To Wait

I started a new video about a week ago. It is moving slowly. In part this is due to the fact that I am slowing down part of the video A LOT and then exporting that and slowing it down again, blah blah halb. And the other reason I attribute it to (besides having a million and one things going on right now, this video and Paris are only two of the many) is building a relationship with the video. It is about - get ready, this is new - perception. There is this waiting, this expectation, this subdued, controlled frenzy of anticipation. Then after the event the people scatter; there is a chaotic exodus. Basically I have been playing with cutting between the two, using two channels, changing speeds to introduce certain characters ... I think all three of them will come into play.



When I started this video, I wanted it to be a "quick-video" - you know, one of those that I make to make things happen, one of those that I haven't been able to make in over a year. Well, obviously this isn't going to be one of those.
I find something magical in this waiting that we are all so familiar with. The wait that leads to the let down, to the anticlimax. Children are notorious for embracing that wait. They don't even seem to notice it. The new toy, the new movie, the new episode, the new whatever. It happens, you see it, you buy it. And then, it is just over. The amazing part is that it doesn't bother them; thankfully, they still have yet to understand this particular type of loss.

Many of the adult situations of waiting are different (yet, I find similarities in weddings, graduations, and the like, but we will save that discussion for when I get my PhD in cultural practices and performance ... ha ha ha.). Perhaps with the anticipated flight (you know, the one to Paris) I am thinking more and more about my travel experiences: waiting just to wait some more. You wait to check-in, to wait to go through security, to wait to sit at the gate, to wait to board, to wait to sit on the plane, to wait for a drink or snack or movie or to use your approved electronic device, to wait to land, to wait to de-board, to wait to get your luggage, to wait to ...

Now that I think about it, I guess it is really the same as all the others, but there isn't a "celebrated" event around any of that waiting. Your anticipation is all about the arrival, and on the way to the arrival you have different stages of waiting. But it is that arrival that is key - because that is when everything changes.

Back to the topic at hand. Slow video.

It's over.

Well, it is finally finished (Zapatos, that is). OMFs have been exported. Why OMFs? Well, your friend Nicole is a little green with the official protocols of movie making - oh, I remember a time when I thought I was gonna "snap" get a job at a production studio, sigh. The story is, that as hard as I tried to make it easier for the sound engineer, I should have just asked him - exactly what format do you want everything in? But I didn't. This of course caused me to have to go to the studio, hang out, chit-chat, and just create general camaraderie with the techs. In the end I figure it was better.

And now I have no excuses to get on the ball with my own work.

Mati is the executive producer for this documentary, that is still looking for funding. I came in at the end of his meeting with the director on Monday. It got me thinking about "Chapter One" or "Prologue" or whatever the hell it was that I was going to call the piece about finding my birth family and the hullabaloo (after using that word for the subtitles of Zapatos, I have decided that it really needs to become a part of our vocabulary again) around it - and of course still swirling around the event.

So, there is this genre of autobiographical documentaries, but the key is that even though these projects are COMPLETELY therapeutic for the director - how to make the piece without it only being therapy. I have written about it before - in sketchbooks and a few here on the blog. I am desperately looking for the "clave". But it isn't about looking, is it? I know that. I have always known that, but for some reason it is easier to keep looking - it's that procrastination trap that we all fall into.

Why am I into this "final thought" business???? The final thought for the post - GET TO IT!

the Holy Weekend

Well, it is Easter (or I guess officially it is tomorrow). Here they play religious movies non-stop on all the TV channels. We have extensive choices ranging from Cleopatra (the 1999 made-for-TV-version), Moses: the Laws, Jesus of Nazareth ... I'm not quite sure exactly why Cleopatra is being shown - I guess her connection with the Roman Empire .... hmmmm. And needless to say they are all dubbed versions, which indeed is my favorite way to watch movies. In fact, I wish that every movie that I watch from now on would be dubbed - in any language - hell, in Quechua.



The good thing about this is that it is rather nostalgic for me, since I was subjected to Catholic schools for 11 years of my life and Sunday school before then. It is kinda delightful remembering the stories - and they are truly rich stories. I have even started picking out my favorite - King Solomon by far! He was everything a Jew was not supposed to be, yet king. His riches, the temple, his wives ... I do so enjoy contradictions.



Anyway, that's it, just a simple musing on nostalgia and the great stories that we (in the universal sense) have grown up with. I assume that every culture has their own counterparts. I bet if I googled King Solomon and equivalents, I would find many. Or Moses. Even thinking about it, Jesus.

Happy Easter - or whatever holiday you prefer to celebrate!

The Video Ed It Or ... what?

I started the way I had started my most recent videos. Of course since my most recent videos are experimental documentaries where I look for and thus carve out the narrative and/or "experience" (can I be so bold as to use that word?), it didn't quite work out so well.

So I reorganized. Remembering a time when each cut needed to be planned. I did what I had done so many times before: logged each shot, making markers and then planning the edit. That got the job done - and pretty much only that. I soon realized that none of my "education" (I seem to be really unto using quotes lately) was going to help me. Experience was going to help me, but that was indeed what I lacked.

Often I think that given my age (32) I should be much more accomplished than I am, that my experience should be greater than my learning. And in many ways it is, but not for structured, narrative, cinema editing.

I keep struggling with trying to find the correct word for the difference between what my experience is and the experience that I am lacking. A word that specifically and perfectly describes it. What am I lacking? commercial style? cinema style? structured? Structured isn't it, because I have done structured work before (I know, many of you who went to school with me, or have had a look at my sketchbooks probably have very large question marks over your heads - structured? Nicole?), not too often, I have to admit - I am having a hard time coming up with LOTS of examples. Maybe the difference is that in my personal projects I never really envision the end product? - No, that's not it - because the rough cut we have now looks nothing like the rough cut we had before (the rough cut where I drew footage maps, cut, and combined). I don't really know what the difference is, but there definitely is one.

Maybe someone can help me figure out what difference is ... Anyhow. In the meantime, check out the preliminary maps and subsequent notes thus far.












OH WAIT! I almost forgot the moral of the post: never think too far ahead.