#like for example. jan feb march of this year. i only put out one piece each month | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

scifigeneration · 4 years

Text

How big will the coronavirus epidemic be? An epidemiologist updates his concerns

by Maciej F. Boni

A security guard wears gloves while holding a basketball during halftime of an NBA game in Houston on March 5, 2020. The NBA has told players to avoid high-fiving fans and to avoid taking any item for autographs. AP Photo/David J. Phillip

The Harvard historian Jill Lepore recounted recently in The New Yorker magazine that when democracies sink into crisis, the question “where are we going?” leaps to everyone’s mind, as if we were waiting for a weather forecast to tell us how healthy our democracy was going to be tomorrow. Quoting Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce, Lepore writes that “political problems are not external forces beyond our control; they are forces within our control. We need solely to make up our own minds and to act.”

And so it is with the coronavirus epidemic. How big will this epidemic be? How many people will it infect? How many Americans will die? The answers to these questions are not written in stone. They are partially within our control, assuming we are willing to take the responsibility to act with commitment, urgency and solidarity.

I am an epidemiologist with eight years of field experience, including time on the front lines of the isolation and quarantine efforts during the 2009 swine flu pandemic. One month ago, I was under the impression that the death reports due to COVID-19 circulation in China were giving us an unfair picture of its mortality rate. I wrote a piece saying that the death rate of an emerging disease always looks bad in the early stages of an outbreak, but is likely to drop once better data become available. After waiting for eight weeks, I am now worried that these new data – data indicating that the virus has a low fatality rate – may not arrive.

Young passengers wear masks on a high-speed train in Hong Kong, Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2020. At that time, it was hard to know how dangerous the virus would be. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung) AP Photo/Kin Cheung

Case fatality rate and infection fatality rate

By Jan. 31 2020, China had reported a total of 11,821 cases of COVID-19 and 259 deaths; that’s about a 2% case fatality rate. Two weeks later, the tally had risen to more than 50,000 cases and 1,524 deaths, corresponding to about 3% case fatality (the rise in the case fatality is expected as deaths always get counted later than cases). For an easily transmissible disease, a 2% or 3% fatality rate is extremely dangerous.

However, case fatality rates are computed using the officially reported numbers of 11,821 cases or 50,000 cases, which only include individuals who (a) experience symptoms; (b) decide that their symptoms are bad enough to merit a hospital visit; and (c) choose a hospital or clinic that is able to test and report cases of coronavirus.

Surely, there must have been hundreds of thousands cases, maybe a million cases, that had simply gone uncounted.

First, some definitions from Steven Riley at Imperial College. The infection fatality rate (IFR) gives the probability of dying for an infected person. The case fatality rate (CFR) gives the probability of dying for an infected person who is sick enough to report to a hospital or clinic. CFR is larger than IFR, because individuals who report to hospitals are typically more severely ill.

If China’s mid-February statistic of 1,524 deaths had occurred from 1 million infections of COVID-19 (counting all symptomatic and asymptomatic infections), this would mean that the virus had an infection fatality rate of 0.15%, about three times higher than seasonal influenza virus; this is a concern but not a crisis.

The IFR is much more difficult to estimate than the CFR. The reason is that it is hard to count people who are mildly ill or who show no symptoms at all. If you are able to count and test everybody – for example, on a cruise ship, or in a small community – then you may be able to paint a picture of what fraction of infections are asymptomatic, mild, symptomatic and severe.

Scientists working at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Imperial College London and the Institute for Disease Modeling have used these approaches to estimate the infection fatality rate. Currently, these estimates range from 0.5% to 0.94% indicating that COVID-19 is about 10 to 20 times as deadly as seasonal influenza. Evidence coming in from genomics and large-scale testing of fevers is consistent with these conclusions. The only potentially good news is that the epidemic in Korea may ultimately show a lower CFR than the epidemic in China.

A quarantined cruise ship in Japan at the Yokohama Port in Yokohama, near Tokyo, Feb. 9, 2020. Cruise and airline bookings are down as a result of the coronavirus. AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko

Impact of the epidemic in the US

Now that new COVID-19 cases are being detected in the U.S. every day, it is too late to stop the initial wave of infections. The epidemic is likely to spread across the U.S. The virus appears to be about as contagious as influenza. But this comparison is difficult to make since we have no immunity to the new coronavirus.

On balance, it is reasonable to guess that COVID-19 will infect as many Americans over the next year as influenza does in a typical winter – somewhere between 25 million and 115 million. Maybe a bit more if the virus turns out to be more contagious than we thought. Maybe a bit less if we put restrictions in place that minimize our travel and our social and professional contacts.

The bad news is, of course, that these infection numbers translate to 350,000 to 660,000 people dying in the U.S., with an uncertainty range that goes from 50,000 deaths to 5 million deaths. The good news is that this is not a weather forecast. The size of the epidemic, i.e., the total number of infections, is something we can reduce if we decrease our contact patterns and improve our hygiene. If the total number of infections decreases, the total number of deaths will also decrease.

What science cannot tell us right now is exactly which measures will be most effective at slowing down the epidemic and reducing its impact. If I stop shaking hands, will that cut my probability of infection by a half? A third? Nobody knows. If I work from home two days a week, will this reduce my probability of infection by 40%? Maybe. But we don’t even know the answer to that.

What we should prepare for now is reducing our exposures – i.e., our chances of coming into contact with infected people or infected surfaces – any way that we can. For some people this will mean staying home more. For others it will mean adopting more stringent hygiene practices. An extreme version of this exposure reduction – including mandatory quarantine, rapid diagnosis and isolation, and closing of workplaces and schools – seems to have worked in Hubei province in China, where the epidemic spread appears to have slowed down.

For now, Americans need to prepare themselves that the next 12 months are going to look very different. Vacations may have to be canceled. Social interactions will look different. And risk management is something we’re going to have to think about every morning when we wake up. The coronavirus epidemic is not going to extinguish itself. It is not in another country. It is not just the cold and flu. And it is not going away.

About The Author:

Maciej F. Boni is Associate Professor of Biology, Pennsylvania State University

This article is republished from our content partners over at The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

#science #medicine #covid-19 #coronavirus

6 notes · View notes

orbemnews · 3 years

Link

Over perilous odds, the late Hank Aaron leaves behind legacy of determination, benevolence | The Atlanta Voice In this May 17, 1970, file photo, Atlanta Braves’ Hank Aaron, center, who became the ninth player in Major League history to get 3,000 hits, kisses a baseball alongside Famer Stan Musial and Braves owner Bill Bartholomay, in Cincinnati. Bartholomay, the former Braves owner who moved the team from Milwaukee to Atlanta in 1966, died Wednesday, March 25, 2020, at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, according to his daughter, Jamie. He was 91. Bartholomay sold the Braves to Ted Turner in 1976 but remained as chairman of the team’s board of directors until 2003, when he assumed an emeritus role. (AP Photo/Gene Smith, File) For many, Henry Louis Aaron was the epitome of what a man is supposed to be: a servant leader, a master of a trade, and above all else, both honorable and dignified. The man who came to be known as “Hammerin’ Hank” possessed each of those qualities in abundance. Not only was he an exemplary baseball player — he closed out his playing days as Major League Baseball’s all-time home run king with 755 home runs, and holding more than 21 records — he would later become an executive for the Atlanta Braves for more than 40 seasons while also emerging as one of the city’s most beloved philanthropists. He passed away whilst sleeping last Friday, Jan. 22 in his Atlanta home. He was 86 years old. Aaron is survived by his wife of 50 years, Billye, and daughter, Ceci. He also had five children with his first wife, Barbara Lucas. On Wednesday, the Atlanta Braves, with Billye in attendance, announced the creation of the Henry Louis Aaron Fund, which will be used to increase minority participation in baseball. The fund already includes a $1 million donation from the Braves and separate $500,000 donations made by both the MLB and the MLB Players Association. “God gave him the talent, and he used that talent to become the greatest baseball player of all time,” Atlanta Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman said in a tribute video. “But, more importantly, he used it to make our city, our country, and the world, a better place. For those who were blessed enough to know Hank, he left a lifetime of impact with every encounter. His life made you want to better your own.” Aaron’s career spanned 23 seasons between the Milwaukee Braves, the Atlanta Braves, and the Milwaukee Brewers. During his dazzling career, Aaron hit for a .305 batting average, possessed a .374 on-base percentage, and an exemplary .555 slugging percentage. He tallied 624 doubles; 755 home runs; 2,297 RBI; 2,174 runs; 3,771 hits; and 240 stolen bases. Hammerin’ Hank retired as the all-time home run leader and held the record for more than 33 years. He remains the all-time leader in RBIs and total bases. He also holds the record for the most All-Star games at 25. Yes, his name is all over the record books! However, Hammerin’ Hank also would be known for something deeper than lofty stats: a statesman for African-Americans. Aaron was born to poverty and segregation on Feb. 5, 1934, in the port city of Mobile, Alabama. He was one of eight children born to Herbert and Estella (Pritchett) Aaron. His father worked in the Mobile shipyards to make ends meet. His mother was a homemaker. Aaron would eventually make it to the Negro Leagues, playing for the Indianapolis Clowns. Aaron was also in negotiations with the New York Giants. He said a difference of $50 kept him from being teammates with Willie Mays. Aaron would make his major league debut with Milwaukee Braves in 1954. In 1966, the Braves would relocate to Atlanta and that’s where Aaron’s leadership off the field would match his example on the baseball diamond. In 1969, Aaron launched a four-year scholarship program at the historically Black Morris Brown College, covering all expenses for deserving students. It would be his first foray into philanthropy. Aaron also joined the United Negro College Fund as an advocate during his playing days. Later on, his wife Billye served as the Atlanta-based philanthropy‘s vice president. In the Sept. 29, 1973 edition of The Atlanta Voice, it was reported the City of Atlanta sought to create the Hank Aaron Foundation Center, as a monument to the player while driving proceeds toward scholarships for Black students who sought to attend historically Black colleges and universities that were supported by the UNCF. Ultimately, the creation of the UNCF Mayor’s Masked Ball in 1983, would be spearheaded by Aaron and Andrew Young instead. “Hank and Billye Aaron’s sincere belief in our motto, ‘A mind is a terrible thing to waste,’ led them to co-found with former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, the first-ever Atlanta Mayor’s Masked Ball,” said Maurice Jenkins, UNCF’s Executive Vice President and Chief Development Officer. “The Mayor’s Masked Ball has become an annual fundraising tradition in Atlanta for more than 30 years, drawing ever-larger crowds each year and breaking the million-dollar mark several years in a row. “The Mayor’s Masked Ball has now been franchised across the United States to several other cities to help UNCF raise money in other locations because of its model of success—all thanks to the passion and ingenuity of Hank and Billye Aaron,” Jenkins added. As Aaron’s march toward Babe Ruth’s home run record continued, Hammerin’ Hank would face racially-motivated death threats directed toward him, his family, and journalists that chronicled his career. In spite of the vitriol, Aaron continued to perform with unmatched grace and unrivaled humility.He would tell legendary New York Times sportswriter William C. Rhoden, “April 8, 1974, really led up to turning me off on baseball.” “It really made me see for the first time a clear picture of what this country is about,” he said. “My kids had to live like they were in prison because of kidnap threats, and I had to live like a pig in a slaughter camp. “I had to duck. I had to go out the back door of the ballparks. I had to have a police escort with me all the time. I was getting threatening letters every single day,” he continued. “All of these things have put a bad taste in my mouth, and it won’t go away. They carved a piece of my heart away.” On April 4, 1974, Aaron hit his 714th home run against the Cincinnati Reds, on the six-year anniversary of the murder of The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Four days later on April 8, in front of 53,775 people at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, Aaron would hit his 715th home run off of Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Al Downing. Fabled broadcaster Vin Scully said, “A Black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of a baseball icon.” Aaron’s parents met him at home plate. Herbert Aaron Sr. threw his arms around his son while his mother, Estella, kissed him and hugged him with all her might. It would be the moment that the quiet lad from Mobile would crack a smile for the world to see. He grabbed a microphone to say, “I thank God it’s all over with,” as photographers and reporters surrounded him. A further irony of Aaron’s 715th home run on April 8, would be its coincidence of the six-year anniversary of King’s funeral. As trailblazers and champions for equity, the two would forever be linked in history. Aaron had a passion for discovering young baseball talent while nurturing his business acumen. Braves owner, CNN founder, and Chairman Ted Turner appointed him an executive for the Braves in 1980. He served 13 years as Atlanta’s vice president of player development. Notably, Aaron gave a young minor league catcher his first job that year. That player would become current Braves manager, Brian Snitker. “I wouldn’t be sitting here on this call if it wasn’t for Hank Aaron,” Snitker said. “He’s the reason I’m here. I’ve said many times, I’ve been blessed to be around Hall of Famers throughout my career, none more important to my career, my family, and my life than Hank Aaron.” Aaron’s offices were on the 14th floor of the CNN Center, not far from Turner’s. In 1996, Aaron purchased two West End restaurants from Churchs’ Atlanta-based parent, America’s Favorite Chicken Co. (AFC). “If the playing field is not level, then we need to have some way for people to step in and say, `Hey, we need to give people an opportunity,’ ” Aaron said in a 1996 interview. “But not everybody wants to go into fast food. We’ve got contractors and people who want to work in government.” And that was the epitome of Aaron. He was emblematic of the foreign policy mantra of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt: “speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.” !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s) if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function()n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments); if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0'; n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)(window, document,'script', 'https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); fbq('init', '174966086481892'); fbq('track', 'PageView'); Source link Orbem News #Aaron #Atlanta #atlantabraves #atlantatechnicalcollege #benevolence #billyeaaron #determination #Hank #hankaaron #henrylouisaaron #Late #Leaves #Legacy #MLB #news #Odds #perilous #philanthropy #sports #topstories #uncf #Voice

0 notes

sturlsons · 7 years

Text

gotham archives: batman’s writing process

Anon on CC asked: Hello! Your outlines are so pretty!! Can I ask how you plan them / your process, and do you have the outline for heretic? Thank you!!

hi anon! thank you for your compliment! the sacramental outline is pretty organised but most of my first outlines look more like the petersburg one, i start with a trusty pen and then make more notes with different ink the more i think about things.

okay, so my beta, @fyolette plays an INTEGRAL, indispensable role in my planning process. incidentally heretic is the first piece she worked on unofficially with me (the first official one we worked on from start to finish was movers and shakers), i.e. i had a (MISERABLE) draft written and then she helped me put it together.

the process depends on what form i have the original idea in. i almost never get an idea in its entirety, a story doesn’t come into my head in a start-to-finish resolution form. my stories are dynamic and character-driven, i.e. i know that X and Y will have Z dramatic moment, at some point X is going to Cry On A Rooftop, and i want Y to learn W important lesson. what concrete, logical sequence of events leads to this? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (though to be fair i sometimes do have more of an idea than this.)

i also get a lot of thematic ideas — you’ll hear me saying shit like “okay so i want them to be petty criminals” or “i want them to be bakers” or “okay but get this, PHOTOGRAPHERS” (wow teesta that’s new and totally not something that you’ve written in 4 different variations already). most importantly, i link music and poetry to fics. i can’t write a significant story without an epigraph and a playlist, whether i include them in the final post or not.

what this means is i basically take a bunch of knicknacks to ksenya (which she calls sparkly buttons) which can consist of songs, moodboards, character profiles, key incidents, etcetera, and then we arrange those into a comprehensible plot. in the 1.5 years that we’ve been working together, i’ve gotten a little better at outlining, so now sometimes i can provide a complete list of scenes to her (arranged even! this isn’t sarcasm, it’s genuinely progress for me!) and then she helps me fill in plot holes and rearrange bumpy progressions.

since i’m not one to make changes to my draft unless there’s a dramatic problem, ksenya and i both favour outlining the story thoroughly. it cuts out 80% of the editing labour. and i’m a shitty, shitty plotter, but i’m a great writer; there’s not much to complain about in post-processing.

for me, the star of the story is emotional progress, for which the plot is a framework. (hence i always admire writers who have amazing, intelligent plots!) so i almost never know HOW a character got to a certain point, but i know where he started from and where he is now, and where he has to go. and (very important) The Friends He Made Along The Way.

there you have it anon! the outlining/plotting is actually the biggest and worst part of the writing process for me, after which it’s pretty much smooth sailing provided i have the time and energy to write. well except for this year where i have rushed headlong into a writer’s block, but u know. life just b like that sometimes.

i thought i’d say a word about the physical outlines themselves since you asked for the heretic one (linking that in the end!). so, i always start with a physical one because my brain doesn’t work unless i put a pen to paper, the physical act of writing helps me remember things. so my physical outlines are usually messy because i know i’ll be rewriting them or entering them into the laptop. so let’s say that my first outline looks like the petersburg one, and the physical rewrite looks like the sacramental one. like who are u. i’m u but neater.

but that was back in 2015, i’m With The Times now, i make spreadsheets if the plot is big enough! here is an example of the summer; blue spreadsheet, and another one for jaywalkers.

summer; blue (start of the process)

summer; blue (very end of the process)

jaywalkers

so this is basically what i do. the uh, fuck i forgot the term. um, data criterion? SKEJRGHSERG basically the columns i add depends on the plot. summer; blue had this undercurrent (lol) of taehyung’s illness so i added a column for that, another story i’m writing has so many simultaneous plots that i’ve actually just made a year-long calendar of it, what happens in jan/feb/march etc. it’s much easier to work with than a notebook where you can only add so many edits before it starts looking like utter shit. ON WHICH NOTE I PRESENT THE SHITTY OUTLINE OF HERETIC.

oh also, i occasionally use aeon timeline especially for simultaneous plotlines! i have one for that story i mentioned above, the one i made a calendar for. tbh idk why i didn’t just use aeon like i’m doing the same thing, rip. aeon timeline is super useful, it’s some 40 euros which is a little harsh on the wallet depending on ur budget but then you have it for life! u know what let me put down the apps that i use most frequently for writing though they’re super common and have been around in writing masterposts since 5000 BC.

so in order of usage in the process:

my trusty notebook,,

pinterest + my inspiration blog for moodboards (i used to use padlet but i…forgot about it)

spotify for playlists

skype because ksenya and i video call for sometimes 4 - 5 hours, plotting out something start to finish in the duration of one call itself while she drives down from one city to another, etc.

aeon timeline in combination with

google sheets, where i enter my plots; i share them with ksenya so she can see my progress

for the actual writing, it depends on my mood: i mostly sprint on mywriteclub, but i also have ommwriter, focuswriter, evernote, and what i call the Hell App— an app called writer’s block which doesn’t let you quit the window until you reach a time/word count goal.

my final draft goes into google docs so that ksenya can read over it

then i use the maps application on my phone to find the nearest bar in order to get shitfaced to celebrate the end of the hell fic.

all the links above are for mac, once u go mac u never go back etcetera. but i think they should have windows equivalents! everything apart from aeon timeline is free. apart from the booze. that’s not free. unless ur smart

so there you have it! i’m so sure i could’ve expressed and explained all of this in a more comprehensible manner but this has all the important points! if you want me to elaborate on something don’t hesitate to hit me up. i can fish up examples/screenshots for almost all of my published works, though i’ll keep my WIP shit under wraps for obvious reasons. but if someone would like me to thoroughly document the process of a new fic from start to finish when i get to it, i could possibly do that if there’s interest! again, just hit me up.

GO FORTH IN FAITH MY CHILDREN i don’t think any of this was particularly useful but at the very least now u know what goes down in the batcave.

#personal [aug 17]#fic #WOW THAT WAS LONG #kind of #now that i'm seeing it it's not as long as i thought it was #BUT U KNOW #teesta talks for ts

28 notes · View notes

ecoorganic · 4 years

Text

How the NFL Would Accommodate Spring College Games and a Delayed Draft Season

From offering up NFL stadiums for January games to delaying the draft and the combine, the NFL would work with college football to help make a spring season beneficial to all. Plus, top camp storylines, why O-line play could be a problem in 2020 and a big lawsuit in St. Louis.

2020 has been a wild year already in the football world. Would you believe 2021 could be … well, maybe not just as wild, but close?

Imagine this—the Big Ten launches a season Jan. 1, playing on Thursday and Friday nights during the first two rounds of the NFL playoffs, and on Saturdays otherwise. And they do it in some combination of the five indoor football stadiums (Syracuse, Detroit, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, St. Louis) within shouting distance of the league’s footprint. Meanwhile, on the more temperate West Coast, the Pac-12 launches with a similar plan.

In this scenario, an eight-game season, with a bye, could be wrapped up by the end of February, with some semblance of a postseason completed by mid-March.

Maybe the ACC, SEC and Big 12 join in, maybe they don’t. Either way, this shakes up the ’21 calendar for the NFL significantly. And if you want to know how the NFL would react to this, I’ve got news for you—these sorts of concepts aren’t just landing on their radar now.

I’m told these are ideas that have been discussed by college coaches already and, notably, NFL teams would be willing to help. The Lions, for one, were approached by a Big Ten school all the way back in the spring about using Ford Field in this way. NFL teams also have discussed what it would take to move the combine and the draft back a month (potentially having the combine in early April and draft in late May) to accommodate the college game.

Are there a lot of moving parts here? Sure. But there’s also reason for people involved to be motivated to get it done. For the Big Ten and Pac-12, this would be a shot—by playing a winter season rather than a spring season—to give their players the chance to play without totally firebombing their 2021 season, and maybe even create an option for other conferences to delay their seasons. For the NFL, it would mitigate what will certainly be a messy, messy situation for its ’21 draft class, in getting most top prospects on the field.

And then, there’s something simpler at play. The NFL needs college football to remain the force that it is for a multitude of reasons. Having all five power conferences play, in whatever form, between now and whenever the draft happens is, without question, the best way to get there.

Now, I don’t know exactly how likely this is to happen. But I do believe the idea—with some colleges playing in the winter, leading into a delayed draft season—is something you’re going to hear more about in coming weeks.

***

The GamePlan’s here, and teams are practicing, and we’re now exactly one month away from the first Sunday of NFL action. Here’s what we have for you this week …

• A ranking of underrated camp story lines.

• The one position group that could really struggle with the COVID-19 circumstances.

• A lawsuit you might want to pay attention to.

But we’re starting with the mess that’s become of the college season, and how the NFL and college football will be working together to get through it.

***

So here’s the potential calendar, if you want to lay it all the way out.

Jan. 1-2: Big Ten/Pac-12 opening weekend.

Jan. 7-8/Jan. 14-15: Big Ten/Pac-12 Thursday/Friday night games.

Jan. 23: Big Ten/Pac-12 schedule goes back to Saturday.

Feb. 6-7: Bye weekend for Super Bowl.

Feb. 28: Final week of regular season.

March 6: Big Ten title game.

March 13-20: Rose Bowl OR National playoff.

Late April: NFL combine.

Late May: NFL Draft.

Roger Goodell can, unilaterally, move the draft as far back as June 2, per the CBA. The hurdle they’d have to overcome is logistical—making sure they can stage the draft (and clear hotel rooms, public parks, etc.) a month after they’d planned to. I wouldn’t suggest that would be easy, but, remember, we have no clue if fans will even be able to attend, and this year’s draft is in Cleveland, a city full of Big Ten alums in the heart of Big Ten country.

That would make one more party motivated to get this done.

And that would make what promises to be the zaniest draft cycle in NFL history even crazier. In the lead up to last April’s draft, we all got fond of saying how there’d never be a year quite like that one ever again. The recent uptick in COVID-19 cases nationwide, and subsequent impact on the college season, looks like it’s going to prove that thought dead wrong.

“You’ll be drafting guys in May 2021 that haven’t buckled a chinstrap since December 2019,” said one AFC college scouting director. “And think about it—so many guys were drafted this year due, 90%, to what they did their junior or senior year. Without that, we’ll have guys overdrafted, underdrafted. This year, everyone kept saying that you’re gonna look back at that draft, and that’s going to be the draft that you’ll study.

“Well, last year, we got every piece of information as normal until the combine. We just didn’t get that last part. This year, every piece of information is going to be touched by COVID. You’re gonna have guys drafted in the second round that stink, and guys drafted in the seventh round that are studs. And the importance of your scouts? They’ve never been more important.”

No one needs to wait to see if the Big Ten and Pac-12 can pull off the above to figure that out. The wheels are already turning toward a really unusual fall. In a number of different ways.

The Zoom calls. All the major programs are staging them now—Auburn held one on Wednesday—to try and help college scouts make up what they’re missing. Rules are still being formulated on whether or not those guys will be able to visit schools at all, but teams know for sure it won’t be business as usual.

Usually, at this time of year, college scouts would be hitting the road and visiting fall camps to lay the foundation for fall, seeing their sources on campus, getting body types in practice, and figuring out which players should be on their radar for the months ahead. In place of that, the Zoom calls at least have given teams a chance to gather baseline information on prospects.

As you’d expect, schools are handling these in a variety of ways. Some of the bigger programs are doing 3-4-hour sessions, or a series of shorter sessions, and cycling their NFL liaisons, strength coaches, academic advisors and trainers through to disseminate information. Smaller schools that have only a couple standouts have brought position coaches on, too, to help on those specific guys—Western Michigan, for example, had their receivers and linebackers coaches on to talk Dwayne Eskridge and Treshaun Howard.

“There’s a reason we go to the school,” said an AFC exec. “You want to watch a player practice, his tempo, his mannerisms, how he competes and works, and see him do things you’d expect him to do when gets to your team. And being there enables you to reach out to contacts, and spend time with your network of people. So you’re not getting that exposure. But the Zoom calls have been effective as an initial background rundown of the players.”

And, really, it just gives teams an idea of what they’ll need to dig into.

Being dialed in counts. One team I spoke with on Wednesday is already working on getting younger scouts more dialed in—and asking older, more connected guys in the building to call schools and vouch for less-experienced counterparts. Normally, this time of year is great for those younger guys to go meet the grad assistant, trainer or position coach he’ll need in the months to come and establish relationships with them. Absent that face time, this sort of blind-date approach is one way to make up for what’s lost.

So as we’ve mentioned in a few places the last few weeks, this is a year that a scout’s Rolodex is gold. If the coordinator for a key prospect only has time to call, say, four people back, having one of the four scouts he calls back could prove a major advantage in 2020, even more so than it normally is.

“I’m on a Zoom with 20 or 25 other scouts, and the schools are doing a good job with the Zooms, but they’re not giving you all the info you need,” said the AFC scouting director. “And I don’t blame them. I’d never say, ‘He’s an a------,’ or ‘He doesn’t know football,’ on a Zoom with a bunch of people on there I don’t know. I wouldn’t put that on a Zoom. It’s hard to get that info. But if you have good scouts, they can.”

Another veteran scout reiterated, “When the guy on that Zoom makes three calls afterwards, this year, you gotta be one of those three calls he makes.”

Some guessing might be involved.

Joe Burrow’s tweet on Sunday—“If this happened a year ago I may be looking for a job right now”—rang true with a lot of players. Burrow’s LSU teammate Clyde Edwards-Helaire rushed for 658 yards as a backup to Nick Brosette in 2018. Arizona State WR Brandon Aiyuk caught 33 passes for 474 yards and three scores in 2018, playing behind now-Patriot WR N’Keal Harry.

It’s safe to say without a 2019 season, those guys aren’t sniffing the first round. With one, Burrow wound up going first overall, Aiyuk 25th to the Niners, and Edwards-Helaire 32nd to the Chiefs. So maybe there’s a tackle at Georgia who was stuck behind Andrew Thomas and Isaiah Wilson, or a corner at Ohio State who was behind Jeff Okudah and Damon Arnette who was going to pull an Aiyuk—and now might or might not have the opportunity to.

“There are a lot of them that just haven’t gotten a chance at an Alabama or a Clemson, that have to bide their time to play,” said an NFC exec. “Or guys that have been injured, where there’s just not a lot of tape on them. The Purdue receiver [Rondale Moore] is like that. He’s a hard guy to evaluate, with his injury history. Those are the types that’ll be tough. And some quarterbacks like Burrow or [Dwayne] Haskins, they’re the ones that made the jump, they needed those throws. … That’s why if I’m a quarterback, I might not come out.”

If you need a good example to follow, here’s one: FAU RB B.J. Emmons. A former five-star recruit, Emmons got a little lost in a crowded backfield at Alabama, transferred to junior college, then landed at FAU. Then, in last year’s opener at Ohio State, he broke his ankle. He came back late in the season and, suddenly, all the talent that was there in the first place started to flash. Scouts were excited to see him play in 2020 as a result.

Now? Well, if FAU’s season gets canceled, he could enter the draft having logged just 86 carries at the Division I level.

“He showed some really good stuff, and he’s talented now,” said another scout. “This really could hurt a guy like that.”

The All-Star games. The Senior Bowl will be conducting a call with all 32 teams on Thursday to start to work on plans for its 2021 game, without a clue on whether or not it’ll be feasible to gather guys from different parts of the country in the early part of next year. They’ll brainstorm ideas and try to figure out how the event can serve the players and teams best in this most unusual year, while discussing contingencies for the uncertainty.

The game, I’m told, could be moved if there are major changes to the structure of the college season—like the Big Ten and Pac-12 moving their seasons to winter. And it could take on a different look, too, if COVID restrictions force that.

This much, I know: That game, and the other All-Star games, will take on added importance. Scouts need to eyeball prospects, and see who’s gotten bigger, faster and stronger, and the Mobile, Ala. event—and its counterparts—would give them their first chance to do that with players coming from conferences that don’t play in 2020.

But, again, the Senior Bowl folks want the number of guys that don’t play ahead of the 2021 draft to be as low as possible. So if that means moving their event so kids don’t have to choose between playing in the Senior Bowl and playing against Iowa or Oregon, then it’ll almost certainly be moved.

***

There are some pieces to the scouting process that will be, of course, irreplaceable. And so teams won’t try.

No one’s expecting colleges to let NFL scouts into their football programs’ facilities this fall, given the circumstances, but if evaluators were permitted on the sidelines at practice, there’d be a lot of value in that, in simply getting body types. (One exec raised the examples of Vic Beasley and Brian Burns in recent years, guys who played in the 220s as collegiate pass-rushers, and bulked for the pre-draft process, to illustrate why that’d be important.)

If scouts are allowed at games, that would be another good point of reference—one scouting chief told me that if that happens, and the two teams are solid, he’d tell his scouts to spend one half behind one bench, and the other behind the other bench, to capture the stuff that won’t show up on tape (how a prospect carries himself, interacts with teammates, leads, etc.) but can be meaningful in the final analysis.

All this shows how every point of reference—and every resulting piece of information—is going to matter for these guys over the next eight months.

So if the Big Ten and Pac-12 can figure out a way to play? It’d totally make sense that the NFL would be trying to help them every step of the way. And based on what I know, I believe the NFL absolutely will.

***

POWER RANKINGS

Camp’s here! And that means, normally, I’d be introducing you to some of the fresh storylines looming over the 2020 season. That’s not possible from the ground this year. So we’ll do this from 30,000 feet here (and mine these in the coming weeks)—here are my top-five underrated stories looming over the 2020 season (FYI: Nothing COVID-19-related is under-the-radar at this point).

1) The Saints’ big shot. New Orleans’s roster is loaded. There’s not a more complete team in football. But the bills are coming due on the great draft classes that provided the foundation for that. Consider this: Marshon Lattimore, Alvin Kamara, Sheldon Rankins and Ryan Ramczyk are all eligible for second contracts but remain on rookie deals. So the construct of the team could change soon, and that’s before you consider that Drew Brees turns 42 in January. Which means the time for this group almost has to be now.

2) Prove-it time for the 2018 draft QBs. There’s still plenty of reason to be optimistic about Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold and Josh Allen. But as a football viewing public, a quarterback’s third year is, oftentimes, a dividing line, when tolerance for young-guy mistakes starts to wane and pressure to deliver rises (see: Trubisky, Mitchell). So this is an important year for those three guys.

3) The Chargers’ QB competition. It hit me during Hard Knocks—No one is talking about Tyrod Taylor vs. Justin Herbert. That’s a quarterback who led a team to the playoffs just three years ago, and a guy drafted sixth overall, and the winner gets to pilot a team that still has a lot of talent. I know the team’s fan base is, um, limited. But this still seems like a big deal, given that Joey Bosa, Derwin James, Melvin Ingram, Mike Williams, Keenan Allen, Hunter Henry and Casey Hayward are elsewhere on the roster.

4) Tampa’s defense! We’ve all been focused, and rightfully so, on how Tom Brady’s adjusting to life in Florida, and how the weapons around him compare to what he’s had in the past. Forgotten has been that Todd Bowles’s unit, particular on the back end, saw marked improvement in November and December. And with Ndamukong Suh, Jason Pierre-Paul, Shaq Barrett, Devin White and Lavonte David up front, if a young secondary can keep getting better, there’s a lot of potential here.

5) What Josh McDaniels can do with Cam Newton. I feel like, nationally at least, this has been an overlooked aspect of the Newton/Patriots marriage. Remember, McDaniels won with Matt Cassel and Jimmy Garoppolo, and flipped his offense upside down on three days’ notice to start a rookie Jacoby Brissett on a Thursday night in 2016. So I’d say we could see some pretty cool stuff from McDaniels with Newton taking snaps.

***

THE BIG QUESTION

What should we be looking for when the pads go on next week?

I think I got my answer from Jordan Palmer on this week’s podcast (you should listen to the whole thing, if you haven’t). Palmer’s quarterback training group this offseason was a little smaller because of the pandemic, but he got more time with those who were in Orange County with him the last few months. And one thing he focused on with Darnold, Josh Allen and Kyle Allen, among others, in Palmer’s words, was off-platform throws and “getting to your shot.”

The reason why? Palmer thinks offensive line play is going to be a problem this year.

“I think O-line play across the board is going to be the worst we’ve ever seen,” Palmer said. “I think quarterbacks are going to be running for their lives at a rate that we’ve never seen before. The reason is this whole screwed up offseason, I don’t think, had very much of a negative effect on the defensive linemen. These guys still could work out, they still could work on their burst, getting out of their stand, they can still run that ‘hoop,’ where they work on keeping their hips low and leaning. They can still work on bending. They didn’t really lose anything out of this. …

“We had Andrew Whitworth on as a guest [on Sirius XM], and he was talking about how, and he’s a really good golfer, O-line play is getting a lot more like golf, where it’s very, very technical, it’s muscle memory. So those guys not having an offseason, that’s a major, major negative. So O-line gets hit by this whole COVID thing—not getting a chance to pass off twists, not getting a chance to work on full-speed bull rush, not getting a chance to work on switching things off and where your hands need to be.

“D-line is not affected. So I think quarterbacks are going to be running for their lives, so, literally, 60% of throws we did, they were not dropping back and throwing, they were being forced to move. That was the biggest thing right there.”

Definitely an interesting take, and something to keep an eye as we get closer to a season that’ll be preceded by just 14 padded practices per team, and zero preseason games for anyone.

***

WHAT NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT

The St. Louis Regional Convention and Sports Authority lawsuit against the NFL is moving forward, and the deposition list is bananas.

Under Missouri law, per the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, lawyers in a case like this need approval from the court to seek more than 10 depositions. These lawyers asked for 42, nearly 40 months after filing the suit.

Among those on the list: NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, Rams owner Stan Kroenke, Chargers owner Dean Spanos, Raiders owner Mark Davis, ex-Panthers owner Jerry Richardson (who was point man for a Raiders/Chargers plan for L.A. that would’ve kept the Rams in St. Louis) and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones (who was a driving force behind Kroenke’s L.A. plan); as well two other owners, Michael Bidwill of Arizona and Shad Khan of Jacksonville, with close ties to St. Louis.

In all, 30 owners/former owners/members of ownership families made the list, in addition to Packers president Mark Murphy. Titans owner Amy Adams Strunk was spared, as was her family, but Tennessee is represented in the group by ex-president Steve Underwood. Panthers owner David Tepper isn’t on there either, because he didn’t own the team when all this was going on.

The whole thing is pretty interesting, and happening just as the ribbon’s being cut on Kroenke’s gleaming $6 billion SoFi Stadium.

Should this be any football fan’s focus? Of course not. You don’t follow football to keep up with the legal troubles of a pack of billionaires. But given the depth of that deposition list, this could get a little more entertaining than your everyday court proceeding.

***

THE FINAL WORD

We’re now four days away from the pads going on. So everyone who said to me, but this doesn’t feel like training camp! … you can sit tight.

We’re almost there.

• Question or comment? Email us.

from Blogger https://ift.tt/2FcPWSv

#Blogger

0 notes

muddweekly · 4 years

Text

My First Couple of Months During COVID

A joke circled around on Twitter that says future historians will be asked which quarter of 2020 they specialize in. It really has been quite a year so far. If 2020 was a symphony, the exposition (a major and repeated part in a song/symphony) would be COVID. Personally, I experienced the pandemic in three movements so far.

Part I - COVID Hit Asia. Yes, it’s real and deadly.

Back in December 2019, I found buried under a myriad of Chinese news one or two pieces of reporting about this mysterious lung decease. I forwarded it to my family in Asia and a friend from Wuhan. None of them knew anything about it. We all thought it would blow over just like a regular flu. Fast forward to late January, my parents and I were vacationing in Joshua Tree when the Wuhan lockdown news broken. Things suddenly got very serious. I remember whenever we had internet on that trip, we checked news on COVID. The number of cases started in the hundreds, then quickly went through the roof. I could clearly recall the anxiety in the are during that time. We didn’t have enough information on the concerning disease, so we refreshed our phones constantly, hoping to grasp the first piece of new information that’s somewhat trustworthy. Then in addition to medical information, the news also included airport and road closures, as well as Lunar New Year holiday extensions in China. The situation worsened drastically from day to day. To me, not having enough information in this age of info explosion on the internet was a novel and strange experience. At some point, we added mask purchase to our itinerary. We naively thought we would not have problem buying masks in the US. Boy, were we wrong. Only one of the tens of stores we went to had hand sanitizers, and none had masks - people in the LA area acted fast. That was when the panic truly kicked in - whatever we expected, the reality was worse, whether it was the disease itself or the shortage of masks. The mask shopping experience in LA was engraved in my mind and it turned out to be hugely helpful later on.

Part II - COVID was uncovered in New York

It was mid March when COVID hit NYC. It was incorrect to say “hit”, because there were probably many cases of COVID during Feb in NYC already. Global travel went on as usual in JFK, EWD, etc when Asia was battling with COVID. When I rode the subway everyday then, I experienced this delusional sense of peace and quietness before a storm that COVID just wouldn’t come to the US. But of course, as soon as testing started (thanks to the brave doctor Helen Chu), we found the situation was already pretty bad all over the coasts. The night when the Seattle nursing home COVID cases were reported, George and I went to the nearby stores and bought bottles of hand sanitizers. When we learned we didn’t buy enough for friends (they could not find any near them), we went back the second day, and there were none to be found. That night, George and I talked to my parents, who were still under regional lockdown in their home at the time. This was after weeks of city-wide quarantine since late Jan, during which they had to stay in their apartment the whole time and could only get food delivered, and during which they saw ambulances taking neighbors away through the windows. In those weeks, I could hear the anxiety in my parents voices even over the phone. After learning more about my parents experiences with the first wave of COVID in Asia, it became clear to us that we needed to take actions ourselves.

Part III - “I hope you are ready to melt snow for cooking, under this flashlight”

It was 7pm in a mid spring day. It was completely dark and quiet. Snowflakes were flying outside of our window. We lost electricity again. Of course there was no internet either. It had been several weeks since we frantically left New York. Even though we physically left New York, it took much longer to accept it, and even harder, accept the state our world was in. Things just got worse and worse. There was no good news. The US was dealing with COVID, while Asia and part of Europe were dealing with the COVID aftermath - massive hits on businesses and jobs. A sense of impending doom was hanging over everyone’s head. Close friends lost jobs. Doctors and nurses on the frontline fell and some never came back. We felt hopeless and helpless. The ambitions we had pre-COVID to change the world seemed so trivial, naive, and fragile. Feeling the dread for a lasting period of time, I often glued to my computer hoping something online would distract me. Earlier on this snowy evening, I was doing just that again when the lights flickered. I bended down to check the plugs on the floor. Then I saw it happen - the “on” light on the plug extension flashed once, then went dark, taking away everything that emits light and makes noises in the space. Suddenly it went very quiet. It was like a flashback of mid March in NYC with COVID. I saw it happen right in front of me. I knew It was going to be bad but there was nothing I could do about it. The sense of control and ease from the abundance of choices I had were gone. All I could do was staring at the snow with my cabin mates. It was not completely dark outside yet, I could still make out the trajectories of snow dancing in the wind. It was so beautiful. We sat like that for 20 minutes or so until it went completely dark. As I began to accept that we were going to have to melt snow to cook and then put on everything we brought to go to sleep (no heat), I felt peaceful for the first time in month. As I came to terms with the dark snowy night, I started to accept COVID as well at that moment.

Extra: Thank you Conan O’Brien

When we lost electricity, which happened several times, my phone only had enough signals for a podcast. So podcasts were a big part of my life in the COVID spring. The one podcast I have come to love since then is Conan O’brien Needs a Friend. In all its silliness, the messages are loud and clear. For one, Humor doesn’t have to be dark and meaningful to be good. It could just be silly and delightful. And pure delight is important. For example (not a great one), I just realized people in my industry use both “recharge” and “unplug” to describe essentially the same things. To translate them in emojis, they read as ⛔️🔌->🔋. If you really think about it, it’s literally an oxymoron - how could you “recharge” if you are unplugged! But ofc it means to unplug your devices, and to “recharge” yourself. It’s interesting to me that we are using machine states to describe human energy level. This example, like many other trivial but delightful things, is not talking about big important topics like class struggles or racial inequalities, but it is meaningful in its own ways. It reminds me of the joy of metaphors and word plays. And for a moment, I get a break from all the pain in the world. These delights from silly and fun things like this here and there collectively give me enough energy to deal with other difficult and unexpected things in life. Another surprisingly wholesome message from the podcast is that good things, such as quality jokes, come from consistent hard work. Conan, for one, puts in a lot of work to write and create everyday even though he makes being funny seems so easy. Thank you Conan (along with Sona and Matt) for making me literally L.O.L. lots during this dark time, and more importantly, inspiring me to start working hard and creating again.

0 notes

mikesteecherstumbler-blog · 7 years

Text

Week 1

18th / 19th Jan

Briefing from director

Read-through

I had only experienced the work of John Godber through ‘Bouncers’ which I had performed several years ago as a BTEC student. I had no idea of the radical and far reaching impact his work has had on modern British theatre, placing him alongside figures such as Ayckbourn and possibly even Pinter as one of its foremost exponents.

I was amazed at how fluid the language was once we began reading the script. Our director had told us that the author has written into the play the concept of updating and localising the language. This gave us a far clearer run at establishing meaning and subtext from the outset

Week 2

25th / 26th Jan

Casting

Outlining of concept

We discussed our initial thoughts on the play and the characters and then the director cast us. We talked about what we all thought the play was about individually and what the message of the play was and how we would portray that.

Week 3

1st / 2nd Feb

Initial blocking

Our director Alex Naughton blocked the scenes, he liked us to sit in the class as misbehaved children would do so, an example of this is all students sitting on desks, swinging on chairs, on their mobile phones etc. Also every character is on stage at all times, whether they are a teacher in the scene or just a kid in the background everybody is on stage.

Week 4

8th / 9th Feb

Rehearsal 1 and 2

For our first rehearsals we would block and rehearse a few scenes in chronological order with a stop start type of flow. After we were happy with them we would then run them all together and see how we got on with it and decide what we like and what we don't like. We also updated the script with newer language and slang to make it sound more believable to a school in Liverpool. Alex also introduced us to Uta Hagen’s technique in order to act to our potential within the show. Uta Hagen says that “It is necessary to have a point of view about the world which surrounds you, the society in which you live; a point of view as to how your art can reflect your judgement.” (Hagen and Frankel, 1973). By researching and using her methods in rehearsal it gives you a great sense of how to approach your character role.

Week 5

15th / 16th Feb

Rehearsal 3 and 4

During the next week we were all getting to grips with out characters and giving them more of an identity because we learned more about them by going through the script. By rehearsing Mr Nixon’s scenes I discovered that he is quite awkward and gets kind of nervous around certain characters and is always cracking bad jokes. Therefore I decided to play him with a very awkward laugh in which everybody just stares at him as they don’t find his jokes funny. At first this was only a trial and error idea but everybody decided that it really worked and added another aspect and dimension to my character.

Week 6

1st / 2nd March

Rehearsal 5 and 6

In rehearsals 5 and 6 we carried on polishing the scenes we had already blocked. Before we got any further into the script we wanted to make sure the scenes we had done were as slick as possible. Also we have changed a lot of the script and updated and localized it so that the audience understand the jokes more, which took quite a bit of time. At first we would read the script, change what we thought was outdated, then re-write it in our scripts. After that we got up and gave it a trial and error to see if it worked. As some of our target audience will be around our age we decided to keep our changes so they have a full feel for the style we are going for.

Week 7

8th / 9th March

Rehearsal 6 and 7

During week 7 we were progressing with our play very well. Although Alex thought that our characters needed more depth to them so we had to go off on our own and write character profiles so that our characters were more enhanced. In order to do this we had to research some acting techniques. Sanford Meisner says in order to act believable we must “live truthfully under given imaginary circumstances.” (www.backstage.com). By discovering this technique it helps us to delve deeper into our character and allow us to play them with truth. We also were very close to having blocked the whole first act and Alex set us a target for the next week to not be on script for any of act 1. After the character development task Alex set us with we then put what we done into practise. As my character Mr Nixon is a teacher who has quite a close bond with the kids I decided that he is quite young and not long graduated from university. Also he thinks he knows better than Mr Basford what is best for the kids, because of this, I also decided that he is quite laid back and understands the kids more. This character development paid dividens when we put it into action as when I was playing Nixon I felt like he had more of a bond with them and wanted the best thing possible for them, and they kids like him back just as much.

Week 8

15th / 16th March

Rehearsal 8 and 9

The target Alex set us for this weeks rehearsals was to be completely off script for act 1. He set us this target because he wanted us to be way ahead of schedule and that we were completely familiar with the first act at an early stage. The target he set us was quite a challenge for me personally as Nixon is in every single scene except two, so there are an awful lot of lines. Proudly, I can say that I knew all of my lines in act 1 except for 1 long paragraph which i needed to take a glance at my script to remember. What I learned from this task is that I need to be even quicker than I am at learning lines because if I was asked this for a professional job I would be expected to have every bit of it nailed down in time. During Rehearsals we carried on polishing act 1 and added a few more jokes to it and we choreographed a dance to be in the background of the Oggy Moxon rap. This is a fun change up in the show as nobody expects it to happen and when we showed back to an audience it went down very well and got a lot of laughs which was our initial aim so we decided to definitely keep it and work more on it.

Week 9

22nd / 23rd March

Rehearsal 10 and 11

Due to Alex having to leave for a few weeks to work on another show, we are now being directed by Rachel Mutch. We have already blocked small parts of act 2 so just to show Rachel how the play looks and get the feel of it we done a full run up to where we have blocked the play. After that we decided to have a group read through of act 2. After that we blocked some more of act 2 and ran it until the end of the day. Act 2 is a real challenge as it is involving more of the kids characters. An example of this is; the character I play is a kid called Kevin Meers, who plays Mr Nixon, so to switch from being Kevin, to then being Kevin playin Nixon is a real test and requires 100% focus. I think from a personal point my child charcter needs work as it seems unclear sometimes when I am being Kevin to Nixon.

Week 10

29th / 30th March

Rehearsal 12 and 13

As my character of Kevin Meers needs work i explained to Rachel to see if she could help and it turns out most other cast members were struggling with this also. Due to the fact this was a problem Rachel decided to send us off on our own to do some character development on our kid characters. We used the Uta Hagen technique in order to overcome these problems and by using this our character development gained another layer. After completing this task we put it into action is some of the scenes from act 2. This also worked wonders on our characters and everybody in the show now knows exactly what they are doing and there is a great contrast from when we are acting as the kids to when we are acting as the teachers.

Week 11

5th / 6th April

Rehearsal 14 and 15

In week 11 we completed the blocking for the whole show. Due to a few people being absent this was a struggle but we managed to do so with a lot of hard work. At the end of rehearsal 15 we were going to do a full run to the first years but due to the absent people we were not able to do this and the show seemed to fall apart and left us with the thought that the show needs a ton of polishing and work after the easter break. This experience learnt me to never let a cast down as just 1 day off can turn the piece from good to bad with 1 run.

Week 12

26th 27th April

Rehearsal 16 and 17

First day back after easter and we knew after the last rehearsals that we were in for a session of very hard work. At first Rachel decided we would do a full read through off script to get back into the swing of things. As none of us were 100% off script Rachel set us the task for us all to be completely off script for next week. After the read through we ran act 1 and to our surprise it was not as bad as we thought! It was clear the transitions within the play needed most work but other than that we were pleased with what we had done and it give us a boost and a bit more confidence to crack on with it.

Week 13

3rd / 4th May

Rehearsal 18 and 19

After we felt that we had a good last rehearsal and gained some confidence we were eager to take it into our next rehearsals. We have began using props and even though it is the slightest of things to perform with it really does help and makes you feel the character more. We have tried our costumes on and they look great and give you a great sense of childhood school days and enable you to take the final step to performing like a school kid. We also watched some different variations of Teechers. In order to act to the best of my ability for Teechers i done some research on more method acting I could use on stage. This was the website I got some information from. http://www.acting-school-stop.com/stella-adler.html

Week 14

10th / 11th May

Final Dress runs

For our final dress runs we ran the show all day until it was as smooth as we could get it. When performing in costume it always makes me perform better as I feel more like the character I am performing, as it doesn’t help you act as a lawyer if you are not wearing a suit. After our dress runs we continued to run the show to iron out any problems. I used some last minute revision going over methods and techniques to use on stage for my performance. My favourite thing to remember when acting is that “acting is doing”. Stella Adler says that “The actor must always do something on stage. He looks for actions in the script (for example, "to teach, to confess, to beg", etc.) and finds the human conflict in them. He must have a justification for each action (know exactly why he is performing each action).” (www.acting-school-stop.com). Using this method it enables you to have a better understanding of each scene and why the ‘drama’ is happening in the scenes. It also gives you a big clue as to what your character objectives are.

Week 15

PERFORMANCE AT ST. GEORGE’S HALL

Our performance went well, everybody performed their roles of kids well and gave an over the top delivery of their teachers which was very funny. Although our show could have been a lot better in terms of transitions and stage directions but it was very confusing as everybody is on stage at all times and play different characters. My personal performance was good, I was quite pleased with myself although I know I could have performed better.

Bibliography:

Backstage.com. (2017). 8 Important Acting Techniques (in Gifs!). [online] Available at: https://www.backstage.com/news/8-important-acting-techniques-gifs/ [Accessed 4 May 2017].

Hagen, U. and Frankel, H. (1973). Respect for acting. 1st ed. New York: Macmillan.

Acting-school-stop.com. (2017). The Stella Adler Acting Technique. [online] Available at: http://www.acting-school-stop.com/stella-adler.html [Accessed 4 May 2017].

0 notes

ecoorganic · 4 years

Text

How the NFL Would Accommodate Spring College Games and a Delayed Draft Season

2020 has been a wild year already in the football world. Would you believe 2021 could be … well, maybe not just as wild, but close?

In this scenario, an eight-game season, with a bye, could be wrapped up by the end of February, with some semblance of a postseason completed by mid-March.

***

The GamePlan’s here, and teams are practicing, and we’re now exactly one month away from the first Sunday of NFL action. Here’s what we have for you this week …

• A ranking of underrated camp story lines.

• The one position group that could really struggle with the COVID-19 circumstances.

• A lawsuit you might want to pay attention to.

But we’re starting with the mess that’s become of the college season, and how the NFL and college football will be working together to get through it.

***

So here’s the potential calendar, if you want to lay it all the way out.

Jan. 1-2: Big Ten/Pac-12 opening weekend.

Jan. 7-8/Jan. 14-15: Big Ten/Pac-12 Thursday/Friday night games.

Jan. 23: Big Ten/Pac-12 schedule goes back to Saturday.

Feb. 6-7: Bye weekend for Super Bowl.

Feb. 28: Final week of regular season.

March 6: Big Ten title game.

March 13-20: Rose Bowl OR National playoff.

Late April: NFL combine.

Late May: NFL Draft.

That would make one more party motivated to get this done.

No one needs to wait to see if the Big Ten and Pac-12 can pull off the above to figure that out. The wheels are already turning toward a really unusual fall. In a number of different ways.

And, really, it just gives teams an idea of what they’ll need to dig into.

Another veteran scout reiterated, “When the guy on that Zoom makes three calls afterwards, this year, you gotta be one of those three calls he makes.”

Some guessing might be involved.

Now? Well, if FAU’s season gets canceled, he could enter the draft having logged just 86 carries at the Division I level.

“He showed some really good stuff, and he’s talented now,” said another scout. “This really could hurt a guy like that.”

***

There are some pieces to the scouting process that will be, of course, irreplaceable. And so teams won’t try.

All this shows how every point of reference—and every resulting piece of information—is going to matter for these guys over the next eight months.

***

POWER RANKINGS

***

THE BIG QUESTION

What should we be looking for when the pads go on next week?

The reason why? Palmer thinks offensive line play is going to be a problem this year.

Definitely an interesting take, and something to keep an eye as we get closer to a season that’ll be preceded by just 14 padded practices per team, and zero preseason games for anyone.

***

WHAT NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT

The St. Louis Regional Convention and Sports Authority lawsuit against the NFL is moving forward, and the deposition list is bananas.

The whole thing is pretty interesting, and happening just as the ribbon’s being cut on Kroenke’s gleaming $6 billion SoFi Stadium.

***

THE FINAL WORD

We’re now four days away from the pads going on. So everyone who said to me, but this doesn’t feel like training camp! … you can sit tight.

We’re almost there.

• Question or comment? Email us.

from Blogger https://ift.tt/2FcPWSv

#Blogger

0 notes