arrghhh

I'm having a very frustrating day in the world of film and my university. Went in early to have our "technical orientation" with the camera dude- who is essentially insane. The camera is from the dark ages and has been reformatted to super-16. Fine, I can deal with that as the last film I worked on was on a super-16mm bolex and the footage came out beautifully. But, apparently the lens mount thing is not right for the lenses that we've rented. Very complicated to explain, but trust me- it's bad. Plus, feel enormous pressure from my AD who is overworked and thinks I'm nuts too. Plus, my professor keeps insisting we try to do the "lost and found" scene in galleries layfatte or something absurdly impossible like that. Plus, the school's budget is mysteriously shrinking and apparently we've got to take it "one day at a time".

Basically, I am happy to have embarked on a project using my school- there are a lot of great people there helping me and they are helping fund it. But, I'm also dying of frustration because I can't seem to raise the quality of my film if I want to make it within the confines on the university. Part of me is just tempted to got out and spend a ton of money renting a half decent camera...but is it worth the $2000 if I can get the crap one for free? These questions of money really get to me. In a way, I think it is completely unjustified to make movies in a time when the money could be much better spent. In a way I want to take advantage of all the resources available to me and milk the system for all its worth. What's frustrating is spending hours negotiating with all these foreign companies, in a language I barely speak, for equipment I've never used....and to have a very unclear notion of how much money I've got to begin with. well, it's just a movie. deep breath. laugh. repeat.

counting down

In only three weeks the shoot starts. I'm surprisingly calm. I feel like perhaps I should start to panic- good lord, I'm still without one location, short one electrician, not sure if the funding will come through, etc- but I realize that the panic won't help and things will come together as long as I continue to get out of bed everyday (hard with this endless rain) and make a little progress towards the shoot. My cinematographer and I have been brainstorming how to create some of the "special effect" shots and we have a bit of testing to do in the next two weeks.

And then there is the political picture. My school is quite a mess. I went in on Wednesday and could've sworn it was a communist party organizing rally- musicians, red flags, political speaches, and all. Everyone at Paris 8 appears completely behind the students campaign against this new labor law. From my little American perspective, it is quite an unbelievable scene as being fired is sort of taken for granted in our working world- lifetime guareenteed job are incredibly rare, certainly not a worker's right. This is a culture that loves revolutions. To see what it is like at my school, watch this interesting slideshow:
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/portfolio/0,12-0@2-734511,31-754099@51-725561,0.html

I worry that the strikes will interfere with the film- but am hoping for the best and just accepting that one must go with the flow.

photoblogging

DSCN1345
Originally uploaded by que sera sera.

Oh I just figured out how to photoblog directly through flickr whilst helping my mother set up her own blog. Yes, soon the world of nora's art will be blogged on a daily basis. She saw a painting-a-day blog where this artist sells a painting on his blog everyday and is intrigued by the idea. I wonder if I could sell movies on my blog. or script ideas? or free random bits of dialogue overheard on the metro?

The Sorbonne is encircled with police, shut on all sides. My school is now on strike too. Things are getting even more "chaud" as winter turns to spring.

This pictures from the Jardin d'Acclimation in paris. We went on a cold day in January and it was empty and we walked right into the hall of glass and mirrors without even paying.

walnuts

Yesterday I walked along the Seine as thousands of protestors marched over me on a bridge. Now, as I watch contemporary dance on TV I can't help but thinking that France is a society that hasn't given up. Or maybe it's all of europe. They are trying to prove that you can have your cake- support for culture, environmental protections, health care, rights for workers not to be treated as cows- and eat it too. America has given up on so many of these delectable morsels. The American attitude is always, "That's taxpayers money you're wasting" or, "Who will pay for it?". Of course they rarely say that about this war.

And Walnuts. Yesterday I saw Bertolucci's "The Conformist" at the Cinematheque. In one short scene we enter the office of someone- a small character, a government person or a facist spy or something- he's eating walnuts off this beautfiul little wooden sculpture of a lady. He's cracking the nuts with a nutcracker as he talks, given his brief sermon on some assisination or other (I couldn't pay attention to that as I was too absorbed in the art direction), and as the camera pulls out we see that every horizontal shelf space in the room is lined with walnuts. His bookshelves, his desk, his mantle. But this is never part of the discussion, which is strictly business. And then it's over and we never return to the nuts or the character.

It is hard to explain why I feel so liberated by the walnuts. Maybe because American cinema would never dare to have the nuts. Every element must have a purpose and a meaning and clearly move the story forward, or so goes the dictum. But Bertolucci dreamed this government officer would be in an office covered in walnuts and so it was. And it is Sunday night, I've just had a nice rehearsal (very few tears) with my film's starlette and public TV is dedicating these 2 hours to gorgeous Spanish dancing, filmed beautifully.

filmmaking in a revolution

French students are out in force against the "CPE" - a newly enacted law that will make it easier to fire young people, under 26, in their jobs. It is really hard for me to figure out what is going on and what to think about this issue. My university is on strike today too and many students went to a huge protest today. In the US it seems so impossible to imagine all the universities going on strike to fight a labor contract. American studetns are so much more apathetic it is incredible to see how active these students are.

Well, filmmaker continues. Less than a month to go. Nervous on all fronts. The starlette bursed into tears at rehearsal over a coloring book issue. The lost and found location is all but lost. I need someone with a car to be a production assistant but dont' want a crew that's any bigger than it already has ballooned. Well, i'm tryuing not to freak out and just make progress every day. I wish I wasn't producing it- I wish that there was this big production company that just figured out all the location permits, equipment, budget, and labs for me...some day perhaps.

strikes and hailstorms

On Wednesday when I went to my University there were huge spray-painted letters on the building, "PARIS 8 NON AU CPE"...essentially, since they couldn't participate in the metro-workers, train-workers, postal, or journalist strikes, the students felt they should have one of their own. Okay, I'm cruel, but striking is fricking the national pastime here. So, my University, amoung many others, will be intermitently shut down whenever it is deemed. It is some national strike against a new contract for young people- the CPE is the name of the contract I gather- and it says that you can be hired and (gasp) fired at will for the first 2 years of employement (I think, though I'm not clear of the details). The fact that one could actually be fired is extremely difficult for French people, who think of a job (even at 22 years old) as a sort of lifetime contract, to grasp. Well, I don't really care about these contracts too much- but alas, this strike may be truly a problem. My professor warned me, half-jokingly I think, that this could mean the university gets shut down full-stop for weeks. and university closure = no equipment, no money, no crew, no movie-making! But I think it is a bit premature to sound the alarm.

In slightly better news, my film "Nest" was selected for a little film festival in Denmark called Aarhus Festival of Independent Arts. My first european screening! Perhaps the Danish audience is where my true fanbase lies...must investigate!

seasonal pressure

Last night I was having dinner with some friends and I looked out their big windows and saw huge clumps of wet snow pouring down mixed with flashes of lightning. It was like a rain shower had morphed into a thunderstorm into a snowstorm far too quickly for the weather to handle and the effect was beautiful. Walking back to the metro I was the first person to put my footprints into the snow (this being just outside Paris where this isn't much foot traffic) and it was eeriely quiet and amazing. Why is it that rain and gray has the most depressing effect but seeing snow falling can be so enchanting? Better than snow yet, was the sunshine that followed today. We havent' had hardly any sun in the past 2 months and I'm starting to lose it. But this morning we had a good few hours of real sun. I visited my step-father, confined to a wheelchair in the dismal world of a retirement home. We push open the doors and took a spin around the block and just felt the sun for a minute. quite sublime.

This really has nothing to do with my film. Perhaps writing this shows you the completely distracted and procrastinating state I'm in. The film is progressing piece by piece, but as my professor and cinematographer both pointed out to me today, do I know the clear meaning and purpose of every scene and will the audience know it. To this nothing arises in response but panic. My response to panic is, naturally, procrastination. In fact I'm getting on a train to visit London in exactly 9 hours. I haven't packed yet. I just watched "Big Fish" on DVD and cried at all the sentimental places. And now I'm blogging. stoppppp.