Live and Learn

No one told me that one of the most important steps in shooting documentary was transcribing. Or if someone did, it was when I wasn't listening. It may not sound like a big deal to you but I have to listen to and write down EVERY word with the time...to the nearest one-hundreth of a second...that it was spoken I have about 5 hours of shooting for my 5 minute documentary and my fingers look the times of a garden cultivator. Ironically, accidently forgetting to turn the sound on during a one hour shooting session was a disaster that ended up making my day.

I never paid much attention to Skype until our cell phone bill finally found us up here in Nelson. We knew it wasn't going to be pretty but were still surprised to see that the last two months were 690 dollars. Our favorite call was the 24 dollar casual chat the Vin and I had to each other from one classroom to another (in the same building). Who knew? (don't you hate that saying?)

Canada.
Benjamin Moore paint chip colors are in French. Rainforest dew is vert stuart. Pale avocado is avocat pale.
Yesterday it was pretty cold....1 degree in the Peace.
Remember I told you about the Cocoa-nut lounge? We showed up to another standing-room-only crowd...this time on a Tuesday....groovin' to an electric guitar artist yelling a combination of opera and rock.

Wednesday was classmate Alan's birthday. He turned 25 so the whole class (except Naomi who's only 17 and has a grandmother my age) went out to a karaoke bar where Vin and I belted out 'I've got you Babe' to a crowd that didn't know that Cher had ever been married.

House.
We've had electricity, plumbing and 4-6" (R30-R45) of high density closed cell foam insulation for ages but since they didn't lend themselves to compelling photography or storytelling I've had a hard time working them into my news.

The insulation people? Perfect.
The electric people? Perfect. Two brothers dba Brother's Electric. One of the brothers, Darin, went to college somewhere in Ohio because it had the strongest Ninja 'team' in the country.
The plumber? Apologized after hollering F*** You and hanging up on Vin because he asked when the boiler was going to be installed.

Max loves hiking on larch needles, a silent, western version of New England's fall leaves.

The Beam Team again

Movies.
Just finished writing a 1000 word Feminist interpretation of 'Silence Of The Lambs' and the part I enjoyed most about the process was emailing it off, finished, to the professor. For the most part I enjoy movies as entertainment and not for the layers of supposed hidden meanings that I can never find.

Yesterday we watched Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941) and I'm proud to say that thanks to finally a movie with dialogue I stayed awake through MOST of it. Ian the professor said it was 'quite possibly the greatest movie ever made' which made me think that I definately missed something during the screening even though I stayed awake.
Please note that I've easily stayed wide awake for American Graffiti half dozen times.

I just finished shooting another film. it is a pretend interview of myself with my new pretend cookbook of recipe's using food that has gone bad. (not leftovers ....gone bad) I think it's really funny but it's too long. It ended up being 9 minutes and it was supposed to be 2. Just like the old days, was up until 5 am one morning working on it and it was actually good to have a reason to have to be up until then.

I was thinking that If I was making a movie that had the Vince character (see the dirty Vince photo to the left) in it I'd want Juaquin Phoenix to play him. Juaquin is retired (I can't believe I know that) but I doubt if it would've ever happened anyway only because Vince would never want anyone else playing him.

House.
Two cords of firewood (which won't be maple or cherry or ash)* are showing up tomorrow so I wanted to show you our deck before it got covered up. Vin and Brett built the deck (which included mixing the concrete for the piers and looked like a lot of work to me). Then Joe, one of my favorite friends (FF) of almost 30 years cut down one of our trees (like the ponytail, Joe cut it for FREE....maybe it has something to do with cutting) and we put it on the deck to look like it was propping up one of the corners of the roof. The deck is a rectangle and if you looked at it from an airplane it would look like you had this big rectangle and slid it under the house at an angle. It's pretty dramatic as far a decks go. I THINK I like it but then again maybe that angle-drama has something to do with the headaches I've been having lately.

* I think I'm a firewood snob.

Grades.
Some mid-term test grades are in.
Screen-writing____A-
Editing_____A
Cinematography........ Trick questions. I'm not counting it.

Nelson.
Cocoa-nut Lounge. Funky, late night coffeehouse open until midnight 6 nights a week. That gem of a discovery gets us closer to our perfect-place checklist. Our maiden visit (a Sunday night) had us joining a standing-room-only crowd to listen to local poetry that I didn't realize was poetry until the third reader stepped off the rug that functioned as a stage. I'm at an even lower level with poetry than I am with movies.

The Beam Team again (again) interesting if you like beams and decks

More decks and beams and summer.

Hair For Sale

Last Friday, I donated my hair. I think that may have even counted as doing something for someone beside myself??
Nelson's 'Locks of Love' festival was on Saturday and they were looking for ponytails that were at least 8" long. I'd been wanting to find a good home for mine and finally found a salon that was hip to the 'walk-in' concept.

"if I just cut off your pony-tail, it's free," she told me.
I wanted a reason to pay her, "Well I need my bangs cut too."
"Bangs are free."
"What else is free?"
"There are mints on the counter."
That's some business model.
I had decided to grow my hair in order to donate it and decided at about 4" that I wouldn't be doing it again. Life is too short. IF I took the time to brush it, it would take half an hour which is a really significant part of my day.....so I just didn't bother. Living in a tent and having a sensitive scalp were good reasons to ignore it. One day I had it washed, combed and braided at 'Chris Cuts' in Metaling Falls. She yanked for about 55 minutes, which wasn't fun for either of us, but I walked out with a braid that lasted over 2 weeks. I tried to schedule another painful braid but Chris wouldn't return my calls.

School.
Guess who finished their screenwriting exam first yesterday? It was close between Rob and me but I edged him out mostly because he wasn't racing and I was closer to the professor's desk. The editing mid-term was today. I got creamed. FInished last by 2 seconds. Guess editing is not my event.

This film program is going to make a man out of me. I just finished my first day of shooting and I feel like I just finished the Hawaii Ironman. The learning curve I was so proud of is leveling out. I'm worried that it may even be upside down. Vince was theoretically my assistant although an observer would have been sure it was the other way around. Thankfully his learning curve is as steep as ever. Anyway. I now have 4 hours of footage ending with a 3 tiered organic polka dotted birthday cake. "I'll find my story in the editing bay" as they say in the business.

I fell asleep during the Film Studies lecture again this week. Front row. Lights on. I fought it as long as I could but in the end my head was bobbing as helplessly as last week.

More.
We got the sweetest little refrigerator today. I'll look better without the protective blue plastic.

Max has diarrhea :(