rinue | job well done

I'm awful at keeping people up to date with what's going on, and so I am writing this entry, even though I don't feel particularly interested in writing about my day. This is how I suffer for you.

8:12 - Woke up.
8:20 - Alarm went off. Woke up again.
8:30 - Woke up again. Actually got out of bed this time, mainly out of the realization that once I was up and dressed I could go in pursuit of decongestants.

10:00 - Showed up at school to watch Sanjuro. Thought: Kurosawa is the best. Thought: Look, there's the scene from Star Wars: A New Hope where they're hiding under the floorboards. Thought: Look at those gorgeous tableaux, and how gracefully the action moves between them. Thought: Toshiro Mifune must be one of the sexiest people that ever lived, so sexy that he doesn't go on my "be more like this person" list, because how could I ever? Thought: I want to have sex with Ciro right now. Thought: You can't. Look at the cool blood effect where they mixed chocolate syrup and soda.

1:30 - Was stopped by Julia (who is editing the film I DPed, and who was the other DP), who had also watched Sanjuro. I understand what you were doing now, she said. Thought: Oh my god. She's right. We used slightly less foreground and slightly more asymmetrical compositions, but she's right.*

2:30 - Rushes. "Bicycle" had a technical error, and we might have to do a small reshoot. "Embers" was perfect. There were a couple of non-essential close ups where the focus was a little soft, but otherwise, it was perfect composition followed by perfect composition, all carefully (but naturalistically) lit and blocked. As soon as the lights came up, everybody in the (fairly full) theater was giving me thumbs up and mouthing "beautiful." Compliments from all the teachers. Alan said we'd just proved that you could make a highly stylized film first term. On the break, there was a lot of back patting and hugging and so forth (much of it from units other than my own), and a lot of "that didn't look like a student film; that lighting was professional." Directors are trying to woo me, so I did a good job, I guess. I'm happy with it. I think you would be proud of me. I feel shy and strange about the whole thing.

*If I was to attempt to describe this film, I would say it's like Tim Burton wrote a script which Kurosawa directed, with Hitchcock as the director of photography. Only with no budget and very little film stock. It's certainly a unique (and unintentional) combination of influences.