It is said that the older you become, primarily from childhood to adulthood, you lose that ‘Christmassy’ feeling, that feeling of warmth and special times of the year when it’s magic. When you graduate and enter the world of work, it becomes about parties and drinking and not having to go to work. Receiving presents is not of paramount importance anymore and buying them can be a chore. It is also said that Christmas is good with children because they are excited about presents and everything pertaining it.
I make Christmas lunch every year. Have done for about a decade or so. It’s pretty enjoyable and I do a decent job. This is the one day of the year, I will be sipping my coffee, half awake, hung over, in a dressing gown, with my hand up a bird’s bottom.
I wondered why this Christmassy feeling had left me in adulthood yet existed in so much abundance during childhood. What I am about to say may seem blindly obvious, it may not, so bear with me…
So. While I was peeling the potatoes I was thinking how many people were also peeling potatoes for their lunch. How many were peeling sprouts and checking their Turkey’s or Goose? I thought a sense of perhaps, ‘belonging’, knowing that so many people were peeling their potatoes at exactly the same time I was- like some metaphysical occurrence of collective potato peeling. And then I thought of how many people around the a world would be spending today with their loved ones and family. It seems many people around the world are enjoying, or at least trying to enjoy the company of family or friends and enjoying food all on the same day. Perhaps for many it was not so much a celebration of the birth of Christ, but just a celebration of their lives.
After having these thoughts I began to have that ‘Christmassy’ feeling again but not of presents or snow but instead a sense that a majority of the world was participating in the same positive thought and activity. And this gave me a sense of belonging, comfort and warmth.
On an end note I would like to write something about the unfortunate and tragic reality of everyday malnutrition and this time of year when half the population starts paying more attention to the problem and the other half forget. I recall the Band Aid song, ‘Do They Know it’s Christmas’. And I thought, what a stupid title for that song, because I’m pretty sure those starving people in Ethiopia couldn’t give a rat’s arse if it was Christmas or not. I’m sure they are just worried about when there next meal is going to be.
That comment is in no way related to what I think about what Bob Geldof and Midge Ure did to raise awareness of this inhumane reality.
- J
Ps. No pun intended with the use of ‘rat’ (Bob Geldof was formerly the lead vocals for the band, ‘Boomtown Rats’).
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Evelyna
Back from Camerimage Festival in Lodz. Here is a summary of what went down. The following was written a few days during the festival.
* I have added links to the film makers names as I am aware most people don't know who these people are, but you will from the body of work they have done.
If I didn’t need to sleep during the festival, I probably wouldn’t. Saying that, I haven't been getting much sleep. As part of the festival, there is a disco they organize for the duration and is nearby. I have been everyday bar one. I get back to the hotel about 7am and have some breakfast while still drunk and then go to bed until 2pm. Watch films, attend workshops and Q&A's and then back to the club again. I have met some new friends/colleagues and even some of the volunteers.
Steven Goldblatt gave an excellent Q&A and also a good lighting/DIY grade check workshop. Funnily enough, I have been doing the same thing for years (digital stills and grading in Photoshop). Ang Lee gave a touching, rambling, insightful and intelligent Q&A yesterday. The man is full of humanity. I asked a question and even got to shake his hand. Michael Seresin and Alan Parker were like a comedy duo. Saw Vittorio Storaro on stage, and he talked A LOT although we have to respect the man. He shot a text book Cinematographer’s film, The Conformist. The highlight of one day was meeting Harris Savides. Me and some new friends got to ask many questions. I asked the most out of everyone. It was just Harris and no moderator. He is one of my favorite Cinematographer’s and it was a luxury to get to ask questions I wondered about. For instance a shot in the Café in American Gangster (dir. Ridley Scott) the faces are so dark you can barely se them and I wondered that it was so bold to do that but it was actually because Ridley told him to turn the light off! He said he wouldn’t have chosen to light it that way. The surprise today was that Roman Polanski turned up to collect an award. And apparantly he has never been in the 15 years this festival has been running. Saw a great doc about camerawomen around the world and the struggle and celebration of being so. So inspirational I actually cried.
The food is cheap and I have never eaten a bad meal. The alcohol is also cheap. It has been snowing for a few days. There are many attractive women but, not only that, they are also friendly. There is a free club everyday. There are some great films to watch. There are some great talks, workshops and Q&A’s. We get to meet and speak to the Cinematographers and some Director’s we admire.
It hasn’t been without feeling a little strange wandering around not knowing anyone sometimes but at most I feel fine about it.
Steven Goldblatt and also Ang Lee made an impassioned statement about how great it was that this is a rare place where all us Cinematographer’s/ Filmakers come together and share. There was also a good discussion hosted by Mike Figgis with Steven Goldblatt, Billy Williams and Vilmos Zsigmond regarding the future of film and digital. To see some of the top notch Cinematographers of their generation together really caring about their craft and the future of it was truly inspiring, touching and made me reform my appreciation of this art I practice.
When people say, ‘I hope you have an amazing time!’, You rarely do have an ‘amazing time’. This though, aren’t one of those times.
L-R: Vilmos Zsigmond, Billy Williams, Mike Figgis and Steven Goldblatt
Vittorio Storaro
Steven Goldblatt
Michael Seresin and Alan Parker
Ang Lee
Me and Harris Savides
* I have added links to the film makers names as I am aware most people don't know who these people are, but you will from the body of work they have done.
If I didn’t need to sleep during the festival, I probably wouldn’t. Saying that, I haven't been getting much sleep. As part of the festival, there is a disco they organize for the duration and is nearby. I have been everyday bar one. I get back to the hotel about 7am and have some breakfast while still drunk and then go to bed until 2pm. Watch films, attend workshops and Q&A's and then back to the club again. I have met some new friends/colleagues and even some of the volunteers.
Steven Goldblatt gave an excellent Q&A and also a good lighting/DIY grade check workshop. Funnily enough, I have been doing the same thing for years (digital stills and grading in Photoshop). Ang Lee gave a touching, rambling, insightful and intelligent Q&A yesterday. The man is full of humanity. I asked a question and even got to shake his hand. Michael Seresin and Alan Parker were like a comedy duo. Saw Vittorio Storaro on stage, and he talked A LOT although we have to respect the man. He shot a text book Cinematographer’s film, The Conformist. The highlight of one day was meeting Harris Savides. Me and some new friends got to ask many questions. I asked the most out of everyone. It was just Harris and no moderator. He is one of my favorite Cinematographer’s and it was a luxury to get to ask questions I wondered about. For instance a shot in the Café in American Gangster (dir. Ridley Scott) the faces are so dark you can barely se them and I wondered that it was so bold to do that but it was actually because Ridley told him to turn the light off! He said he wouldn’t have chosen to light it that way. The surprise today was that Roman Polanski turned up to collect an award. And apparantly he has never been in the 15 years this festival has been running. Saw a great doc about camerawomen around the world and the struggle and celebration of being so. So inspirational I actually cried.
The food is cheap and I have never eaten a bad meal. The alcohol is also cheap. It has been snowing for a few days. There are many attractive women but, not only that, they are also friendly. There is a free club everyday. There are some great films to watch. There are some great talks, workshops and Q&A’s. We get to meet and speak to the Cinematographers and some Director’s we admire.
It hasn’t been without feeling a little strange wandering around not knowing anyone sometimes but at most I feel fine about it.
Steven Goldblatt and also Ang Lee made an impassioned statement about how great it was that this is a rare place where all us Cinematographer’s/ Filmakers come together and share. There was also a good discussion hosted by Mike Figgis with Steven Goldblatt, Billy Williams and Vilmos Zsigmond regarding the future of film and digital. To see some of the top notch Cinematographers of their generation together really caring about their craft and the future of it was truly inspiring, touching and made me reform my appreciation of this art I practice.
When people say, ‘I hope you have an amazing time!’, You rarely do have an ‘amazing time’. This though, aren’t one of those times.
L-R: Vilmos Zsigmond, Billy Williams, Mike Figgis and Steven Goldblatt
Vittorio Storaro
Steven Goldblatt
Michael Seresin and Alan Parker
Ang Lee
Me and Harris SavidesI don't know who said it but I did, 'stand on the shoulders of giants so I could see better'.
- J
- J
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Comedy of a Dark Nature
Day One.
My entry into Polski took just under 2hrs from Stanstead Airport. Everyone clapped when the plane landed. The taxi driver taught me how to say hello, good evening and thank you in Polish. I can only remember how to say hello primarily because I have heard my Polish friends in London say it over the last 6 years. My regret of not learning more Polish from my Polish friends is making itself comfortable. My hotel is an old communist era building. The staff are friendly but the hallway, is frightening. If I were to shoot a horror film, this would be the location. It’s scary which I kind of like because it’s cinematic and I know there is no serial killer lurking, waiting in the dark spots. I actually chuckled when I saw the ‘scary’ hallway to my room. In a way, it’s a little like a film set. So far so good. One can smoke indoors. I can’t argue with that. Standing out in zero degrees here wouldn’t be fun. No more than it is doing it in 10 degrees in the UK or the rest of Europe. So far people seem sedate and friendly. I met 2 people at airport, one of which said Lodz was flat and grim, the other couldn’t stop raving about it. Perception is as they say, everything. I like my old communist hotel so far, the scarier the better. Give me this than the Holiday Inn any day. I came here for a festival, a luxury to say the least and yes, I am a little excited but why I cannot exact… perhaps it’s the rush of blood to the heart while walking through the horror hallway…
Around midnight in zero degrees I ended up taking a walk around the corner to ul. Piotrkowska which, I didn’t realize, was where all the main hub bub of cafes, bars and restaurants are. I got something to eat.
Breakfast was a bit disappointing considering it cost more than last nights midnight meal. I headed off towards the Grand Theatre, where the festival is held. Though when I got there, they were still fixing stands up. I was greeted by the sign, ‘Welcome to the Camerimage Festival!’. I had evidently got my days wrong or maybe I just booked a day prior to it starting because the flights were cheaper… Perhaps… So I just went for a walk sans map.
In a park I was taking a picture of Hotel Centrum and so too was another snapper. We nodded as we passed each other. Moments later he came up to me and told me a place with industrial communist era buildings that I might want to photograph. He said he would come take me there tomorrow. He is a medical student and he has a Zeiss lens on his old 35mm range finder. That is all I know of him. But if a native of Lodz is going to be welcoming and show me some industrial communist buildings to snap at, just tell me where man. Except of course, I forgot to bring any 120 or 35mm film with me so I spent some of the afternoon looking for a shop that sold it. Finally finding THE shop, he didn’t have any colour neg, just one roll of transparency and a few rolls of black and white. So I got those. A bit like being last in the bread line back in the day.
I have found quite a few people who have offered their assistance to me over the course of the day, the ones who aren’t staring at me anyway.
The never ending streets are wide and there is an air of smog or mist or whatever that makes the low sunlight particularly beautiful.. Maybe that’s why the cinematographer’s from here have a good set of eyes. I think London has the good sunlight too…
- J
My entry into Polski took just under 2hrs from Stanstead Airport. Everyone clapped when the plane landed. The taxi driver taught me how to say hello, good evening and thank you in Polish. I can only remember how to say hello primarily because I have heard my Polish friends in London say it over the last 6 years. My regret of not learning more Polish from my Polish friends is making itself comfortable. My hotel is an old communist era building. The staff are friendly but the hallway, is frightening. If I were to shoot a horror film, this would be the location. It’s scary which I kind of like because it’s cinematic and I know there is no serial killer lurking, waiting in the dark spots. I actually chuckled when I saw the ‘scary’ hallway to my room. In a way, it’s a little like a film set. So far so good. One can smoke indoors. I can’t argue with that. Standing out in zero degrees here wouldn’t be fun. No more than it is doing it in 10 degrees in the UK or the rest of Europe. So far people seem sedate and friendly. I met 2 people at airport, one of which said Lodz was flat and grim, the other couldn’t stop raving about it. Perception is as they say, everything. I like my old communist hotel so far, the scarier the better. Give me this than the Holiday Inn any day. I came here for a festival, a luxury to say the least and yes, I am a little excited but why I cannot exact… perhaps it’s the rush of blood to the heart while walking through the horror hallway…
Around midnight in zero degrees I ended up taking a walk around the corner to ul. Piotrkowska which, I didn’t realize, was where all the main hub bub of cafes, bars and restaurants are. I got something to eat.
Breakfast was a bit disappointing considering it cost more than last nights midnight meal. I headed off towards the Grand Theatre, where the festival is held. Though when I got there, they were still fixing stands up. I was greeted by the sign, ‘Welcome to the Camerimage Festival!’. I had evidently got my days wrong or maybe I just booked a day prior to it starting because the flights were cheaper… Perhaps… So I just went for a walk sans map.
In a park I was taking a picture of Hotel Centrum and so too was another snapper. We nodded as we passed each other. Moments later he came up to me and told me a place with industrial communist era buildings that I might want to photograph. He said he would come take me there tomorrow. He is a medical student and he has a Zeiss lens on his old 35mm range finder. That is all I know of him. But if a native of Lodz is going to be welcoming and show me some industrial communist buildings to snap at, just tell me where man. Except of course, I forgot to bring any 120 or 35mm film with me so I spent some of the afternoon looking for a shop that sold it. Finally finding THE shop, he didn’t have any colour neg, just one roll of transparency and a few rolls of black and white. So I got those. A bit like being last in the bread line back in the day.
I have found quite a few people who have offered their assistance to me over the course of the day, the ones who aren’t staring at me anyway.
The never ending streets are wide and there is an air of smog or mist or whatever that makes the low sunlight particularly beautiful.. Maybe that’s why the cinematographer’s from here have a good set of eyes. I think London has the good sunlight too…
- JTuesday, November 20, 2007
A Place called Ginny
20th nov.
I watched Into the Wild yesterday. The true story of Christopher McCandless, a middle class graduate who wrote his college fund away to charity and set off across North America to live free and to live in the wilderness in Alaska. Although I was nowhere near as adventurous as he was, I did experience some of the things he did as a lone traveller. As the film nears it’s end he finds meaning in his travels. He writes in his book:
Happiness is only real when shared.
12 Nov.
On a solo trip 13 years ago, I Inter railed in Southern Europe for 30 days visiting 14 different places. It was the first time I ‘travelled’ and on my own. I was 19. Seeing Barcelona, O Porto, Venice, Prague, Fussen and other places for the first time with fresh eyes was liberating and awe inspiring. It was my first experience of a type of freedom I had never had before that. I came back a different person. I can’t remember a lot of where I lived and went but I can remember key experiences, though I won’t be recounting any here.
Since then I have been across North America (including NYC, San Fran, Washington, Las Vegas, Utah, Grand Canyon, South Dakota, Seattle, Louisiana), Tokyo, Schenzhen, Beijing, India (Rajasthan dessert, Agra, Delhi, Musoorie, Vancouver, Romania (Bucharest, Cernavoda, Constanta) Jerusalem, The West Bank.
Experiencing the historical architectural grandier of renaissance Europe and most of all Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, was enriching. The fields of Southern Spain and the hills in Tuscany but the beauty struck in Bavaria. With all the beauty that I saw, it was the experience of being scared and of loneliness that confounded me. The absence of sharing the beauty of things almost negates the existence of such a thing. I saw so many amazing things. The sunset from a train as we passed through a valley with a lake; the sun coming up in Lisbon when I arrived; in Bavaria the lake was so still it mirrored exactly the town across the water. You want to share with your family and friends and say nothing with the meaning, ‘just look at that…’. But there wasn’t anyone there.
I lived in Vancouver for a year. Having personal problems and losing identification with oneself in a foreign country was scary. I would say I lost so much that I had a second life after I got back.
In India I lived in the dessert on a ‘imperial’ campsite. It had a generator producing electricity and we even had our own toilet. I also stayed at grand house with stone floors and gardeners pruning trees. I lived on the top floor of a mountain on a mountain. We were above the clouds. I saw whole families living on a wheeled cart and 10 year old children, carrying babies barefoot running after our rickshaw for money. Abject poverty is not the same as poverty in modern western society. And the gulf of wealth is enormous. I went right outside of the mansion to see people begging.
Taxi drivers pushed against their vehicles for no reason, parents separated from their children, and the 8 metre high concrete wall that is seemingly everywhere; the checkpoints in the West Bank. I did not truly realize what freedom of movement meant until I was witness to people who had a lack of so much. I saw a massive bombed out building, perhaps a factory or the local electricity plant in Nablus. I saw a baby’s heart rate drop so much they performed surgery on the spot.
Coming back to Florence and Venice, places I adore for their architecture I am also at the same time less wide eyed. I see the general closeness of people and the lack of friendliness. The modern preoccupation for ‘fashion’. Large stretched out sunglasses, black and gold attire. I have to admit, Italian women do make the effort and can look pretty smart.
I guess I see more. Not just the Architecture or what kind of food is common but what society is like. As a tourist we barely get to grips with the geography let alone how the society operates and how the civilian lifestyle is. So we are there for the surface of things. We are there at most, for a postcard we once saw. We want to live in the postcard. We want to enjoy the local cuisine or the way mamma cooks it. Though when it arrives, it’s actually much more basic and less fussy than the import dishes we get back in the UK. I’ve see tourists take photos first and look with their own eyes after- if at all. We take a picture, we move on to the next statue. We look, but do we really see? Do we really care about Michaelangelo’s David or just insofar that we are to told to believe it was the best sculpture of it’s time in the west?
I am drifting. I think what I am trying to ay is that, although coming back here, seeing the churches and the buildings I have adored since I set eyes on them 13 years ago, I cannot give myself over to aesthetics. I am still governed by places where abject poverty lives and where children are shot at. Not where the point of sunglasses are for one to look good.
My point is a broad one. It encompasses the need to be in a place of comfort and where our priorities lye and the discourse of freedom and loneliness that, by being away from those two physical and mental places, can bring. Sometimes, these places live not far away from us, but inside us. To quote a scene from the film, Forrest Gump, he recounts to Ginny (the love of his life) the beautiful sky in Vietnam when the rain stops, the sun down on the Bayou, the stars in the water and the sun going down at mountain lake.
“I wish I could have been there with you” She says.
“You were” , he replies.
- J
I watched Into the Wild yesterday. The true story of Christopher McCandless, a middle class graduate who wrote his college fund away to charity and set off across North America to live free and to live in the wilderness in Alaska. Although I was nowhere near as adventurous as he was, I did experience some of the things he did as a lone traveller. As the film nears it’s end he finds meaning in his travels. He writes in his book:
Happiness is only real when shared.
12 Nov.
On a solo trip 13 years ago, I Inter railed in Southern Europe for 30 days visiting 14 different places. It was the first time I ‘travelled’ and on my own. I was 19. Seeing Barcelona, O Porto, Venice, Prague, Fussen and other places for the first time with fresh eyes was liberating and awe inspiring. It was my first experience of a type of freedom I had never had before that. I came back a different person. I can’t remember a lot of where I lived and went but I can remember key experiences, though I won’t be recounting any here.
Since then I have been across North America (including NYC, San Fran, Washington, Las Vegas, Utah, Grand Canyon, South Dakota, Seattle, Louisiana), Tokyo, Schenzhen, Beijing, India (Rajasthan dessert, Agra, Delhi, Musoorie, Vancouver, Romania (Bucharest, Cernavoda, Constanta) Jerusalem, The West Bank.
Experiencing the historical architectural grandier of renaissance Europe and most of all Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, was enriching. The fields of Southern Spain and the hills in Tuscany but the beauty struck in Bavaria. With all the beauty that I saw, it was the experience of being scared and of loneliness that confounded me. The absence of sharing the beauty of things almost negates the existence of such a thing. I saw so many amazing things. The sunset from a train as we passed through a valley with a lake; the sun coming up in Lisbon when I arrived; in Bavaria the lake was so still it mirrored exactly the town across the water. You want to share with your family and friends and say nothing with the meaning, ‘just look at that…’. But there wasn’t anyone there.
I lived in Vancouver for a year. Having personal problems and losing identification with oneself in a foreign country was scary. I would say I lost so much that I had a second life after I got back.
In India I lived in the dessert on a ‘imperial’ campsite. It had a generator producing electricity and we even had our own toilet. I also stayed at grand house with stone floors and gardeners pruning trees. I lived on the top floor of a mountain on a mountain. We were above the clouds. I saw whole families living on a wheeled cart and 10 year old children, carrying babies barefoot running after our rickshaw for money. Abject poverty is not the same as poverty in modern western society. And the gulf of wealth is enormous. I went right outside of the mansion to see people begging.
Taxi drivers pushed against their vehicles for no reason, parents separated from their children, and the 8 metre high concrete wall that is seemingly everywhere; the checkpoints in the West Bank. I did not truly realize what freedom of movement meant until I was witness to people who had a lack of so much. I saw a massive bombed out building, perhaps a factory or the local electricity plant in Nablus. I saw a baby’s heart rate drop so much they performed surgery on the spot.
Coming back to Florence and Venice, places I adore for their architecture I am also at the same time less wide eyed. I see the general closeness of people and the lack of friendliness. The modern preoccupation for ‘fashion’. Large stretched out sunglasses, black and gold attire. I have to admit, Italian women do make the effort and can look pretty smart.
I guess I see more. Not just the Architecture or what kind of food is common but what society is like. As a tourist we barely get to grips with the geography let alone how the society operates and how the civilian lifestyle is. So we are there for the surface of things. We are there at most, for a postcard we once saw. We want to live in the postcard. We want to enjoy the local cuisine or the way mamma cooks it. Though when it arrives, it’s actually much more basic and less fussy than the import dishes we get back in the UK. I’ve see tourists take photos first and look with their own eyes after- if at all. We take a picture, we move on to the next statue. We look, but do we really see? Do we really care about Michaelangelo’s David or just insofar that we are to told to believe it was the best sculpture of it’s time in the west?
I am drifting. I think what I am trying to ay is that, although coming back here, seeing the churches and the buildings I have adored since I set eyes on them 13 years ago, I cannot give myself over to aesthetics. I am still governed by places where abject poverty lives and where children are shot at. Not where the point of sunglasses are for one to look good.
My point is a broad one. It encompasses the need to be in a place of comfort and where our priorities lye and the discourse of freedom and loneliness that, by being away from those two physical and mental places, can bring. Sometimes, these places live not far away from us, but inside us. To quote a scene from the film, Forrest Gump, he recounts to Ginny (the love of his life) the beautiful sky in Vietnam when the rain stops, the sun down on the Bayou, the stars in the water and the sun going down at mountain lake.
“I wish I could have been there with you” She says.
“You were” , he replies.
- J
With a Home
A few months ago I shot a project with the organisation, KCHT Moving Forward. The main priority of their work is to support and help young people find housing. I was approached by someone about the film of whom I knew from last year working with Connexions (a film about and with, asylum seekers). This series of short films were made with the intention that they would be shown in schools in Medway as a preventative measure for becoming homeless. One of the young persons wrote the 3 synopsis and I wrote the scenes. I was to shoot, direct and edit it.
During the shooting a few months ago, we were asked to stop. Difficulties with the Council. They were concerned they would be mis represented and frictions between Moving Forward and the Council manifested. We continued shooting anyway. We weren’t going to stop. The young people had turned up and put work into it. There was no way we were going to stop shooting.
It finally got finished and had a screening last Friday. What I or the Connexions P.A. (who managed the project and got me on board) didn’t realize was how many ‘important’ people were going to attend. ‘Important’ as in people who work in social care, housing and with young people. What we didn’t foresee at all was the response it mustered.
Right after the screening a woman whose job title escapes me now though I know has both knowledge and clout regarding housing young homeless people got up and, almost trying to find the words to describe how she felt about the film. Although I can’t recall exactly what she said, I will paraphrase. She said despite the outtakes being funny, it was the films that had weight. That they carried a strong message, that it was moving and poignant. At the end, she said it was ‘magic’.
It was good to see Mercedes and Katherine (two of the main young people involved with the project) who since, has had her baby who’s in the film while still inside Katherine! They got attention with the guests and I think got asked to consider going around with the film to schools.
The Chief Executive who had left emailed an hour later expressing that despite having his reservations about the film (he who told us to stop shooting) thought the film was brilliant. Apparently he has never given such humble graces to the staff at Moving Forward.
Catriona, the Connexions P.A. said that we all had a great time making the film and by now, it was supposedly finished, it’s actually just begun as support and ideas of distribution for the film gathered momentum among the guests who were truly moved by it. We said we couldn’t have wished or dreamed for such a response. The impact we saw it made reflected in the impact the audience thought it could make.
This has obviously raised the bar for making films to educate, Moving Forward’s importance, the potential of the film and for future projects.
For myself, I was incredibly fortunate to have been a part of making it and it’s piece of work I am very proud of. To have the praise of people who can take it places was a bonus. I felt proud that I produced a piece of work that initially seemed small yet has become important to so many people, to affect not only the young people involved and the organisation of Moving Forward, but other related agencies as well.
The film is on my website. It is a large file but have patience. The film was shot with available light (bar one shot) in 3 days with non professional actors.
http://www.busstrikeproductions.co.uk/pages/films/without_a_home.html
A talented song writer who is also one of the young persons involved was originally going to write a score for the three films but college work became too much and we ran out of time. I still home to make an original soundtrack but as for now, I have used pre recorded tracks.
- J
During the shooting a few months ago, we were asked to stop. Difficulties with the Council. They were concerned they would be mis represented and frictions between Moving Forward and the Council manifested. We continued shooting anyway. We weren’t going to stop. The young people had turned up and put work into it. There was no way we were going to stop shooting.
It finally got finished and had a screening last Friday. What I or the Connexions P.A. (who managed the project and got me on board) didn’t realize was how many ‘important’ people were going to attend. ‘Important’ as in people who work in social care, housing and with young people. What we didn’t foresee at all was the response it mustered.
Right after the screening a woman whose job title escapes me now though I know has both knowledge and clout regarding housing young homeless people got up and, almost trying to find the words to describe how she felt about the film. Although I can’t recall exactly what she said, I will paraphrase. She said despite the outtakes being funny, it was the films that had weight. That they carried a strong message, that it was moving and poignant. At the end, she said it was ‘magic’.
It was good to see Mercedes and Katherine (two of the main young people involved with the project) who since, has had her baby who’s in the film while still inside Katherine! They got attention with the guests and I think got asked to consider going around with the film to schools.
The Chief Executive who had left emailed an hour later expressing that despite having his reservations about the film (he who told us to stop shooting) thought the film was brilliant. Apparently he has never given such humble graces to the staff at Moving Forward.
Catriona, the Connexions P.A. said that we all had a great time making the film and by now, it was supposedly finished, it’s actually just begun as support and ideas of distribution for the film gathered momentum among the guests who were truly moved by it. We said we couldn’t have wished or dreamed for such a response. The impact we saw it made reflected in the impact the audience thought it could make.
This has obviously raised the bar for making films to educate, Moving Forward’s importance, the potential of the film and for future projects.
For myself, I was incredibly fortunate to have been a part of making it and it’s piece of work I am very proud of. To have the praise of people who can take it places was a bonus. I felt proud that I produced a piece of work that initially seemed small yet has become important to so many people, to affect not only the young people involved and the organisation of Moving Forward, but other related agencies as well.
The film is on my website. It is a large file but have patience. The film was shot with available light (bar one shot) in 3 days with non professional actors.
http://www.busstrikeproductions.co.uk/pages/films/without_a_home.html
A talented song writer who is also one of the young persons involved was originally going to write a score for the three films but college work became too much and we ran out of time. I still home to make an original soundtrack but as for now, I have used pre recorded tracks.
- J
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Martin and Candy
On flight 977 right now. But I would have been on a freebie job shooting a trailer for a proposed feature. Last night, boarding was running late…
At Firenze SNB we came out of the café with 20 mins to spare. I looked on the board and our train wasn’t there. Hmm. At information they told me it was leaving from Frienze Rifredi- which actually I should have known because we got off that stop coming in and had to take another train to arrive at Firence SMN. When I got the ticket in Venezia I asked for Florence. I don’t understand why the woman gave me a ticket destination not for the main train station but, the one the one before it. The train for Firenze Rifredi was at 1.27 and was a few minutes ride. Though the connecting train was at 1.36, and I didn’t know what platform it was leaving on. The clock ticket as we got off and I found the platform. It was a bit of a run as the train pulled in as we reached the platform.
The train arrived at Venezia S. Lucia at 4.45. It was a walk over 3 bridges until we reached the bus stop. Then finding the ATVO ticket office for the tickets to Treviso Airport. A glass of wine and a meal later we were ready for the bus for Treviso. But, it was full, so we took our luggage out and got on a 2nd bus.
We got to Treviso early and there was a long queue for the check in. After the lounge we were at the boarding gates. As the 10.25 flight was nearing everyone got up to go. Except nothing happened and gradually, everyone started sitting, and lying on the floor. The announcement came that their would be more details later as the flight was delayed due to technical faults. After another 40 mins they announced that the flight had been cancelled. Moans, groans, queues and telephone calls ensued. A list of hotel was given out. I texted work to tell them I couldn’t make it and got some temporary cover. I booked a hotel for us and another family. We got a cab. We were charged £11 for a 5 minute ride.
I stayed up to have a few glasses of chilled Merlot and chatted with the owner of the hotel. The hotel had been in his family for 6 generations. He had wanted to Ski but had an injury when he was younger. He wants to teach skiing now but he is running the hotel full time. I tried a Port cum Sherry type wine. A chocolaty berry sweetness mellowed the taste buds.
In between either my dad snoring or my mum snoring, I got about 3 hours sleep. In the morning after breakfast, we took a bus down the road to the airport where we met with the same faces at last night.
For 10 mins after becoming airborne we flew over a vast array of snowy mountains… Timeless and majestic, they made me forget about the last 22hrs of travelling hurdles.
- J
At Firenze SNB we came out of the café with 20 mins to spare. I looked on the board and our train wasn’t there. Hmm. At information they told me it was leaving from Frienze Rifredi- which actually I should have known because we got off that stop coming in and had to take another train to arrive at Firence SMN. When I got the ticket in Venezia I asked for Florence. I don’t understand why the woman gave me a ticket destination not for the main train station but, the one the one before it. The train for Firenze Rifredi was at 1.27 and was a few minutes ride. Though the connecting train was at 1.36, and I didn’t know what platform it was leaving on. The clock ticket as we got off and I found the platform. It was a bit of a run as the train pulled in as we reached the platform.
The train arrived at Venezia S. Lucia at 4.45. It was a walk over 3 bridges until we reached the bus stop. Then finding the ATVO ticket office for the tickets to Treviso Airport. A glass of wine and a meal later we were ready for the bus for Treviso. But, it was full, so we took our luggage out and got on a 2nd bus.
We got to Treviso early and there was a long queue for the check in. After the lounge we were at the boarding gates. As the 10.25 flight was nearing everyone got up to go. Except nothing happened and gradually, everyone started sitting, and lying on the floor. The announcement came that their would be more details later as the flight was delayed due to technical faults. After another 40 mins they announced that the flight had been cancelled. Moans, groans, queues and telephone calls ensued. A list of hotel was given out. I texted work to tell them I couldn’t make it and got some temporary cover. I booked a hotel for us and another family. We got a cab. We were charged £11 for a 5 minute ride.
I stayed up to have a few glasses of chilled Merlot and chatted with the owner of the hotel. The hotel had been in his family for 6 generations. He had wanted to Ski but had an injury when he was younger. He wants to teach skiing now but he is running the hotel full time. I tried a Port cum Sherry type wine. A chocolaty berry sweetness mellowed the taste buds.
In between either my dad snoring or my mum snoring, I got about 3 hours sleep. In the morning after breakfast, we took a bus down the road to the airport where we met with the same faces at last night.
For 10 mins after becoming airborne we flew over a vast array of snowy mountains… Timeless and majestic, they made me forget about the last 22hrs of travelling hurdles.
- J
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Kansas
A sleek black BMW's races down the street screeching as it corners a bend. CLOSE behind it- a faded orange 1972 Fiat rattles on it's tail.
Sometimes we reference things we see with things we know. A mix of the classical Venice and a bit of something else...
The Lido
The Grand Canal
Santa Maria della Salute
- J
Sometimes we reference things we see with things we know. A mix of the classical Venice and a bit of something else...
The Lido
The Grand Canal
Santa Maria della Salute- J
Friday, November 09, 2007
New York Minute
It’s 8pm and I’m in Campo S. Lio in Venezia. Outside a bar on a quiet square, a few minutes away from the hotel. The hotel is more like a pensione. There is not lobby, kettle or lounge. But it is spitting distance from San Marco Piazza. It’s literally around the corner. On the first night I got my folks a room which had the roof terrace. You could see the domes of the Basilica 50 metres away, though it is partly under construction right now. This is my third time to Venezia. First when I was 19 on my own, second time was with a friend Louis to shoot some shots for the short film Death in Weston. I love it here. It’s like being in the 14th century. Some buildings go back 1000 years and many at least 500 and few under 100. Although there are many refurbished modern interiors of establishments, on the whole, the exteriors remain as they were. There are no roads so no cars. There are no visible overhead telephone lines. There are no planes soaring overhead. There is virtually no homeless people, there is no business district. And WiFi seems to be in short supply.
It takes a while to get here. If you fly into Treviso which, by the way, is a new building which right next to the original, which was the size of a large house. You went in on end and came out 30 metres away on the other. You take a bus which takes an hour and then you take a Vaporetti (into San Marco, at 40 mins). The plane ride was 1hr 40mins from London. You can’t get a cab to your hotel so you see many lost tourists pulling their luggage around looking for their hotel. And you do get lost which for which, is actually fun to do here. Forget the map. You’ll walk into a narrow lane and at the end you’ll find a courtyard with no other road or occasionally, the Grand Canal. There’s many places to eat outdoors and must be amazing in the summer.
However, the food is often not great and is expensive. With Central London prices for coffee, pizza or pasta ranging from an average of £10-15 a head. When you’re doing lunch and dinner everyday, it can work ut quite a bit. In the renowned 300 year old Florian, an Espresso is £3.50, a Capaccino £6 and an Irish Coffee is £11. Maybe it’s been brewing for that long too. Service in most places is not great either. Brusque, is how it normally is. After all, the tourists outnumber the locals 200 to 1. I can’t blame people who come here though. It is, a magnificent place with it’s (almost) unique more or less untouched, architectural geography. I went through a lane today that can only be passed in a single file.
Spending the whole day yesterday and the whole day today with my folks walking around, the day was seemed fairly long. If you do and see different things and often this you tend to experience when you travel, the day stretches on. Seemingly a day seems like 3.
- J
It takes a while to get here. If you fly into Treviso which, by the way, is a new building which right next to the original, which was the size of a large house. You went in on end and came out 30 metres away on the other. You take a bus which takes an hour and then you take a Vaporetti (into San Marco, at 40 mins). The plane ride was 1hr 40mins from London. You can’t get a cab to your hotel so you see many lost tourists pulling their luggage around looking for their hotel. And you do get lost which for which, is actually fun to do here. Forget the map. You’ll walk into a narrow lane and at the end you’ll find a courtyard with no other road or occasionally, the Grand Canal. There’s many places to eat outdoors and must be amazing in the summer.
However, the food is often not great and is expensive. With Central London prices for coffee, pizza or pasta ranging from an average of £10-15 a head. When you’re doing lunch and dinner everyday, it can work ut quite a bit. In the renowned 300 year old Florian, an Espresso is £3.50, a Capaccino £6 and an Irish Coffee is £11. Maybe it’s been brewing for that long too. Service in most places is not great either. Brusque, is how it normally is. After all, the tourists outnumber the locals 200 to 1. I can’t blame people who come here though. It is, a magnificent place with it’s (almost) unique more or less untouched, architectural geography. I went through a lane today that can only be passed in a single file.
Spending the whole day yesterday and the whole day today with my folks walking around, the day was seemed fairly long. If you do and see different things and often this you tend to experience when you travel, the day stretches on. Seemingly a day seems like 3.
- JWednesday, October 31, 2007
Persepolis
I took a late day today sorting stuff out at home before venturing outdoors. I either arrive a good half hour before screenings or bang on time. Because I had to return DVDs in Brick Lane, today was a bang on time day. Trouble is, on arrival, there was another 20 people who were bang on time in the queue. After about 5 mins, a woman said, 'I have a spare ticket if anyone wants it'. I would have gotten a free one anyway but I called to her just before she went back it. She'd paid for her ticket and gave it to me for free. We ended up sitting next to each other.
The film, an animation about a girl growing up in Tehran and then moving to Austria and then back to Tehran was really good. Funny, tragic and touching. Extremely funny. It was the best thing I saw in the festival so far. By a long shot.
Went for a drink with my new friend who was from Israel. We had a discussion about the conflict (middle east) and about Hong Kong and China. She teaches film theory and is also completing a PHD. In the future I may help her on a lecture with cinematography.
It was nice to meet a new friend out of such circumstances and as she said, only in London can one perhaps do that, and maybe in New York. Diversity.
I have been taking snaps with my phone over the last few months. What I call, Phonography. Most of which I have taken on the fly, between work, while walking. It's a little like Lomography except with a little more thought in the framing. Also the other difference being the digital artifacting as difference to the vignetting in a lomo. Here are some...
South London
The South Bank
Central London
Compton Street, Central London
North London
West London
Tate Modern
cameras on phones are great. From a wider perspective, it allows anyone who has one to take images more than they previous would (not having a camera on them and/or not being into 'photography'). It allows photography to be an accessible, universal activity.
More to the point, the variety of views and people and experiences one can be exposed to in London in a day, a week, is one of the best things about it.
- J
The film, an animation about a girl growing up in Tehran and then moving to Austria and then back to Tehran was really good. Funny, tragic and touching. Extremely funny. It was the best thing I saw in the festival so far. By a long shot.
Went for a drink with my new friend who was from Israel. We had a discussion about the conflict (middle east) and about Hong Kong and China. She teaches film theory and is also completing a PHD. In the future I may help her on a lecture with cinematography.
It was nice to meet a new friend out of such circumstances and as she said, only in London can one perhaps do that, and maybe in New York. Diversity.
I have been taking snaps with my phone over the last few months. What I call, Phonography. Most of which I have taken on the fly, between work, while walking. It's a little like Lomography except with a little more thought in the framing. Also the other difference being the digital artifacting as difference to the vignetting in a lomo. Here are some...
South London
The South Bank
Central London
Compton Street, Central London
North London
West London
Tate Moderncameras on phones are great. From a wider perspective, it allows anyone who has one to take images more than they previous would (not having a camera on them and/or not being into 'photography'). It allows photography to be an accessible, universal activity.
More to the point, the variety of views and people and experiences one can be exposed to in London in a day, a week, is one of the best things about it.
- J
Saturday, October 27, 2007
The Last Temptation of JC
More of the London Film Festival...
Yesterday I did something I don't normally at Festivals, I went to watch a film I knew was coming out soon. I think nothing else was on that i wanted to watch. So I got a ticket to go watch Grace is Gone starring John Cusack. I like Cusack in his downbeat everyman roles. As I was approaching the Odeon I saw a crown built up and as i got closer, saw a red carpet and bouncers. I went and said i had a ticket. As I walked across the red carpet i felt eyes staring me down. I was tempted to do the moonwalk and be on the cover of tomorrows Metro, but my sensibilities got the better of me. I asked who was coming and they said John Cusack. I got my seat and we waited for John and the debut director (and writer) James C Strouse. After the presentation, film and after questions I was walking out and John Cusack was walking about the same pace and ended up at the exit the same time as me so I was a few feet away from him, basically within spitting distance. I was tempted, but i didn't. He's very tall, I would say about 6' 3'. On stage he looked like a white Michael Jordon. On exit I could hear a man calling,
"John! John! JOHN!"
John ignored him and probably got in his car. I ignored him too, but that's more to do with because my names not John. But I would have ignored him too if even my name was John.
Briefly looking back at my brief red carpet entrance and exit I find the whole celebrity/star thing all so strange. I saw John Cusack leaving the theatre like us all but with people staring at him and wanting to catch up with him. So weird. I'd hate that. Most celebrities probably think it's wired that one has to step onto a red carpet to reach the theatre, like the pavement wasn't good enough. I have to admit though, walking onto carpet outside was comfortable, for about 5 steps.
I left the film Frozen today after 45 mins. Gratuitous cinematography, amateur performances (contrived), clumsy narration... i could go on. This film got good reviews too. But I walked out and ended up having a nice chat with one of the staff members who happened to be a cute French girl. I was tempted.
After dropping my DVD rentals I went across Lodnon again to The Tricycle Cinema in Kilburn. They said they couldn't give me a comp. ticket on the weekend. I was hot a sweaty. It wasn't sold out either and it was starting in 5 mins. I left the desk thinking I should chance trying to get one. So I went back telling the man I already watching something today and showed him my ticket. He ended up giving me a comp. ticket... So I went to see Saviour's Square which was a great Polish domestic drama. Although tragic, it hardly brought any tears to the eyes. The temptation was there, but i don't think i was supposed to.
- J
Yesterday I did something I don't normally at Festivals, I went to watch a film I knew was coming out soon. I think nothing else was on that i wanted to watch. So I got a ticket to go watch Grace is Gone starring John Cusack. I like Cusack in his downbeat everyman roles. As I was approaching the Odeon I saw a crown built up and as i got closer, saw a red carpet and bouncers. I went and said i had a ticket. As I walked across the red carpet i felt eyes staring me down. I was tempted to do the moonwalk and be on the cover of tomorrows Metro, but my sensibilities got the better of me. I asked who was coming and they said John Cusack. I got my seat and we waited for John and the debut director (and writer) James C Strouse. After the presentation, film and after questions I was walking out and John Cusack was walking about the same pace and ended up at the exit the same time as me so I was a few feet away from him, basically within spitting distance. I was tempted, but i didn't. He's very tall, I would say about 6' 3'. On stage he looked like a white Michael Jordon. On exit I could hear a man calling,
"John! John! JOHN!"
John ignored him and probably got in his car. I ignored him too, but that's more to do with because my names not John. But I would have ignored him too if even my name was John.
Briefly looking back at my brief red carpet entrance and exit I find the whole celebrity/star thing all so strange. I saw John Cusack leaving the theatre like us all but with people staring at him and wanting to catch up with him. So weird. I'd hate that. Most celebrities probably think it's wired that one has to step onto a red carpet to reach the theatre, like the pavement wasn't good enough. I have to admit though, walking onto carpet outside was comfortable, for about 5 steps.
I left the film Frozen today after 45 mins. Gratuitous cinematography, amateur performances (contrived), clumsy narration... i could go on. This film got good reviews too. But I walked out and ended up having a nice chat with one of the staff members who happened to be a cute French girl. I was tempted.
After dropping my DVD rentals I went across Lodnon again to The Tricycle Cinema in Kilburn. They said they couldn't give me a comp. ticket on the weekend. I was hot a sweaty. It wasn't sold out either and it was starting in 5 mins. I left the desk thinking I should chance trying to get one. So I went back telling the man I already watching something today and showed him my ticket. He ended up giving me a comp. ticket... So I went to see Saviour's Square which was a great Polish domestic drama. Although tragic, it hardly brought any tears to the eyes. The temptation was there, but i don't think i was supposed to.
- J
Thursday, October 25, 2007
In the Title
On Monday I went to collect my delegates pass from, the delegates centre at the NFT/BFI. At the end of a large room there was a desk. Above the desk was three signs, INDUSTRY, PRESS and FILMMAKERS. I went to the filmmakers desk and said,
"I here to pick up my pass"
"what's the film"
"erm...(whispering) mouth to anus..."
"Oh...." she smirks and she files through a rollidex.
Yesterday apart from meeting a snobby producer and a few girls who sorta knew Seamus McGarvey I spoke to an elderly lady whose son was a director. She asked me which film I shot.
"It's erm... the shortest piece in the festival..."
Today I was at the delegates centre and was booking a DVD screening (we can watch things we've missed on DVD stations, for me today it was You, The Living). When I was asking about the booking she wasn't very helpful. When I came to book I showed her my pass and she suddenly said to the guy next to her,
"Oh, there's your favorite title, this guy directed it!"
"No, I just shot it"
She was more smiley after that.
I also was speaking to a nice lady, a film critic at the centre for on and off about 30 mins before she asked,
"Are you a student?"
"Er no... I'm a Cinematographer"
"Oh really?"
Yes really..........
I'm also an official FILMMAKER, because that's what it says on my badge... and then below my job title is a description of my other specialty...
-J
"I here to pick up my pass"
"what's the film"
"erm...(whispering) mouth to anus..."
"Oh...." she smirks and she files through a rollidex.
Yesterday apart from meeting a snobby producer and a few girls who sorta knew Seamus McGarvey I spoke to an elderly lady whose son was a director. She asked me which film I shot.
"It's erm... the shortest piece in the festival..."
Today I was at the delegates centre and was booking a DVD screening (we can watch things we've missed on DVD stations, for me today it was You, The Living). When I was asking about the booking she wasn't very helpful. When I came to book I showed her my pass and she suddenly said to the guy next to her,
"Oh, there's your favorite title, this guy directed it!"
"No, I just shot it"
She was more smiley after that.
I also was speaking to a nice lady, a film critic at the centre for on and off about 30 mins before she asked,
"Are you a student?"
"Er no... I'm a Cinematographer"
"Oh really?"
Yes really..........
I'm also an official FILMMAKER, because that's what it says on my badge... and then below my job title is a description of my other specialty...
-J
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Cool Cat
After weeks of solid working hours with little sleep I got a break this past week. Without the intention of going out much, I ended up going out a lot, having conversations and drinking copious amounts of red wine finishing up this morning at 7am.
A new friend of mine from Rochester came up for the day. First we went to buy Varlhrona (chocolate), if heaven could be tasted, this would be it. For the first time since I left Wagamamas I popped in and said hello to a few people I haven't seen for about 4 years. Next was the Apple store where my friend got to check out the new iTouch with the possibility of getting a MacBook and free iPod Nano. Then went around the corner for a Beard Papas. Yum. And then popped into Wasabi for a box of sushi. Hopped on a bus to St Pauls and walked across the Millennium Bridge to the Tate Modern to see Louise Bourgeouis's big spider and Doris Salcedo’s Shibboleth, the big crack. We had our sushi on the riverbank. Over Waterloo Bridge to Embankment we settled at Gordon's Wine bar for a bottle. The rugby was on so the bar was relatively empty. It is normally packed out, even on weekdays. We polished two bottles between us and left at closing. She had to take a midnight train back so we rushed and dodged human and motorized traffic to Soho to grab a meal. But it was sure she wasn't going to make her train. Another friend was having a birthday do around the corner on Frith street so we popped along to that. "I'm not staying long', I said. But when we got there they were DJ'ing 80's pop. A small dingy joint that looks more like an underground bar in Old Street, not smack bang in Soho. But the music was fantastic. Once we started dancing, that was the end of going home early. We danced non stop until closing which was about 3am. It's been years since I did that. It wasn't full at all and the dance floor was fairly empty but we didn't care as we dominated the floor! We stumbled out and walked to Tottenham Court rd and grabbed a cab home. We stayed up till 7am this morning chatting and drinking more wine.
A great day out was topped off by endless dancing to 80's perfect pop. I can't remember the last time I had so much fun.
I got word from The London Film Festival that I have a now have a Delegates Pass. Fogeddaboudit.
In the film, Scent of a Woman, Al Pacino's character says, 'We'll taking a tour- of pleasures'. There's nothing more complicated and life affirming than that.
- J
A new friend of mine from Rochester came up for the day. First we went to buy Varlhrona (chocolate), if heaven could be tasted, this would be it. For the first time since I left Wagamamas I popped in and said hello to a few people I haven't seen for about 4 years. Next was the Apple store where my friend got to check out the new iTouch with the possibility of getting a MacBook and free iPod Nano. Then went around the corner for a Beard Papas. Yum. And then popped into Wasabi for a box of sushi. Hopped on a bus to St Pauls and walked across the Millennium Bridge to the Tate Modern to see Louise Bourgeouis's big spider and Doris Salcedo’s Shibboleth, the big crack. We had our sushi on the riverbank. Over Waterloo Bridge to Embankment we settled at Gordon's Wine bar for a bottle. The rugby was on so the bar was relatively empty. It is normally packed out, even on weekdays. We polished two bottles between us and left at closing. She had to take a midnight train back so we rushed and dodged human and motorized traffic to Soho to grab a meal. But it was sure she wasn't going to make her train. Another friend was having a birthday do around the corner on Frith street so we popped along to that. "I'm not staying long', I said. But when we got there they were DJ'ing 80's pop. A small dingy joint that looks more like an underground bar in Old Street, not smack bang in Soho. But the music was fantastic. Once we started dancing, that was the end of going home early. We danced non stop until closing which was about 3am. It's been years since I did that. It wasn't full at all and the dance floor was fairly empty but we didn't care as we dominated the floor! We stumbled out and walked to Tottenham Court rd and grabbed a cab home. We stayed up till 7am this morning chatting and drinking more wine.
A great day out was topped off by endless dancing to 80's perfect pop. I can't remember the last time I had so much fun.
I got word from The London Film Festival that I have a now have a Delegates Pass. Fogeddaboudit.
In the film, Scent of a Woman, Al Pacino's character says, 'We'll taking a tour- of pleasures'. There's nothing more complicated and life affirming than that.
- J
Thursday, October 18, 2007
A Discreet Smile
About this time last year I came back from The West Bank, Hong Kong and Beijing. That trip changed my perception of the world and my direction in life and work ethic. It continues today. Funnily enough, this past year I have gotten offered the standard of work I was aspiring to. And also the entry into festival all around the world, over 25 this year. I've shot documentaries and music videos and shorts which I found all rewarding. I didn't pine for them like i used to, I got offered to shoot them.
Yesterday I found out that a piece I shot years ago was screening at the London Film Festival. My home festival I had been attending for the last decade. Despite the work not being my best, it is a nice feeling. I am trying to get a late delegates pass as I did manage in Edinburgh. This would be grand.
I take none of this for granted and appreciate this opportunity to see so much work out there. It's a privilege. A celebration of film. I do have a small inkling of the prestige that comes with a 'round the neck' free pass and I admit it is nice to have ( if i do). But what is important is the work that people produce and a lot which i can't afford to go to see all unless this pass, comes to pass.
What I am getting at is that from that trip I reached a point in my life that I realized that life wasn't about film but film, that i make, should be about life. And the possibility of making that happen was within grasp.
I have been doing community and small projects recently and also a spot of teaching and it's all about something i always wanted to do. Not to shoot big productions. Just the simple yet meaningful shoots to educate, raise money and have fun with making films. It is partly, what it is all about not just in theory, but in practice.
It was great to be sitting in the audience seeing your work at the NFT (National Film Theatre) knowing you shot that and no one else knows. You are in your home town where you grew up and your work is on the cinema screen (my third time at the NFT). A discreet smile rolls around your face while everybody watches...
At this point, one wonders if at this point one can do this, what can one do in the coming years?
J
Mouth to Anus@ The 51st London Film Festival: http://www.bfi.org.uk/whatson/lff/node/2488/more
Yesterday I found out that a piece I shot years ago was screening at the London Film Festival. My home festival I had been attending for the last decade. Despite the work not being my best, it is a nice feeling. I am trying to get a late delegates pass as I did manage in Edinburgh. This would be grand.
I take none of this for granted and appreciate this opportunity to see so much work out there. It's a privilege. A celebration of film. I do have a small inkling of the prestige that comes with a 'round the neck' free pass and I admit it is nice to have ( if i do). But what is important is the work that people produce and a lot which i can't afford to go to see all unless this pass, comes to pass.
What I am getting at is that from that trip I reached a point in my life that I realized that life wasn't about film but film, that i make, should be about life. And the possibility of making that happen was within grasp.
I have been doing community and small projects recently and also a spot of teaching and it's all about something i always wanted to do. Not to shoot big productions. Just the simple yet meaningful shoots to educate, raise money and have fun with making films. It is partly, what it is all about not just in theory, but in practice.
It was great to be sitting in the audience seeing your work at the NFT (National Film Theatre) knowing you shot that and no one else knows. You are in your home town where you grew up and your work is on the cinema screen (my third time at the NFT). A discreet smile rolls around your face while everybody watches...
At this point, one wonders if at this point one can do this, what can one do in the coming years?
J
Mouth to Anus@ The 51st London Film Festival: http://www.bfi.org.uk/whatson/lff/node/2488/more
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Your Song
these are whom exist, friends, individuals, connected by things they are unaware of...
i know a deep sense of grief, passion and strife lives in her. A person who cries for others. A person who you sit with and while you speak, she can form tears in her eyes. Frustrated and always moving, she is a best friend.
Her large eyes and kind demeanor. Cute and striving she recently left her boyfriend of 10 years to be with a girl. A surprising and painful journey.
She can talk forever if time allowed. Kind and considerate, honest and always alive, i can stare and listen for hours. She knows what to do and how to speak to people.
He is married to her and will wait for the bus with me at 3am while stoned and drunk. He makes you feel warm and at home. He nearly made me cry by his kindness.
She asks about you first. She is private. She says 'fucking hell' like nobody else. She talks highly of you and knows whats right and wrong and sane and adventurous and she cares. She is a life of a party but she is grounded and trustworthy. And she is beautiful.
He is caring yet alpha male. His views are skew but we care about where is going and what he says. If you fell, he would catch you.
She will challenge you in the cheekiest of ways and smile all the time. She tells you straight and supports you. She works hard. She cooks well. She never pretends to be anything else because she's great the way she is.
He is lethargic and talks monotone. He means what he says. He's the most reliable person i know. He is a very good friend. He's a floater. He's not complicated and he has a good heart.
She is a vat of energy. Smiling and pushing and understanding. Knowing how to get what she wants but kind and considerate. She is a buzz of sparks and adorable. When she speaks it's like lighting a match, it flies and you feel the remnants of something special.
Her strength for someone so young. Her bubbly self and hope of the future. Her laugh. She is a the hope.
Despite that i haven't seen him for years. He has the potential of everything. Kind and considerate. Energetic when he feels to be. I miss him.
we think she will be the future of India. An Arundhati Roy in the making. Beautiful in speech and language and phyisical stature. For someone so young, she is the future.
always happy in your presence and considerate, she never fails to make me laugh. Despite problems with her family, she strives.
He helps with film projects i do without asking anything back. He ismore charity than he thinks. He has kind and thoughtful heart.
Looking for a different life. She wrote a manuscript for a book over 5 years. She is a painter. She is an artist in mind. I remember the way she folded a towel, neat and proper. Her demeanor so traditional Japanese ye with a modern edge. A dreamer. A doll like physicality, she has something to say.
If consideration was personified, it would be her. Kindness and selflessness has become. Warmth and silence came with meaning. Grounded and sensible with dreams.
Strong and forceful. She is can move mountains with her words. Her actions and words are loud and bold. And her heart is gold.
Fun and curious. Passionate and serious. Considerate and caring. With a good sense of art and social activity, she is gold. we shared bohemium rhapsody over karoake.
Hard working and caring of family, She showed me kindness at a point which changed my life. Deliberate and to the point. I found my roots thanks to her.
she's got involved in local art projects that have expanded domestically. She is kind and considerate. She was a good friend. I haven't seen her her 7 years.
she is passionate and alive. She speaks her mind and struggles for the deeds. She loves horses. I haven't seen her for 7 years.
Fun and young. Raw passion and excitable. A smile that would melt your heart. Opinions that you would laugh at yet adorable at the same time.
A sense of adventure yet not to calculate. Young yet hard working and kind and warm. Beautiful if physical stature and speech. Surprising and silent.
Kind and silent. Painfully silent. A dreamer who needs the push. Something lives inside. The best dresser i ever knew.
Full of pain and passion she is compassionate towards animals. The only person i have known to have eyes filled with tears at the sight of a bird in pain. Angered me greatly in the last 10 years but nonetheless I see beauty in the layers of anger she exerts and the beauty in how she puts down a cup. The way she fidgets when nervous and a heart as open as one has ever seen. To be in her presence is to have lived a different life. The way she sees what i do and beauty in all her little tiny moves.
these are my friends/people i know and i love them all so very much. apart from my family, work and the world around me which i have so much to say about, this is what my life is about. Beauty is what we see. As Arundhati Roy said, 'explore beauty to it's lair'. My words to describe them are pale in comparison to who and how they are. I hope i live up to who i am to them. I am lucky to know each and every one of you. A short note.
In the words so expressed by Elton John...
"I hope you don't mind, that i put down in words, how wonderful life is, while you're in the world..."
J
i know a deep sense of grief, passion and strife lives in her. A person who cries for others. A person who you sit with and while you speak, she can form tears in her eyes. Frustrated and always moving, she is a best friend.
Her large eyes and kind demeanor. Cute and striving she recently left her boyfriend of 10 years to be with a girl. A surprising and painful journey.
She can talk forever if time allowed. Kind and considerate, honest and always alive, i can stare and listen for hours. She knows what to do and how to speak to people.
He is married to her and will wait for the bus with me at 3am while stoned and drunk. He makes you feel warm and at home. He nearly made me cry by his kindness.
She asks about you first. She is private. She says 'fucking hell' like nobody else. She talks highly of you and knows whats right and wrong and sane and adventurous and she cares. She is a life of a party but she is grounded and trustworthy. And she is beautiful.
He is caring yet alpha male. His views are skew but we care about where is going and what he says. If you fell, he would catch you.
She will challenge you in the cheekiest of ways and smile all the time. She tells you straight and supports you. She works hard. She cooks well. She never pretends to be anything else because she's great the way she is.
He is lethargic and talks monotone. He means what he says. He's the most reliable person i know. He is a very good friend. He's a floater. He's not complicated and he has a good heart.
She is a vat of energy. Smiling and pushing and understanding. Knowing how to get what she wants but kind and considerate. She is a buzz of sparks and adorable. When she speaks it's like lighting a match, it flies and you feel the remnants of something special.
Her strength for someone so young. Her bubbly self and hope of the future. Her laugh. She is a the hope.
Despite that i haven't seen him for years. He has the potential of everything. Kind and considerate. Energetic when he feels to be. I miss him.
we think she will be the future of India. An Arundhati Roy in the making. Beautiful in speech and language and phyisical stature. For someone so young, she is the future.
always happy in your presence and considerate, she never fails to make me laugh. Despite problems with her family, she strives.
He helps with film projects i do without asking anything back. He ismore charity than he thinks. He has kind and thoughtful heart.
Looking for a different life. She wrote a manuscript for a book over 5 years. She is a painter. She is an artist in mind. I remember the way she folded a towel, neat and proper. Her demeanor so traditional Japanese ye with a modern edge. A dreamer. A doll like physicality, she has something to say.
If consideration was personified, it would be her. Kindness and selflessness has become. Warmth and silence came with meaning. Grounded and sensible with dreams.
Strong and forceful. She is can move mountains with her words. Her actions and words are loud and bold. And her heart is gold.
Fun and curious. Passionate and serious. Considerate and caring. With a good sense of art and social activity, she is gold. we shared bohemium rhapsody over karoake.
Hard working and caring of family, She showed me kindness at a point which changed my life. Deliberate and to the point. I found my roots thanks to her.
she's got involved in local art projects that have expanded domestically. She is kind and considerate. She was a good friend. I haven't seen her her 7 years.
she is passionate and alive. She speaks her mind and struggles for the deeds. She loves horses. I haven't seen her for 7 years.
Fun and young. Raw passion and excitable. A smile that would melt your heart. Opinions that you would laugh at yet adorable at the same time.
A sense of adventure yet not to calculate. Young yet hard working and kind and warm. Beautiful if physical stature and speech. Surprising and silent.
Kind and silent. Painfully silent. A dreamer who needs the push. Something lives inside. The best dresser i ever knew.
Full of pain and passion she is compassionate towards animals. The only person i have known to have eyes filled with tears at the sight of a bird in pain. Angered me greatly in the last 10 years but nonetheless I see beauty in the layers of anger she exerts and the beauty in how she puts down a cup. The way she fidgets when nervous and a heart as open as one has ever seen. To be in her presence is to have lived a different life. The way she sees what i do and beauty in all her little tiny moves.
these are my friends/people i know and i love them all so very much. apart from my family, work and the world around me which i have so much to say about, this is what my life is about. Beauty is what we see. As Arundhati Roy said, 'explore beauty to it's lair'. My words to describe them are pale in comparison to who and how they are. I hope i live up to who i am to them. I am lucky to know each and every one of you. A short note.
In the words so expressed by Elton John...
"I hope you don't mind, that i put down in words, how wonderful life is, while you're in the world..."
J
Monday, September 10, 2007
Gravity
This morning I recieved my ordered books, several copies of Palestinian Walks: Notes on a Vanashing Landscape, for which the cover photograph was taken by myself.
I received a bulletin from Fotolibra in May of this year asking for a suitable photo of Banksy's Balloon Girl.
We were traveling back from Beit Mreen after taking Jamal and his mother back home when we stopped at Ramallah to meet Steve (CEO of Palestine Children's Relief Fund). He was to drive us back to Jerusalem. En- route we stopped and did a quick interview with Steve. I quickly took a few snaps right after we finished of the boys throwing rocks at the wall and of Banksy's Balloon Girl.
I logged on to me free account at Fotolibra and uploaded the 2 photos I had. A month and a half later I received an email from Gwen at Fotolibra telling me that a publisher wanted my photograph and also to change some elements. I replied asking what book it was and why they wanted to change it. They explained why and told me about the book and so I was over the moon and agreed.
When I came back from Edinburgh I found out that the author launched the book on the 23rd, a few days after I had asked for one at the Waterstones (who didn't have one). So I figure he was there at the book festival. I was in the tent at the book festival 3 days prior and still in Edinburgh on the 23rd.
I wrote an email to the PR rep at Profile Books about getting them signed and she said the author would love to and please send them to- and she gave me- an address in Edinburgh...
Anyway. It's been nearly exactly a year to the day when I took the photograph. And I'm very proud it the cover for this book. Even if it is a photograph that could have been taken by anyone. I've had a few exhibitions in Vancouver but they didn't mean much. I even sold 3 prints. I've taken thousands of photographs for actors. But this cover means the most. Although having the cover published makes one feel floaty like the balloons, the subject matter grounds me. Below is the cover and the latter is the original.
- J
I received a bulletin from Fotolibra in May of this year asking for a suitable photo of Banksy's Balloon Girl.
We were traveling back from Beit Mreen after taking Jamal and his mother back home when we stopped at Ramallah to meet Steve (CEO of Palestine Children's Relief Fund). He was to drive us back to Jerusalem. En- route we stopped and did a quick interview with Steve. I quickly took a few snaps right after we finished of the boys throwing rocks at the wall and of Banksy's Balloon Girl.
I logged on to me free account at Fotolibra and uploaded the 2 photos I had. A month and a half later I received an email from Gwen at Fotolibra telling me that a publisher wanted my photograph and also to change some elements. I replied asking what book it was and why they wanted to change it. They explained why and told me about the book and so I was over the moon and agreed.
When I came back from Edinburgh I found out that the author launched the book on the 23rd, a few days after I had asked for one at the Waterstones (who didn't have one). So I figure he was there at the book festival. I was in the tent at the book festival 3 days prior and still in Edinburgh on the 23rd.
I wrote an email to the PR rep at Profile Books about getting them signed and she said the author would love to and please send them to- and she gave me- an address in Edinburgh...
Anyway. It's been nearly exactly a year to the day when I took the photograph. And I'm very proud it the cover for this book. Even if it is a photograph that could have been taken by anyone. I've had a few exhibitions in Vancouver but they didn't mean much. I even sold 3 prints. I've taken thousands of photographs for actors. But this cover means the most. Although having the cover published makes one feel floaty like the balloons, the subject matter grounds me. Below is the cover and the latter is the original.
- J
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Without a Home
After a month of on and off pre production we finally came to shoot the project with the ex homeless young people in Medway. The finished film was aimed to be distributed to schools in Kent to screen with the intent of deterring young people from becoming homeless, that becoming homeless, be it by choice or otherwise, be avoided at many costs. The film was written by one of the young people. It is 3 short accounts of how each young person became homeless set within a chat show type environment. I wrote the scenes from the accounts. I intended to merge the stories into one whole short film at the beginning but this changed. Apparently, teenagers like watching the likes of Jeremy Kyle. I didn't even know who he was when they told me, I had to look him up on YouTube.
There were mainly only the 3 principle characters of the 3 stories for the 3 days we shot (a script per day). All of the stories seem to be based on real accounts but one is based on the girl who wrote all three. She also acted in her own reconstruction, which was potentially either very easy or difficult to direct. It was my first time directing fiction. I had to shoot it at the same time, which made it a little more challenging. With only one light for one of the scenes which was essential, everything was daylight lit.
I found it great working with the young people. I finally was at the age when youth work felt as i was older. I had done youth work in my early twenties and the youth weren't much younger. It was great that I got along with the young people and could combine both film making and youth work, the two vocations I love. As my first time directing, I too found this liberating. Having shot numerous projects over the last few years and keeping my mouth shut about performances, I finally could direct and I found, that I was not bad at directing!
There were major issues with Moving forward and the Council that week. We were asked to stop shooting at one point though we continued to do so. The young people had worked on it and I too wanted see it finished. It was a runabout few days with Moving Forward's liason running around for cast. I told her she should set up a business, 'lastminutecasting.com". Unfortunately, it is still up in the air whether or not now the film will be allowed to screen in schools.
I invited the writer down to a music video I was to work on on the weekend. She is also interested in photography and drama. Her mother passed away when she was 14 and her father is absent. She's a jolly girl who's got some soul. I have taken it on to sponsor her to come up for another shoot my Camera Assistant invited her to. I may continue to unofficially sponsor her for future endeavours.
I am hoping to direct some short films a friend has written years ago. We were talking about making them with the intent I shoot them. But they never came about. Now I have a spark for directing, I certainly will be endevouring to do something about it.
- J
There were mainly only the 3 principle characters of the 3 stories for the 3 days we shot (a script per day). All of the stories seem to be based on real accounts but one is based on the girl who wrote all three. She also acted in her own reconstruction, which was potentially either very easy or difficult to direct. It was my first time directing fiction. I had to shoot it at the same time, which made it a little more challenging. With only one light for one of the scenes which was essential, everything was daylight lit.
I found it great working with the young people. I finally was at the age when youth work felt as i was older. I had done youth work in my early twenties and the youth weren't much younger. It was great that I got along with the young people and could combine both film making and youth work, the two vocations I love. As my first time directing, I too found this liberating. Having shot numerous projects over the last few years and keeping my mouth shut about performances, I finally could direct and I found, that I was not bad at directing!
There were major issues with Moving forward and the Council that week. We were asked to stop shooting at one point though we continued to do so. The young people had worked on it and I too wanted see it finished. It was a runabout few days with Moving Forward's liason running around for cast. I told her she should set up a business, 'lastminutecasting.com". Unfortunately, it is still up in the air whether or not now the film will be allowed to screen in schools.
I invited the writer down to a music video I was to work on on the weekend. She is also interested in photography and drama. Her mother passed away when she was 14 and her father is absent. She's a jolly girl who's got some soul. I have taken it on to sponsor her to come up for another shoot my Camera Assistant invited her to. I may continue to unofficially sponsor her for future endeavours.
I am hoping to direct some short films a friend has written years ago. We were talking about making them with the intent I shoot them. But they never came about. Now I have a spark for directing, I certainly will be endevouring to do something about it.
- J
Sunday, August 26, 2007
We Are Together
Thank you EIFF…
- The Rise and fall of Renaissance Films: Exploring Independent Film Business Models
-To Die in Jerusalem (which I did pay for as I had sans pass) RECOMMENDED
-Document Shorts
-Beirut Stories (amateurish/document shorts)
-Extraordinary Rendition (fiction yet ‘real’ complicit kidnapping of British citizen by the CIA)
- Western Trunk Line (Melancholic domestic drama set in a Chinese Mining Village)
-Chris Cooper: In Person (of American Beauty fame: Military father)
-Bridge Over the Wadi and Strawberry Fields (met the director of former) RECOMMENDED
-State of the World (somewhat eclectic collection of commissioned shorts that formed a feature, from around the world- I’ve never seen so many people walk out of a screening before- spoke to the producer later)
-We Are Together (met the director) RECOMMENDED
-Blind Mountain (based of real life human trafficking; selling wives to Chinese rural villages)
-Serpent (French Thriller)
If I’d gotten my pass at the beginning, the list would have been at least twice as long. But 3 films a day for 3 days is as much as I have ever done. All but one film was at the Filmhouse so I would go from one screen to the next, sometimes with an hour break, sometimes 15mins.
I had met Hilla Medalia who had directed To Die in Jerusalem after the screening. We chatted as I walked her and her friends to the restaurant. One of her friends was Barak Heymann who, directed Bridge Over the Wadi. Both were Israeli and had made fairly successful first time documentaries, which were fair to both Jewish and Palestinian perspectives. Hilla had started her doc while still a student with a PD150. Both took years to shoot and finish. I bumped into Barak today at the café and we spoke for a little bit. We were actually going to see the same film, We Are Together. Barak wanted to see this film that seem to steal every award from his film in the festivals! The film as in turned out was a very good first time documentary about the Agape school for orphans in South Africa. This also took a few years to shoot and began when the director was still in film school. Strawberry Fields was equally a very good and partly due to it’s strength of feeling very grassroots (at one point we see the director being asked not to hold the tripod like a rocket launcher as Apache helicopters fly nearby).
I realized that my bus was a 10:30pm and not 8pm as I originally thought so I figured I’d see one more film. My first choice was Julie Delpy’s debut. But it was sold out. So Instead I got one for The Serpent, a French Thriller in a similar vein to Tell No One. While sitting in the auditorium waiting for the film to start, I saw a man and woman walk in and around to the other side. The man looked strikingly like John Pilger, of whose writing and work I have admired for years. I was pretty sure it was him. After the film I waited till he was in the Foyer and asked if he was and indeed he was. He was on his way out with, I think, his wife so I didn’t want to hold him up. I just said I liked his work saw his doc the other day and that it was a pleasure to meet him. He didn’t say much, just a thank you.
If meeting 3 good first timer doc directors having done good work about Israel/Palestine wasn’t enough, I meet one of the mothers of hard core journalism who has consistently uncovered the political upheaval, documented wars and conflict around the world. He’s written articles, books and made documentaries. The man had been in war zones before I was even born. I didn’t expect him to say shit to me but I just wanted to say that it was a pleasure to have been in the same room as him! On par with meeting Noam Chomsky, Robert Fisk and Arundhati Roy. I never though I would ever meet any of these people who educate, inspire and give so much hope.
When you’ve stood with greatness, it feels liberating and for a moment you feel as if you had a peek above the clouds, that you may be heading for greatness yourself as you tip toed at the bottom of their podium for a second.
What I believe Charlotte Cornic (made a short film about a Palestinian Refugee living in Glasgow), Hilla Medalia, Bara Heymann, Paul Taylor, John Pilger and myself have is the need to share what we know, what we saw, what we are discovering, to inform what is rare or non existent on the news or on TV. It’s great to have briefly met people who are like-minded. Taking Paul’s title of his film not just to mean us as film- makers, but all of us as a species; we are together.
- J
- The Rise and fall of Renaissance Films: Exploring Independent Film Business Models
-To Die in Jerusalem (which I did pay for as I had sans pass) RECOMMENDED
-Document Shorts
-Beirut Stories (amateurish/document shorts)
-Extraordinary Rendition (fiction yet ‘real’ complicit kidnapping of British citizen by the CIA)
- Western Trunk Line (Melancholic domestic drama set in a Chinese Mining Village)
-Chris Cooper: In Person (of American Beauty fame: Military father)
-Bridge Over the Wadi and Strawberry Fields (met the director of former) RECOMMENDED
-State of the World (somewhat eclectic collection of commissioned shorts that formed a feature, from around the world- I’ve never seen so many people walk out of a screening before- spoke to the producer later)
-We Are Together (met the director) RECOMMENDED
-Blind Mountain (based of real life human trafficking; selling wives to Chinese rural villages)
-Serpent (French Thriller)
If I’d gotten my pass at the beginning, the list would have been at least twice as long. But 3 films a day for 3 days is as much as I have ever done. All but one film was at the Filmhouse so I would go from one screen to the next, sometimes with an hour break, sometimes 15mins.
I had met Hilla Medalia who had directed To Die in Jerusalem after the screening. We chatted as I walked her and her friends to the restaurant. One of her friends was Barak Heymann who, directed Bridge Over the Wadi. Both were Israeli and had made fairly successful first time documentaries, which were fair to both Jewish and Palestinian perspectives. Hilla had started her doc while still a student with a PD150. Both took years to shoot and finish. I bumped into Barak today at the café and we spoke for a little bit. We were actually going to see the same film, We Are Together. Barak wanted to see this film that seem to steal every award from his film in the festivals! The film as in turned out was a very good first time documentary about the Agape school for orphans in South Africa. This also took a few years to shoot and began when the director was still in film school. Strawberry Fields was equally a very good and partly due to it’s strength of feeling very grassroots (at one point we see the director being asked not to hold the tripod like a rocket launcher as Apache helicopters fly nearby).
I realized that my bus was a 10:30pm and not 8pm as I originally thought so I figured I’d see one more film. My first choice was Julie Delpy’s debut. But it was sold out. So Instead I got one for The Serpent, a French Thriller in a similar vein to Tell No One. While sitting in the auditorium waiting for the film to start, I saw a man and woman walk in and around to the other side. The man looked strikingly like John Pilger, of whose writing and work I have admired for years. I was pretty sure it was him. After the film I waited till he was in the Foyer and asked if he was and indeed he was. He was on his way out with, I think, his wife so I didn’t want to hold him up. I just said I liked his work saw his doc the other day and that it was a pleasure to meet him. He didn’t say much, just a thank you.
If meeting 3 good first timer doc directors having done good work about Israel/Palestine wasn’t enough, I meet one of the mothers of hard core journalism who has consistently uncovered the political upheaval, documented wars and conflict around the world. He’s written articles, books and made documentaries. The man had been in war zones before I was even born. I didn’t expect him to say shit to me but I just wanted to say that it was a pleasure to have been in the same room as him! On par with meeting Noam Chomsky, Robert Fisk and Arundhati Roy. I never though I would ever meet any of these people who educate, inspire and give so much hope.
When you’ve stood with greatness, it feels liberating and for a moment you feel as if you had a peek above the clouds, that you may be heading for greatness yourself as you tip toed at the bottom of their podium for a second.
What I believe Charlotte Cornic (made a short film about a Palestinian Refugee living in Glasgow), Hilla Medalia, Bara Heymann, Paul Taylor, John Pilger and myself have is the need to share what we know, what we saw, what we are discovering, to inform what is rare or non existent on the news or on TV. It’s great to have briefly met people who are like-minded. Taking Paul’s title of his film not just to mean us as film- makers, but all of us as a species; we are together.
- J
Friday, August 24, 2007
Strawberry Fields Forever
I just went to watch two documentaries. One called Bridge of the Wadi and Strawberry Fields. The first documenting the first year of a school which had both Arab and Jewish children, located inside an Arb village, the other about Strawberry Farmers those business becomes severely halted when the politics/war halts their livelyhood. Both were very good. I may meet the director for the former tomorrow. These are contemporary docs which should be seen, these are docs the type of docs i would love to work on. Really great. The world is out there for us waiting for us to make it better, inch by inch. Learn and inform and be active. These film makers do.
- J, from the Filmhouse.
- J, from the Filmhouse.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
To Live in Edinburgh
Since coming to Scotland for various reasons (camping, friend in Glasgow and Edinburgh) but coinciding for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and, I have been here an entire week, today was the first day I did a marathon. Previously I had planned to watch, as it worked out, a film a day (it's expensive). Today i watched 3, and will see the 4th in an hour. I was in Glasgow 4 days ago when i met the director of a short film screening here and she told me about the delegates Pass which is for- people who have something screening. I shot something that's screening... did that count? The Concretes music video had screened as part of Mirrorball and David Mullet, the director, wasn't coming. I got to Edinburgh and wanted a quiet night in so didn't bother to go out that night. The next day I had to do some work in the afternoon for the project next week. In the evening I helped my friend Stephan shoot a gig at the Spielgal Tent, which was fun (there i missed my second film). Yesterday I came out and met Kate who i met in Glasgow at the Delegates Centre where- I inquired about getting a pass and- they said they would sort me out in the morning.
I wasn't sure what i was doing there as I didn't really know Kate and had barely spoken to here before. I did, somehow, manage to speak to a composer and then the director for a short film about a Palestinian Refugee living in Glasgow. In the evening I managed to get a sold out ticket to see To Die in Jerusalem and also to speak and exchange details with the director. I went home and saw John Pilger's The War on Democracy, which I tried to get tickets for 2 months ago in London but couldn't. It had been a good day spent in a city where I only knew one person, who I didn't even see the entire day. The Filmhouse (main venue) even serve bacon roll (staple British film shoot breakfast) in the morning.
I had gone to Glen Nevis and rained nearly the entire time i was there. I had missed my first two scheduled films. I got passed over on a music video (because the commissioning person wanted her boyfriend to shoot it- not because of the director). I was getting ripped off at the local wireless internet cafe. The time up seemed to be a mild disappointment after another. And then I met some directors of interest and a free pass- that includes free wireless access...
I have to add. It is evidently nice to be a 'guest' of the festival. And the apparent 'glamorous' aspect which goes along with it is lost with me. While here, watching a series of politically thematic documentaries, it has increased my own will to shoot and become involved in these projects. The juxtaposition of watching a film about the struggle and frustration of people and then walking out into one of the nicest cinemas in the UK. Talking to directors about the Palestinian/Israeli conflict in nice bars/cafes. It reminds me of The Front Lines Club of where serious issues in Journalism are discussed within the confines of a very nice members only club. I am not in criticism, but I do find it interesting how seemingly the most pertinent of the worlds political issues discussed by the people that are actively involved are discussed within safe, comfortable and established interiors. Though it is clearly not for this reason or purpose but perhaps the dynamics work; that from a safe environment alien to a war ravaged country, it would be easier to discuss the latter, from the third perspective.
I have an entry about the camping which will be posted with the photos i took that day, which i will post next time.
One more thing. It's been just over a year since I started this blog. Apart from one person, I don't even know who's reading it (the one person isn't me).
- J
I wasn't sure what i was doing there as I didn't really know Kate and had barely spoken to here before. I did, somehow, manage to speak to a composer and then the director for a short film about a Palestinian Refugee living in Glasgow. In the evening I managed to get a sold out ticket to see To Die in Jerusalem and also to speak and exchange details with the director. I went home and saw John Pilger's The War on Democracy, which I tried to get tickets for 2 months ago in London but couldn't. It had been a good day spent in a city where I only knew one person, who I didn't even see the entire day. The Filmhouse (main venue) even serve bacon roll (staple British film shoot breakfast) in the morning.
I had gone to Glen Nevis and rained nearly the entire time i was there. I had missed my first two scheduled films. I got passed over on a music video (because the commissioning person wanted her boyfriend to shoot it- not because of the director). I was getting ripped off at the local wireless internet cafe. The time up seemed to be a mild disappointment after another. And then I met some directors of interest and a free pass- that includes free wireless access...
I have to add. It is evidently nice to be a 'guest' of the festival. And the apparent 'glamorous' aspect which goes along with it is lost with me. While here, watching a series of politically thematic documentaries, it has increased my own will to shoot and become involved in these projects. The juxtaposition of watching a film about the struggle and frustration of people and then walking out into one of the nicest cinemas in the UK. Talking to directors about the Palestinian/Israeli conflict in nice bars/cafes. It reminds me of The Front Lines Club of where serious issues in Journalism are discussed within the confines of a very nice members only club. I am not in criticism, but I do find it interesting how seemingly the most pertinent of the worlds political issues discussed by the people that are actively involved are discussed within safe, comfortable and established interiors. Though it is clearly not for this reason or purpose but perhaps the dynamics work; that from a safe environment alien to a war ravaged country, it would be easier to discuss the latter, from the third perspective.
I have an entry about the camping which will be posted with the photos i took that day, which i will post next time.
One more thing. It's been just over a year since I started this blog. Apart from one person, I don't even know who's reading it (the one person isn't me).
- J
Sunday, August 12, 2007
welcome to the future.
Went to Norwich for 2 days for some personal time out. The first day wasn't too great but I won't go into that. Let's just say it's about a girl. The second day was more fun. Me and Craig went to the grounds of The University of East Anglia and the halls of residence. We walked along a big lake and the surrounding area. We slid down a 15 x 6ft 75 degree office window- hard to explain. We kicked a football around. I know I haven't kicked a football in over 10 years.
On the way back on the train we stopped at Ipswich. A local girl, (whom I found out later was) Natasha Coombs, 17, was found near the tracks between Ipswich and Colchester. A replacement bus service was called in at the last minute. I got into London 2 hours late which by that time the tube stopped running and a night bus didn't appeal. Luckily a friend of mine lived nearby and I was able to call her and stay over (lucky I remembered her mobile by heart as my phone had died by then).
The small online commercials with AA and Ford fell through at the last minute due to Ford pulling their sponsorship out.
In those 2 days, it was one thing after another. But a bbq the next day restored some enjoyable times where we drank good wine, good food and discussed The Simpsons, Ren and Stimpy and South Park with an Archaeologist, a Clinical Psychologist, a Graphic Designer, a Photographer, a Dancer and a Web Designer.
- J
On the way back on the train we stopped at Ipswich. A local girl, (whom I found out later was) Natasha Coombs, 17, was found near the tracks between Ipswich and Colchester. A replacement bus service was called in at the last minute. I got into London 2 hours late which by that time the tube stopped running and a night bus didn't appeal. Luckily a friend of mine lived nearby and I was able to call her and stay over (lucky I remembered her mobile by heart as my phone had died by then).
The small online commercials with AA and Ford fell through at the last minute due to Ford pulling their sponsorship out.
In those 2 days, it was one thing after another. But a bbq the next day restored some enjoyable times where we drank good wine, good food and discussed The Simpsons, Ren and Stimpy and South Park with an Archaeologist, a Clinical Psychologist, a Graphic Designer, a Photographer, a Dancer and a Web Designer.
- J
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