rhetorical analysis for a certain English class. Upon arrival at the place of contest, I handed the drive to the judges and left it in their care. Next, we critiqued each other’s projects and finally, the meeting was over. After a grueling 14 hour editing session the night before and running on nothing but caffeine and Laffy Taffy, I left with my friends for the Atrium with the uncanny feeling that I was forgetting something.

Cause & Effect

Determining cause and effect is one part finding the cause and one part convincing people of said cause. Effects can be argued about too, but causes can always arguable. That is, at least, if the effect has already come to pass. The effect is usually apparent in hindsight, but it can match with an endless number of potential causes. For example, the evolution debate has been going on for centuries but may never be resolved because no proposed cause will satisfy everyone. It doesn't matter which proposed cause is correct.

Choosing Your Battles

The book gives some bullet points concerning evalutation of the author of the piece that is under scrutiny. These usually had to do with the author's background or whether or not they give each side of an argument equal presentation. Sometimes I feel like the author may be giving equal respect to each side, but is fighting the wrong battle altogether. Why did Ed Tuft blame Microsoft for speaker's incompetence? Slideshow software is just that: software. It's how it's used that counts.

The Hard Part

The hard part of writing a rhetorical analysis is going to be the part about not taking sides. Reading It's the Same Old Song and A Spirit Reborn, I thougt I might be starting to understand it. The third section, Stay Sweet As You Are threw me off. It felt to me like it was an argument against the ads and not an objective analysis. Let me re-state that: I thought it was an objective analysis and argued against the advertisers. I couldn't tell if that was because of personal bias (who I agreed with) or because it was backed up (I mean, just look at the ads). Either way, it was breaking the rules as I understood them. I guess the author can disagree with the Listerine adverisers on issues of sexism, but can't say: "I don't agree that mouthwash stops bad breath."

Poor Fred

"Proofreading is like checking yourself in the mirror before going into a job interview." This is true, but proofreading isn't everything. I could write a story consisting of two lines:

I'm hungry and tired. I think I'll go home.

Ah! No spelling mistakes; it'll be a huge hit! A good story is better than good grammar. Grammar can be fixed later (well... I guess that is proofreading). Anyway, story can't be fixed later. It doesn't matter if your hair looks good if you wore pajamas to the interview.

Sacred

When I write a sentence or paragraph that I think is good, I do everything I can to keep it in my paper. Even if I've made changes to the format that makes the line confusing or awkward, I won't cut it. I know that it's a bad idea, but it was so good before the change and now it has nowhere to go. The Field Guide says, "As you revise, assume nothing is sacred." Sacred is the perfect word for it.

So Much For Gnat

Hoping to free up my Wednesday, I have been working all day on the latest science lab, German exercises, and now have just finished my English readings. Having been in my room for far too long now, I'm going to take the textbook's advice: "take a walk." Excuse me for a moment...
Ah. I'm back and (hopefully) refreshed. Not that the walk was very refreshing. On the way back to my dorm I was ambushed by a ferocious cloud of darting gnats that swarmed down on me like a squadron of kamikazes. Upon landing, they dug into my shirt as if I were an undiscovered continent and they the conquistadors searching for gold. I"m still picking them off of me.

*Note: The title was actually a typo, me thinking about gnats and all, but I liked it so much I couldn't change it.

Looking through the Field Guide’s idea-generating methods, I decided to give them a test run on a screenplay long abandoned by my high school friends and myself. The story features a long nosed detective named Sherman B. Shure who is tasked with tracking down his traitorous partner, Carl Berger. The story is meant to be rather tongue-in-cheek.
I had the most luck with the outline method. Though it didn’t actually generate many new ideas, it at least allowed me to get my old ideas in order. Free-writing and looping were useful, but often what I would think of were the ideas I wasn’t pleased with in the first place. I suppose that after enough loops something would have to crop up. I found the methods didn’t necessarily lend themselves well to purely fictional writing. For example, the cluster seems it would work best with a fact-based project or an argument.
I hope these methods lead me somewhere. Perhaps Sherman is not meant to be resurrected.

Know Your Enemy

Know your audience. Sounds a little bit like "Know your enemy" to me. The writer is the competitor, the audience is the judge. That's not to say the writer and the audience can't be friends... just a friend that the writer really wants to impress. Or maybe they don't want to be friends; maybe they want to hate each other (see comments on political Youtube videos).
Assuming they want to be friends, the writer and the audience need to get to know each other. The audience gets the easy half of this. They read what is written. The writer has to put a little more thought into it. Who is the audience? What do they care about? The broader the audience, the more difficult it becomes. The writer must respect the audience, but can't go overboard and turn the writing into an unintelligable cacophony of technobabble or newspeak. Often as not the writer also must justify the price of the magazine or the book in the reader's hand. "Do unto audiences as you would have them do unto you." A golden rule for writers or just friends.

Miracles of the Information Age