17 October, 2009

Of Pitching, Opera, and Baseball

The weekend isn't even over and already so much has happened!

Majority of this week led up to Thursday morning, where all of us FAMU kids had to stand up in front of a panel of professors and pitch our stories. This doesn't sound like it should be terrifying, but the panel of professors was bigger than the amount of students we had in the entire room. Add to that the fact that we had seen FAMU students pitch stories to a panel the day before...and their ideas were ripped to shreds. Needless to say, I was terrified.

So, of course with the day going the way it was thus far, Kris and I had to pitch first. We did just fine. The story was solid and the criticism we received was
more about where to shoot, how to shoot, what kind of actors we would need, and other more practical things as opposed to story criticism. They did say, however, that our story was very fragile and needed to be executed well in order to make it all work. This was such a relief. After we pitched, everyone else did the same.

Once pitching was over, we went on to have the rest of our classes for the day. They were normal. Though, I do have to say that my history teacher is quite funny. After showing us some paintings from the Decadence movement, he informed us to go home in the evening and say "Hello" to the creature under our beds. He's a very interesting character.


Friday morning came around and I went on the art and cultural excursion with some of the other FAMU International kids. We were going to go inside town hall, but due to the crappy weather (aka snow and rain and cold...) we decided to go and look at some galleries instead. We saw one about a typographer from the 1900s, an interesting collection that looked like a child's drawing (the picture to the right is one of my favorites from this collection) and the Polish Institute where they had Polish designs of modern products on display. We were going to see Chopin's death mask, but that is not on display until next week, so we are waiting...though we did get to see the workers installing the exhibit. The Polish Institute building was a very medieval building on the inside.

After the tour, I stopped in Old Town to get a crepe for lunch and then I came back to the apartment and took a brief nap in preparation for the opera. Kris and I had bought tickets on Thursday after class to go and see The Marriage of Figaro. Prior to this, I knew very little. I knew the show was a sequel to The Barber of Seville, I also knew it had to do with the count trying stop the marriage, and a bunch of mistaken identity. But other than that...nothing. The most exposure I had had to these operas was this:


Rabbit of Seville, featuring Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd (1950) @ Yahoo! Video

Turns out...not even close. As I'm sure you might have guessed. But, it was a great time. Kris, Dave and I got to see one of Mozart's classic operas at the Estates Theatre, which is where Don Giovanni premiered. It was beautiful. We also got decent seats for an inexpensive amount of money...350 CZK per person...deal! The pictures below are some that I took while we were at the opera. It was a rather awesome night.



























































After the opera, Dave headed home while Kris and I ventured up Wenceslas Square to find a sports bar to watch the Dodgers-Phillies game. Even though I'm not a fan of sports, I still had a good time. There were other Americans to talk with and it was just fun to see something American. Even though the Phillies lost.

So, that's about it thus far. The weekend has just started and thus far, Kris and I have been working on our projects today. We met with Pavel Marek to discuss our storyboard, which needs some work...but, we are working and getting stuff done. And later, hopefully, we will get to go see a movie. I haven't been to the movies since I left home and I do miss that.

So, don't move. Excitement, outrage...and at minimum another update are on the way!

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