Entry Eight: Week X

our student movie screening the other night made all the hard work of making a film so worth it. I was deeply impressed with the outcome and blown away by the filmmaking skills we presumably “didn’t have.” I thought Four Stories in Berlin (Josh T., Joel, Ed, Cynthia) was such an excellent way of juxtaposing and intertwining different explorations of Berlin. I felt together as a group, they totally covered the bases on how you could experience this city and then say something meaningful about it. each vignette was personal, well thought out, and thoroughly entertaining. I especially liked Josh’s take on memory and Jewishness. by introducing the strong image of fences in regard to memory and cultural heritage, Berlin came to mean something completely new to me. it is a city of fences and walls, just as any place is, but coming from the group that focused a lot on mobility and motion through the city, realizing its barriers and obstacles that still do exist was very poignant. I also enjoyed joel’s complex and beautiful aesthetic story of berlin. the use of a musical composition’s structure (the sonata) as the action of his film piece was a super cool idea and made me see the city less as a place of “urban fervor” and more as an intimate place of beauty, peace and mystery. having each story connected by the u-bahn was a superb way to relate, contrast, and intertwine each person’s experience. the film that was never made (Kelly, Sean, Josh H., Jung) followed a similar structure with four different stories but united around the theme of never being made or never being realized. I thought the introspective, self-reflexive perspective this group took was very indicative of how our generation of creators will deal and are dealing with the world before us. this film made me really feel a part of something for some reason; maybe because I related to their explorations of creating (and not creating) or could identify with their ruminations about fitting in with berlin. in any case, I thought it was very smart how each segment made an individual place out of a giant city. I could see how each one of the stories fit and why it meant something to that person. I also thought it was an interesting way to go about a film as more of a “reaction” to something (i.e., falling short of fruition?) rather than a traditional retelling of an experience. the ping pong film (Jesse, Jessica, Nathan, Jon) turned out to be one of the most successful approaches to capturing berlin. I was really glad to see that this group was unafraid of immersing themselves into the underground culture of ping pong and in turn, learning about berlin by becoming a part of it. looking at my group’s film specifically, we were all driven by the idea of being outsiders, tourists and visitors and that is where we found our story. where we chose to identify ourselves as outsiders, this group did an excellent job at becoming “insiders” and shaking off maybe an overly paranoid fear of being touristy. I loved, love, loved seeing the work of my peers and wish it happened more in academic settings. and I have to say, with all the anticipation and anxiety and insane work that led up to our final screening, it was maybe one of the best nights of my life and unbelievably better than senior prom.

Entry Seven: Week IX

i am going to say this with the intention of trying not to make excuses: my critical thinking skills are seriously stunted. with that non-excuse out of the way, let’s talk about Goodbye Lenin, a divided city, nostalgia, and idealistic notions of the past. first of all, I would like to point out that as a “Berlin film,” Goodbye Lenin does a remarkable job of avoiding the commodification of Berlin’s rather rocky history, and addresses the past in a non-accusatory, yet insightful way (at least from an outsider’s perspective). i am not suggesting that ALL the films we watched before Goodbye Lenin commodified the city’s history, but i feel as though this particular film gave a better idea of the different perspectives that exist about Berlin. for me, Goodbye Lenin is about idealism; an idealistic world, an ideal childhood, an idyllic future and past. both Alex and his mother possess different intrinsic beliefs and thus hold their own, sometimes conflicting ideals about the world. Alex, in some light, is a bit of a revolutionary. he seeks change, represents youth and newness, and is receptive to adopting new beliefs. and still, he meanders rather romantically through the ideal East Berlin fantasy he creates for his ailing mother, obsessing over the loss of that part of his life and recreating it in a nostalgic way. living in berlin in 2007, it is crystal clear that the faux-DDR paraphernalia on every street corner in mitte is a popular way to address the city’s communist past and in turn, commodify history. marketed nostalgia of the East (or ostalgia) does little to nothing in terms of giving outsiders or tourists (and maybe even Berliners) any perspective on what a city divided by communism was like. is that even the purpose or responsibility of marketed nostalgia, to enlighten? i would not think so because it goes without saying that anything “East” in Berlin is treated as kitsch and usually void of its own historical implications. getting back to my point about the movie, this is why Alex in is such an excellent example of a new, successful perspective of Berlin that failed to surface in other films we watched. through this character Alex, we see someone who has sought a “Western” existence, acclimated as an East Berliner, and still looks back on his childhood in East Berlin with a certain amount of nostalgia. his jolly, nostalgic fabrication of a still existing East Berlin touches on the kitsch (i.e., Spreewald pickles) and yet positively engages with Berlin’s past; Alex denies the tendency to commodify his experience of East Berlin by remembering himself growing up as an “Ossie.” where Alex might idealize the West and what it offers, I believe he remembers, even celebrates, the East in a way that the West could never be celebrated. Alex’s mother very much idealizes the East in a way that does more in the way of revealing its historical relevance as an alternative to Western capitalism and not simply as a boyhood dream. her idyllic vision of the city does not come through as kitsch, but as a time full of potential – which i feel is a rather rare perspective on Communist Berlin. together, Alex and his mother embrace history by actually uncovering the past where most other Berlin films tell history or tell the past. ultimately, Goodbye Lenin pokes fun at the complexity of division without being condemning and avoids getting “touristy” about the part of history with which it is engaged.

Entry Six: Week V, VI, VII, VIII, XI? & X? (really?)

so i might be really behind on my blog entires. but there was that holiday in between...? i am so confused.

either way, the lag in blogging is in no way indicative of how hard my brain is working because the creative juices are a-flowin'! and the film screenings are getting better and better and even more inspirational. so, about that...

with all horn tooting aside, it strikes as very odd that our group began working on a film strikingly similar to Tyxwer's Lola rennt even before the in-class screening and class discussion. we had all seen the film prior to the screening, but i am not sure it donned on us to talk about our film as a Lola rennt-alike in its visual similarities and related topics. which, coincidentally, brings up a rather peculiar association which i will delve into later about what sort of attnetion berlin might demand of filmmakers.

similarities and associations: both our film project and Tykwer's Lola Rennt follow a young, female protagonist (with pink hair, no less) on a disorienting, high energy race around Berlin. where Lola Rennt is driven by a more narrative structure -- Lola's pursuit to drum up the cash needed to save her boyfriend -- our film attempts to capture the often fleeting idea of stability and the predominance of temporality within an uban space, relying on Berlin itself as a storyteller. like Lola, our protagonist drives the action forward while the city makes meaning of movement/motion, displacement, and change. Tykwer presents a "hybrid" Berlin by mixing and matching locale in order to get closer to a new, unifed image of Berlin. our film focuses strongly on the assumption that Berlin's image in 2007 is alrady a unified one and our protagonist's touristc relationship to the landscape connotes different meaning from cerain locationsby dissecting them as historical sites; afterall, each location we have filmed at was chosen for a specific reason.

i feel that once i began drawing these connection to Tykwer's film, they provided a much clearer vision of how i wanted our film to look and what sort of tecnical means might make that vision a reality. for example, Tykwer's soundtrack is unbelievably pivotal to the film's success in its ability to prescribe pace and mood (while also making reference to Berlin as house techno capital). realizing the impact the soundtrack can have on a film, our group has definitely taken an unexpected, possibly risky approach to the use of music in hope of exploring and fleshing out the feeling of "foreigness." i suppose the technique we have adopted to do this is using stark juxtapositions both in our music styling and cinematographic sequences.

other inspirations drawn from Lola rennt are more generally filming locations (e.g.,the oberbaumbrucke bridge), the youthfulness and brevity employed in cuts and transitions, and the celebrated exploration of Berlin as a living metropolis.

the attention berlin demands: it would seem silly not to inveatigate furhter into our Berlin film as so closely related to Tykwer's. what is it about Berlin that is so alluring? for starters, it is such a provocative place to be filming. with the city still under construction and rapidly changing, anything captured seems precious. in the same way someone might film their child growing up, berlin is also maturing and becoming something new. and now that we have been submersed in this sort of "urban adolesence," it makes sense that our way of capturing that on film would be rambunctious, wily, young, fun, and a little reckless. did Tykwer have these feelings? did he see this city as growing up and so too, wanted to remember that through Lola? Sinka argues that Lola protrays something called Generation Berlin whoa are "above all, self-reliant individualists unbound by convention. While not shunning confrontations with Germany's fractured, tortured past, this past no longer has hold on them."

i think it is also interesting that as foreigners or tourists we have been so quick to pick up on this energy that moves Tykwer's film, that moves Lola, and moves present day Berlin. my aspirations for this film from day one have been to give some inkling of what Berlin is like now and maybe where it is going, given its past that is no longer binding, but possibly means for more rampant regenration.

as far as my individual contribution to group work i have been behind the camera at the greater majority of (maybe 6 out of 8) film dates), some scheduled and some spur of the moment. so far, i have personally spent close to six hours editing footage and putting together rough sequences of shots. the majority of that time, i was accompanied by other group members as we usually make editing a cooperative event. i also began assembling a storyboard, but have ceased my efforts as we started to feel more comfortable with what we had on film.

Entry five: Week V.

i have been thinking a lot about this movie project and exploring emotions through landscape or urbanscape or whatever. i recently realized (in a big way) how this film could be the most ideal manifestation of my experience here. how did i manage to neglect that fact? well, i think when we first started talking about the film, it seemed like an idea we could all relate to and rally around. and then we started to get pragmatic, narrowing our movie down to explore four emotions that both build on one another and our direct effects or causes of eachother. these four emotions are: excitement which lends to disorientation which lends itself to loneliness which then in turn lends itself to a resurgence in excitement which finally gives way to a feeling of comfort or confidence. it makes sense, i think, when you lay it on papaer and talk about. it is linear and cyclical and reasonable, if not too simplistic.

i wish i could zip through these stages like our film's protagonist will and arrive at that comfortable place where the city can feel peaceful. but that's not going to happen by decemeber. there is no way. thinking about our movie and how i should try to use it as a medium to explore my non-cinematic experience of this city, it is difficult to sit down and evaluate my own situatio. with all of the bustle and the business, the persistent and over-stimulated way i run around here, the lack of restraint, minimal obligations, all of this potentially providing the best experience possible, and still i feel a definite lack somewhere. i don't ever want to oversleep here for fear i might miss something spectacular. i have even caught myself thginking about issues from class in my dreams. time is such of the essence it haunts me and the history and class material i am finding myself immersed in often dominates my focus.

i don't think i feel comfort here. i think comfort is in the contact i receive from outside berlin, the postcards from grandma, the packages from mom, the telephone calls with friends, and emails with bro and sis. i want so badly for this place to feel like mine, but it#s so hard in these initial weeks for a place to feel like it even wants you. i think i am getting ahead of myself. the bottom line, though, is berlin is enormous, so BIG! there is no possible way for me to cover it in the way i'd like to; experience everything.

back in seattle, when i find something new, it is so exciting (my most favorite and recent find being a new bike route up to capitol hill). it is exciting because seattle is so familiar. it is comfortable. i like to go to bed early in seattle and cook dinner and sleep in and do nothing. here in berlin, everything is exciting and novel, confusing, strange, intense and only slowly becoming familiar. it is, to say the least, tiring.

is that weird? i feel like i am in constant motion, motion i haven't necessarily consented to but nonetheless have accepted knowing it is the only way to keep up. and the thought of leaving seems, well, stupid. i don't want to sever the momentum we have been building and at the same time, i crave peace. i want familiarity that isn't my hideous apartment that semlls bad or the handful of other americans i have been spending the last 5 weeks with. so it must be bigger than familarity, something that runs deeper.

i really enjoy my recent interactions with the turkish man at the getränke down the street. he shakes my hand and pats me on the back, asks me how i am doing and wishes me a goodnight. all the while, i just smile back at him. sometimes throw out a few thank you's in german. one time i said "alles güt" which i am pretty sure doesn't really mean anything, but would convey to him what i was trying to say. it is all good, sweet turkish man. i don't really know what i am doing with myself here, but it's all good.

resonance? recognition? connection? confirmation? acceptance? coherence? perspective?

Entry Four: Week IV.

things have been getting crazier and crazier here in berlin. since our weekend trip to koldenhof, the group has been busy capturing footage both for our movie and our special assignment. for now, we have decided to put our main project on hold until we finish the special, acoustic movie assignment. but deadlines are quickly approaching and the pressure of time is persistent as ever [echo]...everr....everrr.....everrrr.



post-production work on the special assignment has begun. kerry has tediously organized and converted many of our audio files, making the process of compiling them a smooth one. we are aiming to incorporate both rural and urban sounds in a cacophony of noise, maybe finding melody somewhere along the way. in the least, we are attempting to explore the varying tempos of different environments and hope to show this, aurally, with our juxtaposition of say, a cow mooing and a city intersection.

we (three-fourths of us, anyway) had a rather long, maybe tedious, but very vital discussion about our main project. i think we are all realizing the only way to make capturing and editing easier is to create some sort of systematic plan. our idea for portraying the "moods" ofberlin is evolving. we came up with some really great scenes that i think will explicate what we are trying to get across. new terms and ideas were thrown around, like "turning points." through talking, we started to wonder how we would transition into new moods and mark that transition. we discussed using music and tinting the film, but most importantly, we developed very specific ideas of what would make a good transition. suddenly we have actual scenes to capture and for me, that makes the whole process of filming seem much more manageable.

from this meeting, we began to wrestle with whether we want to go a more "campy" route (i.e., using celine dion's "all by myself" to convey loneliness) or a more serious, provocative route. i think we agreed that camp would be "easier" (or, cheap, as i see it) and to be taken seriously and try to genuinely move our audience might be a good challenge. i am not sure if we ever resolved which route we would like to go, which definitely bothers me. i would really like to stray away from camp, although fun, and really explore place and the implications of place, even history, on mood and feeling. what do i mean by this? allow me to explain:

one of our moods we have chosen to focus on is personal excitement in the newness and awe of berlin. we plan to develop this highly stimulated mood with fast-paced cuts, a wide variety of stationary and moving shots, following motion and change. to maybe riff off run lola run, i imagine with pieces of the wall still existing it would be provocative to visually reincorporate this symbol of restraint into our excitement scenes as to make reference to a time when it was not so easy to move around this city. this would ultimately show in a sort of preservationist way, this is berlin 2007, the excitement and energy of the city moving beyond the past. this is the best example i came up with to try and convey my idea of bringing place into our film in a more meaningful way. i think what has pushed me toward this train of thought is not wanting to make a movie that could be made in any developed urban city. that is very important for my aspirations of this film.

goals for the rest of the week: finish acoustic movie.

other goals: storyboarding, capturing already planned scenes, think more about place/history and mood.

Entry Three: Week III.

so my group has chosen to tackle the "acoustic movie project," which is totally sweet. we talked out our idea this morning after class and i think we are all really pumped. our initial aim is to juxtapose urban life with rural life and what better way to do it than through sound. originally, we talked about construction noises (a.k.a. the racket that begins at 8am outside of our apartments every morning) as a topic to explore. but the idea of working only with construction sites seemed rather limiting. i am very interested in gargaeband, the apple music studio program, and suggested compiling a song or melody out of the noises we capture. ultimately we decided that might be too much pressure on my part, as composer, and wouldn't exactly fulfill the purpose of "creating place." this weekend, we are visiting the countryside (koldehof) and it seems extremely appropriate to capture sounds out there, which then gave way to our idea of contrasting city sounds and country sounds. as of now, we are approaching the urban atmosphere as chaotic, jarring, annoying, obtrusive and looking at the rural as slow, peaceful, a little dumb and almost comical. i wonder, though, if there are different ways of approaching this idea of rural and urban that are not so literal.

we also walked around kreuzberg capturing sounds with the boom mic in order to practice for our weekend excursion. how fun!

update: we actually found out the hard way that our boom mic requires a small battery for amplification. in the end, we capture no sounds until we got to koldenhof. but no sweat, we got really great rural footage.

Entry Two: Week III.

today i had an excllent day of filming with chris h. we met up at heinrich-heine strasse in the morning, filmed a few u-bahn arrivals and departures° and eventually made it to potsdamer platz and got some cool shots in the holocaust memorial blocks. we both were totally into the mood that the blocks create. it reminded me of thorsten's teaching on negative monuments or monuments that don't necessarily celebrate, but remind and initiate dialogue. this holocaust memorial is totally an abstarct piece made up of stone blocks of varying size arranged in a grid. the grid sinks down into the earth and different elevations roll throughout the memorial. so, together the stones form a disorienting labirynth, but individually they imitate gravestones. there is a very simplistic and beautiful anonymity to the memorial -- as no specific individuals are memorialized -- and a resonating darkness that reminds the spectator of one of the most outlandish crinmes against humanity. in one respect, the memorial comments on the confusion, pain, and loss of an entire people/nation and in another respect, is for every individual life destroyed in the holocaust.

heavvvvy.
(i was rather prturbedto see the memorial is frequented by hide-and-seek players. is that appropriate?).

chris and i got really arty with our camera work, using the looming clouds as a backdrop to our shots within the memorial. i hope we will be able to use the footage to embody loneliness or isolation, but since we haven't really nailed down what our goals are as far as what feelings we'd like to explore in our film, that could change. i think i need to talk to my group.

°i have this really great idea to show a train coming into the station at normal speed and then, with a time-sapce jolt -- thawck! -- bring the speed of the picture way down so that the train is moving in slow motion. i think this will have a cool effect in emphasizing the movement and speed of the shot, even slowed down.

side note.

okay, so i sort of didn't realize that Entry One should have encompassed the past two weeks of being here. from this point on, i am going to try to post more often throughout the week either with ideas, concerns, questions, who i have crushes on, comments on the raading and other important things.

Entry One: Week I & II.

shoot, yo. planning a film is difficult! these first two weeks have been a great test in group coordination and cooperation. but it has been fun. i think.

IDEA-MAKING
the group began the process of brainstorming with a casual group discussion about where we see the movie going. initially, we came to and somewhat settled on the idea of capturing motion in berlin through the different modes of transportation. getting around berlin, esepcially as a foreigner, has been something the group can all relate to. we began thinking of transportation in context with

- demographies; how certain people travel or why,
- pace; studying varying tempos of movement,
- intersection; how transportation is unifying or interdependent,
- point of view; how different ways of travling lend to different visual experiences of the city,
- history; what does "movement" mean in 2007 compared to, say, 1967?
- and time.

it is a perfectly sound idea with a lot of room for expansion, but i wasn't completely satisfied. i would like to say something maybe more personal about this city, convey an idea or a feeling that is more than an exposé about how one can move around and through the city. i began asking myself questions about what makes berlin, well, berlin? it's a city known for its "restlessness" (as we read), a city with a rather rocky history, a city that is presently highly attractive to young artists, designers, and creators, and a city in which i will be spending the next three months. i began to think about how i have or will experience this city. transportation most definitely still plays a very crucial role in that sort of understanding, but i can't help but think there is something more. something bigger i haven't quite digested yet. "berlin and the countryside" was an extremely inspirational piece of reading material for me. to read how other individuals have experienced this city and to read how they articulated that experience was very interesting. i especially enjoyed heidegger's piece about getting away from the city. that dynamic of rural life vs. urban life is also interesting to me, espeically since in one week's time we will be IN the countryside. so, in addition to the way one moves through this city, i have become increasingly more interested in how one feels and deals with berlin as an urban atmosphere.it wasn't until just recently i have been able to articulate this thought process (this journal is great!)and state of mind i am in.

GROUP DYNAMICS
right now, i feel like we are all on board for this project. no one seems to resist working together and so far brainstorming and decision-making has gone smoothly. at this point, we seem to be on the same page as far our conceptual vision for this film.

in terms of technolgoy, we have had a few snags here and there. we seem to all be very conceptual thinkers and the technology at hand is, for the most part, alien and complicated. kerry and i have been throwing around ideas about editing a mini project just to familiarize ourselves with the process of capturing, importing, editing, saving, rendering, and so on. at this point, the editing software is completely overwhelming and the thought of editing an entire film in a program we have very little experience with is even more overwhelming.

the group has also devised a loose work schedule that devotes each week of this month to filming. one group member is then responsible for gathering footage during their respective week. this way we hope to capture the majority of our footage within the month of october (the rest of the time will then theoreticlly devoted to post-production) and also give everyone an equal chance at using the camera. being the first person to capture footage in the beginning stages of this project has been difficult for me, mainly because our ideas are still very fresh and malleable. but i think as time goes on and our ideas solidify into actual, cohesive images, it will be easier to gather material.

we are very open with our ideas and unafraid to voice our opinions, but i feel as if i either dominate or direct the group discussion. i think i am most comfortable in this role, but i am curious to see what will happen if i consciously take a "backseat" position in group discussions. i don't want to feel like i am moving the group in any one direction or not, but at this point that is what i feel.

GOALS

filmwise: we have discussed our film as something that would definitely comment on, maybe update?, "berlin: symphony of a city." we hope to explore a few of the different feelings berlin creates for its urban dwellers and our movie would show this cycle of emotions through the tempo and pace of different modes of life (transportation, leisure, work, etc.)

techwise: tinker, tinker, tinker. i plan to personally get moving on the editing front. the camera so far has caused little if any issue.

our next step is to meet up before the new week starts, go over the footage i have gathered, share ideas, hand off the camera to a new group member, and brainstorm for our special assignment.

More Pre-Production

it's coming down to the wire here - berlin is so so so so so close!

i am currently thinking about a new idea for a film, one that is about sharing information with youth/young people about berlin. i would like to capture berlin in the short moment i am there and highlight what's going on in terms of visual art, music, politics, literature, fashion, the green revolution, technology, grafitti, transportation, and so much more.

Pre-Production

this will be my Production Journal while studying in Berlin. that is all for now. possibly more Pre-Production to come?

i want to make a music video.