Update 9/7/05

Hi everyone,
We're now in the second week of school so I'm finally getting a chance to write! I spent most of August writing a 50-page instructional manual for my lower division class. Lots of tutorials. So progress on the video has been slow in coming. I did get a chance to read/see some relevant media. I finally read the Da Vinci Code. I'm surprised that no one mentioned it as a must read for me since it's about conspiracies, etc. It's really more of a screen play than a novel. Lots of action. Also a good example of how I DON"T think conspiracies work. That whole monks and brotherhoods and robes and arcane texts thing. The Ben video is about how a really good conspiracy wouldn't need things in vaults and tombs--everything would be out in the open, just coded somehow. But reading it helped me refine my thinking about the red room scene where Ben finally unveils the conspiracy. We need to convey two kinds of information--1, how conspiracies work and 2, the content of the conspiracy. The content of the conspiracy will likely be the material on the red wall--all that Isaac Newton stuff. How conspiracies work will probably be an audio collage.The backstory would be that there's a primer for people who are within the conspiracy. It's a code that involves collaging together sound bytes from a variety of sources. So that section would be filled with collaged-together audio snippets of primer text platitudes, for example—

ALL infOrmation SHoulD be unHIdden
ThE TOMB aNd The ROBe arE the distrACtIon
The keY liEs in the EyEs
etc. etc.

One of my grad students also suggested I change the 'romancing at the beach' scene to something else. Maybe I'll opt for my second choice which was to show Ben and his girlfriend/wife eating dinner, but in a sterile, cold mood as if they aren't on speaking terms. I think her objection was using a woman as a 'normalizing' influence which is the kind of thing Maria would have said. The problem is that the woman is a cardboard character who exists solely to make Ben seem like a normal person. That's certainly true. Maybe going the 'eating dinner in silence' approach might make that a little less problematic. But I do think it's important that he has some sort of relationship like that.
I'm basically ready to shoot. I figured a way around using a window so I have the lab set basically done. Just a matter of logistics and letting Ben's hair grow back (he cut it short). Ben don't cut your hair again!
Ron