They call it shooting for a reason...

So there's been a kind of change of plans in my shooting schedule. I'm going to be shooting all next week and editing the week after. The weather is looking pretty good, and suddenly I have access to this pretty good camera, and a letus 35mm adaptor, (which is sweet, trust me) and if I really kick out the jams I think I can have a good cut of the film for the uvm film festival... Anyway, all this insanity means I need to do all my schoolwork for the next 2 weeks this weekend. I hope that on Saturday I can go out and have a good time, since the next 14 days are going to be full of all nighters and the like...

I am really nervous to shoot, I'm DPing on my own and I want it to look as good as the stuff Jeff does, but he sets a pretty high standard. (If you're interested, look at Box Party under my videography links on the left, he DP'd that shoot.) Sometimes I feel like my shots lack depth, and maybe that's a product of cutting my teeth in theatre rather than film, though I'm hoping to really get past all those hang-ups in this piece. I haven't told you very much about my project, except that it's a dance film, but here's the general idea.

There is a group based in New York City called Troika Ranch, they combine media/dance/theatre in digital films, art installations, and live performances. I happened upon them through a media program called Isadora, which is kind of a long story. Anyway they created this short called BKLYN (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEL0TWF6sBQ) that really got me thinking about how time and space is used in film. I also find myself looking at work by Maya Deren, I know you're not one for arty cinema, but her short experimental films are really engaging to me. I'm also trying to address the issue of the feminine gaze and deliberately have her break the fourth wall on two occasions in the dance. Essentially I will be shooting the dance in the same way in 5 different locations and then editing the footage together as one, shifting location via jump cuts, split screens (sometimes up to 5 at once), combined with moments of the "Algorythmic editing" that's in the "BKLYN short.

The conceptual part of the short as a whole is essentially an exploration of personal perception of space and time. I'll attempt to address the issue of the private mind functioning in the public space, and the gap between who we are seen as and our personal understanding of ourselves. This leaves me with the dubious task of visually expressing the personal experience of time. Reading Deleuze expanded on this kind of thinking for me, and his theory has effected how I am viewing the project as a whole. Though the work itself doesn't directly hinge on the theoretical, it does make some attempts to bridge certain gaps between practice and theory...


I'll be updating everyday through the filming and editing process. Even if it's just grawlix.

Word of the day: Grawlix-A grawlix is a sequence of typographical symbols used to represent a non-specific, profane word or phrase. Here's an example of a typical grawlix: #@$%*!