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For three years, I have been in China teaching Swing Dancing. Now I'm wandering yet again...
2004-11-11
Movies and Games, Games and Movies...
Yesterday I went to the Shanghai Film Studio and got a copy of the script, which I have just finshed reading. The first thing of note is how very few words are actually in a script. It contains all of the dialogue, but the scene and situation descriptions are really minimal. I think back to just how much preparation it took for the taxi dance hall scenes. All of that effort -- selecting the shooting location, dressing everyone in costumes, arranging for all the extras, dance lessons beforehand, and so forth -- all is done for the sake of probably 200 words of description plus a few pages of dialogue.
Now they are filming the second dance-heavy sequence, which is set at an upscale dance bar called the White Countess. I got very involved in the first round of filming, and it looks now like my participation will become greater. I'm still gathering information about what exactly will be needed. There's a lot of important variables which still need explaining, not the least of which are the filming days and the presence or absence of the original choreographer. Based on whatever information I can get, tomorrow I will submit a proposal to the production team. You hear a lot of information, but things change a lot at the last moment. Everything is chaos. You simply prepare and make options available for the directors to use.
In real life, I went on a binge after last night. I was up until the not-so-wee but really-rather-large hours of the morning. The kind of hours a which normal people are waking up. It is so strange. I had appointments the next day (today) and still I did it. Each hour, one by one, just kept ticking away. There I was sitting at the Internet cafe, playing the same stupid game I've played and nearly perfected really hundreds of times. I don't know why I do this. I think there needs to be a Gamaholics Anonymous. I have one comfort which is that my problem does not have the really bad physical side-effects that other types of addictions have, such as achohol. But nonetheless there it is. The biggest problem is the cost of time. What percent of my effective hours and I spending my time and energy doing this thing?
Today I said, no games today. And I did this; no problem. I actually did make my lunch appointment. It's with a friend I see occasionally. She appeared breifly in the movie as an extra and she's also come to one of our dance events as a 'more trained' person to help the absolute beginners. So I tell her I'm really tired. It's 1pm now, and I've only had about four hours of sleep, if that. I tell her about my addiction, or 'binge' problem. She says it sounds like an interesting article she could write for a magazine she freelances for. I tell her I would be happy to do the interview if she doesn't use my real name. Can't really go about telling everyone I'm a computer game addict, can I?
-J
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