Day 24: And then she said

She was going to make this outstandingly awesome blog about film editing...and then she said, "Shit!  The song doesn't have those exact words in it.  I could have sworn it did...but it doesn't."

 

She then copy/pasted/mailed the text she had written to herself in an email to herself as she always does when she writes her lame-o blog and then she just sat there thinking.

 

She thought a while.  Nothing was coming to her mind.  Sure, she could write a stupid segue to her original thought...but that was just, well, pretty lame again. 

 

She thought, originally, when seeing the prompt, always just right before she typed her blog...never reading them ahead of time, because she really did like the spontaneity of her mind thinking things one way and then ending up a whole other -- that it reminded her of that "She Said She Said" song by the Beatles.  "But," she thought to herself, "everyone would have probably thought of that straight away...but then again I bet no one has. But, it's not that great a blog idea anyway...not anywhere's as good as the film editing in the film musical, 'Chicago' with Catherine Zeta-Jones, Renee Zellweger, Richard Gere, Queen Latifah...and all the others in it."

 

But, while the intro to her blog was magnificent, citing Charles Chaplin's 1931 "City Lights" film and the fact he shot 314,256 feet of film and edited it down to 8.093 feet, pretty much single-handedly -- while also writing, directing, starring, and producing it, she had to scrap that idea -- pretty much like Chaplin had to scrap 306,163 feet of film.  Only, Chaplin was pure genius...and she was only "eh".

 

She always thinks everything she writes is "eh" because the times she thought it was "pretty damned good" no one paid much attention anyway.  It was like when she was in school and she'd always, always think she did poorly on a test, because it was so much easier finding out later that you did a great job than being disappointed if it turned out the other way around.  What a let-down to get your hopes up...best not to set them too high.

 

As it turns out, she's always secretly wishing, inside her head, that things will turn out great -- while still trying to convince her inner self that she doesn't. This whole "inner self talking to your other inner self" process is quite difficult.  She wonders if everyone thinks like she does.  "That" she says to herself, "would be awfully weird." Only she's not actually saying it out loud because THAT would probably be a bad sign, and no amount of thinking something good while trying to convince yourself something totally different...would ever change that one.  Talking to your own self with your own mouth with your own words coming out of it is definitely a bad thing.

 

But then, out of the blue, and just out of curiosity, she mustered up the courage and spoke aloud the words, "Or IS it?"

 

So far, so good. 

 

And then she said, but only where her head could hear, "Hmmmm...I simply can do that alone after all."

(In case you are all wondering, I thought the song in "Chicago" said "And then she said" - but it says "She'd say" instead...so I had to scrap my whole original idea. It also won the Academy Award aka "Oscar" for best film editing in 2002. This blog, in my opinion, would have been written so much more eloquently...and interestingly...if only...)

And, if you're still reading this...go on over to "We Work for Cheese" to read about everyone else's take on today's prompt, which again is "And then she said".  Go on - go on over.  You can do it...and you can do it alone.

Tick-tock. Are you watching?

15 minutes.

The time it takes for me to wake up and get out the door if I really need to go somewhere...without putting a face on.

Is 1.042% of a day (according to the Internet as I'm not mathy and I wasn't going to try to calculate).

Songs I knew for a fact that were longer than 15 minutes: Genesis' "Supper's Ready" (23:06), Renaissance's "Song of Scheherazade" (24:39), and Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" (17:05).

Songs that I thought were close to 15 minutes long, but aren't: Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" (8:02), Pink Floyd's "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" (side 1 - 13:38 and side 2 - 12:29)...and anything by REO Speedwagon (All songs by them were way too long as I hate them with a passion...and they seemed to drag on and on and on and on...)

The length of time it seems to take for the average "time out" in basketball to end.

The average time I spend on hold waiting for any company I call.

The time I think it will take me when I run in to buy anything.

The total time I take to run my daughter in to school on days we aren't late - when we manage to get all green lights.

The total time I wait for just the lights to change when I run my daughter in to school on days she is running late.

The amount of time elapsed whereby I refuse to watch any film (I've never seen before) which has already started.

The difference between life and death for a heart attack victim...aka the average point at which resuscitation is stopped.

The length of time Andy Warhol predicted we'd all become famous for -- needless to say you knew I was going to include it...and most celebrities have long exceeded their window of famousity.

The average run time of Charles Chaplin's [uncredited] short films.

Time's up.

In summation, 15 minutes was the time it took me to think of and/or research (Internet-wise) the above statements.

(That last one took a while...and, in retrospect, upon clicking each one maniacally, afterward, it might be closer to 18 minutes average time. For some reason many were 16 minutes long. I guess we might have been more ADHD back then than I initially thought. But, what the hell...I think it proved some dramatic point -- so I left it stay.

Hey, what else takes about 15 minutes? Clicking on the "We Work for Cheese" blog and reading some of those other entries. Well, perhaps you have to be Evelyn Wood-trained...but I can guarantee those minutes will be worth it. (If you haven't deduced by now - today's prompt was "15 Minutes".

Hats In Film

It's no secret that I like watching old films...I've liked them since I was a little girl, I will, in all probability, continue to like them until I die.

The dialogue was usually wittier back then even though they do throw in a 'Bourne' film once in a while to show everyone they can still WRITE dialogue. Films now seem to rely on unbelievable special effects to get their point across at the obvious abandonment of any type of plotline. Sometimes there is no plot...just a series of one fight/car chase/pyrotechnics/obligatory boob shot after another. Yes...we know you have a nice CGI team...your action sequences are great, but let's not sacrifice art for the sake of a sale. Let's stop relying on this high tech compensation for your obvious lack of script prowess. You, Hollywood, are suffering from projectile dysfunction.

Now, I'm not saying that every single movie falls into this category...but a good many of them seem to try to dazzle you with cinematographic brilliance and nothing more. I just watched "Ghost Rider" the other nite...did this film even HAVE a plot? Did "Mission Impossible 3"? What they did have was a whole bunch of CGI fluff disguised as plotline if you ask me.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the 'Bourne' films...the first one more than the other two...but I loved them. What I loved about them was the fact that they weaved a plausible plotline into believable action sequences without the sacrifice whatsoever of dialogue. AND the dialogue wasn't so highbrow to make you feel like you were a complete moronic idiot...i.e., I could follow along without bringing a "Covert Subversive-English" dictionary with me to watch the movie.

Now, back to the original point I had (and I stress the word "had" as I've gotten off my original point entirely)...movies like "His Girl Friday" and "It Happened One Night" had brilliant dialogue...they also had something else movies lack today: Hats.

Hats, both men's and ladies' have gone the way of the dinosaur in a very short period of time. I have been wondering this for ages...just what happened in our history to totally wipe hats off the face of the Earth? I did some research on the matter and some blame John F. Kennedy because he didn't wear one, then other men followed suit (no pun intended)...and just like in "It Happened One Night" when men saw Clark Gable not wearing an undershirt...sales of these items plummeted. Jackie's pillbox hat, on the other hand, became an instant national necessity. So you could argue that while her husband's style evoked one mannerism, hers did quite the opposite...so I'm not too sure how that all works out in the end...and for the sake of this blogumn, I'm going to stick with movies and things of that ilk.

Watch any "I Love Lucy" episode and you will see a various cornicopia of hats if you will. There might not have been any money to get an apartment with more than three rooms, but, by golly, she must have had a closet in that place the size of Grand Central Station to house all those hats. A few episodes even centered on hats...or at least the buying, wearing, salivating over, and generally obsessing about them.

Hats in old films can also sometimes be incorporated into the script as a whole comedy piece. Take "The Awful Truth" with Cary Grant and Irene Dunn...well, you couldn't work a good 15 minutes of sight gags, dog tricks, and man-hiding-in-the-bedroom antics without them. Try that nowadays and it just wouldn't work. Drama sometimes also relies on clever "hat-in-hand" movie magic to engage their audience. Alfred Hitchcock's "Rope" begs the question...what DOES one do with a wayward monogrammed hat when you've already conveniently hid the body? I'll tell you what...you get found out by an astute hat-wielding James Stewart.

The hat, be it men's or women's...was a wardrobe accessory worn by both the rich and the poor...it was ubiquitous. You didn't have to wear a three piece suit in order to don one...Art Carney proved that in "The Honeymooners"...so it was clearly an established necessity in blue and white collar workers alike.

And just think of a whole portion of Hollywood without hats...just what would the massive movie musical have been without Fred Astaire crooning about "puttin' on his top hat", without Carmen Miranda's extravagant fruit-laden ones, without Minnie Pearl's price tag-adorned one, without Buster Keaton's porkpie one, and the derby so synonymous of Charles Chaplin?

But when exactly did people stop wearing hats in film, in real life and what, in my opinion, are the long-term ramifications? Well, I will attempt to enlighten you in my next hat blogumn next time.