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?
Monday, October 29, 2007
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
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.
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.
Friday, October 12, 2007
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.
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.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
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.
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.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
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.
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.
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