grammatical errors

So I just read over my last entry stupidly AFTER posting it, and I realized that the last sentence should say "improve" with no "s." Subject-verb agreement is very important to me.

Week 4, and a bit of Week 3.

So as most of you know, I was sick all last week. It was a total bummer. Hopefully I will get to see "A Berlin Romance" one of these days, as I heard it was very good. Needless to say, I did not get any filming done, just alot of CNN-watching. I hope the wildfires are contained by now. This weekend, however, I was very productive--just not regarding school. I was in my first Berlin alleycat bicycle messenger race, did really well, and received LOTS of prizes!! Yeah! This Wednesday, there is another race, the legendary "Helloween" race, in which I will be at a checkpoint making people humiliate themselves for a stamp on their manifests. Enough bikes.
It has been a bit difficult to directly relate the films we have watched these last few weeks (Kuhle Wampe and Germany, Year Zero) to what we have been trying to capture in our film. It seems that the Berlin in these two films is a bygone era; one that is impossible to recapture. I suppose our exposure to these eras cinematically has the potential to inform our work with a sense of historicity. A shot of the subject walking along the street next to an absent building (one whose outlines still exist on the brick but the structure is gone) could evoke a sense of Berlin's berubbled past, for example. Germany, Year Zero seemed incredibly apocalyptic, despite the title's claim otherwise. Any hope of regeneration is dashed with the boy's ultimate suicide, it seems, while the city merely continues on in its desperation behind the rubble. I do not see the Berlin of today, however, to be apocalyptic in any sense. On the contrary, the sheer amount of construction is staggering, and the international appeal for shooting films, traveling, and doing business in this city is high. It is understandable why Berlin would want to move out of its troubled past and simply forget it, but seeing films like Kuhle Wampe and Germany, Year Zero reminds the viewer just how many layers of construction and regeneration this city has undergone through the years, thus effectively conjuring up history, cinematically.
Our group is not attempting to make a film that explicitly comments upon these issues of history, memory, and forgetting. However, merely by way of location, these issues will inevitably be present within the film. If we decide to shoot on Karl-Marx Allee next to the wall, for example, that history will be there, whether or not the film directly comments on its presence. Perhaps in choosing our locations carefully, we will be able to add another layer of potential interpretation, thus geographically specifying our theme of the progressive and necessary mood swings that accompany acclimation to a new city.
On a new note, the reception to our audio film was sehr positive, and people had interesting insights about the film that we had never even addressed in our group. Joel's interpretation was particularly interesting: that the juxtaposition of cattle and people metaphorically joins rather than separates the two. Our project was to juxtapose rural and urban rather than people and cattle, but it is a good sign when the artwork has many potential layers of interpretation, which Joel's commentary certainly evinces.
So we really need to get on the ball about shooting this film. We made a schedule at the beginning and have not stuck to it. We will be having a meeting tonight in which we will (hopefully) solidify a realistic schedule. It has been a bit difficult to employ a certain amount of self discipline regarding socializing and gallavanting around the city on the bike. But the good news is that my german has improved somewhat. I went on a big group ride throughout the city with some messengers the other night, most of whom do not speak english. We eventually barbequed various meats (?) with a disposible grill by the Spree and drank lots of cheap beer. I found that my german language skills (and the elaborate hand gestures that accompany this) greatly improves with beer. Now I know that my tattoo is "der Hammer!" and to avoid the "Kopfstein."

Week 3, and possibly a bit of 4.

First of all, Koldenhof was amazing. Not only for the zip line and the soccer game, but also cinematically. Or "audially." Is that a word? I will look it up. No, but now it is. We captured lots of good moos, dogs barking, and even some line dancing to country music! Magical. For the audio project, we wanted to get distinct sounds from the country and juxtapose them with the unique sounds of the city. The trajectory will go something like this: country, cacophony of country, city, cacophony of city, subtle mixing of the two. My role so far has mostly been the organizer/converter of the files on the computer and camera. It is very tedious and time-consuming, but for some reason I really enjoy it. It is repetitive and predictable. There is no artistry involved. But that is not why I enjoy it, rather, it is rewarding when you oversee the transformation from an overwhelming plethora of files that don't make sense to a clean, organized group of folders with labels. Very user-friendly.
This week was my week with the camera, and I feel that I captured alot of good audio footage, but not so much video. It is really difficult to film alone, especially when you yourself are one of the main subjects. Thankfully, a couple of my group members were gracious enough to help me a bit through the process. Speaking of being one of the "subjects" of the film... We, most of the group, had a very long and very productive discussion regarding our individual desires as to what the final outcome will look like. We came up with a more manageable way to structure the film and to differentiate between the different moods. Instead of using camera angles and the like to exude mood, which has the potential to be confusing or downright inaccessible, we thought that highlighting the "turning points," when one mood turns into the next, would be less complicated. How would we do this? We actually came up with specific scenes (that we have yet to shoot...) that could easily be interpreted as turning points. In this respect, post-production could really be a blessing as well--I'm thinking changing the color of the film. We also decided to change the order of the moods around as well: excitement>disorientation>melancholy>excitement>blase. Each member of our group is now personally responsible for one of these moods, or more specifically, making sure that the footage is there to bring to the editing table. Because the film will loosely follow me, a subject, (I am using the term loosely because this is NOT a plot-driven film) I will need help for some of my shots, as will the others need help with theirs. We thought that incorporating a subject into the film would place the abstract concepts on firmer ground, leaving our heads less room to wander up into the clouds. Gotta go work on audio! That rhymes!

Production Journal Nummer Eins!

First of all, I am extremely excited about this whole project. I am also a bit intimidated by the endeavor, especially the editing. This is all new to me, as I have never made a film. I've written critiques, sequence analyses, and have theorized to death, but actual production has always eluded me. Working in a group is also something new and reminds me that film work is truly collaborative, no matter how much I would just like to do the whole thing myself. I think each member of my group feels the same way, considering that all of us have strong personalities and different artistic drives. The main challenge so far has been generating a shared perspective on the real goal of our film. What do we want this film to really show regarding Berlin? Will it reach any conclusions or will its meaning(s) be ambiguous or multiple? How accessible will our film be to the audience? This last question hinges on our ability to convey feeling/mood through editing. What a task! But if we can pull it off, it would be incredibly rewarding. I have always had a bit of a complex about my perceived lack of creative/artistic abilities. Writing analyses of brilliant films and works of literature and then trying to compose something just as brilliant on my own has always been an endeavor doomed to fail. So I do not set out here to make something "brilliant" (but if it turns out to be, that would be good too.)
The focus for the film is mood fluctuation through movement with various modes of transportation--walking, biking, and train. Telling the story of our experiences of Berlin will require clever editing, suggestive shots, and music. The absence of voice-over narration and dialogue is a welcome challenge, and I hope these chosen omissions will allow for more variations in audience reception. Rather than literally telling the spectator what the image should mean, we will merely suggest one to them through camera and editing work. Also, dialogue can sometimes sound cheesy with amateur actors such as myself and the other members of my group. The "progression" of the film will go something like this, and I will try to be as clear as possible, because this could get confusing if I am not careful. Start with a shot that evokes mood #1. Go on to 2, 3, and 4. The tempo of the transitions will change depending on the chosen group of images (1, 2, 3, and 4.) After the first set is over, go back to mood #1 with a different image. The cycle goes on. In order to key in the spectator to the repetition of moods going on here, we could use one specific image coinciding with each mood that would be spliced in during every cycle. Believe me, it's much easier to explain with a drawing. Everyone in the group seems to be pretty excited about this concept, so I hope that it will come into fruition.
Berlin is an inspiring locale to create dynamic art work, as the city itself seems to embody the very concept of dynamism. Construction is never ending, evinced by countless cranes, either tearing down or building up. Almost every text that we have read for class has mentioned that Berlin is always in a state of becoming as opposed to being. This concept would be interesting to explore through film because of the medium's temporal aspect; the ability to "capture" something in time or give the impression of time as moving either very slowly or incredibly fast. Keeping the possibilities for temporal manipulation in mind, constructing a film whose primary subject is mood fluctuation becomes more complex. The sense of time as fleeting (through something like time lapse) could either evoke a teleological progression or a nostalgia for what is lost, covered up, or destroyed during that time, depending on the subject position of the spectator. For example, if the camera is mounted on the tripod in my backpack, and it is recording while I am riding my bike through the city, a reversal of the direction of the camera (pointing backwards or forwards) could evoke vastly different moods. Pointing backwards in slow motion could evoke nostalgia, while pointing forwards in fast motion could generate a sense of exciting progression. Instead of having an on screen conversation or a voice over about "nostalgia" or "progression," I think the use of concepts like the one outlined above could be an interesting way of commenting on Berlin's dynamism; its ability to generate two opposite moods simultaneously.
So far, we have gotten a fair amount of footage, but not nearly enough. This is to be expected so early on in the game, but I think during this next week we really need to get on the ball and start going to specific locations that we have discussed and get some filming done. I have begun working a bit with FinalCut, which is not quite as intimidating as I originally thought, just very time consuming. I understand now how important the audio track is in film, not just video. The potential for manipulations in just the audio is staggering! It makes me a bit more excited for our mini project dealing with sound. We are meeting tonight to get next week's schedule solidified.