Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Usual oatmeal breakfast. Continued setting up my computer: preferences setup and migration, found more apps to install. Network connection followup for Eric—his connection appears to be only 10 Mbps so I thought I would ask OAAIS what was up with that. Met with Shannon and Sue about the forthcoming school retreat. Answered a mail quota question from James. ICRD followup with Nancy. OmniLock door code followup. Prepped PowerPoint presentations for the school retreat, then loaded them onto USB drives that Shannon dropped off. Collected computer supplies I might need for the school retreat. SCC work: WeID. Followup with Alyssa and Scott about ICRD training. Sent Eric the outline for the DAM project. Forwarded Susie potential homepage news stories. Sent Eric Outlook tip #1. Lunch: leftover cow stew with vegetables and steamed rice. LGBT viz work: sample poster. School retreat followup. Fellowship e-mail account followup. ICRD followup with Scott. Uninstalled Samsung MagicTune and Samsung Natural Color. Installed MagicRotation on the server. Uninstalled MagicRotation on the server. (It didn't work—it screwed up the existing graphics driver in a very bad way—the only mode I could get was 640 x 480 x 4 colors.) Installed PivotPro on the server. Home. I accidentally discovered some interesting keyboard shortcuts in Firefox 2.0.0.6 on OS X. Pressing Cmd+Shift+z zooms in, and Cmd+Shift+x zooms out. Actually, it could instead be Option+Shift+z and Option+Shift+x—I have swapped my modifier keys and I have a non-Apple keyboard so I can't really tell you which it is. Apple really has things all mixed up when it comes to keyboards, I think. Dinner at home with Patrick: chinese chicken salad, pizza. Watched Shanghai Triad on DVD with Patrick. To illustrate the truth behind the "in a time, in a land, one man, one woman" formula for film trailers, here is the script for the trailer for The Emperor and the Assassin:
[black screen, drums]
[gold wreath with words growing in size: WINNER CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 1999]
[cut to testimonials growing in size: "GLORIOUS MOVIE MAKING!"—Ricard Carlin, TIME MAGAZINE (International) and "****! (Highest Rating) A REAL STUNNER!"—Michael Wilmington, CHICAGO TRIBUNE]
[cut to a sword being removed from its sheath]
In a time of war,
[cut to men fighting on horseback, cut to soldiers inside a fortress preparing for war, music builds]
In a land of wealth,
[cut to man of power riding in a parade, cut to wooden box opening to reveal two swords, music builds]
In a world of intrigue...
[cut to a person with long black hair viewed from behind, the camera approaches the person, music builds]
One man [cut to The One Man, music builds] would stop at nothing
[cut to soldiers fighting, music builds]
To forge [cut to an army in battle] the greatest empire [cut to the Forbidden City] the world has ever known. [choir enters, music and choir build]
[cut to army scenes, cut to The Emperor] Sony Pictures Classics [music swells with strings, cut to red-robed man carrying a box] proudly presents [cut to long black haired person on horseback looking across a valley vista] the extraordinary new film [cut to horses and a carriage traveling waterside] from the award-winning director of [cut to a woman lifting a curtain] Farewell My Concubine [cut to a pan through The Forbidden City]
[music swells with strings] Experience the epic [cut to soldiers in the Forbidden City] true story [cut to a closeup of The Emperor's face] of the first [cut to The Emperor on steps in the Forbidden City] emperor of China, [cut to a man raising a sword with a battle cry, cut to arrows flying through the air]
The assassin [cut to The Assassin and assorted assassin scenes] sworn to destroy him,
And the woman [cut to The Woman and assorted woman scenes] of remarkable courage who would love them both. [music swells with strings]
Torn by desire, [cut to scenes showing tearing]
Joined by fate, [cut to scenes showing fateful joining]
Destined to become legend. [cut to scenes showing things becoming legend, heavy on the battle action scenes]
[music with triumphant trumpets and bold drums] The Emperor and the Assassin [show title on screen in gold letters]
Starring Gong Li. [cut to Gong Li's character looking beautiful and turning toward the camera]
A new film by Chen Kaige. [cut to scenes depicting love, then cut to credits overlaid upon a pan of the Forbidden City]