A Zombie's Ego

I like Zombie movies. Which is weird because I’m not a fan of gore. Indeed, though I lack the lust for flying, dismembered arms, heads, and pinky toes, I have always enjoyed a cut and dry Zombie film. Zombie films are a genre that everybody enjoys because of its stereotypes. The fearless, gun totting hero, the constantly sweaty, tank topped teen, the mouthy pain in the ass that pusses out and dies, and the shotgun wielding old guy that inevitably utters the words “I’m too old for this shit”. These are characters we love, and combined with the guiltless pleasure that we as humans enjoy add up to a good ol’ zombie film. These reasons, however, are not the reason I love Zombie films.



No the guilty secret is that I love zombie movies because they make me feel better. Kind of like the reason we like superheroes, but in reverse. That is to say that I’m better then normal, just that everyone else is dummer. I know its slightly egocentric, but who doesn’t like to feel special? Who doesn’t want to be the one that survived when the world falls apart? I know KT would disagree with me when I say that everybody wants to be better then everybody else. It’s natural to want to be the best, the alpha.



It’s only my opinion, but I don’t think people love blood and violence, I think people love power. We love it when an action star fires a shotgun blast not because we love shotguns, or the death they bring, but the fact that the hero has that power under control, and because we imagine ourselves as the hero, we have that power. It is one of my long-standing beliefs that there is no good our evil in this world, just different levels of power.



It’s a complex idea, ill write more on it later.

Hey Guys

Hey guys, im sorry

Today is an apology, for one, i let you down. Whenever a prominent blogger i like says that exams are "kicking my ass" and that they aren't going to post fora a week, i've thought "Well you're a pussy". Yet here i am, near a week after my last post, and my excuse is exams. I under estimated their power, and over estimated mine. But, i still could have talked to you guys. the fact is, i didn't think about it. So many times I've found myself doing little more then whatever the flavor of the minute is. I promised you that it would be different, that I'd stick with this blog. The truth is I wouldn't have blogged right now if one of my friends hadn't reminded me to.

I don't know if it's a human thing, to focus on so many things at once, yet only do whatever you're thinking about at that second, but thats how I feel. So many times I've dropped something because it was hard, or because it was forgotten, the truth is my focus is crap, and my will power sucks ass.

I missed you guys, and from here on I'm making a vow. I CHRIS ZEDMAN, WILL NEVER FORGET YOU. I might not post every day, but I won't ignore you. Because in the end you, are me, and this is my Journal. I missed you guys.

Im Still Alive

So in an hour I've done four-hundred words our so on my film essay, at this rate i should be done in about a couple hours.

Alright back to WORK!!!!!

So i messed up, i let you guys down, and i let myself down, but that doesn't mean the work just goes away, so here it goes live from East Sussex, The Wacky Wanderer, The Bad Boy Blogger, Chrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiissssssss ZEDMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (cheering crowd)

Thats it no more exuses, no more distractions, except you guys of course. LETS DO THIS!!!!,

be back in hour to post progress.

24 Hour Recap

So my extravaganza kind of failed, only got six essays done, and past out 12 hours in, but ill be working hard tomorrow.

Good news: my views spiked, YAY!!!!!

History

Incase you were wondering what going to class is like after being awake for twenty four hours, it kind of goes like this:

Walk in, sit down, open computer, internet is down, click the internet icon again, and agian and again, doesn't work,bang head against desk, read comics till teacher enters the room, totally forgot what I was doing, left the comics up on my screen until Good Looking Upper Year sits next to me, GLUY (wow name change needed, how about Sexy Upper Year) so SUY, (not GLUY) sees comics, looks at me, im pretty sure im drooling at this point, looks back at comic, then back to me, it clicks that the comic may not be all that impressive to her, i close it, she giggles, WHOLE CRAP TEACHER ATTACK WITH NOTES, CAN"T FOCUS ON ONE TOPIC, and the notes are done, he talks for what seems like days,  still an hour left in class.

GOOD/BAD News

Turns out that these essays i've been writing aren't suppose to be persuasive. But more personal thought mixed with some reference material to support. I hope he likes my earlier work

Im Awake, And Back to WorK

Im awake, recharged, ready to go!........in a few minute

SLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!!!!!!!!

I will be asleep for the next 3 hours. no more brain power need recharge.

24 HOURS!!!!!

I have officially past the twenty four hour mark of being awake. It has gotten so bad that my teacher just told me i failed another assignment, and it didn't phase me. I.....NEED......SLEEP.

Worlds Longest Poop Joke

I have decided to take a nap after class, but i didn't want to leave you hanging, so here is a little break for you! it's an epic poem i wrote last year, classy style, but gross topic, have fun!



The stage was set, the field of men chosen,

The mighty throne of polish’d porcelain.

It stood so pure, a bowl of shimm’ring white :

Great Ramses would have praised the plumbéd sight.

Upon this throne the noble heroes sat:

Frasier the strong, Tristian the odd, Gord -- fat!

Great men of old have knelt in humble prayer

Once God almighty hath enthroned sat there

For seven days and seven bounteous nights

From hence Our Lord proclaimed “Let there be light!”

T’was on this throne we three chose to battle

Men shall squeal and bowels shall rattle!

Women will faint, and children will sob- cry!

As we fine three will drop in great supply

The products of our intestine loop

Each great man seeks to lay the golden poop


The first among us was noble Dillon.

His heart was pure and his stomach fill’n.

Upon the regal throne our Dillion sat.

He loaded his gut, and prepar’d to shat

We gathered round in anticipation

Will Horth rise, or fall in devastation?

We heard the sound of such a horrid fight.

As if Jupiter, had let loose his might.

Groaning, moaning, and swearing could be heard;

We kept ourselves in silence and observed,

A final cry of victory let out!

No other sound could echo like this shout.

We held still, thinking could the finish be?

The battle over, with the first of three?

Our hero emerged armoured in sweat .

He wept tears of joy, cheering fans he met.


Riley was suspicious, he checked the poop,

Then dashed back out, he sang “Stop! We’ve been doped!”

We all fell to silence, oh what treason.

Good Dillon hath lied, for what reason?

“It’s teeny, TINY, no bigger than a quarter!”

“Agast!”, “Oh woe!”, “how could he?”, “what Horror!”

Anger washed over, “He must be punished!

He who has lied, for he hath not won it.”

After the swirly, Great Riley stepped up,

Filled with the ammo of dinner last sup.

His heart was broken awashed with sorrow,

Lies sat on him like Kilimanjaro.

His grief was greater than any other man.

At site of him, angels wept till just sand

Was all that was left in their loving eyes.

Great Riley did mourn but he could not cry.

The wat’ry tears were flushed into his bowels,

They fountain out an amber flood most foul,

A waterfall of dark mahogany.

So fell our prophet, leader, prodigy

Cast into bleakness by his friend Dillon,

That treasonous, vile, rat, oh the villain.

We all sat silent, there was no hero.

Could it be that of the honoured three-Zero?



Our final fighter was light and breezy,

We prayed for triumph to our Stevie.

For he was our, King Author Penn dragon,

The man who ate beans and drank a flagon.

Steve strode in, his gut packed with vast power.

Again we sat still and waited for an hour.

Will Steve have the might to deliver us

From treason, and sorrow? Oh Gods he must!

We waited like children, with baited breath.

The door flung open, and what happened next;

Steve, like Ozymandias, did declare

“Look on my works ye mighty and despair!”

The people cheered and children danced in loops,

For the Lord hath laid almighty poop!

It stood on its own and rose from the bowl,

Like a ladder to heaven, brown and full.

Solid, like a monument to his name,

A tombstone for sorrow and for great shame!

So did end our story recounted full,

Of the greatest hero to use the bowl!

Lie Down, But No Napping!!!

I have learned so much in the last 9 hours, and if i ever do this again i shall do the following

-Start right after some good sleep, not just carry over from the day before
-probably do all my notes before hand
-Invest in Coffee machine, because tay is not strong enough

anyhow im going to take a long break, probs wont be on for a couple hours, don't expect anything for like 3 or four hours

These Are Getting Worse, Acting Voice

Ok here's essay 6 which means i have just past half way on the Mini essays
Im thinking im going to stop with them now, and begin gathering notes for my film essay which must be 1500 words, then a power nap, then back to the mini essays, then finish with some more film



An actor’s voice is as important as an actor’s body. As Barranger puts it, “The voice is our means of communicating to others, presenting ourselves, expressing our personality, thoughts, and feelings.” There is a need for us to speak and communicate. For actors that need is rooted in conveying a story, and defining a character.

The hard part of conveying character through voice is the practicality of theatre, as Cohen puts it “You must live the life of your character, but also be heard in the back row.” Actors must be able to whisper so that it sounds like a whisper but is also able to be heard by the audience. Volume is only part of the challenge, because even if you’re heard, you still have to create that believable connection between you’re character and the audience because “Unlike the singer whose ‘sound’ is the message, the actor’s voice is an extension of a person” says Barranger. The accent must be correct, If an actor is suppose to be Italian, but he sounds like Michael Caine, the audience wont believe him. If you’re actor is suppose to be energetic and bouncing around, but the voice sounds depressed, then the audience wont connect with the character.

Barranger describes modern voice training as “Open[ing] up the possibilities of the voice-its energy, its instinctive responses to what the actor has to say.” The point of voice training is to open up the different kinds of characters for the actor to choose from. It is important that the actor learn to combine both physical body movement, and voice to accurately portray the emotions and complexities involved the the character.

An actor’s voice is a tool of communication, just like the actor’s body. Different tones can denote different emotions, and or meanings to the speech. When combined with the body, the actor now has two effective tools, from which he can communicate a character with depth, and complexity.

An Unfinished Essay

i'm posting this because one, my brain is mush, and two, If you guys could post a link with solid reference material I would wuv you.

yes...... I said wuv.........MY BRAIN IS MUSH!!!!!!!!

House of Games

House of Games was disappointing. It was disappointing for several reasons: the plot was predictable, the lead actress was unbearable, and it just ended with so much up in the air. By far, however, the most disappointing thing was the staging of the play.

As Professor Keefe would later put it, the staging was “unethical”. The seats that we purchased were in the back of the theatre, which would be ok in any normal theatre, but this one not only had large poles, which supported the balcony and blocked our view, but the balcony cut off the entire view of the upper stage. Having known this I would think any rational theatre company would stage the play so that the whole audience could see the entire play. Unfortunately this was not the case, and all the people in the back several rows ended up only being able to hear a good forty percent of the play. Staging is an important and key aspect to putting on any production. If part of the audience can’t see you, then not only is the connection between Actor and audience severed, but now there are several paying customers that had a very bad night of theatre.

BACK ATTACK!!!!

Back from breakfast, which starts at 8 not 7, silly rabbit.

i shall continue on and write two more essays then i need to go to class, but ill probably keep writing there too

Sry About the Wait

SOOOOOOOO hungry, seriusly It is now 7:00am I need food. I'll finish the next essay after breakfast, or as i call it now BRAKE-FAST...........wow my jokes are suffereing from sleep depravation.

ANNNNNNNDDDDD...........I'M BACK

BACK TO WORK, GOT MORE TAY, AND I GOT A YORKIE BAR

for those of you who live outside of England a Yorkie bar is THE MOST AMAZING CHOCOLATE BAR EVER!!!!! they come in solid chocolate or rasin and crunchy stuff (i don't know what is crunchy i just know DELICIOUS)

MORE TEA

MORE TEA IS NEEDED!!!!!!! MORE TAAAAYYYY!!!!!!!!

and maybe a chocolate bar.........maybe

Body Language

YAY!!!!!!!!!!! NUMER 4 IS DONE!!!! ONLY SIX MORE!!!!

Barranger says, “The actor’s tools are the body, voice, impulses, emotions, concentration, imagination, and intellect.” At the presentation on Monday I learned how body could communicate all of these ideas. Body, as I learned is a way to express emotions without relying on the text. To draw back to my last discussion, it is a way to manipulate “style”.

A body’s stance can speak volumes about a character, and change how the audience views them. To draw an example from Marry Wives of Windsor: at the end of the play Falstaff is being poked, and burned with embers. Because of the happy dancing of the “spirits” and the overly childish cowering of Falstaff, in short how they moved their body, what would have normally been a seen of abuse and pain and fear, turns into a fun practical joke. With the use of body, actors can perform a more complex style, which gives the audience a deeper view of the actor’s character.

During the presentation, several different exercises were used to exemplify the many uses of body. The most prominent to me was an exercise of communication through body. Paired into partners, each group of two had to convey movement while touching. This exercise not only uses body to communicate to a perspective audience, but also communicate to your partner. Without talking my partner and I attempted to use each other as balance, to achieve more difficult positions; while communicating what we were doing, not only to each other, but the people around us.

As a class we also participated in exercise in which we mimicked words with our body. At first we were given words as a class; the group leader would shout out something like “hurricane”, and we would act with our bodies in whichever way we thought best communicated “hurricane”. I found this part of the exercise to be a challenge for my imagination. A simple way to convey hurricane, would be to simply spin, but does that convey a hurricane, or somebody spinning. I still to this day can’t figure a way to move my body to communicate hurricane.

To help with increasing the ability to communicate with the body Barranger suggests to put the emphasis “on developing the actor’s body as a more open, responsive, physical instrument by first eliminating unnecessary tensions and mannerisms” essential, before you begin to act with your body gain a neutral stance. Loosen muscles and stand straight. From the neutral position, an actor can learn the physical gestures, and movements of their character.

Body is important because of the way it communicates feelings, thoughts and emotions without reaching for the text. An actor skilled in body language can give depth to their character, and add complexity to the “style” in which that character is portrayed. The deeper and more complex a character, the more engaged an audience becomes, and the stronger the connection between the audience and the actors.

Dear Fans

MY CONNECTION SUCKS

plus i was hit by a pretty big distraction, but a good one

my friend Max skyped me for near half hour and she (yes she) is too much fun to talk to, anyhow im now back working post another essay in about an hour or so.

BRAKE 1!!!!!!

BRAKE TIME!!!!!!!!!

this is the first break to make tea I will continue writing in a few minutes

ALSO I'd like to give a shout-out to The AKH for being the FIRST follower of my blog!!!
If you guys like my stuff hit the FOLLOWER button on the top right, it's pretty much where all the cool people hangout.

JOIN NOW AND GET A BONUS GIFT OF MY CONSTANT BLAGING ABSOLUTELY FREE!!!!!!!!!!

Characters and Styles

WOOT!!!! ANOTHER DRAMA MINI ESSAY DONE!!!!!!



The Merry Wives of Windsor



Seeing the replica of the Globe Theatre, and experiencing the thrill of a Shakespearian play performed with wit, incredible delivery, and literally thrust into the audience, is an experience that I will never forget. Something to not about a modern production of a Shakespearian play is that it’s success, like every play, is determined by it’s ability to connect with an audience; Shakespeare has a much harder time then most, because it is written in a dialect that is several centuries old, with characters from the Victorian era. The fate of The Merry Wives of Windsor depended on creating a connection between a modern audience and Victorian characters.

Barranger describes the use of both visual and aural delivery as a “language” used by the theatrical production. The job of the actors in Merry Wives is to translate the Shakespearian text into the language of theatre, which according to Barranger is composed of “words, sound, light, shape, movement, silence, activity, inactivity, gesture, color, music, song, objects, costumes, props, and visual images.”

Perhaps the reason why Shakespeare’s works have stood the test of time is their ability to speak directly to the things that make us human, the things that stay with us; giving him the ability to connect to an audience that would seem alien to his time. But how do actors convey his words to suit the times?

The theatrical language is built to convey ideas that are so complex that they stimulate our emotions as well as our thoughts, and to convey those messages effectively, so the production can connect with the audience. From the perspective of an actor, this means stepping into not just a character, but into a whole environment, or “style”, as its described by Robert Cohen, author of Acting Power. Cohen describes the act of “playing a style” as an add-on to creating a character. To explain Cohen uses the example of an American tourist in Paris ordering a beer in French. The character of the American has not changed, but his method of interaction has. So too in Shakespeare actors must step into the role of the character, but change the style in which the character interacts to connect with the audience.

A good example of all of this from the production of The Merry Wives of Windsor, that we saw, comes from the actor playing Ford. In the playbill he sights John Cleese’s Mr. Fawlty as his inspiration for the style of play that he presented. Ford is still Ford from the Victorian era, he still speaks Shakespeare’s words, but he does so in a style similar to Faulty Towers.

There is a difference between character and the style in which that character interacts. With the changing language, and ideology of the audience, theatre changes it’s style of presentation to that audience. It once again comes down to creating that connection between actors and audience.

The Stage is a Spoon

FIRST MINI ESSAY DONE 9 TO GO!!!!!!!!!!! (feel free to edit)

During the Victorian era it was a popular idea amongst playwrights, such as Shakespeare, to us the stage as a mirror for the world. “like a mirror, [the stage] shows audiences both their good and bad qualities along with an accurate reflection of the times.”, Barranger’s eloquent sentence brings up a good point. The stage, used as a way to showcase humanity, with all its shine, and all its cracks. Nearly every good story showcases a part of the time they were written in, such as: Hamlet, Oedipus, Macbeth; even some modern stories such as Spamalot, Wicked, and Greece. Showcasing Humanity is an effective to create the connection between actors and audience.

Something that bothers me about the showcasing of Humanity in a performance is perception. When the audience is watching a performance, they see only the perception that the actors convey, and the actors only convey what the script says, with added direction of a director. So what is conveyed to the audience is not truly a mirror of reality in the sense of a straight bathroom mirror, but a mirror that closer resembles a fun house; having been warped to the perception of the play write, the warped by a director, then tweaked by the actors, and delivered to the audience.

“Our perception is our reality, but our reality may not be our perception”, a powerful quote delivered to me by my seventh grade Social Science teacher, Mr. Clark. I took that quote as a warning of caution, everything that is spoken, written, or performed came from someone’s perspective, and while we must live our lives believing that perspective to be real, we also must be open to different perspectives, so that we can become critical of our own. All of that is to say that when observing a production, it is best to watch out for things that you would consider falsehoods, and instead of throwing those ideas away, examine them. Barranger attempts to describe the changing of perspectives when he talks on the difference between the play Henrey V and the film Henrey V.

Barranger states that films are “cutting, editing, framing, and camera movement rearranged Shakespeare’s text while retaining the language pertinent to telling the story on film.” While “The theatrical dimension is concentrated in certain scenes of Henry V,”. Films are more concerned about fitting the whole story into roughly an hour and a half, where as theatre has the luxury of having all evening. Scenes that are drawn out in a theatre version are cut shorter for film; we lose the perspective of the original text.

The Victorian idea that the stage is a mirror for humanity is more or less true. To create the bond between actors and audience, some familiarity is required; a sense of reality is needed, whither that be environmental or ideological. But, because the play is written by one man, then twisted and turned by several others. The stage is a mirror, but it is not a large bathroom mirror that reflects with perfect light, it’s more like the back of a spoon, reflective, but flipped upside down, and bulged.

THUS IT BEGINS!!!!!!!!!!!

I know I missed the last few days for posting, and that makes me sad :(

But I'm going to make up for it :)

I have decided to broadcast my first 24 HOUR ESSAY WRITING EXTRAVAGANZA!!!!!!!!!
thats right 24 hours straight ill be writing essays here is the sitch:

2 ESSAYS
BOTH OVER 1500 WORDS
24 HOURS TILL DUE DATE!!!!

Ill post every once and a while to give more details and beg for edit help.
READY..........GET SET................GO!!!!!!!!!!!