Sunstroke Film Festival
Damn my bog-dwelling ancestors. I was filming all of Friday, and 5 hours on Saturday and then tried to watch the Sunday Yankees game from the bleacher seats today and it only took 2 hours of sun to run me down. I spent the rest of the day feeling like crap. I wanted to get out and rollerblade or go to the gym, but I guess this is my body's way of telling me to slow down. I have been missing too much sleep this week and I should store it up if I can.
This week besides going to class, I got to watch Rent and Bridges and Tunnels. Rent was OK. I prefer my musicals to be more comical and less tragic. There were all these tragic bohemians. For example, Jai from Queer Eye played a free spirited cross dresser who spends the first act joking around and perking up everyones spirits. Then in the second act we have to watch him die of AIDS. It had too much of that defeatist, Gen-X, "The Whole World is Corrupt but I'd rather hide from it than make the compromises required to fix it". Throughout the movie, the characters hid from themselves, their families and the world. One of the final triumphant moments is when the filmmaker in the play turns down the offer to work in Hollywood so he doesn't "sell out". His character believes in a lot of truly positive ideals, many of which I share. I wanted him to accept the offer. Make some films more people will see and slowly but surely work his ideals into his films. I hate that the play celebrated the lack of patience and the cowardice of his decision. It diminishes the contributioons made by those who are willing to make the compromises required to create real change from within the system.
Sarah Jones' Bridges and Tunnels was great. I wonder what Samm would think about the play. He hates Dave Chapelles style of self-depricating racial humor, but I wonder what he would make of Sarah Jones' racial humor. As the racial differences she chose to joke about are less negative, he may be more approving even though he claims that all racial humor is wrong.
Saturday started with a 5 hour shoot. For 3 hours, I helped my friend Alina shoot interviews for her documentary on happiness. I thought that it was unlikely that people would be willing to stop for 5 minutes a piece in the hot sun to answer questions and then stand still for 10 seconds, however Alina and her friend have a much greater ability than I to draw people into such things. After we concluded her shoot at Union Square, we took the subway down to Battery Park to interview 3 Polish Girls who were paying for their trip around the world by working as street musicians. I had been worrying all week about what to do for my documentary when I saw these 3 girls playing at Union Square with a sign that said "Help us pay for our trip around the world". I made arrangements to meet up with them on Saturday and have them tell their story. It turned out to be a little different from what I expected, but it was still a great story of brash youthful adventure. I got a great 30 minute interview from 2 camera angles and 20 minutes of b-roll of them playing while people watched. More importantly, it gave me the inspiration to create the Academy documentary part 1 for my final project. I hope to get a well lit interview with Jack when he is out here and splice it together with some interviews of my own and the footage we recorded at Sequoia. I'd been worrying about my final film for quite some time as I didn't really have a great inspiration for a narrative film. Once I was able to let go of the narrative format and give myself the chance to pursue a project I've been thinking about for a long time, it was like a huge weight being lifted. Creativity is hard. It's much harder than organizing and arranging, which are my strengths.
That's all the brain spew for tonight,
Good Night All
This week besides going to class, I got to watch Rent and Bridges and Tunnels. Rent was OK. I prefer my musicals to be more comical and less tragic. There were all these tragic bohemians. For example, Jai from Queer Eye played a free spirited cross dresser who spends the first act joking around and perking up everyones spirits. Then in the second act we have to watch him die of AIDS. It had too much of that defeatist, Gen-X, "The Whole World is Corrupt but I'd rather hide from it than make the compromises required to fix it". Throughout the movie, the characters hid from themselves, their families and the world. One of the final triumphant moments is when the filmmaker in the play turns down the offer to work in Hollywood so he doesn't "sell out". His character believes in a lot of truly positive ideals, many of which I share. I wanted him to accept the offer. Make some films more people will see and slowly but surely work his ideals into his films. I hate that the play celebrated the lack of patience and the cowardice of his decision. It diminishes the contributioons made by those who are willing to make the compromises required to create real change from within the system.
Sarah Jones' Bridges and Tunnels was great. I wonder what Samm would think about the play. He hates Dave Chapelles style of self-depricating racial humor, but I wonder what he would make of Sarah Jones' racial humor. As the racial differences she chose to joke about are less negative, he may be more approving even though he claims that all racial humor is wrong.
Saturday started with a 5 hour shoot. For 3 hours, I helped my friend Alina shoot interviews for her documentary on happiness. I thought that it was unlikely that people would be willing to stop for 5 minutes a piece in the hot sun to answer questions and then stand still for 10 seconds, however Alina and her friend have a much greater ability than I to draw people into such things. After we concluded her shoot at Union Square, we took the subway down to Battery Park to interview 3 Polish Girls who were paying for their trip around the world by working as street musicians. I had been worrying all week about what to do for my documentary when I saw these 3 girls playing at Union Square with a sign that said "Help us pay for our trip around the world". I made arrangements to meet up with them on Saturday and have them tell their story. It turned out to be a little different from what I expected, but it was still a great story of brash youthful adventure. I got a great 30 minute interview from 2 camera angles and 20 minutes of b-roll of them playing while people watched. More importantly, it gave me the inspiration to create the Academy documentary part 1 for my final project. I hope to get a well lit interview with Jack when he is out here and splice it together with some interviews of my own and the footage we recorded at Sequoia. I'd been worrying about my final film for quite some time as I didn't really have a great inspiration for a narrative film. Once I was able to let go of the narrative format and give myself the chance to pursue a project I've been thinking about for a long time, it was like a huge weight being lifted. Creativity is hard. It's much harder than organizing and arranging, which are my strengths.
That's all the brain spew for tonight,
Good Night All
posted by sfphotoblogger at 21:23
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