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.