By Dan Zhang
Last weekend, I went to Universal Studios with my friends. Many people had told me that Universal Studios was a wonderful place, so I went to there with great expectations.
But as a matter of fact, Universal Studio was far better than my expectations. During the studio tour, the sightseeing guide showed us many film stages. But you can’t see anything from the outside of the stages. After that, they showed us how a car explosion scene was made. That was amazing, you could never imagine such a dangerous stuation happen right in front of you. But it did happen and with such safe control. What followed was a flood. We sat in the tour car and saw the flood coming down along the river with great sounds. We screamed with the fear that the flood would go into the car we were sitting in. But everything was safe and under control. And we happened to see the rehearsal of an action film. After that we saw the street of Desperate Housewives and an airplane crash scene. And it was said that the crashed plane was a real plane but a retired one. But of course the crash was man-made. But the scene was quite real, you could still saw the smoke coming from the plane and cars near it.
The studio tour was so wonderful that I felt it was too short. After that, we joined the other programs of Universal Studios. The house of horror was just so-so, and the most formidable part of it was some staff of Universal who acted like ghosts and came out from the corner to give you a great fright. The most wonderful thing of Universal Studios were the rides. It had three different rides. The Simpsons’ ride was the most interesting one. It was indoor and the actual motion of the car was not so great. But there was a screen before you, showing a scene from the Simpson cartoon. So, by looking at the screen you will feel that you were in the car travelling to different places. The Revenge of the Mummy was the most high-speed. But it was quite safe too. The rail before me made me feel very safe. So during the whole ride I was clinging to the rail tightly, and feeling the wind pass me by. The Jurassic Park ride was a river adventure. The car would drop from a high place, and you would get totally wet when you finished it. But Jurassic Park was the most exciting one. Because during the time you could feel the gravity thoroughly, and you felt that your heart was almost broken. So I was kidding with my friends, we agreed that jumping from a high building could not be the best choice for suicide.
Besides, there were a lot of 4D movies in Universal, too. You needed special glasses to watch them, or they would kind of blur your vision. Shrek was a wonderful cartoon, and the Terminator was violent. But they were quite rare. When you were watching that you would feel that you were just in it. Those were things happened just before your eyes. Quite amazing!
And we also saw a live action film. It was a sea battle. Some stunt actors gave us a wonderful show. What’s more, in the program of special effects, the staff showed us how those special effects in a movie were made. I marveled at their brilliant ideas.
The trip to Universal Studios was terrific. But beyond those exciting experiences, what gave me the greatest shock was the brilliant film makers behind all those things. They were so smart that they made those marvellous scenes available for a film. And I believed that in their brilliant minds they must have great passion about film. During this summer, many things around me bettered my understanding about passion. Being passionate about what you are doing, being passionate about your work and your career, being passionate about your own life. Being passionate means I can do better in my life. Besides, being passionate I would never feel tired or boring about what I am doing. And I would always be in a state of happy and vigorous.
So, maybe just like professor Michael Phelps’ daughter said, “children always feel excited about what they will do tomorrow”, I should always keep the nature of a child, being curious about the world, being passionate about what I will do, and being innocent.
