Recuperation Rough Cut

Below are all the posts 'as nature intended' following the crash then burn of the previous server.
I do believe they've taken my pics with them, so i will slowly reconstruct the thread. At which point, I will change the title to Recuperated.
Sod the internet.



Five Easy Pieces 3/5/2006
Today at Bard we had an example of a smooth shoot. But, you know, it's not really about planning. As Jolie put it... 'It's warm'. The bard people, with John Kelly Jr. at the head, made it easy for us. the room: clean and empty. Power : on. No interference.
Then the extraordinary, ebullient and... sopmething else that begins with 'e'... contribution by Mikhail and Simon.
Jolie who was word perfect. And the carnet-esque fish-eye lens. What did we do with it. Did Russell become Hitler? Why do actors think they have a right to eat, drink and use the bathroom during a take?
But enough is enough, eh? We have done the last four weekend days, which - if you count schooldays in between, makes 20 days straight by next saturday and the gig at Jasper's - with: Baba Yaga and the excellent Frankie and His Fingers. Most literate pop I've heard since Elvis Costello.
But, yes, pictures say more than a thousand words. unfortunately, I forgot the camera today.

A test from the master 3/3/2006
Alright... (do this in an East London accent, please)... alright. So it's Friday night, ten o'clock, and we got everything sorted... except the Queen, weeeell, I ask you... course we ain't got the Queen sorted. I mean, stands to reason innit? It's the Queen what sorts us lot out, right?
Anyway, the two choices open to me now are a) to stay up and panic and annoy everyone with probing phonecalls... or b) to have a shower, go to bed and trust in Her Majesty.
Tomorrow is another day, and all that. vAnd Queens? We got 'em coming out of the woodwork.
G'nite. God Bless.

Queens, guerrilla networks, costumes, snowstorms, sleep 3/2/2006

Spoke with this young lady today and she confirmed as QoH.
The manner of communication was interesting, involving a phonecall from myself to person A, who gave me the number of person B, then I called person B who spoke to person C who checked online for person D who gave her number to persons C, then B , then me. then person B (still following this?) caled person D to say that Ur-person Z (me) would call her soon. Then person Z called person D. Got that?
Perhaps I should use carrier pigeon? Ah. but they're extinct... I understand why.
Lest that seem ironic or dismissive, I should say that in fact, the rhizomal structure engendered or supported by the net - and its peripherals such as phonecalls, for they too can be considered under the net's umbrella - is actually a very sophisticated and efficient way of making contacts to randomly moving targets. O, homeland security! Your youth use the same guerrilla tactics to keep in touch as a terrorist organisation. there is no leader to 'take out' there is no center to the network, no parental controls, and a real time discontinuity which makes tracing whereabouts impossible.
Interestingly, the instantaneouis speed of connection has been mislaid somewhere and 'speed'; per se doesn't seem to be a feature of these contact circles. Small repeated base touches, rather. An interesting model, and one thankfully devoid of neuroses.
So, Rode a slippery snowstorm down the hill to the mall today, purchased yards of tulle and blood red felt. Perhaps I missed a great career there? It was so calm and colorful in Joann's shop. I could see myself doing that. Then up the hill to Cooper Lake where bayla has already done part of the Queen's costume. It will be awe, and then some.
Oh, yes, and sleep.

Our Queen of Hearts? 3/1/2006

But whither art thou? Answers on a postcard by Friday midnight, please.
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Hectic SHIV. Scene sequences. and Peter the Squirrel 3/1/2006
Another hectic day, with Emmi providing the burst of energy and concentration... sounds like I'm describing a laser, doesn't it?... well, she is! While the Tea Party crew sat in the dark downstairs watching the excellent and thought provoking BUFFALO '66 (with particular attention on how Vince Gallo filmed the dinner table scene) - we were locked upstairs with Dan C. and talk of costumes, Queens, cameras and props, shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and Kings... or e) some of the above.
A quick phone call to Will and 'SHIV THE DESTROYER' has been pressed in to service. I hope no-one cuts themself...
Meanwhile, my last tremors are a) will the costumes be ready for Saturday? and b) remarkably... how to get in touch with the Queen of Hearts. no-one has her address or number. Forgive me, for I am an aged, aged man, my legs have grown dim and my eyes are thin and wrinkled... (?) but is a hop and a kick on her 'MySpace' a sure way of getting in touch within 48 hours?
Trust in fate.
The only other short news is that the rough cuts of all five sections are slated to screen on March 16th in Burrill Crohn's 'unfinished film festival in the Rondout. Details to follow'.
Generous exposure from Burrill, and an incentive to get at least a coherent cut for an audience of cinema professionals.
The other point was raised about the sequencing of our five segments.
To recap: the current order is:
1 - Cheshire Man
2 - Trial
3 - Tea Party
4 - Caterpillar
5 - Tweedledee and Tweedledum
Two really good objections were raised that a) the already filmed Cheshire Man is quite emotionally hysterical, and should not kick off the tale, and b) the Trial should be the logical end of the sequences, with escape to 'reality' right after.
In many ways, the longer takes and slower pace of the Tweedles and the Caterpillar should or could come earlier. But there are problems - only a few - in that some lines of dialogue refer back to earlier scenes, e.g. the Caterpillar scene refers to the earlier Tea Party.
OK, so far so good.
But... Robin suggested... couldn't the time structure of the whole piece be skewed? Couldn't the Tea Party intrude as a flashback (or an out of sequence scene?) or - to draw on its own structure and text - could we not make some play in Sunday's shoot about time running backwards (already in the text) and have her 'memory' appear in the preceeding scene?
Such are the conundrums with which, on which and into which we needs must muse and meld. The important point is that not only are the texts, scenes and characters not sacrosanct IN SCREENPLAY FORM... but neither is our first loose structure.
We should always be open to any change - however drastic it seems - from the pre-ordained film-on-paper. because it isn't pre-ordained. It's a work-in-progress, and we have to listen to its own voice as it comes together.
One of the great advantages (one I have not experienced before, by the way) of this kind of shooting in discreet blocks, is that we can review, revise and improve the ongoing film in the light of what we've already shot. In other words, if we pay strict attention to the already existing footage and faces and epiphanies (like the sudden onset of snow in between two takes of Trevor's segment, which masked Jolie in a blanket of flurries for her first real close up) then we will be building our film up from what cinematically is, rather than from ideas jotted down in words on paper.
Something to consider, then.
The last point is that we are having a party, actually for Robin's 14th Birthday, a little late as always when you have bad parents... in Saugerties on Saturday March 11th, and Baba Yaga have agreed to play.
We are also hoping to entice them to let us use their PtSq at the end of the fillum.
We'll see.

World Domination beckons 2/28/2006

We buy more and pay less, too. But what? I hear you ask...
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Threshold of meaning 2/28/2006
The interesting thing is that they work on the threshold of meaning, and convey two contrasting signals at once - the 'realworld' logo we are all familiar with, which functions like an ideogram, plays of light, color and shade matching to a learned meaning... and then there's the word Indie, or Indi or id or whatever.
try this similar effect from a website. Surprising.
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/words.html
The threshold of meanings.
Which brings us back to old Sergei Eisenstein and his overtonal montage.
Or Ben Boretz and his interplay/interference pattern of overtones in 'Chart'.
It's all in the decay, in the afterimage.
Spent today with Jennillian and Emmi, Alyx and Iyla, planning two aspects of Sunday's shoot. One - getting all that is needed to the place; two - working out how to cut up the script into blocks, to take advantage of the expected improvs.
Lots of silly diagrams drawn and many many Lucky Charms eaten (though 'eaten' isn't really the woprd for the scavenging and slurping which went on. Are the marshmallow ones that much tastier?)
Also watched all the rest of Trevor's footage. Beautiful! And some of the best shots look so deceptively simple - those long combined pans and slow zooms, following a moving subject... Ah! (and what a good decision it was for Dum not to speak...)
And watched all of Becky's stuff. Apart from one half finished take where the blocking and camera view were being worked out, it's good, with the end takes (as ever) looking better.
And - to Anonymouse poster, some answers: there is no favorite, just favorites (a large category)... Grammar in English schools? Well, they dood, but now they dodent. but I dade...
And finally, it's Tibetan New Year, many tashi delegs to K.Ch.Ch. and let us begin all auspicious (and several suspicious) projects before the next full moon.
Om Ah Hum Benzer Guru Pema Siddhi Hum.

Focus Hunting. Mon Ami Antoine. Happy Taima 2/27/2006
Great fun in the great room. We all watched the rushes from the weekend – including our first glimpses of what the film could be. A lot of congratulation and back slapping ensued, but as there are still two and probably three scenes left to shoot, let’s look at the things – mostly structural – which didn’t work out, so we can avoid them next weekend.
A minor technical point (screams from the backroom) is that automatic focus is very dangerous to use in low-light situations, or in situations where there are many planes (e.g. in a forest) or when there is a lot of movement. The reason being that the camera cheats focus by homing in on the BRIGHTEST spot. Two problems – no, three problems… 1) the brightest object may not be what you want to focus on… 2) what you want to focus on may be moving, in which case so will the focus… 3) the camera may not be able to decide which is the brightest thing, and go into a particularly annoying behavior known as ‘focus hunting’, where the image wobbles and goes fuzzy.
To remedy this – though for obvious reasons, it’s technically hard to do – you use manual focus. Zoom in on the place you want to focus and let the autofocus do its job. Then flip to manual. It will stay in focus in that plane.
Obviously, if the object moves, you have to change focus, but at least the camera won’t develop ADD and go for the shiniest thing in the frame.
Oh, talking of frames, here’s another thing: Don’t put any important compositional elements on the very top, bottom or edges of the frame, as the camera shows more than most TV sets and projectors. Anything near the edges risks being cropped – i.e. cut in half or worse. Anyway, generally, unless you have a clear specific reason, don’t let people and things get too far apart.
There are some general remarks on lighting, but we’ll work to help you get better lights on location, it’s too abstract talking in general here… except… remember that to get good, crisp blacks… you need a LOT OF LIGHT. This is because perceived darkness is actually a result of CONTRAST. Low contrasts tends to yield what are called milky interiors… generally while it may look dark to you, it will just look dim to the camera – or worse (that auto thingy again, exposure this time) the camera will add grain and false brightness electronically, in which case you have to try to correct it later in Final Cut.
But by far the biggest (and very forgivable) error was not to have prepared enough with all the people in your scene. It can work out really well, and we will do all we can to make that happen… but instead of taking two hours, it might take five hours. Or, instead of having those same five hours to get a truly great film… you spend three of them learning lines or setting lights.
This is what we are all learning, and the time/manpower equation is one of the areas where organization can help.
I once knew a man called Antoine who worked for a film company which specialized in short films. Therefore and a fortiori it specialized in working with new or inexperienced directors. For me the definition of an inexperienced director is that they cannot do things quickly. And should not be asked to… that’s where a production organization makes sense – and it’s what we’re trying to do on ALYCE – we will worry about logistics (and sometimes get it wrong, too) and let you just worry about your films… anyway, to get back to Antoine… the guy was very nice, but didn’t seem to actually DO anything. I mean, he wasn’t a director, wasn’t a cameraman, didn’t act, wasn’t an accountant, or a soundman… he was just a Production Manager. Yet everyone wanted to work with Antoine, because all of Antoine’s films ran smoothly. Food arrived on time. All the costumes were ready. People didn’t arrive and freeze for three hours before their scenes. There were enough cars. The director wasn’t woken up at 4 a.m. and he wasn’t allowed to stay up till 3.30 either… etc. etc. this was all Antoine’s job. He once told me that the difference between a good film and a bad film was simply this: preparation, preparation and preparation. Hence Iyla.
So:
tomorrow Tuesday, let’s have a list of all props needed for your scene; all costumes; the names and phones of everyone… and PLEASE… rehearse your actors this week – not on the day of the shoot. It might seem like a bore now, but ask Joe, Trevor or Becky if they would like to have either of the following: an extra three hours to get more shots, or work more slowly and/or to have the footage they now have, but with three hours’ less work. Just ask ‘em.
Other stuff for the FAQ? Well, there was the somewhat surprising fact that the fluorescent strip blacklight (i.e. ultra-violet) showed up as a green light saber on video… more problems with the videochip and the eye, I’m afraid. The fact is that these lights are a fluo tube wrapped in a UV filter, and it works well for humans and cats, but video (and film??? I suspect so, but I never did it) registers the actual spectrum of the lamp. Fluos do not have a continuous spectrum, like a light bulb, or the sun… but a few scattered ‘peaks’ in various colors which the eye ‘averages’ as ‘white’ or in this case, UV. The camera, honest as it is, shows us only these peaks, the main one of which is smack in the middle of the greens. Hence the Jedi effect. Still – it looked eerie and effective in Joe’s movie.
Joe, by the way, was full of admiration for Jolie’s professionalism in the wake of ‘other stuff’.
That’s all for tonight, production meeting tomorrow and editing begins.
Peter G., forced absent in NYC this weekend will be there next, was gobsmacked (I think that is the expression) by the quality of the works. He is sure we will now all be shut down and/or deported for general weirdness, on the other hand, Indie might be able to make a living out of actually making films.
Never seen Taima so happy as walking up the hill with a camera and saying, ‘Isn’t this great?’.
Yes, it is.

Sunday 11 pm 2/26/2006
I shall be brief.
A long, cold day which began in icy Kingston Rondout. Ended in a basement on Glasco Turnpike.
Images the likes of which we have not seen. Really, a perfect synergy (despite some harrowing personal and private complications for aone member of our cast and crew. Hope all works out well there...)
Then we shall see what we shall see.
One of those days snatched from the jaws of time.

The gulf between Director and Cast 2/25/2006

So, trevor gets this great idea for a shot, see, and he sends all of us across the river... but it's freezing and there isn't a bridge, so some of us leap across icy stepping stones, others lay ladders down on unstable shores and ice floes, others still put planks on wobbly roc, while still others (there were many of us at the start) shinned or edged along fallen moss covered tree trunks. In the end, he was there and we were here. As you can clearly see.

Joe, stranded in mid-stream. Why do all Trevor's films involve innocent persons and cold water?
Note first failed attempt to cross via ladder clearly visible in upper right of this photo.
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Fishing oysters. Run, Leni, Run. Rant, Russel, Rant. And barns. 2/24/2006
Friday. Before the first day's shooting, in 10 hours' time.
As much as can be done has been done. Given the atrocious and notorious difficulty in getting people co-ordinated for a short film shoot. Surely some existentialist play can be found about the plight of a production manager. I'll do a quick calculation of how many people are involved in the direct production (not counting those severely affected by having their schedules rewritten: 33.
Special last minute thanks to Dylan, Noria, Jasper, Jonas(probably) for oystering.
Serendipity, too, as angloyrican poet Simon Pettet has agreed to zip up from the East Village to do a Haigha next weekend, amid a plethora (yea, a veritable plethora - the most common kind of plethora) of birthdays, viz: the missus; Jolie; Zoe W.... and a Baba Yaga gig... and a Will/Frank McG. 'event'... and some snow... all in MARCH. Zounds.
Thanks, too, to Philippe G. for letting not only us, but the Bacci use his basement.
Away from Alyce a while to preserve the sanities, and stop this looking like an Oscars speech...
In lab today, wrapped up the review of silent cinema, we took in some Vertov (dams, yarn spinners, farm implements, mass production lines and trams) some late Eisenstein (Nevsky and Prokofiev - a bit of a yuk on the lame mimicking of image to sound) the Bunuel/Dali 'Chien' and pop culture reference - Pixies 'Debaser' - and Triumph of the Will, which provoked a question, as I tried to pose another question, namely, is it a documentary? a mockumentary? a dramatic (pre)-construction or what? I was pointedly asked to call a spade a spade, viz: it is propaganda... but I don't think that word is a helpful category. What Leni Riefenstahl did in this film is more interesting and complex - and as I mentioned, in Olympiad, she nevertheless did show the 'truth' of Jesse Owens' leaps and races... I think unsere Leni is a very perfect illustration of where point of view in cinema is actually an ethical position, not (merely) an aesthetic position. How to criticise her compositions from a visual aspect? How to learn to read from the shot sequences and technical procedures, such as the smoothness and accuracy of certain tracking shots and the detauiled compositions of lights (lit torches) that THIS WAS NOT CAUGHT ON THE FLY. It was pre-arranged and mise-en-scene. in other words, the filmmaker was complicit in the intentions of the subject. This is bad enough when it's a sycophantic journalist interviewing an over the hill rockstar... but an extremely gifted filmmaker 'framing' Hitler?? And the other instructive (i.e. still useful) parallel of Leni as worshipped star of the Bergfilm as A.H. took solace in the dark screens. Then she, avid for his approval/career boost... then they become friends, companions, partners as much as he did with Speer and for much the same reasons. Sexual attraction apart. My hope would be not to make people deny that Riefenstahl was a gifted filmmaker, but to get them to be innoculated against the 'beauty' and get to the meat of the matter: what is actually being shown? How is it presented? How many layers of veneer are plastered over 'truth'?
And, thus, to break down the division between 'fact' and 'fiction' and relplace it with an appreciation of the importance of INTENTION, and how, the beauty and strength of cinema is dependent on tapping into the unmediated ability of the camera to see what is there in front of it. The ethical position being (much like the true scientific position of accepting the results of an experiment even if they contradict your hypothesis) how much of this raw truth you can transmit, or how 'cleverly' you can subvert it.
Trees rarely lie.
And I see this - and many other films - as revealing a core of what I look for in all films, those irreduceable moments (time/movement blocks) which are untouchable by the intentions of the filmmaker. the elements of chaos allowed in. Riefenstahl is an easy example, as she was a 'happy nazi'. but there's something in her style which I see and am revolted by in the works of many major filmmakers - some of whom have far from 'Fascist' political views. Filmmakers such as Hitchcock, or Polanski... or (sorry, sorry) Mike Leigh ... those who like to control what goes into their works. Against which, i would set people like Godard (him again) or Philippe Garrel... or Ozu... or Victor Erice, more on him in a few days.
I digress...
So - to clarify - my appreciation of Riefenstahl's Nazi films only heightens my dislike of her method, her willful ignorance (and not only hers...) that the partial truths she was recording (then excising) perfectly demonstrate the required mindset needed for a totalitarian state to come into being.
Very human, I suppose. We stopped our extract in the middle of an exquisitely shot speech by Hitler in Nuremberg, where he makes the utterly convincing, reassuring and reasonable statements - 'The State does not control Us... We control the State!' I believe that a careful reading of the style of this film should let us (i.e. should have let anyone in the mid-1930s) see how precisely false that statement was.
But then, I think cinema has something to tell us.
Finally, photos at top and bottom of Iyla's barn unadorned. Adorno-ed? See it dressed tomorrow.
)Nite.

Well, it is!
The room was dark. The fan was loud. Onscreen, 'La Jetee' caused severe ADD reaction (giggling and self-deprecation) in sweet young ladies. meanwhile, burlier young lads are ignoring the spectacle and googling 'stuff your cat' videois (no animals were harmed) untilthe second half, coming of older persons, some light-headedness in the air as costumes were drawn, sketched, torn up, demonstrated, planned, not quite, modified... IYLA: How do you feel about leggings, Will? WILL: Not good. Aforementioned Will (as actor) and Bacci (as director) at friendly loggerheads over interpretation of scene, skirmishing in the corridor. A suit! A blacklight! White Stripes! Lillian arrives with sprog in tow, which sprog (all point: you're an OYSTER!) procedes to fiddle with all laptops available. Two people playing warcraft, oh it's games night again, SANS SOLEIL viewed by Alex and Ace from the balcony like patricians, Phil of the Tweedle gang in back room trying in vainm to get his performance out of Minas Mordor... sleet... no late bus... Emmi, Noria, Bayla all talking at once to Phil, Trevor, Joe, Iyla all talking back at once.
I went and hid in the office with Taimetka, drank some of the poisonous Cafe Bustelo - el cafe preferido de la gran colonia hispanica en los EE UU.
Right.
Suddenly silence. Are the costumes ready?
Is there electricity in the Shornstein barn?
How many oysters did Trevor order?
Does the month have an 'R' in it?
How many beans make five?
and
Gregor cannot be as mad as Hatta, because he has a tech day on the 5th.
Tonight I will make an approach to Mikhail Horowitz. Perhaps and perhaps.
My spoon...
Trevor. Alyce part almost. Twins. Silence. 2/22/2006

This young man 'could be' in Caribou, Maine.
I just noticed his name is an anagram of VERTOV. Almost.
Late Wednesday night after a flurry of phone calls trying to get Saturday and Sunday’s ducks all in a row.
and call in all the teeming multitudes of cast and putative crew for tomorrow after school
and get the proper invites/ requests/ insurances for the formal locations… and then remind everyone that yes, it’s THIS Saturday, in three days. Ah well
Like I said, semi-professional. Is that half-full or half-empty?
Iyla, at least, keeps her feet on the ground, and adds the twin debacles of costumes and props into the mix.
Speaking of twins… cast back to Catskill, Gallery 384, Feb 11th/12th and look down at the films from England by Rich and Alex. Well, today, Rich (from London) called Russ (in Woodstock) about Alex (in Brooklyn) – or more precisely about Joy (also in Brooklyn) who has just given birth to twin girls. That’s what you get when you work with us: blessings.
Congrats to Alex, too. Well, don’t get me on that biological function of fathers thing or we’ll be here all night.
Interestingly, re-McLuhanite analyses of information transfer, a message had been left for me yesterday, from one Andrew?? Or Fred??? Who had had twins. In England. As it happens, unrelated Brummie best mate Steve (lady friend of) has also just gained girl twins.
Like bloody Triffids! What’s the world coming to? And where are mine?
Back to Alyce – spoke eye to eye with five of the six directors today – the exception being Becky – to impress the importance of being on time, and prepared in this post-Diner Man world. The Bacci said I was a good shepherder. Old English shepherd, eh? And the young lad at the top of this column let drop, in the nicest possible way, that ‘he could have gone to Caribou, Maine, instead of filming. Caribou? Did I mishear?
And all today, and tomorrow in the real film 101 class, we are doing Soviets. ‘Strike’ still stunning, exhilarated gabbing about overtonal montage, and Taimette’s shrewd enthusing about Eisenstein’s use of overlapping cutting to distort and finally liberate TIME… and myself waxing lyrical (?) about the rhythmic use of circles and diagonals in Potemkin.
Ah, they may be Classics, but they’re good classics.
Sometimes I wonder, aren’t we the cinematic equivalent of drug pushers? Hooking the kids on ‘quality’ modern stuff, but then slowly bringing out the real McCoy from the back room, reel by reel.
Imagine: Dreyer, Lang, Eisenstein, Pudovkin, Wiene, Murnau… and all this on chilly midweek mornings in Boiceville, NY. We even sneaked half of Chris Marker’s ‘Sans Soleil’ to a rapt (well, silent, at least) 10th Grade class.
It’s a conspiracy, I tell you.

This is before the shoot: actress screen left, cameraman screen right. And, yes, he did put it back in his mouth.
Funny old day.
With much hidden panic, a lot of first day nerves and some blunt-headedness, Diner man shot principal photography today. Decidedly we are not the most organized peoples in the world, but, again, we are not the least organizized neither.
Due to schedule entanglements, we arrived more or less on time, but ran into what I can only describe as ‘bureaucratic snarls’. Now, see, there is no such thing as a bureaucracy. There are only people. And if a so-called bureaucracy (from the Greek, literally ‘government by desks’), then the clear-minded revolutionary must say: comrade, I recognize that there is a system. But, comrade, you must not cite the system as the reason to prohibit or restrict us. For the true revolutionary, there are no systems, only peoples. And if you are the people standing in my way, well, sorry, you will just have to go.
Or something like that.
So to say, though as reported earlier in the blog, we had arranged all pertinent permissions to film in the diner, upon arrival, the same managerial person who had been so obstructive on the phone, was now claiming she had no information about any supposed ‘filming’ in the diner. Fortunately, at that stand-off moment, the owner’s partner ambled up, and agreed that any school project was OK as long as we were out by 5 p.m.
The manageress did not like this, but had to let us in (to a mostly empty diner). Of course, she did not have to be friendly or co-operative. Still, we got the scenes shot, despite the feet-to-the-fire of having to get out by 4.30 (this revealed only once the ‘boss’ had left).
I only cite this at length to warn you all – THESE THINGS HAPPEN ALL THE TIME. In such situations, best to pretend to be a bit dim and just get on with it. In the end, we got a lot of insincere saccharine smiles when we left, and to be fair, we behaved ourselves and got (most) of the needed scenes. Perhaps some close-up pick-up shots with Joe tomorrow. He was so fetching in his Fez.
On camera, Dan C. and Alyx were individually and collectively awesome (I have checked and listened and all is OK). In front of the cameras, the Bacci and Erin were really excellent. Ebullient and frisky, yet nailing the texts and their improves were both inventive and at times really touching. I’m really excited by what I’ve briefly seen.
Then, more than a mention must be made of Robin, who wrote and rehearsed the script. It was a big day for him, being but 14, and full of ideas, and I could see these idle ‘bureaucratic’ threats were upsetting him, (which is one reason why I cannot forgive or lessen the stupidity of such spiteful attitudes) but he really pulled it together, and full thanks and marks to the cast and crew for really pulling together and understanding the importance to the Director. Some of the visual ideas (you will see) look stunning.
I think everyone knows how hard location shooting is now. Even though, in fact, in the final end, nothing fell off the rails. A good day
Is there more? Well, it was quite a surreal day in many ways, and the two hour shoot took up 5 hours of transport and an extra two hours of prep, so, do your math. The final film will be around ten minutes long.
At least Michael’s Diner does great food. We stuffed ourselves.
Rule one (if possible): feed your crew… BEFORE. No food during.
And as a small antidote to the ultimately ineffective blocking in the Diner, let me say here how supportive and stress relieving David Epstein was today, relieving a lot of the pressure on his students who were on the shoot. It lent an air of honesty to the whole project (we tried to do everything by the book, even though at the last minute0 and gave us all the cohesion to ignore the contingent.
Or something like that.
And thanks to Taima for making us all watch the last 20 minutes of Dreyer’s ‘Joan of Arc’ as a prep.
Offbeat, but effective.

Daugavpils Blues 2/20/2006

And now, shortly before bedtime for a busy day tomorrow, some entertainment.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3594562762130893620&q=latvia+parkour
Do not try this at home. Go instead to Latvia.
I have a curious tale about 'free running', which as Will maintains, is all about not stopping... and which originated in the 'slum' suburbs of Paris - like the NY projects - in the early 1990s.
I am not one given to mysticism or crystal gazing. but this is something I recall quite clearly.
In 1984 and 1985 I lived in Paris, not in very salubrious surroundings, in fact in squats, on other people's floors and generally where I could, moving around with other young musicians, immigrants and ne'er-do-wells.... it's what young people do.
I had a dream in which the kids in the suburbs - disenfranchised Arabs, mostly, were leaping off tower blocks as a SPORT. While the whole thing (in the dream) looked suicidal, or of some odd symbolic meaning, but on closer examination I realised that the kids were not in fact leaping off 100ft drops, but were swinging onto balconies maybe 15ft below, thence leaping onto an overflow pipe, onto another balcony and so on, until they had ';fallen' to ground level.
When the phenomenon broke out into public view some years later, i was astonished. i had never seen such a feat, and was not sure how this parallelism had come about. Still, there you go.
One other 'extreme sport' was the high speed skateboarding some youths practiced hanging on behind cars and buses on the streets of the city. Somehow, that never caught on. I wonder if even the low level investment of a good skateboard made that an essentially middle class 'game?
For 'le parcours' all you need is your body. What is sure is that the 'Parkour' (i.e. the assault course) has spread all over Europe, and in the above clip, found the identical socio-economic niche in the ex-Soviet vassal state of Latvia - now independent and already part of 'Europe', whatever that might be. And what these kids are doing also feeds back to a conversation I had with a Ukrainian ex-paratrooper, concerning his training, in which the young men were taught how to leap off 60ft buildings and land safely
So, enjoy.
I can't help wondering, though - as a parent myself - if all those parents who bemoan their kids' lazy fixation with video games wouldn't prefer them to be doing this kind iof thing? Getting good physical exercise out in the fresh air?
Buster Keaton would have understood.

Diners. Producers. Godard. 2/19/2006
It’s a Sunday again, up I am, in the words or at least syntax of Yoda. With one or two problems to solve and a couple or few musings, too.
As an aside to the ALYCE production, and in part to a) test our organization and equipment, and b) to make sure other projects do not get left by the wayside, we are trying to shoot a ‘ready to go’ short film called ‘Diner Man’, a lovely tale of a young couple on the verge of breaking up, saved by the sage advice of a strange man found living under a table in a diner. The two problems here are typical of any student production. Though I must underline that two other problems are totally absent: a really good script has been written, and the actors – well-chosen – have rehearsed a few times and modifications have been made. So what are the problems, the frustrations? One, and worst, is getting the cast to be able to commit to a date. Then to organize all transport and necessary papers (four of the cast and crew are still in school). Lastly, as we will be shooting in an actual open diner, we have to fold to the demands of the owner – in this case a lovely fellow called Andy. Sadly, Andy is rarely at the diner, and for the last week, has not been there every time I called. I now have a more or less solid phone appointment for tomorrow morning at 0800. In pure technical terms, then, I do not know whether our locked down shoot date of Tuesday 2 p.m. is OK or not. This uncertainty is driving the writer/director nuts, even though he understands the need to get permission. And this is a key problem with the idea of getting our filmmakers out into the world, of using some professional actors, of using real, interesting locations: suddenly, the organization takes precedence over the creativity. Or so it seems. The alternative is to do things without permission (which means filming in abandoned factories) or in one’s own back garden, with friends (all actors the same age) and generally, too fast, too unconsidered and with little thought being paid to the LOOK of the film (even though many young directors have a great eye, if what they film is their pals in jeans and T-shirts, the dramatic and visual possibilities for their stories are very restricted, practically limited to forms of realism. BUT IT IS FRUSTRATING!
Which leads me passi paresseuse to a self analysis of why I make a bad producer. When faced by such blocks, my tendency is to pull out the Ninja outfit, don a black ski mask and set out like Scott of the Antarctic and film, Hell or high water. It certainly keeps one awake on a shoot. But I wonder if a new cinema movement should really be built up if it includes ‘scouts for police’ as necessary crew members?
On the subject of ‘Producers’, and believe me I’ve known a few, here are some words of warning, and some advice against paranoia. Paranoia, by the way, is the single worst trait anyone involved in film can have. So many things can go wrong, so many stupid obstacles can and will get in your way… just please don’t take it personally. You, as a filmmaker, are like a Jehovah’s Witness wandering through an uncaring world. Don’t expect the world to be very interested in your beliefs, however surely you hold them.
A propos, since living in and around Woodstock, I have come to know several J.Ws and find them to be really fine, upstanding people, far from the scary door-knockers of urban myth. A difficult path to choose, to be sure, but as afar as I can see, a path nobly held.
Producers are another matter entirely.
Your producer is a funny animal. There are two basic types, which I designate with a small “p” and a capital “P”: producers without money; and Producers with money. There are not many of the latter. A producer is anyone who declares, ‘I am a producer’. Producers, on the other hand, are few and far between. I have known a few. Now, oddly, there’s no value judgment attached to the small p/capital P distinction. I have had very good experiences with those of the lower case species; and also rather poor relations with some from the Upper case branch.
Not having money is far, far less serious than not having vision. In the end, money can always be gotten. (excuses to my English friends here for the barbaric archaism of ‘gotten’). Vision, is a trickier question. One of the nicest (and I mean that sincerely) producers I ever dealt with was forever running out of funds, or ‘forgetting’ to pay people, or simply disappearing literally into the jungle for months on end. Yet he was a charming man, and would always return my calls. He once paid me in large denomination banknotes in an underground car park in Rotterdam, but that’s another story. At the end of the day, that gentleman was a Producer, a) because he eventually did produce things and b) because he loved film. Producers of either breed who do not love cinema are bad news. Sooner or later they will reveal themselves to be accountants, dope fiends, fading Casanovas or gossip addicts. Some may even squeeze out some product, but no-one will get anything out of it.
I suppose, it all boils down to the religious question, again. Do you believe? I believe.
Really, these days, a producer has to be another filmmaker, at least potentially, then there’s room for development, and also room for conflict. I do not subscribe to the view of a French writer friend that a) all writers and filmmakers are essentially adolescent, and that therefore b) all producers are father figures, hence c) the two are inevitably in conflict.
Reasons for this are that a) I have produced, and not as a father-figure b) I am often 15 to 20 years older than my ‘fathers’ and c) many of these ‘fathers’ are women. Eat your heart out Mr. Freud.
Hmm… Poor Jerome did believe and behave that way, though. Our last contact was when he ‘betrayed’ his team of colleagues to his ‘father-producer’, and ended up the only writer on what had been a six writer project. Cain and five dead Abels...Families!
So, in conclusion, let me explain why I put a photo of Jean-Luc Godard here below. I have never really known how to place JLG, as I find many of his films impenetrable and pretentious. I am also deadly allergic to his heavy use of citation in his films. Yet, since the late 70s, I haven’t missed one of his releases (not quite true, but bear with me) because they always wake me up. And they are so clearly the vision and voice of one person, why should I be obliged to ‘like’ them all in one block? Don’t we all have close friends who can annoy us from time to time? I also believe Godard is one of the very few filmmakers who are at the same time undisputed auteurs, and also avid for collaboration. He is famously furious when actors just want to say their lines and will not go out on a limb. And his lack of formal restrictions make his films a boundless source of ideas cinematic and lightness. I do hold this latter to be the real gold of cinema, and so hard to achieve. For every dull scene with someone reading the back jacket of a paperback philosophy text, there are ten visual, aural epiphanies, and you never know where these will be found. I have often thought that some of his films are overrated as films – though adding it up, usually for all the wrong reasons, and for no fault of Godard’s own – but the point here is surely his entire body of work, from his accidental successes (A Bout de Souffle; Le Mepris; Prenom Carmen) to his ?intentional? flops.
What really did it for me – as I found myself enraptured more and more by his obscure 1980s and 1990s films (like Prenom; Soigne Ta Droite; or Detective) was a sudden sea change in French cinema criticism. For decades, JLG had been untouchable. ‘Tonton Jeannot’ (Uncle Johnny) was a genius, a very astute and funny TV guest star, touchingly pessimistic at times, headline making tempestuous at others. He happily insulted the great and the good of French cinema (Alain Delon was a ‘donkey’, Depardieu ‘only interested in the kudos’) and generally just survived. I often wondered whether this wasn’t just the (beloved) Emperor’s New Clothes, given a Gallic twist. After all, almost no-one ever went to see his films, and all his eulogistic biographies concentrated on his first ten years’ output, from ‘Breathless’ to ‘Weekend’ in 1969.
So I was surprised to read in le Monde in the late 1990s that Godard was a fraud. That is, he had no cinematic skill whatsoever, cobbled together his pieces from bric-a-brac and edited without rhyme, reason or plan. Some kind of charlatan who had fooled the French public for four decades. The writer was in his late 20s.
It seemed so outrageous to me that such a self-evidently (well, obviously not so ‘self-evident’, I guess) intricate and involved filmmaker could be called into question for his skills. I mean, he has made more than 50 movies, and does all of his own editing. There are moments in all of his films (all, without exception) where there’s some camera felicity, some play of light, some unexpected interaction of sound and image, or just some slipping away of the veil that the screen usually is, for it to be clear that Godard is searching for some truth, some beauty, some redemption of reality (to use Kracauer’s phrase for the real power of cinema) which makes his dismissal as any kind of impostor ludicrous.
And sometimes the whole film is like that.
More than that, though. Godard has been making films for the best part of 50 years now. Each film is anchored in its own time. What appeared to be annoying youthful tics now appear as steps toward a way of seeing. What used to annoy me as over quoting and homage are now obviously a manifestation of a love of cinema, and a deep respect for those who came before him.
Godard is still there, up in his Swiss loft, cutting his own movies at the rate of one every two years.
Who else has ever dwelt on a cloud formation hesitantly (mis)framed by probably a camera assistant? Or on a chance reflection barely seen in a train window? Or managed to get a moment of intimate truth out of the play of light on a young woman’s face? An intellectual aesthete who adores Buster Keaton and Jerry Lewis (yes, better listen to him). Contradiction. Cinema.
Here he is, below, in his seventies.

Clarity. Parity. Charity. 2/18/2006
Another Friday night. I have been banned from the current Baba Yaga concert as I embarrass my son. Nevertheless, the band are putting out a cd in the coming weeks, and I hope to have a side project dvd to go along with it. A chance to go a bit mad, I think.
This summer, as I manfully chopped and spliced the video journals of half a dozen teenage girls for a friend’s webcast project, I asked him a question. Himself was a veteran Hollywood producer and screenwriter/director with several feature films under his belt. As I had not made a ‘real film’ for a year and a half, I asked how long a ‘filmmaker’ could go since their last film, before they had to stop considering themselves a filmmaker. He snorted and said, “About 20 years”. Personally I reckon 2 years is closer to the mark, and I am at that point now, so better get moving. And by a ‘proper film’, I mean one which I want to make for itself, for myself… not a commission, a favor or a task.
This, in itself, shouldn’t be taken to mean that I don’t have a confidence in what I’m doing, or don’t appreciate the chances I’ve had, nor take pleasure in the little day to day manipulations of sound and image… but I cannot hold with those minor artistes such as myself who give themselves the airs and graces of an Orson Welles or a Bergman. There are tens of thousands of people out there working on respectable stuff, and doing what they can to eke out a living. Better do something worthwhile before bandying yourself about as a ‘filmmaker’ or other badge of honor. As John Lennon said re-George Martin being a major influence on the Beatles: “Where’s his ****ing music, then?”
There, diatribe over. Must work harder
Perhaps it’s a Friday, but
at which point I was called to act as taximan in Woodstock
Back now at midnight, which means that technically I made no post yesterday. Woe is me. The telltale signs of slipping. Soon I’ll be asking for a raise. Or at least parity. All those zero sum numbers.
…a Friday night but, meaning the low energy point of the week, masked by elation that the next early morning is the maximum amount of time away. My adolescent poetry, ‘the dread of Mondays”. Hasn’t changed.
There were things I wanted to say today. Yesterday… oh, all of the above on the necessary humility to balance out the equally necessary arrogance.
ALYCE NEWS
Three items: 1) spoke with Phil Levine who has agreed to be Tweedledee, mafioso 2) John Kelly Jr. confirmed use of Manor House, Bard on Sunday March 6th for the Tea Party, which will be our last mass shoot 3) snagged Nathan who confirmed himself as the march hare - a reprise of his BSP role, so ‘ee better be good. Oh yeah, and an anxious 4) is that Trevor asked me to be the Tweedledum, because I have a suit and am the same age as Phil, give or take, also I look like I come out of Lock, Stock and… O.K. you been warned…
Courtesy of Ben, listened to a long (2hr30) piece a collage of rock and traditional musics in juxtaposition. Like the radio must be in heaven. Included an unbelievably clear version of ‘Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands’ in analog… which caused me to get thinking about a written piece about open source software, copyright violations, the rights to collage, Paul Simon and ‘Gumboots’ and why African-Americans are allowed to play the piano, a non-African instrument. It all makes sense, but I expect it’ll take several months to think through. Don’t be surprised to catch me mumbling to myself though, about appropriation, ‘reasonable usage’ and post-modernism. OK?
Apparently, the dog’s head on the portrait at the top of this column is because St. Christopher did not want his representation to be like Christ, therefore chose a dog out of humility. There is some twisted link, therefore, I believe, between that religious motif and the position of the artist. To be a Christo-pher (a Christ bearer) but not a Christ. And to wear the dog’s muzzle with pride.
Also thought that religious subjects fit the cinema so well (Dreyer’s ‘Joan of (sublime) Arc; Bergman’s ‘Winter Light’; Bresson’s ‘Diary of a Country Priest) not because cinema is an apt medium, but because cinema itself is religious. A cinema is itself a form of church. And nothing so religious as the empty country cinema. In England, those places have been turned into supermarkets. In America, former churches have become restaurants. Shopping and eating. You pays your money and you takes your choice. Me, I’ll stick with the cara de perro.
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ALYCE, THE MOVIE 2/16/2006

Hard Facts. Fensterlos. Werner Herzog. St. Mungo's. GPS and resolution. 2/16/2006
Like a dwarf covered in honey, tonight I will be short and sweet.
Sat with Iyla in a windowless room (Fensterlos) and made up call sheets. These are not writ in stone, and like the Universe are susceptible to the constant battle between order and chaos, but until further notice they are the schedule.
Sat Feb 25th - morning Trevor/Tweedles
Sat Feb 25th - late morning/afternoon: Becky/Caterpillar
Sunday 26th Feb - Bacci/Cheshire Man
Sat March 4th MORNING ONLY - Dan/Trial (possibly at OPUS 40?)
Sun March 5th - ALL DAY - Tea Party - Bard College, Manor House
All participants have their call sheets, and will duly be contacted by Iyla and/or myself.
Next week is to design and build the costumes, make sure there's a real cast reading of every piece, and arrange a modification of the dialogues to fit the speech patterns of the actors. removal of consonant clusters, tongue twisters and slack alliterations. Then to gather costumes and props.
Otherwise, we are as close as we need be, and will not kill the feeling with over rehearsal.
The picture above has been floating around for a few weeks, and finally we got it squished into a USB port and thence onto the web. Luvverly stuff.
In the wider world I learn that Werner Herzog is appearing at a college not too far away. Mixed feelings, though I'd like to meet the man. What was that Loch Ness mockumentary? Does he now lurk in Californian bushes waiting for famous actors to overturn their cars? Probably not.
In a parallel life, with T. we managed to defeat a grizzly software which was mangling our soundtrack, or more accurately, that of an esteemed colleague. The problem, it seems was when transferring the sound file from CD format - which samples at 44,100 Hz - into DV movie format, which samples at 48,000 Hz. So - nerdy friends - watch out for surreptitious compression artifacts. Or master at 48K.
Oddly enough, yesterday I Skyped my old mate and sound engineer extraordinaire Martin Hedley, over in London and we did not talk of things sonorous or techie. Martin has many strings to his bow(s), but we have often spoken of the fact that as video camera sound, and audio/visual software (like Avid or Final Cut) "progress", the tendency is not to use the progress to make finer and finer works, but to drop out other elements altogether, to cut corners and get it 'nearly as good'. hohoho. . To be concrete: as in-camera sound and the sound manipulation capabilities of image editing software increased in versatility, often sound capture became left to the cameraman, while the image editor is supposed to ';take care of' the sound at the same time. Of course, it don't work. And of course, conscientious filmmakers don't consider this. But the fact is that only the highest quality productions will now give separate posts for a sound recording team (team! what an idea...) and the sound editor is becoming an overworked speciality job for image editors.
The other resiult is that sound recordists and engineers and mixers and editors must now fight harder to find fewer and fewer jobs. Nice that we are going to be looking at early (optimistic) Soviet film next week, as I must get me dialectical muscles working. yes, as technology progresses (said Bakunin?) the 'saved labor' is not spread out as a generalized increase in leisure, but rather, fewer and fewer people are obliged to work harder and harder,(for more and more remuneration and status, perhaps) while the others... don't.
Martin, fortunately has other skills to call upon, as well as his reputation which makes him a sought after collaborator.
Maybe in a few posts we can talk about St. Mungo's.
Meanwhile, I sit here in West Hurley... oh, this is how my head works... where do I live? It's like definition on a google-earth map. depends where you are, what the resolution is. For most people, i live in America. Most friends realise I live in New York, but that means 'upstate New York'... or Woodstock... whereas, at the highest resolution, it's actually West Hurley.
Where are you? In the world. In world.
Well as I sit in West Hurley, Ben's Black/Noise III slash music/consciousness/gender is flying over the heartlands to Idaho. Ben, himself somewhere west of Chicago... where are we? in the world.
Goodnight. That's the highest resolution.

Of Toyotas, Zen tricks. And moustaches. 2/15/2006
Alas poor Trogdor! Well, the fellow gave up the ghost quite near home this evening and just refused to go on. So it’s the garageman for him for a couple of days. For once, the back seat was not full of teenagers returning home or expensive film equipment. Nor was I stranded 53 miles from nowhere in a snowstorm. All of which because I remember once saying this blog was going to be ‘live’ and about the little vagaries of a film production. This one, then: transport failure. What are my backup plans ?(steal wife’s car); what is my budget contingency for such mishaps? (nil) What are the longterm plans? (ask me tomorrow). All questions a production manager would need to answer right now. As my Trogdor may well be repaired and thus one of the steeds used for the production. But if not, then what?
Mixed news from John Kelly at Bard. The paneled room in Manor House is good for one of the next three weekends (logistics suggest pushing this Mad Hatter’s tea party to the first weekend (or even second) in March
Thus, no filming this weekend. It had seemed from the vantage point of three weeks ago, that Presidents’ Day weekend would be the ideal time to shoot at least three of our five and a half segments. But many parents (spare us the concept!) are using the effective four day weekend to take a break, or visit relatives or anyway and significantly to NOT BE HERE. <’P>Meanwhile the Tweedles and the caterpillar segments are dramatically about ready – Jesse and Jolie need to meet up (this weekend???) for a reading… and we hope to scope Opus 40 for locations for Dan/The Trial (wonder if he might integrate some Kafka in there???) too.
Excuse my adhd but re-transport contingency I recall a shoot in Tuscany which had one expensive but inappropriate vehicle, driven by one not altogether professional driver. Aforesaid driver could keep it together to be up on time, drive safely and get us to the shoot when we needed to be there…. Bbut then would drive off to have a private tour of the Italian countryside while we worked. Once, they drove off with the tripod in the van. It’s these things which make filmmaking such a joy – having to put up with a fuming cameraman all day, hang about in a field for an hour waiting for the driver to return, then try not to commit an act which is a sin in many countries and a crime in all when the ‘driver’ returns flushed with the wonders of ancient architecture. A zen experience, I suppose. Lessons learnt from this? Have a reliable backup plan. Even if it’s only a friend with another car. Ask them in a quiet room, and make sure they expect to be called. Then if you don’t, everyone’s happy. But if you need them, everyone will love you for your foresight. Just tricks, really
And today, away from this megalomania of planned productions (heaven forfend), today our Joe took a great idea by Noria – but made her film it there and then. The result: a hilarious one minute bite about German Expansionism in the late 1930s. All done with two stream of consciousness accents and two mini moustaches. Tomorrow we edit. You will see. We had our consensus: it’s our first end of year film.
What else? The first day of spring? After all that frigidity?
And next week, Mr. G. Trieste will appear to read in the revamped version of the Tea Party. The Directors promised to try not to be in detention for this. But they added “it will be hard”.
Did Irving Thalberg have to put up with this?
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Valentine's Daycorns. And detention. 2/14/2006

It's little things like this which make life worthwhile, I guess.
Funny old day what with gastro-enteritis striking left and right, and of the six directors, this: one fell in love last night, two are in detention, one was diligently asking about filing systems in Final Cut Pro and hooked to a Korean horror movie, one absent enjoying new skill of driving and one just not there - another detention? - (though present through the day in good humor)
on the other hand, saw an awesome location for the wrap party. A long day. And this photo from Saugerties main Street.
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Explaining socks. Hitler. Feisty English rockstars. 2/13/2006
Empiricism Sometimes it’s good just to start with what’s in front of you. In this case – on the table.
a white iBook, Nokia cellphone, Kracauer book ‘From Caligari to Hitler’, CD player with 3 cds: ‘This Heat’, ‘No Escape from The Blues’ by James Blood Ulmer and (!) ‘In Camera’ by Peter Hammill; an old diary with a satellite photo of Europe on the cover; William Gibson’s latest ‘Pattern Recognition’; a bag with a few of my old dvds in it; an envelope from the bank (empty); a pen; a Polish ceramic teabag depository, the manual from the Nokia phone (open, face down), a capodastro, and three (clean) socks.
Oh, and a half full (or half empty) bottle of Saranac rootbeer.
Which of these things needs explaining? None of them! I hear you cry. Well, I’ll do three, just as an exercise. You see, there’s a method behind this madness.
The socks don’t match. They don’t even fit. Anyone, though they once did, I suppose. Socks are some kind of barometer to the Universe with a capital ‘u’, whence they come, whither they go, their quantum leaps. How a manly size 12 can turn into a strangulating size 3 after just one wash, and why are the two chunky ones now in a ménage-a-trois with a flimsy nylon heel sock. The perversity of socks. At least they’re all clean. If not cleansed.
Peter Hammill is and especially was an English singer/songwriter of the early 70s fame, but he’s still out there, and not at all a comfortable James Taylory, smiles and old favorites type. He was a huge influence of the Bowie of ‘Low’ and ‘Heroes’ and this ‘In Camera’ is rather harrowing. He is smart, has a good ear for melody and never liked repeating himself, or even verse-chorus-verse structures. Success, therefore, eluded him, but unlike many of his contemporaries, he did not burn out nor neither give up. There’s probably a well-informed entry in Wikipedia. Who could resist a 20 minute industrial thrash on what is in part a ‘folk’ album?
OK, the third is… ‘Caligari’. Sigfried Kracauer’s book on German Expressionist cinema, as seen through the prism of Hitler’s rise to power and German Kultur’s descent into Hell. I have been meaning to read this for years, so: why now? Because I am giving/attending a short course on cinema history which begins with aforementioned Germans. And I do not know my subject well enough to spout on it (not that it usually stops me…) and rather fancy the media/politics link.
Oh drat, drat and double drat! I had promised myself to keep A.H. out of the blog, but there you go, he’s an intrusive bugger once the wider perspective is taken. Hitler, by the way, adored cinema, and had a real love affair with the glamour of the German version of Hollywood, seeing very clearly (as had the Soviets, more of which next week) the importance of controlling the mass ‘entertainment’. Tragically for Hitler (and why should he not shoulder a little tragedy?) almost all of the talent he wooed then commanded fell into one of three groups: Marxist, homosexual or Jewish. Sometimes all three. Legends abound of narrow escapes, mistaken allegiances and defections. But it remains a statistical fact that one the Nazi machine took over the film industry, most of the talent fled. Even though (according to Fritz Lang) Goebbels confided knowingly ‘We decide who’s Jewish’.
To Hollywood, just in time to meet the birth of sound and fuel the Golden Age. Those who willingly stayed behind, such as the astonishing Pabst, or the odd Leni Riefenstahl had bet on the wrong horse. But it doesn’t invalidate their skill or the quality of their films. To quote but two: ‘Pandora’s Box’ and ‘Olympiad’. So, a fascinating read ahead for me about a complex and fascinating time.
As a historical curiosity, the old UFA Studios in Berlin are now back in full production, known as Babelsberg (how Borges would have loved the irony) and churning out lots of low budget horror films for the US market, alongside German soaps.
It is impossible now to watch the amazing megalomaniac fantasies such as ‘Metropolis’, ‘Nosferatu’, ‘Siegfried’ or ‘the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’ without sensing the horrors of Nazism just around the bend. To Kracauer’s credit, he saw it at the time.I think that will do for tonight. I hope the ALYCE crew saw the location videos from Bard, in my forced absence. Tomorrow will tell.

Prithee not... 2/13/2006

Quite what this is doing at Indie, I have no idea. It is certainly a 'found object' of Gallic origin. A fair translation would be 'Please do not park in front of this door'. But I prefer the archaically less correct (perhaps?) 'Prithee to not station yourself before this portal'. So much has been lost since Elizabeth I's times, think ye not?
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Without list. Short dutiful posting. And Rumanian crocodiles. 2/12/2006
Sunday night. I know the doldrums are a real place, and tropical, but it feels like winter doldrums today. Is all the world waiting for a snowstorm? Well, there wasn't one up here on the hill. We trundled down to Kingston in Trogdor and the place was deserted, R. cursing himself for not bringing a camera to capture scenes for his zombie post apocalypse movie 'Gander Mtn.' of which more at a later date.
Word from comrade Miguel in Paris. He has a forthcoming screenwriting book to be published in BA - that's Buenos Aires to us landlubbers. That will be worth a read - I have the MS still here, and it informed a large part of the OS article. Acronyms!
Nothing more on ALYCE today, though I did get a call for Diner man and tried to rustle up the two principals for a short scene of Miranda. Projects! it's projects as will kill us all.
But the snow was too sparse; the actors in different townships and transportless; and the light dying due to my wholly unprofessional habit of lying comatose until noon of a Sunday. Unshaven, too. the idea is to let the face lie fallow for a day, thus avoiding build up of unsightly rash. just hope you don't run into the Queen. Or, if you do, affect a French accent, puff on an imaginary ciggy and say 'Life's sheet; get used to eet'. That should do it.
Just back from the Regalk, where Harrison Ford's latest taut thriller 'Firewall'. Somehow, I can stand these emty vessels. At least there's some visual flair, anmd a lot of care taken to make the story opaque and internally consistent. Mindless rubbish? perhaps. But absorbing rubbish. Now for La Jetee before sleep.
A listless day which turned out alright. Till tomorrow then.
Oh, a nice tidbit from Rumania: a soccer team chairman hit upon an unusual way of deterring hooligans: build a moat around the pitch and fill it with live crocodiles. The town planners are said to be 'considering' the project. As I said above... 'Projects...'

Images of a Saturday night. Virtual snow. and what Cats do. 2/12/2006
It’s almost midnight, and here I sit. No snow. Catskillers were scuttling home as early as 6pm. What is it with people? An internet threat of precipitation and they all hide under patchwork quilts. Whatever happened to episteme? All those inaccurate media. Just waiting for an excuse I fear.
But we were doughty. Clumped together in a deserted room, surrounded by flickering monitors. Hesus Hristos, there warnt even any snow on the monitors! But here’s how it went: cyclical Indie films (Manual; Runaway Ball; Cool Enough… oh, the usual suspects) with Sans Soleil playing illegally, out of its region, and mute, on a laptop in the corner (on a rocking chair, for extra comfort). More Indie things on a monitor, and a very sexy Baba Yaga video running without sound on another wall. Just think of all the copyrights we were violating. Not to mention the beer. And Peter was nailing down a new floor even as we plugged in the first projector. And a propos of that…
Mark well that while dvd players and cameras can play films; and monitors, TV screens, projectors and laptops can show them; little thin metal and plastic delivery systems called CABLES are needed to connect the As to the Cs. Do not make Peter responsible for these items. The man thinks they are all the same. You know: cables! I mean, would you go into a barbers and ask for a ‘haircut’? Or go into a bar and ask for a ‘drink’? Well, don’t just grab a bunch of wires and call them cables. For, as T.S. Eliot said: a wire is a wire; and a cable is a cable. And ne’er the twain shall meet. I think. Or summat.
Anyway, we got it all to work. To flesh out the show, we used some English alien oddness, viz: North Sea Circle and Accordion Crossover, as well as the truly bizarre fun of Anarchy in the Ukulele. Thanks Alex and Richard. More copyright violations. Ach!
Also present was a large part of the Griffin Clan. They know who they are. Berets were worn, and eyes kept on the rest of us.
The turnout was decent, considering the inclemency. Or imagined inclemency. Thai food ensued, as it often does. And the conversation became frankly unprintable. Prurient topics were broached, and travelers tales told. Many involved expulsion of partly digested meals in inconvenient places. Others involved recounting previous personal embarrassments, now overcome through the passage of years and minor surgery. Opinions were canvassed and given on such diverse subjects as the age of sexual consent in Iceland, meeting God in Tibet, colonial wives, hitchhiking in the third world, cigarettes for non-smokers as currency, attitudes to corporal and capital punishment, the placidity of the indigent population, the relative merits of Vassar and Oberlin colleges, and the aggressive flatulence of female rugby prop forwards. We cleared the restaurant, though that may have been co-incidence. I mean, what is offensive about internal organs and bodily fluids. Note that little or no alcohol was involved in this convivial banter. Just wholesome tiredness following a job well done, in an atmosphere of indulgent camaraderie.. Oh Yus.
Then, party poopers that we are, the Woodstock contingent drove off into the cloudless (and a fortiori snowless) skies. Well, not actually into the skies, but under them. No snow.
Greatly missed was Chimi, but there she was, all flat on the wall, guitar in hand, in one of her endless variety of T-shirts. Someone should sponsor the grrrl.
A success? Yes, guardedly. We will fail better next time; more correcter cables; dvd decks which actually work and a little hole drilled into the streetfrontage window so a speaker cable (another cable there…) can be slipped through,
Peter was last seen seated in his hidey hole, while Battle of Algiers was beaming onto the deserted main street, still awaiting its first snowflake. ‘Goodnight Irene, Goodnight, Goodnight’ wafting on the frigid air from a cracked loudspeaker. And on the side of a deserted patrol car, this legend: Cats Kill Police.
Ah, America!

My Big Fat Friday Night Rave 2/10/2006
(Homer Simpson voice) Woo-hoo, it's Friday night!
Now, I know what bigshot producers are supposed to do on Friday nights, so I'll try my best. Cut loose, live large and grab the big brass ring. N'est-ce pas? Right. So, it's almost eight o'clock, I'm plum tuckered out, and I'm going to bed as soon as I've finished this short blog/ or drunk my Saranac root beer, whichever is the shorter.
As far as ALYCE goes, that was quite a week. Today's trip to Bard saw yet another occasion of the good grace and goodwill which is being extended to us. The head of Bard 'space management' (i.e. the guy who allows us or not to film in Bard) Mr John Kelly Jr., proved to be as affable and helpful as anyone could wish - despite the fact that I arrived a little late, at the wrong building (Ward Manor, not Manor House) and forced him to eat into his afternoon schedule to see me. Result - we have a magnificent panelled dining room IN THE WARMTH to shoot the Tea Party scene, and have permission to shoot in the English garden at Blithewood. Pictures to follow, once I jpeg the videos I shot of these locations.
What came up in lab class about knowing your locations as a springboard for script or shooting ideas was so clear and obvious. In this case, the winding vines set stark against the white columns of the garden, give weird shapes and contrasts to shoot through. And the noise of gravel underfoot, coupled with the SILENCE all around. How common is that around here? Or if the place is under snow??? Well, we'll all see that soon enough.
Tomorrow's word is S-N-O-W and I don't know how that will effect the secret Catskill Indie show. I really do enjoy driving in the snow, but suspect this is some disjunct, as I know it's not a great idea. On the other hand, my trusty car 'Trogdor' isn't very good at going fast, or doing hills, or even going very far. But snow? Trogdor does snow magnificently. On road, off road, inna ditch. It's even got a 'secret' 6th micro gear for starting. And it's white. Now, that's a stealthmobile. Might restrict the forays to Hurley Ridge Market though, for vital supplies, because a day in bed sounds pretty good too. Scott of the Antarctic, or the venal sin of sloth? Them's yer choices.
Will also in the next two days, post you a photo of what a NY snowstorm looks like, for our readers in foreign lands.
Now it's time for the shipping forecast... Dogger... Finister... Rockall... and German Bight.
Good night.

General de Gaulle. Readings. Alyce meets her makers. Fernando Garcin Romeu. 2/9/2006
I am a bad man
.Seems I’ve been intermittently grouchy today. I certainly ‘shouted’ at (or employed too heavy sarcasm with) one or two… no excuse really. Music soothes the savage breast, then. Listening to Gorillaz and grabbing loose scraps of paper together. Such constitutes my life. Not that I mind being rude to people, you understand, but I like to do it deliberately. General de Gaulle once said that a gentleman is a person who is never vulgar… accidentally.
A surprising number of political figures of the 20th century seem to be finding themselves in these notes. Whoever next? Is ‘favorite obscure 20th century politician’ an Oscar category? It should be. My vote would go to Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings. Look it up. Though, like any ‘successful’ leader, huge question marks must be drawn over his hanging onto power.
I will have a hard time getting that to link to today’s activities…
Which were
loud, sweaty and frantic conference room meeting with all the directors, to get their script modifications onto paper, fulsome cataloguing from Iyla, who whipped at least two of the productions into schedule shape and fixed dates. Despite ‘Dance Flurry’. Well, one must dance. And while that was going on upstairs, Jolie was not merely meeting ALL THE DIRECTORS (this is a minor miracle in itself and perhaps I should quit now while I’m ahead) but also did a reading with each one, in camera, followed by a host of cuts, additions, re-pacings and required prop lists.
Now you might wonder why a starting pistol (or a bell!) is needed in the Mad hatter’s Tea party. Or why we ended up debating half chewed enchiladas, or spacing out Becky’s piece with as much care to silences and gestures as to words, or saw that Dan is a formidable actor as well as imaginer (i.e. one who thinks in images). But that’s what happened.
Jolie showed her experience in the fluidity of her reading, and asked just the right kind of generative questions to move the script along. Becky was a model of clarity, and it’s very encouraging to see how she’s taking this segment several notches higher than her previous already high efforts. It’s going to be very good.
As to locations, though I don’t want to jump the gun before tomorrow’s Bard trip, we already have another more local spot for Becky’s scene. And her reasons and justifications make 100% sense. Small crew, no outside interference, no pressure of time.
This latter is a core preoccupation, and a big worry, a big trap not to dig for oneself. What does ‘professional’ mean? Obviously not that we get paid. That we are big boys and girls? Not neither. Efficient? Maybe, but being efficient and concise is the last skill learnt. It’s the result of experience and not the goal. Nothing can be worse than trying for a spurious efficiency and ‘getting the job done’. Let a few loose ends dangle and make your own film at your own pace.
Then we could go into the positive meanings of the word ‘amateur’, too. To ‘love’ something, to do it of and for itself, to do it until it is right, or as right as you can make it.
And to enjoy it. It’s a huge infallible warning sign that if you are not enjoying filmmaking, then something is very wrong. Serious? Gimme a break. On a large crew shoot in 1996… actually I just mistyped 1196, which looks splendid. Is he really that old? Doesn’t look a day over 800… yeah, 1996, I had prided myself on having discovered a ‘new’ way of working with actors… dispensing with the ‘rolling’ ‘camera’ ACTION!’ of Hollywood, or any ‘big boys’ production. We did it all with looks, nods, slight hand gestures, eye contact with the actors. All very nice, and zen-like in a way. No slates, even, if we wanted to pick up a shot on the fly. Ah, but I had forgotten that I had a ‘fully professional’ crew, including a 1st AD (First assistant director) who said nothing as we developed our language of the deaf, but – right before the actors rolled into ‘that perfect take’, clapped her hands and yelled (yes, YELLED!!) ‘SILENCE ON THE SET!!!’. And all my illusions in tatters. That’s when my grey hair began.
Also have had the sound guy suddenly decide he’d discovered a fantastic way of miking up the shot, which would require another hour to unpick gaffer tape (expensive duct tape) and rethread wires, undress and re-dress the actors and – while we’re at it – shift the cameras by 90 degrees. When I used my consummate skills as an explainer, he shrugged, said ‘well, it’s your film, mate’ and stalked off to sulk. Times like that, you (the director) look about, seeking eye contact with the cameraman, the actors, even the 1st AD to see if it’s you or him that’s insane.
Naked, and no joke. And how do you think actors feel?
Anyway, looking forward greatly to tomorrow’s photoshoot – the pics of Bard will be up in the next two days, if all goes well.
Who would the patron saint of film shoots be? Not St. Jude, I hope. Though it may be.
And now a new category
Reader’s letters.
Anonymous seems to be posting a lot. Re- who’s next after Iraq. You read it here first: 1)Iran 2)Cuba 3)Russia 4) Phoenecia. And, to Gracehoper, you must meet my Iranian colleague, high compatibility rating. And, to ‘T” – OK, I’ll leave orf Joe’s legs, if you’ll leave orf ‘disc images’. Very aetherial it gets in those early morning pep sessions before our mammalian brains have awoken. The reptile brain may be unpleasant, but it does express itself, er, pithily. BRING US GOOD COFFEE. And. Last and far from least – the Shakespeare clips of Alyx and Monica are awesome. Really awesome. And a huge, huge help today – by which I mean, very focused, thoughtful, having repeated good ideas and making time and energy appear for the rest of us, was Noria. I am hoping she will attach herself to the general production as ‘script’. Oh, we’ll go into that vital post tomorrow. Today was a real production office.
So, tonight, I can sleep.
Oh, a PS
Welcome a reader in Spain. benvinguts, Fer. Sigo pensando en ti. Un abrazo. Sabes que te refiero como el (jovencito) Bob Dylan de Espana. Bueno, y yo el Orson Welles? No... no tan gordo y sin talento. Un abrazo. R
It's friends that will save us all.

Locations. Feedback. Cuba. And Tony Soprano's legs. 2/8/2006
As they used to say on the BBC… “and now we welcome listeners from New Zealand…” (or South Africa… or that mysterious land: BBC2). Well, now we welcome readers from outside the Indie immediate, to wit, Bard College Film department, especially John Pruitt who has been quietly working behind the scenes to help our Vico project (see previous blog) … Friday we have a meeting with the encouraging powers that be at Bard to look into locations and move us along asap. More news anon. But whatever, some readers now will be from Bard, and I hope we can come together on ALYCE as the first of many collaborations. I would also like to encourage you (yes, YOU) to feed back via the little doohickey at the end of each post. I will reply or work something relevant into the next posting. The wife told me she prefers polyphony, which I guess means ‘shut up’ and stop rambling. It’s not rambling, it’s guerilla propagation of ideas. So there.
As our amigos in Cuba seem to be being set up for a fall, down in la Habana, and as I do see a lot of parallels between our strivings as independent filmmakers and that of visual artists in ‘third world’ countries, it’s a bit of a case of what Flann O’Brien used to call HOHA. Hit one, hit all.
Not that all or even most films need be political. But breathing is political, too (in the sense that dissident voices are supposed to stop doing it and die). And here’s a first feedback to my earlier use of the terms ‘socialist’ and ‘anarchist’. Of course, when ‘redefining’ one is supposed to find the common ground and mollify (but where can one find a Molly at this time of night?), I suspect it’ll only make things worse.
So let me state clearly here:
THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN THIS COLUMN ARE WHOLLY THE AUTHOR’S OWN AND IN NO WAY REFLECT THE OPINIONS OF INDIE OR ANY OTHER PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THE COLUMN
isn’t that how it goes on the deluxe dvd releases of left-field films these days? So here’s two ‘socialist’ experiences from the past.
I met a young Cuban filmmaker, Arturo Soto, a couple of years back and was interested to hear how he felt about Castro, and the regime in Cuba. Arturo gave a little laugh (like asking a recalcitrant student what he or she felt about their principal…) ‘El Viejo likes film’ he said. In fact, Castro makes an eager nuisance of himself down at the film school, sitting in on dailies and watching rough cuts. I think they’d rather he didn’t. I asked if there was any direct censorship. None. And Arturo’s films were pretty critical of the state of affairs in Cuba, all the shortages, the stupid bureaucracy and the frustration and boredom of life.; yet it was quite clear that Arturo and his generation were rather proud of Castro, ‘el Viejo’ (the Old Guy), and very determined to hang on to the ‘freedoms’ he’d won for them. Complex. I was especially interested in the views of the 24 year old, as he’d grown up entirely within the system, was very lucid about its shortcomings, and eloquent in exposing them, yet he had no desire to ‘go Hollywood’. Even though he certainly could have made more and bigger budget movies in L.A. or New York. And I’d rather trust his inside opinion of life in Cuba than the doctrinaire views of second generation immigrants from Miami. Or of rump politicians anxious to get their playgrounds back. Anyway.
The other story is of being invited onto the location set of a Liv Ullmann film (‘Faithless’, from an Ingmar Bergman screenplay) a couple of years back. Admittedly the scenes being shot were filler for an interlude and there was no direct sound. Still. The ‘crew’ was the director, the cameraman, two actors. I was present because I’d worked briefly ‘criticizing’ the script and was rewarded with the visit. They shot two takes, then the cameraman carried his own camera across a river to get a long shot. While he did this, the actors talked with us and Liv Ullmann brought us all coffee from a big thermos. Ten minutes later when the camera was set up, everyone snapped back to attention and they shot the remaining long shots. There was a crystal clear division of functions, but absolutely no visible hierarchy. The whole shoot had taken half a day, almost all the footage shot is in the film. And the film won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. I realized while I was there, wandering along a lakefront chatting about Norwegian films, that these were the serious people, and that this is where I wanted to be. In this kind of seemingly nonchalant ‘structure’. Well, they made it look easy.
It isn’t.
Which, I suppose is how I would parse\an-archy in filmmaking. Without rulers. I believe this is a point made by the ‘V’ character in the upcoming ‘V for Vendetta’. That anarchy without altruism and seamless understanding of who must do what, is chaos. And we’ve already got one of those…
Lighten up.
In project time today, young Monica gave a rendition of Lady Macbeth’s ‘out damned spot’ speech which actually silenced the whole class. And she looked as though she meant it. Very intense glares and some great images. Have to cut it all together with her tomorrow.
Later, costume design for ALYCE degenerated rather. Someone had hidden me sharpies. The sketch I drew as an example (only an example, as I really cannot draw) was supposed to be the Queen of Hearts, but (I was told) looked like a fat transvestite. The quick addition of stubble to legs and cheeks confirmed this. To my horror, I realized I had been visualizing Bob Hoskins (or Tony Soprano) in the role. I thought I was doing Uma Thurman. But no. This was an illusion caused by fatigue and Boiceville market chicken salad sandwiches.
Joe refuses to go with the fishnet tights thing but has agreed to wear rabbit feet. He’ll crack eventually. I have many carrots at my disposal.
Upstairs right now, my wife and son are having a loud … er… ‘discussion’ about various versions of ‘House of the Rising Sun’. D. contends that Bob Dylan’s version is the best. R. holds out for The White Stripes. Personally, I prefer the Animals, but I’m down here and I’m not making a peep.
Could the rabbit wear a kilt, a sporran and a dirk?? Instead of a corset?? Tartan is very fetching, Joe…
Someone seems to be doodling ‘Paint It Black’ on Ocarina. I can’t work under such conditions. Goodnight, Irene.
P.S> You’ve had today’s picture. It’s down below.
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daemon laser babby (1) 2/8/2006

here, as promised. the 'author', Dan (one of our directors) is, oddly enough, not obsessed with babies, or torture, or satanism in any way, or even anti-social. Go figure.
Like japan - officially the least violent country in the world - has the most violent teen magazines and cartoons - or Mangas and Anime to those of us born before The Fall. Anyway, more words later. Enjoy the babies for now.
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Casting, Footballs, Vico, Deleuze and daemon laser babies 2/7/2006
The following day, after a night punctuated by strange half-naked figures practicing a crude form of Aikido on my back lawn. One had a stripy hockey stick and a big grin.
I believe it’s a local ritual.
Anyway, Jolie came and met our staff and most of the participants. We’ll have a first set of readings this Thursday. Jolie seemed psyched up to do the role and now the directors have seen her, they suddenly know how to reshape the scenes. Curiouser and curiouser.
Iyla brought some efficiency (anal-retentive, she said) and we have a full wall planner and lots of bright coloured Sharpies. Danny, our ‘making-of’ cameraman, ate one.
Also, through Joe’s contacts, we believe we have added one Gregor Trieste as the Mad Hatter. I have seen Gregor perform and he is certainly mad. Rumor also has it that local legend Nathan will reprise his role as March Hare. But we haven't spoken yet and his fees might be out of our range... We'll kidnap him, then.
So, something about how knowing your locations helps you to write the scene. Jolie’s presence proved also that small step for man, which begins to transform the virtual into the real. It’s not us all sitting around talking about a film project any more: we have actually begun it.
Was it not Giambattista Vico who believed all History was simply the actualization of human thought? He would have understood this process as it works in film.
To take it one step on, what is taxing me at the moment – the brakes still applied to the project – is not knowing where we are going to film the thing. So, while costume sketches are being run up, scripts tweaked, introductions made and general progress, the real task in the next days is to nail down the locations. Once we can see, and walk around in the actual places, the visual mind can move on to building the cinematic space. Or less nebulously: once you’ve been there, you can better imagine how to shoot. I’d advise anyone who is having any kind of filmmakers block, to arbitrarily choose a location (outside is good – van Gogh painted in the wind and rain and the inclement weather seemed to do his art good…) or to go to the debate which is bubbling under at Indie, re-‘to script or not to script’ in the end, there has to be a point where you just tell yourself (Big Shakespearean tonality)”To Hell with all this Reason. Let us Film!” Thus avoiding the long. Long resume of the films you thought about making… but didn’t.
All of which makes some kind of sense. I am not sure that my recurrent recourse (redundant indo-European root there) to football metaphors is helping anyone. And by ‘football’ I mean, of course, ‘soccer, not that gladiatorial wrangling cut up by TV ads called ‘football’ in this country. I must be getting old. I realize that I have a definite stubborn lack of willingness to even try to learn about this so-called sport. Or, like some believer in eternal life, am I saving its arcane mysteries for the plains of immortality? No.
So – re-improvising or following a script: it’s like telling your team to just go out and be brilliant. Hoping that enough choice moments occur to carry the game. Now, of course you cannot and should not script a game (tell that to the WWF) but the players should at least decide who’s the goalie. And if possible bring along a ball.
Then again, there’s a certain interest and frisson in being without a safety net.
It’s a very good feeling when an interesting and subtle system emerges from a collection of creative acts. In this case, we began speaking about color schemes with the directors. As it happens – and to give some conscious feel to the whole production, even though it’s being conceived in six separate heads – there’s been a consensus that the ALYCE scenes will all (as in the book) have a red & black thematic. Or perhaps we could say, a red & darkness thematic… Now, as it happens… the interlinking scenes mostly occur out of doors, and like as not will be during a snowy period, so the theme for these short bracketing scenes will be green and white.
I have a huge problem with the analytical approach to filmmaking. Because it’s all after the fact. It’s of very little use to young filmmakers as they try to work out how to make their own fillums. While it might (might…) be very useful and illuminating to dissect a finished work, the things you learn are not necessarily useful in helping build a film of your own. They tend to yield schematic ideas. And I do not believe that the (first) creative impulse in film is schematic or structural. At its worst, the analytical approach produces formally intricate but empty work. As opposed to formally empty but rich work. This latter is a point we can move ahead from, while the former tends to produce even more formally intricate works and the meaning tends to become the meaning which critics and analysts can read into them. I overstate the case. But that’s what I’m talking about. Applying the reading of Deleuze to the construction of a film is problematic, for me. As my Grandma used to say, “If Deleuze is the worst of your worries, you’re doing alright”.
Which brings me to strawberries. I have a friend in England – David – who is a statistical botanist. He told me that strawberries propagate in a most interesting way, by sending out various shoots which then take root nand become centers of propagation. This is an incredibly efficient way of spreading, as each new ‘node’ becomes independent of the ‘master plant’ and thus the network as a whole becomes very hard to damage. You see where this is going? David and people like him, mainly find employment in the internet analysis sector, as the internet has the same structure as strawberries. More: information propagation on the net (words, pictures, films…) follows the same highly efficient distribution scheme. To think about. And best of all – this model is called ‘Guerilla Propagation’ as that’s how an outnumbered guerilla force can survive and eventually triumph over a more powerful adversary.
I shall not look at strawberries in quite the same way now.
But to get back to reds and greens – and you thought I’d lost the thread – it is most satisfying when a natural and organic development of an idea can throw up a structurally interesting and watertight form. Thus: given that a red and black scheme is logical and appropriate for ALYCE, then a logically evident counter-scheme would be green and white. So, in this case, intuition and analysis reach the same conclusion. Which tells us we are on to something…
Bacci turned up today and did a precise and lovely sketch for his Cheshire (Cat) Man – before Thursday, I hope our Bayla (Dormouse) and Emmi will get similarly embroiled in costume sketches for all the main characters.
Drat. I should have asked everyone to list their favorite sodas and sandwiches, too. Ah well… later, later.
No pics today, though I have been promised Dan’s ‘daemon laser baby’ for tomorrow.
Watch this space!
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Mondays hurt 2/6/2006
it's only 9a.m. and already I'm exhausted. We all are. If I ruled the world - no-one would ever have to get up when it was dark. I'm up here on the stifling balcony, turning into a dormouse. have just heard Joe give the best, clearest exposition of what a Shakespearean tragedy is, to a rivetted class of 9th graders. They had to be rivetted to their seats. It's a sacrifice we have to make.
Later today is the big moment when all the after school people meet Iyla and Jolie and we set the schedule in motion.
Thinking again about how in the movie world, it's all fantasy until the thing is actually finished, i.e. up on a screen in front of an audience. Up till that point, it's all persuasion, showmanship (lots of hard work somewhere) and verging on a confidence trick. I think this is why many Producers, and a good number of directors, secretly fear they are charlatans. Then, suddenly, the film exists, and it turns out you were telling the truth all along. It's a funny roller coaster ride between truth and fiction.
But I did have a good epigram a few years ago: there's no genius who doesn't secretly suspect he's a charlatan; and there is no charlatan who doesn't secretly believe he's a genius.
Also thought that for most of the 20th Century, the figure of the self-dioubting artiste held centre stage. To an extent, neurosis was seen as the very definition of artistic talent. A cliche. But, in fact, the world has moved on, and artistic confidence is no bad thing. As my friend Ben said, "It's doing the thing which is important." Not obsessing about it. Doing it. And that's what saves a confident artist from arrogance.
A propos all that stuff about realism and artifice, I have to confess a preference for the strength added to your films by allowing 'what is' to leak in. Last night I saw 'Capote'. A fine, fine film with staunch performances and a serious theme, beautifully lit and composed and edited to a compelling rhythm. Oscar level stuff. So why did it bore the daylights out of me? Because it was all artifice. Everything had been placed 'just so'... except for a few landscapes (the best bits of the film). All the rest was just theater. And theater should happen in big rooms full of people. Not in front of a camera. Cinema is about what fragment of reality is in front of the camera. Siegfried Kracauer wrote a whole book about this power of the cinema (with the subtitle 'The Redemption of Physical reality) and Bresson expressed it concisely: I misquote from memory... "Natural objects appraoch the camera, a tree, a house, a face. the artificial recedes". Hmmm, must look that quote up. 'Capote' placed real things in front of the camera, of course... actors, stage props, costumes, make-up and vintage automo9biles. So, that's what the film is about.
This is getting a bit serious, so here's another joke.
What do you callk a man with a spade stuck in his head?
Doug.
What do you call a man without a spade in his head? Douglas.
Oh, please yourselves...
Perhaps more this evening after the busy day and the casting meetings.
Peter worried that the SATURDAY gig will require too much fiddly organisation, but, as a wise animator once said to me: "If you want something done, give it to someone who's busy". Sandwich time.
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On Authors and Teams. There's no 'I' in 'auteur'. 2/5/2006
in the attempt to write a page a day, here is Sunday morning when Englishmen do not shave. Just to frighten the neighbours. Is it all coming together? I think so, but this week will be a big organisational test - to actually get the cast and crew lists filled up and begin annotating the scripts and boiling down the longer list of what is needed - props, transport, sandwiches and coffee cups etc etc.
Had a slightly worried e-mail from our author Zoe last night. I had informed her that most of the directors were rewriting bits of the script to fit better with their conceptions. And in some cases (Lillian and Jenna) to bring in a little more of the plot of the book.
I have been encouiraging this. I have had it from both sides - as a 'director' worried about changing the writer's text; and as a writer, seeing someone else alter my texts. There's no point in being a prima donna about it though. i do hold that filmmaking is collaborative, though the director as diktator is a good role to plkay... the point being that a script is not a thing in and of itself, it's another of those stages which should dissolve and fade away once the next stage (shooting) is reached... I might even argue at that point, that the shoot should also evaporate, to be refashioned totally in the edit.
Well, these are the practical limitations and the very fun things to work out vis a vis the AUTEUR theory, I have said (mea culpa) that a film production working as it should is the purest expression of Socialism. All of the advantages of collective work and none of the disadvantages. though to be true, I feel that ANARCHY in its purest sense is what it should be like.
It's difficult to explain in a few words how you can reconcile two great truths: that the great films originate from one vision (basically from one person's vision) but that nothing can ever be accomplished without giving the project over to all the collaborators.
People like Stan Brakhage may have seemed at times to be true solitaries, but SB was hugely open to other people's ideas and affects.
This may be problematic in the all-in-one video age, when your proverbial 12 year old can 'write' 'shoot', 'edi't and even 'act' in his or her own film. But note the heavy use of quotatin marks there. This is undoubtedly a phase we as a world are going through, and it's perhaops just that one last stage... showing the film to an audience.... which will be the saving grace.
Oh, and a note on DOGME.
I have noticed I do quote the crazy danes as some kind of role model... certainly I felt a great sense of kinship when I first saw their works (and The Idiots remains the film I would have been most likely to make, in that old St. Peter game... you know, you get to the Pearly Gates and St Peter tells you that all your life has been an illusion, all the people, all the works of Art and so on, and that you are allowed to choose one painting, one song, one film and one book which are 'yours'.
Try it sometime. Though here on ther page it looks more like some Buddhist unstripping of the veil or something Herman Hesse might have written as a bogus tale in the back of one of his longer novels.
Oh - and one goal you'd like to have scored (in a soccer game).
I knew there were five.
But the film wopuld probably have been 'Persona' or 'Mirror'. The joys of solipsism.
Lost the thread there. DoGME, yes... much as I am temperamentally inclined to take found locations, unpredictable and unstable light, and actors who can run riot with your text... I realise in the dim recesses of the lumber room, that this is just an aesthetic choice, and shooting a word perfect script in lavish sets with total control in a studio can yield a great film too. Just in case my predelictions seemed like a dogma themselves.
So, anyway, no solipsism in filmmaking. An audience is necessary even though you should NEVER pander to them, their imagined lack of understanding... never dumb down your original impulses. Film (to a considerably lesser extent video) is a deadening medium. Too much time, effort (money) and distraction comes in between that pure imagined impulse and finally getting it in the camera.... and then, as I'm insisting, getting it onto a screen.
So my young colleagues are right in grabbing as much autonomy as they can, to seize that moment, and not overplan (dull, dreary script corrections and tweaking)... but I find myself in a pleasantly schizophrenic position of at the same time trying to allow these spontaneous impulses, yet trying to suggest that a little consideration of lighting is a good thing, that taking off the autofocus will improve the film, that written, directed, music, acted and conceived by... is not necessarily the best 'crew' a film could have... and that capturing a couple of great shots on the lam doesn't mean an entire film needs to be lammed.
well, time for more coffee. Not many jokes this blog, so here's one from ee cummings:
'Would you hit a woman with a child?'
No, I'd hit her with a brick.
A propos the precision of language.
Precision is A Good Thing.

Dusk approacheth POST ONE 2/4/2006
This is post one, and in fact is my first ever blog posting there, that didn't hurt, did it? The point of all of this is to give you - whoever 'you' is, an uncensored and moment by moment view inside one person's head, as they (I) try to shepherd a video production over the next weeks. Hopefully this will be useful to demystify the whole process, and also to let people see how many trivial events can affect such a production. there follows a really short overview of what the production is, so 'strangers' won't feel too left out. If you are not 'strange' skip the bit in capitals: ALYCE IS A COLLECTION OF 5 SHORT FILMS WHICH RIFF ON THE ALICE IN WONDERLAND AND THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS BOOKS, MADE BY HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS IN AND AROUNS WOODSTOCK NEW YORK AND HELD TOGETHER MAYBE BY THE STAFF OF A MEDIA PROGRAM CALLED INDIE MESELF THE VOICE OF THIS BLOG IS 49 A BRITISH SOMETIME FILMMAKER SUDDENYL FINDING THAT BEING A REAL PRODUCER IS VERY EXHAUSTING HOHOHO BUT WE ARE GETTING THERE THE WHOLE PRODUCTION MUST BE FINISHED BY EASTER AND THE SHOOTING SHOULD BE DONE BY THE VERY FIRST DAYS OF MARCH I AM USING REAL NAMES IN THIS BLOG - BUT ONLY FIRST NAMES. IF I WANT TO GET REALLY NASTY ABOUT SOMEONE, I'LL MAKE A NAME UP THERE MIGHT BE A FEW TYPOS IN THESE TEXTS, I AM A CRAP TYPIST AND I DO NOT WANT TO GO BACK AND REVISE MY POSTS, AS THIS SPONTANEIOTY SEEMS TO BE A VITAL PART OF BLOGGING, ANYWAY, THEY'RE MY GROUND RULES. Saturday and a headache for no reason what I really feel like doing is going to bed and watching dusk fall but that's very immature I know we've just got our actress - a lively young lady called Jolie, and secured a production manager, Iyla, who has lots of theatrical experience and has already eased my mind by logically parsing the production into sections and sorting out who is doing what. It's much more efficient and convivial to dialogue than to pronounce edicts I am trying to work some of the energy shared in theatre productions into the more controlled atmospheres of film and video shoots. this means really letting other people run with the ball, noit just token 'delegating' I think self styling myself a producer is a defence against this. If I give myself a title, I won't feel i have to fill in all the cracks and gaps in the production. We have all (Peter, Joe, Taima, myself) decided that we will not interefere at all on the creative side (writing, shooting, directing, editing) but we will be there for logistical things so we are very present, but like Marx's State, we hope to wither away in a haze of fatigue probably I almost wrote 'haze of booze' there, but suddenly balked as 'booze' is a litigious word in the US of A and I have to be careful of such things, being in a sort of mentor/teacher/responsible adult role on the other hand, **** off none of us drinks, anyway... we are - sadly - too obsessed with film, and with having a life... I bought some Chinese beers in a supermarket the other day, and the cashier wouldn't let me leave the store unless the bottles were in a brown paper bag... mad Orwellian sketch ensued in my mind about police stopping people with brown paper bags and inspecting the contents... bagels, hamsters, bird seed... no-one's safe! Peter owns - though that's perhaps a hysterical euphemism for 'owes' - a building in the town of Catskill, ground floor of which is a gallery space. Next weekend, we are putting on a video show, I think we can project onto a sheet in the window and intrigue passers-by my big worry is cables as me Grandma used to say 'if cables is your only worry, you're doing alright' more on that anon. Joe is an actor of local renown - and I saw him in a two hander a ferw molnths ago - really good. he doesn't seem to believe this, not that he's concerned with reputation, but he is actually very compelling as a performer. sadly - for his reputation - I have been trying to persuade him to tart up his cameo in ALYCE (as the Rabbit/'messenger) by wearing a Playboy bunny costume for at least one short scene. Taima said it's just wrong, but I dunno. The man has hidden depths. the Taima herself has been absent this week due to exams of her own. the level of backroom talk did degenerate in her partial absence. and we did try to sneak some unapproved software purchases too... I am still fixated on the sexy pastel shaded FCPro keyboard thinking of getting certified as a dyslexic to justify the purchase iof the icon stamped beauty. which we need!!! very delighted that one of our Alex's did a first pop video of such beauty that even the hardened pros (we have a few) saidf '****in' awesome' and 'that rocked' hope these comments got back to the Alex in question. alright if I claim to have a life, I'd better get back to it i.e. listen to the cds I ordered from England of Matching Mole and This Heat records this is what keeps us sane Russell

AND THAT WAS THE FIRST MONTH