The Week In Review

Last week, I volunteered to be background on a small documentary project. The topic is how reliable eyewitness testimony is--or rather isn't. Here's the description from the casting notice:

"Project Notes: This is a documentary feature that is part animation and part live-action. The subject matter pertains to the American Justice System. It critiques current methods of prosecution, including how unreliable eye-witness tesimony actually is. The director has spent ten years interviewing men and women who have been convicted of crimes, jailed, and later found innocent through DNA evidence. The live-action footage, which will be used to illustrate the interviews, is to be shot on 35mm film by a professional crew in the fasion of a standard fiction feature.

The scene we are shooting will illustrate points made in an interview by an attorney, who also teaches university Law courses. In the scene students sit in a classroom listening to a lecture. An unexpected individual runs into the class, steals an object from the lectern, and runs out. The teacher explains that he actually has set this up and he wants all of the students to write their description of the assailant. The students eagerly scribble down what they remember. However, according to the real interview, none of the students ever agree on an accurate description of the suspect. In fact, each time there is a considerable amount of variety in description (different heights, different weights, different skin color, different age, etc.).

If students sitting in a well-lit classroom, safe, calm, and with a clear view of the scene of the crime can't accurately recall the physical features of the suspect, why then should "eye witnesses" be able to, especially under less suitable conditions? The attorney/professor conducts this exact exercise with each class he teaches and the same results each time. The students are always surprised by the outcome. It is this that we are recreating on film for the documentary."

I feel that by participating in this project, I have done a good deed. Especially since they got the camera they used from a grant, and half the film was donated to the project. And everyone was sooo nice on set! Almost makes me want to work for free more often!

I've spent the last week with my nose stuck in a couple of Harry Potter books, playing catch up. I finished HP & The Order of the Phoenix (#5) over 3 or 4 days--it's almost 900 pages long!--and then read HP & The Half-Blood Prince (#6) yesterday. And, as soon as my Dad's done reading HP & The Deathly Hallows, (#7, the last book in the series! Ack!) I'll probably curl up with my nose in that one for another 2 or 3 days.

I totally have a crush on Michael Buble, and I am totally in love with the way he sings this song. I just got his second CD (I think?) and that song is by far my favorite on the disk. I love the passion he sings with, I love the arrangement of the music, I can hardly breathe and hardly keep from dancing at the same time when I listen to him sing this song.

And lastly, Abigail Abbott has come through for me, they found me a short-term temp assignment here, close to where I live. I now work 5 hours, three days a week in a small office. (I love working in small offices!) The assignment is until the end of September. So the part time hours are perfect while I kick myself in the butt, remind myself of Marshall Law and get my Mary Kay business rolling. My temp boss is also totally flexibile if--when--I get an audition and get cast in a role.

And in the famous words of my blog buddy Donald Foley: "Tis all for now!"