Once upon a time, there was a book that I should've stolen from NCSA, but didn't. it reproduced every single shot from PSYCHO, in order, with dialogue underneath. That book, and one that did the same thing to STAGECOACH, taught me as much as any of the film classes I took at that school. I don't know who "wrote" the book or published it-- I've tried to find it online a few times, and failed. Anyone help me out on that score-- any NCSA kids reading this?-- drop a line. Steal me that book, goddammit.

Anyway. Someone in the D&P department had gone crazy over a bad breakup, and documented the whole of that bad break-up in this PSYCHO book by writing their own dialogue around the frames and in the margins in highlighter pen. The whole film had been recast with D&P students and teachers, too, adding that personal touch.

The best bit was that Arbogast was recast as a D&P guy named Vern. Vern was this kind of legendary fuckup stoner and permadrunk that had run for Student Council president, won, and, by virtue of winning in what was rumored to be a landslide, caused Residence Life to throw out the ballots and and do a run-off election... that Vern wasn't allowed to participate in. I don't remember what flimsy excuse was given for that grotesque miscarriage of justice in that banal parody of democracy, but some dancer won and a campus yawned.

I don't think his name was actually Vern, but whatever.

Anyway, under the half-page photo of Arbogast's CU as he's about to fall down the stairs, the D&P girl wrote

VERN. AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Every time I see PSYCHO now, I saw that, out loud, when Arbogast gets it. VERN. AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH.

And people always laugh.

I bring this up only because I went looking for a frame by frame of the shower scene tonight on the line.

There's flash-frames of some sort during the, ahh, Leaf On the Wind scene in SERENITY and I was trying to tell Laurenn what it looked like. It looks like the 9th shot on this page, which is indeed a shot-by-shot breakdown of the shower scene.

Anyway.

VERN. AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH.