FILM FILM FILM

Lately I've been completely obsessed with getting onto film crews as a 1st or 2nd AC. I think I'm just a bit film obsessed in general. I got my first roll back for my next film one project, I really want to project it before I have to screen it in class but looking through the little boxes of frames next to my lamp seems to give off the appearance of properly exposed film. Hopefully I used the light meter well. I've been on a Film 2 set this weekend as 1st and 2nd AC. It has been really great because I love having a position on camera. I am the only female on the entire set, which makes things... interesting, but surprisingly, and luckily, I am just as competent, if not more so as the other boys on set. The DP has come to me with questions that I have been able to answer (!) and lets me deal with all things camera. Its great because this trust allows me to work through things and actually work closely with the equipment, I think I have learned a lot. I feel like it is very important for me to be competent and on top of it as the only female. I am so glad I was able to be on camera team for the last women in motion shoot, I really learned about the camera and the AC positions. I was working with some great people and I now know a lot just from that shoot that has helped me a ton. So far this transition into camera has been a really good one. I am going out for crew on a few more film twos and the FPS (frames per second) shoots. I love camera! Alright enough, I feel like I'm getting a bit on the cheeseball side. I am pretty excited about this though, my discovery of camera team. Other than all the film twos and such I am also working on a music video with Zeb. We started to build a little diorama set this Thursday... it was great because I got to paint and make things. We are going to play around with it, but I think it will be somewhat of a stop motion animation. I hope it comes out well, I really want to deliver a good product. Zeb and I work really well together though, we mesh creatively and paint in the same style. Actually that is what I first noticed when I first met Zeb... well when I met his apartment, his paintings. Anyway, we are building quite a little set out of all kinds of fun materials. There are so many things I should be doing...

YouTubing

So I happened to stumble across the world of pole dancing on Youtube. This girl is so incredibly graceful, it makes me think of pole dancing differently. Well I suppose pole dancing always has an appeal to females, or at least to me. But I really like the look of this girl.

The next two are an interesting twist, ballet with pole dancing. Elena Gibson, the second dancer, seems to be behind this movement. Ms. Swan Lake states that she was inspired by her.



While I was looking through pole dancing videos, I remembered this one that my belly dance teacher Aarin told us to look up. This dancer is pretty incredible... I have no idea how she does some of her locks.

I thought it was about time I posted this. Keighley showed it to me. Here is an interesting comment I found... "I think they're showing what people did for beauty through time... the Victorian girl at the beginning had really pale skin because she lost so much blood through blood-letting (on her neck, I guess), the 40s ladies are holding little pump things that they used on their boobs to look like Marilyn, the 70s girls cut their eyelids (they're holding scapels) to get Twiggy eyelids, and then the last girl is getting tanned (the girls around her are holding mirrors reflecting light onto her)." And then later... "dude, i figured it out! the first girl has a slash on her neck b/c she's supposed to be Marie Antoinette (who got beheaded!)."

Most film kids have to see La Jetee... but it is so much better in French. This is the second half, so those who are interested should look it up on Youtube... they have the first half in French with English subtitles, or the whole video with English voice over. I love, love the part at 8 minutes when she wakes up.

SOME LOVELY THINGS

Recently I went to Florida. I got some postcards from the Museum of Fine Arts.
Those who know me know I love postcards among other things, so naturally I will share them.





Some are from a few more boxed post card sets I received in the mail as well. I got Andy Warhol: Men, Wanderlust, and Photobooths, all come with 30 postcards.



I also rather like this video, it is a scene from I Am Cuba (Soy Cuba) but with the original soundtrack replaced with "I Can't Keep From Crying Sometimes" by the Dierdre Wilson Tabac. I think the song is pretty great.

COBRA MIST AND RUINS MAKE MY DAY ART FILLED

I discovered a wonderful website filled with many amazing photos via my dad. The photographer is named Rob Dobi and he takes photos of abandoned buildings in the New England area. I selected a few photos, but there are so many that I have neglected so take a look.


I also liked the photos that gave you an idea of what the space once was, such as the school and the beauty parlor, he also has some wonderful theater shots. There was a fantastic shot of a piano that I was going to put on here, but felt like I was going a little photo crazy.


They are really quite stunning. Also, we watched an artist named Emily Richardson in my Film One class. She is from the UK and makes these wonderful time lapse, stop motion films on 16mm. My favorite that we watched was Aspect, it was shot in a forest and show light moving on trees. Here is a blurb I found on Canyon Cinema:

"Aspect is filmed in a forest over the period of a year. Using photographic techniques, such as time-lapse and long exposures on single film frames the forest year is condensed into a few minutes. Light, colour and shadow travel across its surface and the film shifts between seeing the trees as trees and seeing the movement of light and shadow abstracting the real environment."

Redshift had some lovely clouds and stars, she also plays with light in this one. Her films are very visually interesting and appealing. Another blurb from Canyon Cinema:

"In astronmoical terminology redshift is a term used in calculating the distance of stars from the earth, hence determining their age. redshift attempts to show the huge geometry of the night sky and give an altered perspective of the landscape, using long exposures, fixed camera positions, long shots and timelapse animation techniques to reveal aspects of the night that are invisible to the naked eye. The film has a gentle intensity to it, and is composed of changes of light across the sea, sky and mountains. It shows movement where there is apparent stillness, whether in the formation of weather patterns, movement of stars, the illumination of a building by passing car headlights or boats darting back and forth across the sea's horizon. "

One of her films is online, it is called Cobra Mist, I haven't watched it myself but intend to after I finish writing this... if you are interested its on a website for Animate Projects Limited. They have a section called Animate TV that has various short films categorized by year.

MORE ON TATTOOS

So after looking over my last entry I decided to google dinosaur tattoos. Among the interesting results I found... braille tattoos. It was from a very interesting blog. Here is what they had to say about them:
Well one student has thought up a way where the visually impaired can express themselves through tattoos that can be read. The Braille Tattoo, designed by Klara Jirkova (a student at the University of the Arts Berlin), is a series of implantable surgical steel, titanium, or medical plastic that's placed under the skin. The tattoo can then be read via touch. Subdermal implants are nothing new, but using them to create body art for the visually impaired is an interesting idea. Jirkova thinks the implants could be used in the divet between thumb and pointer finger, so when people shake hands they can "read" each other's names and info.

SEARCHING FOR OWLS

For a while now I have been considering getting another tattoo. At this point I've decided that I want an owl, and that I would like it on my side, high (rib cage, by my boob), not to big. Tonight I was google-ing photos of owls which lead me to owl tattoos. The results where interesting and brought up several other strange tattoos. I've learned that owl tattoos are all very different, well at least the ones on google. Here is a taste of the many different varieties I found, none of them encompass what I want, (though I like the one on top there the best) but I thought they were interesting. This is from a website that showcases bird tattoos, there are some nice ones on it. If you want to check it out you can go here.

Now for some of the weird things I stumbled across, starting with this guy:
A convict from Kansas City has an owl tattoo on his forehead... lovely isn't it?A lip tattoo... and the weirdest and maybe most graphic, so sorry for those who do not wish to see...An eyeball tattoo. I probably should have put the censored photo... but... I didn't. While its slightly disturbing I would rather have the legitimate photograph. The story is interesting, you can view it here.
Basically:
"A Toronto man nicknamed Pauly Unstoppable has been the first person to receive an experimental "eyeball tattoo". Basically a tattoo artist injected blue ink into Pauly's eye until it was completely blue -- some 40+ injections!"

SEX AND SCIENCE

I forgot to mention a very interesting situation...
While I was in my science class I looked over at the girl next to me and happened to see a text message she was writing. The first line said "I wish you were naked." Yes, she was having text sex. Later she wrote "This too shall pass seems a little extreme to me" on a piece of white paper and started doodling around it. Over each word she had what appeared to be the Hebrew translation in small text. She was a little strange.

LITTLE THINGS

Jen and I have been going to the gym a lot lately, which has been really fantastic but I am left in a state of perpetual soreness. I feel great whenever I spend some time being active, so hopefully I'm on a good track that will become habit. I'm hoping to go backpacking this summer and exercise is always a good idea before embarking on trips.

Yesterday I was all over the place emotionally, sometimes I surprise myself because the littlest things have the power to make me feel things. The morning brought pure happiness. Zeb called me really early to see if he could stop by to drop off my jacket and we had a wonderful interaction that left me feeling... happy. I also received a camera later in the day that caused another spurt of happiness and also left me feeling, well touched. It was in the midst of a pleasant dinner with Kelly. We finally saw each other for a period of time beyond five minutes which was lovely. However I did get left with Nole (not sure how he spells his name) and could not extract myself from his constant stream of talking. He is a very nice guy, but he talks more than I do. I heard about his screenplay ideas, short stories, how he often keeps text books, about his high school and Latin and Greek (he took both during high school), as well as his theory that our Ethics teacher went to a similar school. I heard about his ex-girlfriend and her graduation party and the guy she is dating now, as well as a friend he made through her and an animation project they want to work on. He showed me a video of "his" dog (it belongs to his friend but he loves it) and talked about it's tendencies and the people it likes. Then it was on to how he got into college and so on and so forth. After I managed to cut in and escape from Nole, Jen and I did an evening gym run and then we went to the movies with Emily and Hailey, we saw He's Just Not That Into You. It was incredibly crowded which always makes things interesting, everyone reacts: swooning and clapping and screaming at certain parts. The movie ended up leaving me feeling a bit low, which is ridiculous. Tonight we are supposed to go to a Berkley funk show with Emily, I'm not totally thrilled about the idea right now...

FROM THE MARGINS

So I had a few things jotted down in the margins of my notebook that I was intending to share on here. The first says [I don't bother chopping off tags, smell of someone in classroom.] I hardly ever take tags off clothes that I first purchase. I'm not really sure why, either I don't find it to be necessary or important or I get nervous about it and then forget. Anyway I was wearing my Urban Renewal crushed velvet jacket that was mentioned previously. When I got into the classroom that my Plants and People class is located in I took it off and slung it over my chair before going to the bathroom. When I came back it was hanging in such a way that the entire inside was exposed, along with the tag. Later, as the class settled in for our lecture on marijuana, I caught a faint smell of someones perfume. It reminded me strongly of my grandma, and beyond that, her house and the light, heat and smell I associate with Florida. The feeling of being there I suppose. That led me to remember her beautiful old house in Chester, CT. I would love to visit that house again. The memories around Chester and the beautiful house are all so... lovely. There was also an air of mystery, adventure, and a gentle quiet that I remember especially walking down to the house or through the garden. That house was absolutely perfect for a child and their imagination. We used to pick blueberries, bake things and read in the top most room. I would fall asleep next to my grandma pondering the tower poking out of the ceiling with a little door in it. I would wonder what the door led to as I listened to her voice describe artists and their paintings, she had a collection of mini little books, each about a different artists, that I loved. Her soft voice, the warm light, and that little door. The cat was always purring.

The next one reads [graph paper, man on T, purple people, crazy voice homeless guy.] I love graph paper as anyone who has received a letter from me will know. Lately there have been several people who were using graph paper in my classes. My film one teacher writes in a square graph paper notebook which I really like, and a boy named Ted in my Screenwriting class also writes in a graph paper note book. Actually I like how he writes in it, the way it looks and the symbols he uses and such. Though that may be strange to say. The man on T refers to a small Asian man that kept trying to smell my hair on the T... enough said. Purple people: there is a girl that sits at the end of the row I like to sit in in my Ethics and Justice class. She really likes purple. She has a purple coat and a purple backpack. One day she came in and had dyed her hair purple. There was some runoff from the dye. I looked over to see that her face, neck and one hand (she was running it through her hair) where also stained purple. She put on her purple coat to leave and became a purple person. Finally, there is this homeless man who hangs around Boylston and Tremont every so often. I have encountered him before. He has a really low gravely weird sounding voice and will loudly say over and over "Does anyone have some spare chaaaanngggeee?" He drags out change everytime, and the way he says it makes me think he is hostle and violent. Honestly I just get really nervous. But his voice resonates with me, I can hear it now if I think about it. Despite that I really do hope people give him change despite him being intimidating, I don't ususally have cash of any kind on me.

Today in my Plants and People class a guy had a long tag sticking out of his shirt, and I was internally amused. Eventually someone told him it was there and he pulled it off and threw it away. When I spotted my tag I just put it back on. Finally I'll leave you with a few lines from the chapter on Marijuana in the book we are reading for Plants and People, The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan. It resonates with me because I think we should stop to appreciate and take it what is around us every so often, I think he does a nice job of saying that, even if he is suggesting marijuana to help remind us of the beauty of the world. This is a very interesting book, by the way. I like to talk about the things he brings up, because I guess I'm just like that. "Even so, letting nature have her way with us now and again still seems like a useful thing to do, if only to bring our abstracted gaze back down to Earth for a time. What a reenchantment of the world that would be, to look around and see that the plants and the trees of knowledge grow in the garden still."