The Opinionated Actor

Get comfy with some tea, unfinished creative projects and potted plants to listen to some movie rants and ideas📇 

[actreview-blog]

To those who have not heard Hans Zimmer’s work, I’ve provided a link to have a quick listen. This piece is my personal favourite from the albumn. 

The harmony between the soundtrack, acting and directing in Christopeher Nolan’s film Interstllar are all what make this piece truly special. 

I always love a film that pushes the boundaries of realism. When you listen to a number of soundtracks you can notice which ones were used to aid a scene (to not stand out) and which soundtracks were made to create big moments and story. Interstellar uses bold music to get some beautiful moments with the actors. It’s like the music takes control of the moment and when done correctly, it’s beautiful. In this piece you can hear when the music takes ‘control’ of the moment, and from then on I’m being taken to a place that is far more exciting than a realism scene. 

So what do I mean by taking control. 

When an actor’s movement and/or voice matches the intensity of the soundtrack. 

An example of these connections are in the moments leading to when Dr. Brand (Anne Hathway) realises that the ‘mountain’ is in fact an enormous wave. When the team first land on Miller’s planet, you can hear the tick of the beginning soundtrack as Cooper tells the team to, “hurry up.” The soundtrack evokes more pressure from the acting and the plot. With each realisation Dr Brand has, her facial expression become more tensed and worried. Again, the soundtrack enhances this feeling by building up- you’ll see with each new realisation there is a new bar of music. This harmony comes from the perfect rhythm between all aspects of the scene. 

In summary, I love the harmony in this scene and its soundtrack. Here’s a link to see what I’m talking about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7OVqXm7_Pk&t=150s

Tip: If acting in film ustilise the use of sound and make sure that both your movement and the music are building up to the same thing. It will make the plot more coherent and exciting at the same time.

[wehadfacesthen]

Marlon Brando, New York, 1948, when he was still appearing on Broadway in A Streetcar Named Desire

[wehadfacesthen]

Grace Kelly, 1954, photo by Frank Worth

[overeducated]

ACW’s Finals Survival Guide 2018

It’s that time again. It’s the worst part of the semester, when break is calling your name but there’s a pile of assignments, due dates, and exams sitting between you and freedom. It’s easy to burn out, stress out, and fall apart during the end of the semester, but you don’t have to. Here’s how I avoid finals meltdown:

1. Make a list of everything you need to do until the end of the semester, divided up by class, along with their due dates.

2. Make a study plan based on due date priority and break larger projects like papers and presentations down into smaller tasks. Bonus points for color coding! Start by filling in due dates and then add in tasks for each day. I usually like to finish assignments that are actually turned in for a grade a day or two before the actual due date. This helps prevent deadline stress and provides time to ask questions and look things over before submitting them. I also like to mix my subjects up to keep my brain from melting, but you may prefer to focus on one subject each day. You should also adjust your studying and daily tasks based on how long things will take and the level of mastery you have in each course. For example, if you can basically recite the slides for one course but are struggling in another, focus more of your efforts into studying for the latter course. How you arrange your schedule is up to you, but whatever you do, do not overestimate what you can do on any one day because it will overwhelm you and is an easy way to get burnt out or discouraged.

3. Make sure to include time for stress relief activities and self-care! Finals is a grueling time and you need breaks. Take a mid-day break to get lunch with friends, arrange your schedule to have a free Sunday for binge watching Netflix, or make a rule that you won’t study before or after certain hours of the day. Just don’t schedule so much work for any one day that you don’t have some time to recharge before tackling the next day.

4. Check out the links below for additional help, ideas, and resources.

5. Stay positive and know that you will survive and you can do this! I believe in you, biscuit. You got this.

RESOURCES

Exam Prep & Studying: Guide to exam preparation No bs study guide Study tips for exams Random study tips Studying masterpost youtube edition Emergency study plan Study methods 3 day study plan Unconventional study tips How to take notes from a textbook 10 study tips Study methods masterlist How to study for a test

Finals Guides: Surviving finals How to survive exam week How to survive final exams Finals survival guide for the brave Guide to exam season

Group Projects: How to survive group work Dealing with lazy group members

Lab Reports: Writing a lab report Helpful lab report phrases Writing lab reports Presentations: Delivering a perfect presentation How to be comfortable with public speaking Public speaking tips Shy girl’s guide to public speaking Presentation tips Surviving big presentations Guide to making effective slides Stress Management: Managing stress during finals How to avoid education burnout Self care masterpost Self care and sleep masterpost Burnout 101

Study Breaks: Things to do during a study break Types of study breaks for every situation Study break ideas

Study Playlists: Press play and let’s study Study playlists masterpost Study music masterpost Best study playlists on spotify

Writing Papers: Getting over academic writer’s block Strategies for writing good conclusions Referencing Planning out a paper

[madhaiku]

art journal

[universitybookstore]

PEOPLE OF WATTS

where we come from, sometimes, beauty floats around us like clouds the way leaves rustle in the breeze and cornbread and barbecue swing out the backdoor and tease all our senses as the sun goes down. dreams and memories rest by fences Texas accents rev up like our engines customized sparkling powerful as the arms that hold us tightly black n fragrant reminding us that once we slept and loved to the scents of magnolia and frangipani once when we looked toward the skies we could see something as lovely as our children’s smiles white n glistenin’ clear of fear or shame young girls in braids as precious as gold find out that sex is not just bein’ touched but in the swing of their hips the light fallin cross a softbrown cheek or the movement of a mere finger to a lip many lips inviting kisses southern and hip as any one lanky brother in the heat of a laid back sunday rich as a big mama still in love with the idea of love how we play at lovin’ even riskin’ all common sense cause we are as fantastical as any chimera or magical flowers where breasts entice and disguise the racing pounding of our hearts as the music that we are hard core blues low bass voices crooning straight outta Compton melodies so pretty they nasty cruising the Harbor Freeway blowin’ kisses to strangers who won’t be for long singing ourselves to ourselves Mamie Khalid Sharita Bessie Jock Tookie MaiMai Cosmic Man Mr. Man Keemah and all the rest seriously courtin’ rappin’ a English we make up as we go along turnin’ nouns into verbs braids into crowns and always fetchin’ dreams from a horizon strewn with bones and flesh of those of us who didn’t make it whose smiles and deep dark eyes help us to continue to see there’s so much life here. 

– Ntozake Shange

[oldhollywoodcinema]

Lauren Bacall in Dark Passage (1947)

[filmouts]

Actress Lupita Nyong’o arrives at the red carpet for the 90th Annual Academy Awards on March 4, 2018, in Hollywood, California.

[actreview-blog]

“Now, since I put reality on the backburner, my days are jam-packed and fun filled. Like some days, I go hang out around seventh avenue; I love to do this old joke: I wait for some music-loving tourist form one of the hotels on central park to go up and ask someone "How do I get to Carnegie Hall?" Then I run up and yell, "PRACTICE!". The expression on peoples' faces is priceless. I never could have done that stuff whe I was in my right mind. I'd be worried people would think I was crazy. When I think of all the fun I missed, I try not to be bitter. See, the human mind is like a.. pinata. When it breaks open, theres a lot of surprises inside. once you get in the pinata perspective, you see that losing your mind can be a peak experience. I was not always a bag lady, you know. I used to be the creative consultant. For big companies! Who do you think thought up the color sheme for Howard Johnson's? At the time, no one was using orange and aqua in the same room together. With fried clams. The only idea I'm proud of - my umbrella hat. Protects me against sunstroke, rain and muggers. For some reason, muggers steer clear of people wearing umbrella hats. Ever since my shock treatments I started having these time-space continum shifts, I guess you'd call it. Suddenly, it was like my central nervous system had a patio addition out back. not only do I have a linkup to extraterrestrial channels, I also got a hookup with humanity as a whole. Animals and plants too. I used to talk to plants all the time. Then one day, they started talking back. They said, "Trudy, shut up!"

-Trudy

[actreview-blog]

“...this bombing went on for five years. The Supreme Court never passed any judgment on it and the military speaks with pride today that five years of the bombing of Cambodia killed 16,000 of the so-called enemy. That's 25% killed, and there's a military ruling that says you cannot kill more than 10% of the enemy without causing irreversible, psychological damage. So, five years of bombing, a diet of bark, bugs, lizards and leaves up in the Cambodian jungles, uh, an education in Paris environs in a strict Maoist doctrine with a touch of Rousseau, and other things that we will probably never know about in our lifetime -- including, perhaps, an invisible cloud of evil that circles the Earth and lands at random in places like Iran, Beirut, Germany, Cambodia, America -- set the Khymer Rouge out to carry out the worst auto-homeo genocide in modern history.”

[actreview-blog]

~Anonymous

[actreview-blog]

People who are lonely, people left alone, sit talking nonsense to the air, imagining… beautiful systems dying, old fixed orders spiralling apart…

When you look at the ozone layer, from outside, from a spaceship, it looks like a pale blue halo, a gentle, shimmering aureole encircling the atmosphere encircling the earth. [Thirty miles above our heads, a thin layer of three-atom oxygen molecules, product of photosynthesis, which explains the fussy vegetable preference for visible light, its rejection of darker rays and emanations. Danger from without. It’s a kind of gift, from God, the crowning touch to the creation of the world; guardian angels, hands linked, make a spherical net, a blue-green nesting orb, a shell of safety for life itself.]* But everywhere, things are collapsing, lies surfacing, systems of defence giving way… This is why, Joe, this is why I shouldn’t be left alone. People are like planets, you need a thick skin. Things... Get to me.

I’d like to go travelling. Leave you behind to worry. I’ll send postcards with strange stamps and tantalizing messages on the back. “Later maybe.” “Nevermore…”

-Harper

Read more:

http://stageagent.com/monologues/161/angels-in-america-part-one-millenium-approaches/harper-amaty-pitt-martin-heller#ixzz4qHumAzNr

[words-pics-flicks]

Don’t worry about trying to develop a style. Style is what you can’t help doing. If you write enough, or draw enough, you’ll have a style, whether you want it or not.

Neil Gaiman (in ‘The View from the Cheap Seats’)

[actreview-blog]

I'm not a goddamn chicken

Someone who is not a chicken

[actreview-blog]

Will: Wood drastically — Wood 'drastically underestimates the impact of social distinctions predicated upon wealth, especially inherited wealth.' You got that from Vickers, 'Work in Essex County,' page 98, right? Yeah, I read that too. Were you gonna plagiarize the whole thing for us? Do you have any thoughts of your own on this matter? Or do you…is that your thing? You come into a bar. You read some obscure passage and then pretend…you pawn it off as your own idea just to impress some girls and embarrass my friend? See the sad thing about a guy like you is in 50 years you're gonna start doin' some thinkin' on your own and you're gonna come up with the fact that there are two certainties in life. One: don't do that. And two: You dropped a hundred and fifty grand on a f—-n' education you coulda' got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library.

-Will

[actreview-blog]

Sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.

Alan Turning 

[actreview-blog]

“It’s all right. It’s all right. I’ve come back. Why, haven’t you all been wondering where I was? I’ve been away for hours and hours. It was just after breakfast when I went into the wardrobe, and I’ve been away for hours, and had tea, and all sorts of things have happened. No, Peter. I’m not just making up a story for fun. I was in the wardrobe. It’s - it’s a magic wardrobe. There’s a wood inside it, and it’s snowing , and there’s a Faun and a Witch and it’s called Narnia; come and see. There! Go in and see for yourselves. But - but where has it all gone? No. It wasn’t a hoax, I promise. Really and truly. It was all different a moment ago. Honestly it was.”

-Lucy