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No more drama?
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TZriE DAILY )DISH
Between the Sheets
I I
Sex Column
By Brooke Snyder
Pres explains new Hi
LSA Student Government preside
By Doug i
T a heard it again today for the mil-
lionth time, "Drama, drama, drama
... It's always something new with
you." No matter how hard I try to avoid it,
the drama just gravitates toward me like
aper clips to a magnet. But, I will be the
first to admit that I do have un petit pro-
bleme. I am always attracted to the worst
types of guys. The liars, the cheaters, the
abusers and the egotistical assholes are
always just so attractive to me. And it's
these superb gentlemen that constantly
write the script for the soap opera that is
my life. I see it in my friends' lives as
well; arguments and drama seem like the
roots and driving forces behind many
serious relationships at the University.
Why can't anyone seem to have enough
drama in his or her life?
Drama is a real-life event or situation
that is particularly exciting or emotion-
ally involving. Usually, it includes mak-
ing a scene in public or doing some grimy
dirt that inevitably becomes public knowl-
edge. TV shows like "The OC," prosper
off of the drama in lead characters' lives,
and it is the basis for reality television.
In every-day life, as in Hollywood, drama
and sex go hand-in-hand, as the bulk of it
is born out of jealousy and a lack of trust
between two people.
A few weekends ago, at a very crowded
Studio 4, I witnessed a typical perfor-
mance between two people: A boy, whom
I will refer to as "Big Liar," approached
my friend as she was ordering a drink and
flirting with a random boy. He marched
over, glared at them and sternly said, "No,
I don't think so," as he pushed the con-
fused random away from her. He became
irate when she wouldn't buy him a Corona
and shouted (less than two inches from
her face), "I deserve it after how you treat
me! I bet you don't even remember that
we had sex last Saturday!" Ironically, she
did not remember because the two had
never slept with each other. This is a clear
example of how caveman-like jealousy
can bring unwarranted drama to an inno-
cent girl's life. This scene was Big Liar's
way of saying, "Keep your hands off of
my girl," to everyone within earshot. And
his lie is still affecting her social life to
this day.
Though it is distressing to suffer
through dramatic scenes in public, it is
also a rudimentary way for a boy to show
his affection. By showcasing loud, jeal-
ousy-driven emotions in a public arena,
it shows that the boy cares enough about
his sexual relations to throw a temper
tantrum among mutual friends. However,
the scene between my friend and Big Liar
disturbs me. When two people have sex
(or don't have sex), they should not trans-
form into each other's personal prop-
erty. Big Liar's outburst was more like a
scripted plot to get attention and to keep
his position as a high-profile personality
on campus. Also, it was an act of a dis-
turbed ego. If he had something to say,
he should have said it, rather than caus-
ing drama for the sake of causing drama.
Instead of exposing personal endeavors
to everyone in an audible range, the aver-
age boy should man up to his emotions
and speak to his partner in more private
sectors and in more suitable terms.
However, even though such trivial drama
can be tedious, it can also keep things
interesting, especially in the bedroom.
Who doesn't enjoy some rough, angry
romping after a heated argument? Some-
times, there is nothing better than being
pinned against a wall, picked up and set on
a countertop and gently bit on the neck as
a means of foreplay. It is quite sexy when
a man is aggressive, knows what to do
and is not shy about doing it. Having the
typical dramatic argument in public trig-
gers adrenaline and gets these animalistic
emotions surging. A small scuffle in the
club can set the tone for what really goes
down at the after-after party.
Drama, drama, drama. I can't live with
it, and can't live without it. It is an amus-
ing game and can facilitate some of the
greatest sex and foreplay imaginable. It
keeps high-profile individuals in the spot-
light and gives others something to gos-
sip about. Though it can get out of hand
and bring people to tears, it can also be a
way of showing affection and emotions.
As much as I complain about the drama
in my life, it is like having a security
blanket around. I depend on every Sun-
day morning when I call my girl friends
and we relay what is new and pressing
with the boys in our lives. It makes trivial
circumstances more attracting and fasci-
nating, and let's face it: Without drama,
life would just be too boring.
Brooke wants to hear about your
drama, too. She can be reached at
basnvder@umich.edu.
Sex, lies and (digital) videotape
Apple C, Apple - V Tech Column
By Forest Casey
he Michigan Daily: What is LSA-SG's
relationship with MSA?
Andrew Yahkind: It depends on the
issue. On a lot. of projects, LSA Student Gov-
ernment overlaps with the Michigan Student
Assembly, but we have a unique focus where
we just look at the 17,000 students in the
College of Literature, Science, and the Arts,
so issues that affect the entire student body
but also affect LSA students, we will work
with MSA and issues that ax independent -
let's say the creation of academic programs,
minors, policies within the college - that's
something that LSA-SG will tackle on it's
own.
TMD: Do you find (LSA-SG and MSA)
overlapping a lot?
AY: It really depends on the issue. When it
comes to academics, not that much, but when
it comes to putting on an event and fighting
for general University policies, much more.
TMD: The language requirement: Why did
LSA-SG support it and why do you think it
failed?
AY: LSA-SG actually didn't come up
with the 2-and-2 option, contrary to popular
belief. The 2-and-2 option is something that
originated from the faculty, and LSA-SG was
asked to take a stance. A lot of representatives
didn't feel like it was the ideal solution, but it
was the only solution we were being offered
with so because of that, it was favored. Why
did it fail? I think a lot of it has to do with the
dynamic of how voting works. I think that
since this is something that has been debated
since 1997 with the faculty, faculty are sick
of the issue, and the faculty that did show up
are faculty that are strongly opposed to any
changes. I think in many ways it's a mixed
blessing because it pushes the college to keep
re-examining the issue and come up with a
better solution. The failing of 2-2 isn't the
death of the language requirement.
TMD: Are you going to keep focusing on
that?
AY: Absolutely, until we find a viable solu-
tion to the foreign language issue, which is
something that LSA student continuously
bring to us, we're going to keep pushing for
changes.
TMD: Do you have any ideas in mind?
AY: Something that was thrown out was 3-
2. An option that has to be examined more
is allowing students who spend one semester
abroad to count that for more than one semes-
ter of language because the immersion of one
semester abroad is more than one semester of
foreign language here. That's something that
has to be examined even more.
TMD: What do you try to do to get more
people to find out exactly what LSA-SG does
and so people are able to distinguish you
from MSA?
AY: That's been part of the problem with
LSA Student Government in the past few
years is students don't know what it is. When
they think student government, they think
MSA and while MSA does a lot of great
things on campus, LSA students deserve those
great things too, so we're making an effort to
work with the Daily, work with other campus
media outlets, our website. So we're mak-
ing a push to make sure people know what
we're doing. A lot of the issues that we work
on have more of an effect on the day-to-day
lives of students, so they're more concerned
with what LSA-SG is doing for them.
TMD: The Honor Council is finalized?
AY: The Honor Council is finalized. I
believe it's actually hearing a case this week,
and it's already begun working on the edu-
cation process. It's a momentous step. This
is something that we've been working on for
years and years and it's almost absurd that
it's taken this long but now we're seeing the
result.
TMD: What was the background behind
creating it?
AY: The background is students were con-
cerned there were no clear policies regarding
academic integrity in the college and things
really varied from class to class, from pro-
fessor to professor and they weren't being
educated on what the policies were and they
wanted some consistency and clarity when it
came to issues like that. A lot of other schools
have honor councils, including schools with-
in the University of Michigan. (The Honor
Council) had a dual role in educating stu-
dents and actually participating in the cases.
TMD: The LSAT prep course thatyou're
working on: How can that work if it's inde-
pendent?
AY: Prep courses are a reality when it comes
to graduate level examinations and unfortu-
nately, they are an expensive reality. Students
are now forces to shell out over $1,000 on a
prep course and it puts a lot of students at a
disadvantage. While the University is not going
to formally endorse prep courses, it's a reality
that students need to take them to strive to get
into these better graduate schools. It's going
to be a self-directed prep course that's offered
in conjunction with The Career Center. The
Career Center is going to help us lay out a syl-
labus for what should be studied and how to
study it. It's the first step. I think we can do
more in regards to prep courses, and there's an
obligation for the University and the college to
prepare students for graduate school.
TMD: You had an uncontested election.
How do you try to get more candidates for
LSA-SG and subsequently, more voter turn-
out?
AY: I wish it were a contested election. I
wish I had a straight answer. If you look at
past history, they have been very contested,,
with multiple candidates and multiple par-
ties. I think there's a very strange dynamic
on campus in general as regards to why there
are no parties other than Students for Michi-
gan or Defend Affirmative Action. I thinlk
we're trying to outreach by going to studeni
groups. Every representative was assigned a
student group that he or she had to go to and
explain what LSA-SG does. I think part of
the problem is that this new party system
Student for Michigan recruits students
from within student government where as if
you look in the past, they recruited students
from outside student government.
TMD: LSA-SG plans for the future?
AY: Where to start? We're hoping
there's going to be a vote on the
international studies minor
within the LSA curriculum
in the next couple of weeks,
and that's something we've
been working on for years.
If our graduates are going
to compete in the global-
ized world, they need
an international stud-
ies background. It's as
simple as that. Continue
to push forth academic
minors, continue to
lobby in policy changes
for things such as regis-
tration. The way regis-
tration works right now
is you register in incre-
ments of 15 credits -
they're called 15-credit
blocks. Michigan State
University has it down
to the individual credit
- you register with
people who have the
same exact number of
credits as you. You can't
tell me Michigan State is
far above us in terms of technology. I
don't believe it, I don't buy it. Outside
the vein of academics, we continue to
put on events. An example of an event
we just put on (last week) was the
Michigan Civil Rights Initiative rally.
It was a very unique event on campus,
the debate was very contested for an
emotional - in many ways - issue and
we hope to take that model and apply it to
other issues on campus.
TMD: Last question: Do you think
the average Joe on campus cares
about campus politics and knows a
lot about them?
AY: They care about campus pol-
itics when campus politics means
something to them. When LSA student
government funds their student organization,
when they create minors or maybe do.wn the
road, they create a psychology minor and
when they get that minor, they care about
campus politics.
ALEX DZIADOSZ/Da
his past summer, I worked for The Man,
although I think it slightly dishonest to
call my feverish mouse clicking "work."
O'ny list of new job titles I can add to my
resume (and it's an impressive list - web
designer, studio photographer, copy editor,
graphic designer) the only one worth a damn
was "filmmaker."
I was in middle school around the release
of Apple's iMovie, when my friends and I
would seek out the kids whose parents were
wealthy or gullible enough to own a digital
video camera and con them into joining us
for school projects.
Even if the project called only for a
visual aid (a requirement which most of
our classmates were content to satisfy with
a macrame collage depicting the Treaty of
Versailles), we would crowd around the
computer until - gasp! - 11:00 at night,
arranging phony interviews and movie
parodies into incomprehensible epics, mid-
dle-school blockbusters disguised as book
reports or argumentative speeches. After
the dust settled, we struggled and stayed
up late for assignments that didn't deserve
much more than a 3-fold posterboard, and
we loved it.
So when my summer boss wanted to
make a movie about the launch of the com-
pany's new Preferred Customer Card Sys-
tem, there was no filmmaker more perfect
for the job than Jordan Vogt-Roberts. To
his great credit, Jord has actually continued
making movies beyond the video we did on
vectors for precalc together, enrolling in the
film program at Columbia College.
But as prestigious as Columbia is, my par-
ent company didn't want to take the risk of
hiring two untested college rookies, so we
made a deal: We would make the film for
the cost of video equipment. If the company
liked our film, we would get a bonus on top
of the gear, but if we pulled a "Gigli," we
would foot the equipment bill ourselves.
Sure, it was a gamble, but not nearly as
much as it used to be. Our equipment came
in the mail in two weeks - a Christmas
morning's worth of microphones, studio
lights, boom poles and shock mounts, with
the crown jewel being the camera itself.
Jord and I both knew that if we had to buy
the equipment, enough for a respectable
studio, it would cost less than half of what
major studios spend on pet-walking and
lattes for the stars.
With digital video, gone are the process-
ing and developing costs of processing
miles and miles of film negatives. Gone
is the era of drastic editing mistakes that
could jeopardize an entire shoot; the term
"cutting-room floor" has become not much
more than nostalgia. Everything is instant,
cheap and damn close to being error-proof.
And this is good news to all aspiring film-
makers: The glass ceiling has been shat-
tered, the golden gates have been thrown
open (and other such cheesy metaphors),
and amateur auteurs rejoice in basement
studios and garages across America..
You've heard this story before: Any time
a new type of new device or media format
debuts, you'll see this same article written
by sweaty critics drooling over the conquer
of the old and the inconvenient by the new
and the digital.
But that's not the whole story. There's a
new regiment of aspiring filmmakers who
are fed up with the nonexistent depth of
field and soap-opera-quality video that you
get from most digital video cameras. It's a
counterrevolution of sorts, only the revolu-
tionaries want all of the benefits of digital
video with none of the compromises of
quality.
You see, the telltale mark of film is its
framerate - how many individual 'pic-
tures' are recorded per second. Soap operas
and home movies look harsh and fast
because they shoot at 60 frames per second,
as opposed to the standard film framerate
of 24 fps, which gives film its dreamy real-
ism. We all know this; the video of your
toddler-era trip to the zoo doesn't look quite
the same as even the lowest of Hollywood
productions - say, "Dunstin Checks In."
But what really intrigues me is the way
that filmmakers are using technology that
would have previously been thought obso-
lete. At least five companies have started
to manufacture 35mm lens adapters that
fit on the most popular digital video cam-
eras, allowing filmmakers to use the same
Nikon and Canon film lenses that have
paid for the brick and mortar for every
newspaper and magazine photo section in
the country.
What do you get when you screw in your
f2.8 Nikko zoom lens onto your 24fps digi-
tal video camera? What you get is nothing
short the second digital revolution, the rev-
olution against the is and Os, the revolution
that acknowledges the traditions of the past
while not overlooking recent advancements
in technology.
It's been said that in film as in any medi-
um, you can choose two of the following
three attributes: good, cheap or fast. The
story of digital video was of the latter two;
now it's all three.
Forest will be spending the weekend editing
home movies from his childhood. He can be
reached atfcasey@umich.edu.
10B - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, November 3, 2005
The Michigan Daily -