The complexity of modern gadgetry and the ubiquity of high tech devices makes it hard on Hollywood. When John Carpenter made Halloween he didn’t have to account for Laurie’s cell phone.  Back when Columbo was tracking down murderers, there was a reason he pounded the pavement – search engines were called telephone books.  These days technology must play a part in virtually every movie set in current times or else the audience just asks “Isn’t there  an app for that?”

Obviously modern writers and directors take this into account.  One can only assume that actors, being sentient beings who function, have phones and computers, are aware of how these things work.  So, I’ve hopefully set the scene: writers including technology. Directors working with it. Actors knowing how to use it.

So why the fuck doesn’t anyone type in movies?  And I mean actually type.  Like what I’m doing right now. Fingers striking the keys creating words, sentences, coherent thoughts.  I’m not slapping the keyboard like a twelve year old girl fighting off a spider.  I’m not like a blind man sitting down at the piano the first time. The things I’m doing make sense.  If you were standing next to me, watching my hands, you would recognize a path of logic, a method to the movement of my digits.  If, however, I was an actor being filmed in a movie, the result would be something along these lines:

;oiaqwfeiioawe fh[awefajnwief a[ 9uejf qwegf[auwjerahg’j ejwfrbawe09r8uw; fnawghaoijwflkjawegfljaweff awefjuawief waqf awqoiefaqw kfwei faewnfawhepfio;anw;fwaejpfwaejfow  fwfujhawiofncawjpo8eyufaoiwfrnj3w08faw0[eifhaw[08yh w2a;fr awfaw;ilhewiaupifhaweofuai;okewhfopadslfnwe;pa8zse;89iejfF ‘;OWY;OWEFBNA;OUSDHFASDGHAOJASDJHFA;

It’s worth mentioning that my computer decided it had enough of that bullshit and screwed the formatting of my entire article (we’re back now, obviously) – if only those prop computers had as much sense and perhaps blew up in the middle of the scene.

I get that, as an actor, you might have to sit there and type over and over again, scene after scene.  That is probably boring bullshit.  But so what?  You’re also being paid hundreds of dollars a day to do that.  I’m not being paid hundreds, or even tens, of dollars to write this article, yet I still have to strike the keys with some semblance of intelligent design.

Is it really that hard to type something, anything?  Type your own name over and over.  Type out a plethora of curse words.  Type “this is boring” or “the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.”  Just like having empty cups on set (pour some water in that shit), randomly striking a keyboard is just lazy bullshit. You’re an actor who is acting out a scene of someone typing something.  Your character isn’t slapping the keyboard. He’s entering data.  Get in the role, asshat.  Seriously.  Any time someone just goes slap happy on the keyboard, it’s like a slap to my face.  And that, friend, sends me past my boiling point.

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SXSW 2014
Game of Thrones reviews
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