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rinueAs for the question of what my days are like, the simple answer is irregular. My school isn't a school so much as a production house with a lot of apprentices; we have the occasional film history class, and each term there's a focus on the films of a particular director (right now, it's Fritz Lang films every Wednesday morning), and the occasional "right, here's now to use this new piece of equipment," but most of the time my schedule is dictated by what stage of production my term film is in.
Early in the term, it's pitching and script conferences, then casting and location scouting and rehearsal. Then there's a chunk of about a week where I'm filming, which means 14 hour or longer days. Then it's postproduction - editing, sound engineering, picture grading. Then the last few weeks, we watch all the films that have been made in the school that term, and teachers and industry people critique them. The number of films varies; this term, it's around fifty, which is impressive since the school only has a hundred or so students. The number is kind of skewed by the size of my class - there are thirty of us, and second term every single one of us directs a film based on the National Gallery painting of our choice.
At present, I'm off for four days, or at least I don't have classes - I'm in early preproduction on a documentary I'm proposing for next term, which at the moment means sitting at home sending a lot of letters and e-mails to people who have special knowledge of or interest in my subject (the meaning of posed photographic portraits in an age of digital snapshots. That sounds dry, but think wedding photographs, passport photo booths, etc.) In contrast, I was in the editing lab most of last week, creating my titles (aka credits) and track laying all my sounds (which I foleyed and recorded last week; this term, sound is all post-synched). Now I'm basically done with my this term film; on Thursday, I go into a dubbing theater for an hour to tweak the sound balance, but that's it.
Aside from work on the documentary, I'm noodling around with a couple of other later-term scripts; one about kaiten, or Japanese manned torpedoes, and three interconnected ones about struggling artists. As always, I play around with bits and pieces of the hacker noir. My friend Tony is in his final term, after which he's producing a television drama for which he wants me to direct an episode in January; I haven't seen the script yet, mainly because he's been in and out of France for the past few months, working on his sixth term film.
As far as life outside of filming goes, I spend a lot of time hanging out with Birgitta, who I've mentioned before. I also see Emily every couple of weeks for a pint or two. Otherwise, it's kind of a mixed bag of chatting with a wide range of LFS students in different terms and from different backgrounds; I like filmmakers.
Friday was an election for the student government. I ran for president, pretty much in response to pleas that for god's sake wouldn't somebody do it? The somebodies who acceded to this request were me and Christopher, another American - a cinematographer and Star Wars geek and friend of mine. We don't actually care who wins and are kind of annoyed at having to run against each other. If I win, my job will be stuff like saying "we should really put in a water fountain here," or "look, why don't we go on a tour of this lab?" If I lose, my job will be saying to Christopher "we should really put in a water fountain here. And why don't we go on a tour of this lab?"
When I have free time, which is more often than it sounds like, I'm either at home on the internet, hanging out in Regent's Park reading, or at a museum or cultural event. It's London; there's always stuff going on. If I'm feeling uncreative, I just go see whatever's on at the BFI.
I walk a lot; I like walking, and it's free. At this point, it's about 35 minutes walk from home to school; I'm usually closer, but they moved me to a different building - ISH rents to traveling school groups during the summer, when most of the permanent residents are home on holiday; those of us that stay get shuffled around.
This morning I moved into my third room in two weeks. I was in the last one for ten days, which I didn't feel was long enough to warrant unpacking; this one, I'll be in for fifteen days, which I do feel is sufficient. My new roommate is an Indian advertising major named Sneha. She's extremely talkative and comes with an entourage; I'm periodically interrupted by new girls coming by asking if I can zip up their corsets, if their makeup looks right, etc.. It's nice; I think I'm going to like living with her.
ISH is a pretty standard dorm, really, although since it's not attached to a particular college, they don't have to accept everyone - they try to maintain an interesting mix of nationalities, and they boot out anybody who doesn't enter into the proper spirit of the thing. As a result, I'm never worried about who I'm going to live with - this is my fifth roommate, and they've all been great fun. The previous tenants of the room left behind a huge mess (which housekeeping looked after), but the mess included a skirt which I have appropriated, and some money (in Euros, but I'm sure I'll get around to it eventually). These previous tenants probably belonged to one of the aforementioned traveling school groups, who they cleverly charge much more than us to compensate for this kind of thing.
As far as the facilities go, bathrooms and showers are communal, but each room has its own sink. There's a proper kitchen in the basement of this building, but not the building I was in before; each floor also has a "kitchen" which consists of two microwaves and an electric kettle. As you can imagine, my eating habits have been indifferent at best - eating for sustenance, basically. A lot of sandwiches, yogurt, and pasta.
I talk to Ciro most nights on Skype; he's got a webcam, so I can even see him. Mainly, we just chat about our days or whatever we've been reading. It's comfortable.
I've been having digestive trouble the past few days; I've somehow off-kiltered the bacterial ecosystem in my intestines. It hasn't impeded my day-to-day thus far, other than that I have to make sure I stick near a bathroom during the hour after I eat. However, I don't think I have time to absorb much in the way of calories and nutrients, and I have to fight to keep from dehydrating. Not enough calories = tired. I've been trying for a balance of solid and helpful foods (fruits and wholegrain bread) and quick-absorb liquids (broths, purees, milkshakes) in the hopes that things will work themselves out. If it's not at least improving by Monday, I'll be going to the doctor.
I'm writing a lot, but most of it's notes - notes on future scripts, notes on process, research notes, random observations. I'm trying to get myself to throw some energy back into prose fiction and poetry; I was gearing up work on a few pieces while I was in Boston, but I have trouble finding the brainspace for them here. It may just be a matter of waiting for another break. I don't even have time to note down half of the stuff I do in a given day; note the summarial nature of most of my entries, or the glancing "I did a bunch of interesting stuff I'm not going to talk about."
I'm tired now, despite a nap in the middle of the day, and I'm going to sleep. My bed is in a small sea green room on the third floor of a building that abuts Regent's Park. My bed is the one by the window; the view overlooks the park. It's a single bed with a thin mattress, but it has a duvet and two pillows. Over the head of the bed is a bookshelf with my books, some attractive pieces of cut glass, and a small lamp. I'm wearing my ninja pajamas - the knit black trousers and red t-shirt with the cobra on it. These are falling off and falling apart, respectively. I could use some new pajamas. But I remember the difficulties in the last search.
Early in the term, it's pitching and script conferences, then casting and location scouting and rehearsal. Then there's a chunk of about a week where I'm filming, which means 14 hour or longer days. Then it's postproduction - editing, sound engineering, picture grading. Then the last few weeks, we watch all the films that have been made in the school that term, and teachers and industry people critique them. The number of films varies; this term, it's around fifty, which is impressive since the school only has a hundred or so students. The number is kind of skewed by the size of my class - there are thirty of us, and second term every single one of us directs a film based on the National Gallery painting of our choice.
At present, I'm off for four days, or at least I don't have classes - I'm in early preproduction on a documentary I'm proposing for next term, which at the moment means sitting at home sending a lot of letters and e-mails to people who have special knowledge of or interest in my subject (the meaning of posed photographic portraits in an age of digital snapshots. That sounds dry, but think wedding photographs, passport photo booths, etc.) In contrast, I was in the editing lab most of last week, creating my titles (aka credits) and track laying all my sounds (which I foleyed and recorded last week; this term, sound is all post-synched). Now I'm basically done with my this term film; on Thursday, I go into a dubbing theater for an hour to tweak the sound balance, but that's it.
Aside from work on the documentary, I'm noodling around with a couple of other later-term scripts; one about kaiten, or Japanese manned torpedoes, and three interconnected ones about struggling artists. As always, I play around with bits and pieces of the hacker noir. My friend Tony is in his final term, after which he's producing a television drama for which he wants me to direct an episode in January; I haven't seen the script yet, mainly because he's been in and out of France for the past few months, working on his sixth term film.
As far as life outside of filming goes, I spend a lot of time hanging out with Birgitta, who I've mentioned before. I also see Emily every couple of weeks for a pint or two. Otherwise, it's kind of a mixed bag of chatting with a wide range of LFS students in different terms and from different backgrounds; I like filmmakers.
Friday was an election for the student government. I ran for president, pretty much in response to pleas that for god's sake wouldn't somebody do it? The somebodies who acceded to this request were me and Christopher, another American - a cinematographer and Star Wars geek and friend of mine. We don't actually care who wins and are kind of annoyed at having to run against each other. If I win, my job will be stuff like saying "we should really put in a water fountain here," or "look, why don't we go on a tour of this lab?" If I lose, my job will be saying to Christopher "we should really put in a water fountain here. And why don't we go on a tour of this lab?"
When I have free time, which is more often than it sounds like, I'm either at home on the internet, hanging out in Regent's Park reading, or at a museum or cultural event. It's London; there's always stuff going on. If I'm feeling uncreative, I just go see whatever's on at the BFI.
I walk a lot; I like walking, and it's free. At this point, it's about 35 minutes walk from home to school; I'm usually closer, but they moved me to a different building - ISH rents to traveling school groups during the summer, when most of the permanent residents are home on holiday; those of us that stay get shuffled around.
This morning I moved into my third room in two weeks. I was in the last one for ten days, which I didn't feel was long enough to warrant unpacking; this one, I'll be in for fifteen days, which I do feel is sufficient. My new roommate is an Indian advertising major named Sneha. She's extremely talkative and comes with an entourage; I'm periodically interrupted by new girls coming by asking if I can zip up their corsets, if their makeup looks right, etc.. It's nice; I think I'm going to like living with her.
ISH is a pretty standard dorm, really, although since it's not attached to a particular college, they don't have to accept everyone - they try to maintain an interesting mix of nationalities, and they boot out anybody who doesn't enter into the proper spirit of the thing. As a result, I'm never worried about who I'm going to live with - this is my fifth roommate, and they've all been great fun. The previous tenants of the room left behind a huge mess (which housekeeping looked after), but the mess included a skirt which I have appropriated, and some money (in Euros, but I'm sure I'll get around to it eventually). These previous tenants probably belonged to one of the aforementioned traveling school groups, who they cleverly charge much more than us to compensate for this kind of thing.
As far as the facilities go, bathrooms and showers are communal, but each room has its own sink. There's a proper kitchen in the basement of this building, but not the building I was in before; each floor also has a "kitchen" which consists of two microwaves and an electric kettle. As you can imagine, my eating habits have been indifferent at best - eating for sustenance, basically. A lot of sandwiches, yogurt, and pasta.
I talk to Ciro most nights on Skype; he's got a webcam, so I can even see him. Mainly, we just chat about our days or whatever we've been reading. It's comfortable.
I've been having digestive trouble the past few days; I've somehow off-kiltered the bacterial ecosystem in my intestines. It hasn't impeded my day-to-day thus far, other than that I have to make sure I stick near a bathroom during the hour after I eat. However, I don't think I have time to absorb much in the way of calories and nutrients, and I have to fight to keep from dehydrating. Not enough calories = tired. I've been trying for a balance of solid and helpful foods (fruits and wholegrain bread) and quick-absorb liquids (broths, purees, milkshakes) in the hopes that things will work themselves out. If it's not at least improving by Monday, I'll be going to the doctor.
I'm writing a lot, but most of it's notes - notes on future scripts, notes on process, research notes, random observations. I'm trying to get myself to throw some energy back into prose fiction and poetry; I was gearing up work on a few pieces while I was in Boston, but I have trouble finding the brainspace for them here. It may just be a matter of waiting for another break. I don't even have time to note down half of the stuff I do in a given day; note the summarial nature of most of my entries, or the glancing "I did a bunch of interesting stuff I'm not going to talk about."
I'm tired now, despite a nap in the middle of the day, and I'm going to sleep. My bed is in a small sea green room on the third floor of a building that abuts Regent's Park. My bed is the one by the window; the view overlooks the park. It's a single bed with a thin mattress, but it has a duvet and two pillows. Over the head of the bed is a bookshelf with my books, some attractive pieces of cut glass, and a small lamp. I'm wearing my ninja pajamas - the knit black trousers and red t-shirt with the cobra on it. These are falling off and falling apart, respectively. I could use some new pajamas. But I remember the difficulties in the last search.
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Date: 2007-07-07 06:19 am (UTC)My days are so comparatively, almost neurotically, boring: stay up too late to be with C. Sleep until 9 (9:30 if feeling punchy). Leave for work at 10. Work at 10:30. Work until 8pmish. Try to cook with C. Watch episodes of things, work on RE, obsessively read the Julie/Julia project. Repeat. Weekends are a mishmash of family, cooking, and I'm not sure what. Everything seems so blurry and fast. I'm sort of horrified by the fastness. Honest (scary) fact: I've started making time to write again.
And nothing's happened.
I try, honest. But something's not clicking, and it's sort of frightening me. It's all dreadful, deletable immediately thereafter. My only comfort is I look at old stories, and see how to improve them.
On the upside, I'm happy (perhaps dangerously happy) with C. It makes me lazy about too much.
Love you,
v