Yep. Still pluggin.
Happy New Year to ya, It's a couple weeks in, recovering from that NASTY flu shit that was lingering around worse than a lonely and over confident drunk by the ladies room in a bar at closing time...
We've had another quarter at school get off to a start, and I've already abandoned two new year resolutions.
However, that
other resolution, is still hanging on to my head like a piece of spinach in my teeth, and that was to start assembling ye olde portfolio, and start up a new website, as well as start updating here and
TUMBLR?
AND
TWITTER?
Well, one step at a time.
SO...
...look for more updates. I've got so much from the last year, and it's not just pretty pictures, but pretty video to boot.
And pretty words. Been doing a TON of writing for classes the last quarter or so, and I'd like to share some of that as well. And it looks like this quarter will have the same. I'm doing a series of briefs on some classic films, so that should be mildly entertaining, if not cause for cease and desist notifications.
So anywhays..
On with the show.
Cheers.
Oh and just to give a bit of a teaser...
This here was a quick write up on a classic trope that, unfortunately, I was the only person in a class of twenty five art and design students that knew of it..
A MacGuffin, much like a McRib sandwich, could be anything.
It is a plot device that has been used time and time again that was officially named by Alfred Hitchcock and one of his screenwriters. In a narrative structure, a MacGuffin is "X"; in so much as a character(s) must find "X", or save "X", or stop "X". It is usually something that remains a mystery to both the characters in the story as well as the audience. It is a proper MacGuffin if it remains interchangeable with anything else and won't impact the story. For example, one of the biggest movies of the last year (and by box office, all time) Marvel's The Avengers relied exclusively on a MacGuffin, or as they called it "The Tesseract" (or as it is called in the original comics- "The Cosmic Cube"), a mysterious device that the heroes obtained, lost, and had to band together to retrieve from the antagonist. Its origins were never revealed, its powers never explored.
In true MacGuffin style, it could have been simply a cosmic sandwich.
The story goes that the name "MacGuffin" came from an old joke-
Two men are seated next to each other on a passenger train. One of the Men has a very odd shaped package resting by his side.
Man 2: "Say, what have ya got there?"
Man 1: "Oh this old thing? Why, it's a MacGuffin."
Man 2: "Why, I'm not sure what that is!"
Man 1: "Oh, well, it's a sharp shooting device, used for hunting lions up in the northern mountains of Scotland."
Man 2: "I see!"
Man 1: ...
Man 2: "Wait a second- there aren't lions in Scotland!?"
Man 1: "Well in that case, this sure isn't a
MacGuffin..."
For more on this, and other classic nuggets of awesome, check out
TROPES.ORG
Till next time, stay classy, hug yer Mom, and take care.
MORE2COME...
