Cinematography, Haircuts and Pitches

Just got back from getting a haircut in south-central LA. Actually, it was an enjoyable experience. The haircut was 14 bucks, and that sucked, but you kind of start to expect prices to be that high around here. The guy that gave me the haircut was really cool, he asked me if I went to USC and it was interesting to say "yes" but hey its the truth. Told he I was taking a film class and we started talking about film and how it stereotypes people poorly a lot of the time. He was telling me how he thinks its stupid that black people (he's a black dude) are always basketball players or in barber shops in movies (this was while he was cutting my hair, but it was at supercuts, not at a barber shop). It was the most unique and detailed haircut I've ever gotten, and he was extremely fast. Usually I'm terrible and don't tip, but I gave the guy a few bucks for the conversation and quality. Another interesting LA experience to look back on...
Okay so on to film stuff that is a little more exciting than getting a hair cut... I gave my first pitch today! I stayed after class for an hour to wait for my appointment with my Professor, Daniele. First big mistake I made: I was late. I was hanging with my Norwegian friend Annette, talking to her about life in Norway and America, and I lost track of time and once I finally looked at my phone to see what time it was it was 5:05, 5 minutes past my appointment. I rushed over to the Lucas building on my longboard and made it there 3 minutes. I still had 7 minutes (according to the schedule) to talk to her about my idea... so needless to say I got down to business quick. She seemed to go with my idea and helped me develop it a little bit. I've got to say it was a little nerve racking telling my story idea to an actual director. She helped me out and pointed me in the right direction. Now I've got to polish the story up and made it complete with three acts and all. I think I've got something pretty good, but it will be a challenge to bring it down to a 5 minute short. I won't go over the whole story now, but its the same one that I posted about last week before I came down to LA. It basically has to do with a guy who steals things for the poor, needy and the sick to help them out. And NO this is not Robin Hood. I actually haven't seen Robin Hood (okay fine I saw it when I was like 6, and I honestly could not remember what it was about when I came up with my idea.) I'll post more about the idea as it gets developed.
Today in class we had another 3 hour lecture about characters, then the usual hour long lunch break, then we met back outside and had a guest lecturer teach us all about lighting and cinematography and some composition. We even did a few practice shoots using "boom cards" and reflectors. We learned about shooting in open sun and shadows too. I really liked out guest lecturer, Eric, who teaches at USC and is a free-lance DP (Director of Photography.) He was really helpful and a really nice guy, wasn't all cocky like a lot of people in the business are. He genuinely wanted to teach us what he knew and wasn't in a hurry to ditch us for more important things.
So all in all, I'm really enjoying my time here. It's weird hardly being at home. I get up at 8, board to class at 8:45 and haven't been back home earlier than 5 yet. So needless to say I'm crazy busy, and spend most of my free time doing homework (which I actually kind of like doing...kind of strange.) We all had to read different scripts and I just finished up the script for Malcolm X, not bad, but not the best. You should try it some time, reading scripts is a lot quicker than reading a book, and really interesting since it is all dialouge. And it's free! Go here: www.scriptcrawler.net to read ANY script for free!
Allright I promise to post pictures as soon as I can, I still need to take pictures of campus, my apartment and the area. We are going to the Warner Brothers studio tomorrow and I will try to take as many as I can there, and hopefully I'll see Yakko, Wakko and Dot and get a picture with them. Allright time to get down to tonight's homework!
Keep in touch, I have no idea what's going on outside of LA right now!