February 2, 2011
Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome (SORAS) is a term used to describe the practice of accelerating the age of a television character (usually a child or teenager) in conflict with the timeline of a series and/or the real-world progression of time. Characters unseen on screen for a time might reappear portrayed by an actor several years older than the original. Usually coinciding with a recast, rapid aging is typically done to open up the character to a wider range of storylines, and to attract younger viewers.
The process originated in (and is most commonly used in) daytime soap operas. SORAS generally refers to cases in which a character’s rapid aging happens off-screen without any explanation, rather than to storylines in science fiction and fantasy in which a character ages rapidly due to technology, magic, or non-human biology. Coined by Soap Opera Weekly founding editor-in-chief Mimi Torchin in the early days of the magazine, the term is now widely used in the soap opera media.
Posted in Art, Humor |
Leave a Comment »
February 1, 2011
A script doctor is a highly-skilled screenwriter, hired by a film or television production, to rewrite or polish specific aspects of an existing screenplay, including structure, characterization, dialogue, pacing, theme, and other elements. Script doctors generally do their work uncredited, for a variety of commercial and artistic reasons. Script doctors are usually brought in during the development and pre-production phases of a film, to address specific issues with the script, as identified by the financiers, production team, and cast. They may also be employed during post production, to help address narrative problems that crop up during the editing process.
The use of script doctors was first revealed at the 1973 Academy Awards when Francis Ford Coppola thanked Robert Towne for his work on The Godfather. Since then, the use of script doctors has been downplayed within the industry, to avoid overshadowing the work of the original writers. Under the WGA screenwriting credit system, a screenwriter must contribute 50 percent to the story and/or characterization in order to qualify for credit. Uncredited screenwriters are not eligible to win the Academy Award for Best Screenplay or the Writers Guild of America Awards.
Posted in Art, Language, Money |
Leave a Comment »
February 1, 2011
EarthBound is a 1994 role-playing video game co-developed by Ape and HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the Super NES video game console. The game has been lauded by gamers for its humorous depictions of American culture and parody of the RPG genre, and has since become a cult classic.
The game takes place on Earth in the year 199X. The game’s main antagonist is Giygas, an alien from a distant galaxy with the power to influence people using their own evil nature.
Posted in Art, Games, Humor |
Leave a Comment »
February 1, 2011
Ronald Jenkees is an American composer and musician best known for his YouTube keyboard performances. He has released two independent albums: the self-titled Ronald Jenkees (2007), and Disorganized Fun (2009).
Posted in Art, Technology |
Leave a Comment »
January 31, 2011
The Meisner Technique is an acting technique developed by the American theatre practitioner Sanford Meisner. Students develop an ability to improvise, to access an emotional life, and finally to bring the spontaneity of improvisation and the richness of personal response to text. The most fundamental exercise in Meisner training is Repetition: Two actors face each other and ‘repeat’ their observations about one another back and forth. An example of such an exchange might be: ‘You’re smiling.’ ‘I’m smiling.’ ‘You’re smiling!’
Meisner is based on the work of Russian thespian Constantin Stanislavski (1863 – 1938), as are a number of acting techniques, including Lee Strasberg’s. As in all Stanislavskian-derived approaches, for a actor traditional line memorization methods that include vocal inflections or gestures are avoided. It is taught that doing so merely increases the chance the actor will miss a ‘real moment’ in service of a rehearsed habit or line reading. Solid preparation supports the spontaneity, an idea articulated by Martha Graham when she wrote, ‘I work eight hours a day, every day, so that in the evenings I can improvise.’
Posted in Art |
Leave a Comment »
January 31, 2011
Omar Little is a fictional character on the HBO drama The Wire, portrayed by Michael K. Williams.
Omar is a renowned stick-up man who lives by a strict moral code and never deviates from his rules, foremost of which is that he never robs or menaces people who are not involved in ‘the game.’ Omar is gay, and the only major character on the series who claims to make a point of not using profanity.
Posted in Art |
Leave a Comment »
January 31, 2011
The Wire is an American television drama series set and produced in and around Baltimore, Maryland. Created and primarily written by author and former police reporter David Simon. The series was broadcast by HBO from 2002 – 2008, comprising sixty episodes over five seasons. The show is recognized for its realistic portrayal of urban life, its literary ambitions, and its uncommonly deep exploration of sociopolitical themes. Each season focuses on a different facet of the city of Baltimore. They are, in chronological order: the illegal drug trade, the seaport system, the city government and bureaucracy, the school system, and the print news media.
The large cast consists mainly of character actors who are little known for their other roles. Simon has said that despite its presentation as a crime drama, the show is ‘really about the American city, and about how we live together. It’s about how institutions have an effect on individuals. Whether one is a cop, a longshoreman, a drug dealer, a politician, a judge or a lawyer, all are ultimately compromised and must contend with whatever institution they are committed to.’
Posted in Art, Drugs, Politics |
1 Comment »
January 31, 2011
Vajazzling is the act of applying glitter and jewels to a woman’s nether regions for aesthetic purposes.
Posted in Art, Money, Sex |
Leave a Comment »
January 31, 2011
Rejected is a surrealist animated short comedy film by Don Hertzfeldt that was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 2000. A fictional frame story explains that Hertzfeldt was commissioned to do animated segments for commercials and television network interstitials, but they were all rejected upon receipt. Towards the end of the short the animator begins to break down mentally and the animated world he created literally begins to fall apart, brutally killing all of his characters in the process.
Posted in Art, Humor |
Leave a Comment »
January 31, 2011
Photoshop tennis is a game played through sequential alternating photoshopping of an image. Photoshop tennis originated in graphics-related internet forums in the late-1990s/early-2000s. The game was made popular by art director Jim Coudal, and the matches on coudal.com have since been renamed Layer Tennis, as they are no longer restricted to the use of Adobe Photoshop. Each match of Photoshop tennis is generally played with two competing players. The players pick a starting image, or one is ‘served’ by a player, then another player makes some sort of alteration to the image in any chosen image editor (matches are not exclusive to Adobe Photoshop).
He or she then sends that altered image to the other player or players, usually via e-mail or by posting the image to a Photoshop tennis forum, who then edits that image and sends it back to the first player. This process goes back and forth until a predetermined number of rounds have elapsed, or the players otherwise wish to end the game. When the final round is over, there may be an independent judge who determines who has played the best shots, and declares that person the winner, or players may play without a clear winner. Sometimes extra rules can be enforced, such as sticking to one particular software package, or keeping to a particular theme.
Posted in Art, Games, Humor |
Leave a Comment »
January 31, 2011
Exquisite corpse is a method by which a collection of words or images is collectively assembled. Each collaborator adds to a composition in sequence, either by following a rule (e.g. ‘The adjective noun adverb verb the adjective noun’) or by being allowed to see the end of what the previous person contributed. The name is derived from a phrase that resulted when the game was first played, ‘Le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau.’ (‘The exquisite corpse will drink the new wine.’) The technique was invented by Surrealists and is similar to an old parlor game called ‘Consequences’ in which players write in turn on a sheet of paper, fold it to conceal part of the writing, and then pass it to the next player for a further contribution.
Surrealist André Breton reported that it started in fun, but became playful and eventually enriching. Breton said the diversion started about 1925, but Pierre Reverdy wrote that it started much earlier, at least before 1918. Later the game was adapted to drawing and collage, producing a result similar to children’s books in which the pages were cut into thirds, the top third pages showing the head of a person or animal, the middle third the torso, and the bottom third the legs, with children having the ability to ‘mix and match’ by turning pages.
Posted in Art, Games, Language |
Leave a Comment »
January 31, 2011
Christian Louboutin (b. 1964) is a footwear designer who launched his line of high-end women’s shoes in France in 1991. Since 1992, his designs have incorporated the shiny, red-lacquered soles that have become his signature. In 2007 Louboutin filed an application for U.S. trademark protection of this red sole design.
Louboutin received inspiration for his lethal-looking stilettos from an incident that occurred in his early 20s. He had visited a museum and noticed that there was a sign forbidding women wearing sharp stilettos from entering for fear of damage to the extensive wood flooring. This image stayed in his mind, and he later used this idea in his designs. ‘I wanted to defy that,’ Louboutin has said. ‘I wanted to create something that broke rules and made women feel confident and empowered.’
Posted in Art, Money |
Leave a Comment »
The Daily Omnivore 