Italk2u radio
click to listen
The idea of doing a This American life type skit was a little modified from what I originally wanted to do. I had the original intent of hearing the last words of a suicide victim. I thought it would be cool to get in the head of someone that was just about to commit suicide. The idea sounds a little depressing and it is. There’s no way to sugar-coat it and tell you otherwise. I originally came up with the idea the Tuesday we first got the project. I had recently just gotten the new iPod touch and I was enjoying a plethora of music that I finally got an opportunity to listen to. So I had a bunch of Outkast songs on my IPod (Outkast is my favorite group/duo ever) and I heard the song “A Bad Note” . This song explains why Outkast is one of my favorite groups by the fact this song shows the range of their imagination and as artists, but I digress.
Hearing that song was just one of three reasons I decided to do this skit based on such an ominous topic like suicide. The second factor had to do with the weather. That Tuesday was very depressing for some reason. It was raining, cloudy and just overall not a good day weather wise. I don’t know how to explain it but it was almost like all the necessary conditions were met to create the perfect storm in a sense. In this case, a perfect storm was a perfect idea. The last factor that influenced my decision was the financial meltdown that was and had been occurring for the last couple of weeks. I read about a story on CNN about a financial advisor who lost millions and went home and killed his wife, child and then killed himself. That story got me thinking. This guy felt bad about losing money (money that probably wasn’t his to begin with) and he decided to kill his family and commit suicide? It just didn’t make any sense to me. It’s not like he lost family or a close friend. So it started to get me thinking about figuring out the reason why someone may commit suicide. So I kind of had the idea of exploring suicide in my head to begin with and the music and the weather convinced me that it would be a good idea to try that.
Trying to act out something that you have no experience with is very difficult. I see how difficult it is for actors to act in roles they really could never do because it’s just not in their mindset. You really have to be in that mood, in that moment to really get an idea of how someone would be feeling. This was the toughest part of the assignment. Pretending that I knew exactly what I was going through within the skit. I had no idea of what would drive someone to suicide so I just started thinking dark thoughts. I would do writing exercises out in the middle of the night just to get that certain feeling or mood. I even contemplated going to the cemetery for a little bit and writing there. I just wanted to do anything that would inspire gloomy thoughts.
I finally got to the point where I was trying out a few of the lines I wrote and I ran into the problem of having the story sound like written word. So I decided that I was going to do it without writing the full script out but looking to my pre-writing ideas as inspiration for what or how I had to say things. I came up with the character of James. His family died in a car accident. I decided that I would create the fiction around him as the story went on. I would say the only sentence I used for the James sequence was the very beginning when I said,” When it rains, it pours”. Besides that, there was nothing else I wrote for that part.
As for D HOST, I actually had his part written down. After I heard it, I realized that it sounded too dark as well and I decide to scrap it. Instead I chose a more up-beat approach and I even added a quote by Bill Mauher. I didn’t want to make the whole skit sad because he really didn’t end up killing himself. So, when it comes down to it. I really didn’t write anything. I just used the writing exercises that I did as inspiration and direction for what I was going to say.
As for music and sound affects selection, I used the Outkast song as the continuum sound. This was the sound that linked everything together. I used many other sounds to just emphasize certain points within the story that I thought were important. For instance, when he was getting the pills to overdose on them or when he was changing his mind about killing himself.
Overall, I was really happy with the way this turned out. If we didn’t have a time limit, I feel like this could have gone one forever. I think it was better that I did one person because it would have been difficult to cover 2 other people, especially within 5 minutes. I think that next time, this should be in groups.
The idea of doing a This American life type skit was a little modified from what I originally wanted to do. I had the original intent of hearing the last words of a suicide victim. I thought it would be cool to get in the head of someone that was just about to commit suicide. The idea sounds a little depressing and it is. There’s no way to sugar-coat it and tell you otherwise. I originally came up with the idea the Tuesday we first got the project. I had recently just gotten the new iPod touch and I was enjoying a plethora of music that I finally got an opportunity to listen to. So I had a bunch of Outkast songs on my IPod (Outkast is my favorite group/duo ever) and I heard the song “A Bad Note” . This song explains why Outkast is one of my favorite groups by the fact this song shows the range of their imagination and as artists, but I digress.
Hearing that song was just one of three reasons I decided to do this skit based on such an ominous topic like suicide. The second factor had to do with the weather. That Tuesday was very depressing for some reason. It was raining, cloudy and just overall not a good day weather wise. I don’t know how to explain it but it was almost like all the necessary conditions were met to create the perfect storm in a sense. In this case, a perfect storm was a perfect idea. The last factor that influenced my decision was the financial meltdown that was and had been occurring for the last couple of weeks. I read about a story on CNN about a financial advisor who lost millions and went home and killed his wife, child and then killed himself. That story got me thinking. This guy felt bad about losing money (money that probably wasn’t his to begin with) and he decided to kill his family and commit suicide? It just didn’t make any sense to me. It’s not like he lost family or a close friend. So it started to get me thinking about figuring out the reason why someone may commit suicide. So I kind of had the idea of exploring suicide in my head to begin with and the music and the weather convinced me that it would be a good idea to try that.
Trying to act out something that you have no experience with is very difficult. I see how difficult it is for actors to act in roles they really could never do because it’s just not in their mindset. You really have to be in that mood, in that moment to really get an idea of how someone would be feeling. This was the toughest part of the assignment. Pretending that I knew exactly what I was going through within the skit. I had no idea of what would drive someone to suicide so I just started thinking dark thoughts. I would do writing exercises out in the middle of the night just to get that certain feeling or mood. I even contemplated going to the cemetery for a little bit and writing there. I just wanted to do anything that would inspire gloomy thoughts.
I finally got to the point where I was trying out a few of the lines I wrote and I ran into the problem of having the story sound like written word. So I decided that I was going to do it without writing the full script out but looking to my pre-writing ideas as inspiration for what or how I had to say things. I came up with the character of James. His family died in a car accident. I decided that I would create the fiction around him as the story went on. I would say the only sentence I used for the James sequence was the very beginning when I said,” When it rains, it pours”. Besides that, there was nothing else I wrote for that part.
As for D HOST, I actually had his part written down. After I heard it, I realized that it sounded too dark as well and I decide to scrap it. Instead I chose a more up-beat approach and I even added a quote by Bill Mauher. I didn’t want to make the whole skit sad because he really didn’t end up killing himself. So, when it comes down to it. I really didn’t write anything. I just used the writing exercises that I did as inspiration and direction for what I was going to say.
As for music and sound affects selection, I used the Outkast song as the continuum sound. This was the sound that linked everything together. I used many other sounds to just emphasize certain points within the story that I thought were important. For instance, when he was getting the pills to overdose on them or when he was changing his mind about killing himself.
Overall, I was really happy with the way this turned out. If we didn’t have a time limit, I feel like this could have gone one forever. I think it was better that I did one person because it would have been difficult to cover 2 other people, especially within 5 minutes. I think that next time, this should be in groups.
Comments