Opinions
Thespians On: Character
Tips for Developing a Character So, you got cast in a musical, a movie, or whatever. How are you going to play your character? How do they behave? How do they respond to the other characters, the situations, the sets? What steps do you take to figure this out? Well, you need to figure out their motives. Figure out what makes them tick and how they feel. What are their relationships with the other characters? Think about these tips and you can find your character’s “voice.” (I mean, not their voice literally. That will just be your voice. But their…reasons for the things that they do and how they do them. See, voice is easier.) 1. What is your character’s motive in the story? This is about identifying why your character does what they do, why they say what they say, and how they say it. A line or an…
Five Actors who Could Replace Jared Leto as the Joker
Let’s be honest… Jared Leto wasn’t a great Joker in a mediocre movie. His Heath Ledger ripoff was underwhelming and very overhyped. We’d love a new actor in that iconic role, and here are five actors we think could pull it off. 5. Jake Gyllenhall Hear us out – Jake Gyllenhall was CRAZY in Nightcrawler! Probably the most haunting performance of 2014, this rising star played an insane reporter willing to do whatever he needs to do in order to get footage of crimes. Maybe not the most “Joker” role ever, but he had the same level of creepiness and insanity that people like Heath Ledger and Mark Hamill maintain throughout their performances. He could pull off a weird and eerie but still fun and enjoyable performance as the Clown Prince of Crime. 4. Daniel Day Lewis Daniel Day Lewis is an ACTOR. The man transforms into his roles completely and…
App Unwrap: Twitch
For anyone who hasn’t heard of Twitch, it is a live streaming service for video games and talk shows. It lets content creators reach out on a live platform playing games and talking to viewers rather than making videos and uploading them to something like YouTube. Anyone trying to start a channel can also go to Twitch and gain popularity by streaming popular games. When streamers get popular enough to attract a lot of viewers, they can set up ways for their fans to donate. Some people even use Twitch as their job, often streaming all day long and attracting a lot of donations throughout the day. Anyone who wants to follow a channel closely can pledge $5 (separate from donations) to subscribe to the channel and receive notifications whenever that person starts to stream. Twitch is a really great program because you can interact with your favorite gamers live as…
Tech Review: GTX 1080 Ti
On February 28, 2017, the company Nvidia released its new flagship graphics card1, the GTX 1080 Ti, which gives a 35% performance improvement compared to Nvidia’s GTX 1080 graphics card. The GTX 1080 Ti also has just edged out Nvidia’s former most powerful GPU, the Titan XP, by a few Megahertz2 in processing power. The 1080 Ti also has two power connectors compared to the GTX 1080’s one, which means more power, which equals better performance. The 1080 Ti is the largest improvement in performance compared to any regular vs. Ti. Here are some comparisons between the 1080 and the 1080 Ti in various games. The numbers on the right show the performance gain between the 1080 and 1080 Ti. These test were run at 4K4 resolution. The GTX 1080 Ti also has the same amount of CUDA cores as the Titan XP coming in at 3584 cuda cores. To…
Thespians On: Crying on Command
Crying is not generally considered a good thing, unless you’re “happy-crying.” Theatre is one of those weird things that considers drying a talent. Crying on command is a must-have skill for anyone trying to get into professional acting, because a lot of directors will have at least scene in their movie where someone is crying. Now, you could do that fake dry-crying where you make weird breathing sound that make it seem like you’re choking on cat fur, or you could actually learn how to get those salty droplets to roll down your face. If you don’t know how then WAIT! GUESS WHAT I’M ABOUT TO DO! GUESS, COME ON, GUESS! Yes. A LIST. You’re welcome. GET SOMEONE TO BLOW ON YOUR EYES This won’t exactly get you to Viola Davis’ snot-acting level of tears, but if you have an off day and need a little kick to get…
Film Review: Logan
Directed by: James Mangold Written by: Michael Green and David James Kelly Starring: Hugh Jackman, Dafne Keen, Patrick Stewart, Stephen Merchant, and Boyd Holbrook The Positives Logan Personal rating – 95% Woah! This movie completely broke the mold of usual quippy superhero movies that we know. While we may love these movies, sometimes we need an actually deep and emotional film, and this is that film. It is dark, it is brutal, it is touching, it is funny, it is everything! It perfects and legitimizes the superhero genre while also managing to do the one thing that it seems no superhero movies candy these days: be a standalone film! It doesn’t set up anything or hint at other movies throughout the narrative, it is a drama that stands alone as a beautiful film. It had very stern tones and very intriguing action along with deep and meaningful subject matter and…
App Unwrap: Amaziograph
Amaziograph is a drawing app available on the App Store for $0.99. It lets you control the basics of your digital pen like selecting color, thickness, opacity, and clarity. What separates Amaziograph from other drawing apps is the focus on symmetry. It lets you select multiple templates for drawing. Each template allows you to repeat a design over multiple sections of the drawing. This results in a cool effect where a simple design is repeated in a cool way. The app is paid, but in my opinion it is well worth 99¢. I love the app for fidgeting and mindless doodling. You can edit the section sizes for each preset in the settings. There isn’t much else to say about the app; it is very simple and user-friendly. It doesn’t have many advanced options so experienced artists may want to look at another app. Amaziograph is not a normal drawing…
Thespians On: Playwriting
Playwriting is a very, very, very, very, very, very long process. I mean, you could bang out a one-hundred page script full of lines like, “Yeah,” and, “Wow,” but that would be torture for the publishers and audiences alike. Some people think playwriting should be done on your own, or they refuse help from anyone else because they think they’re destined to be the new Shakespeare and Shakespeare wouldn’t possibly need help from anyone or anything. But truth is, the more people on the team, the better. I’m not suggesting you have one-hundred playwrights together trying to implement each of their ideas while also working off the others, but a good team of under twenty playwrights will create a strong creative environment. And if you’re lucky, most of them will have written a play before and so know a strong process. But just in case, I’ll let you in on…
Farewell, Mrs. McDonald!
As you may know, this Friday is Mrs. McDonald’s last day before she departs for maternity leave. We are very happy for her, but she will be missed! Below is a tribute to Mrs. McDonald filmed by Calvin and Marcus.