Dream Analysis

Nothing happens unless first we dream. -- Carl Sandburg

I don't know why I'm so quote-happy lately... a loss of words? a lack of succinctity (is that even a word)? inability to find the profundity in mundane situations? what do we use quotes for anyways?... to remind us that life REALLY IS that simple? and that sometimes the simplist answer is truly the best? or to give us a different way of perceiving a world that gets awfully cold and dreary and lives that get decidedly lifeless... exchanging the fight to stay awake all night with the fight to get up in the morning... trading hard times for decidedly easier ones... watching friends sleepwalk into their thirties and I wonder: are they dreaming?

I hope they are...

New Quote...

"Going to work for a large company is like getting on a train.
Are you going 60 miles an hour or is the train going 60 miles
an hour and you're just sitting still?" - J. Paul Getty

What should be on the front page

Ecuadorean footballer rebuilds village

Judy Fladmark BBC News

De la Cruz sends money home every week

A South American footballer playing in the English Premiership is spending his high salary not on fast cars and big houses, but on rebuilding an entire community where he grew up.

What he has built for his village next to the Andes:
- 18km of water pipes and a treatment system
- Hundreds of books, a new school roof and a playground
- Each day, 100 primary school children receive breakfast and lunch at school
- a medical centre
- money to pay for a doctor, a dentist and a nurse at the clinic
- 10% of his salary each month back to Ecuador

And what he is building now:
- a new sports and community centre, now under construction.

Mary, Mary Quite Contrary...

...How does your AeroGrow?



Ah the delights of living in New York City! In other parts of the world there are gardens and greenhouses. Here in New York, we import our selection of hydroponic seeds from flashing numbers and commands to "call now!" and donate twelve cubic inches of precious counter space in the kitchen. And for that we get!: Seven assorted herbs (chives, dill, parsley, mint, cilantro, and two kinds of basil) and a light that radiates through the apartment at alternating hours - seven hours off, seventeen hours ON. Think of a nightlight on steriods. James' new hobby should come to fruition (literally) in eight weeks. That's one too many. Let's stick with the sevens...

Most important: the seven deadly sins... and then the dwarfs... the wonders of the world... days in a week... samurai... the hong kong sevens!... and dante, oh dante... AND I just realized, here we are in 2007.

And maybe it's time to simplify. Rather than lists and lists of 'what I'm going to look back on in a year and remind myself - oh now THAT'S what I was supposed to be doing' I'm feeling compelled to itemize (yes, mother, make a list!) and I'm thinking that a list of Seven For 07 is the way to go. But I gotta ask myself, do I feel lucky?

Sad Monkey

Insight

Some of the worst bits about directing are also the aspects that make it such a fantastic job.

Although film-making is a co-operative process, the director is the one who's supposed to have the vision and the plan.

The crew and actors are paid a lot of money and so the producers of the film will expect the director to organise the film efficiently. At any time, the rest of the crew will look to the director for guidance. She or he has to be ready with a decision, even if they are unsure of the consequences. Like most creative jobs, the hardest thing is belief in your vision when everyone is telling you you're wrong, even you!

During the making of Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola was close to despair, commenting to his wife Eleanor, "I tell you from the bottom of my heart that I am making a bad film." And again, "We are all lost. I have no idea where to go with this." Although not all directors will have to go through Coppola's traumas, most will experience self-doubt at some time during a shoot.

If you're interested in Coppola's experience on Apocalypse Now, try and get hold of a copy of Hearts of Darkness, a great film documentary largely shot by his wife, Eleanor. Another wicked insight into the soul of a director is a book called Hitchcock by Francois Truffaut and Helen Scott.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blast/film/advice/careers/cons_of_being_a_film_director.shtml

Go with the Flow

"Directing is an idea that you have of a total flow of images that are going on, which are incidentally actors, words, and objects in space. It's an idea you have of yourself, like the idea you have of your own personality, which finds its best representation in the world in terms of specific flows of imaginary images. That's what directing is."

-- Roman Polanski

Miss Manners Reports

Oh yeah, it's here... the face-numbing, finger-stinging, eye-watering reality of freezing breezes. I went out for a meeting with my "jacket" on and heard more than one "is that all you have?" comment from the all-knowing streets of New York. One guy looked at me coming out of the subway station and said "you gotta be kiddin' with that jacket"... thanks genious. Well, the temperature in my apartment stays a comfortable 75 degrees or so with the sun shining in, and then BAM when I walk out: COLD. FREEZING. BLISTERING. OUCH. Rude Awakening. Who said New York had manners?

Why unpack?

From Bangkok to the Catskills before I had time to unpack... I brought my computer and external harddrive and worked my way through the weekend while the boys worked their skis through muddy snow. I went for the fireplace (success!) and they went for the slopes (drudging across manufactured snow through pouring rain)... somehow I think I still won out. Couldn't get the camera operating at the cabin, but I did download a few of the b-roll shots we took for the documentary in Bangkok...

After leaving New York and traveling for hour after hour, day after day, to reach the exotic and exciting foreign country of THAILAND... I throw open the curtains in my hotel room to see:










Looking out the hotel from the other side you can see the newly constructed convention center, which was built in the honor of the Queen. Hidden speakers pump "soothing" music across a man-made lake... as I watch the sunset over the lake and the imposing buildings beyond, I begin to suspect that the music is there to cover the incessant honking and braking of Bangkok taxis and tuk-tuks rather than to provide harmony to the joggers circling the lake...










You'll see images like this everywhere in Thailand. I don't believe this is a Buddh - if anyone does know what it is, please enlighten me. The clasped hands, non-committal facial expression, and floral background seem to reflect the Thai mentality...












Street signs take on a whole new meaning. Bold colors, just like ours, but it's more difficult to understand exactly what they stand for. Example below: what is this "X" telling us not to do??












This image is full of striking contrasts when animated: the silver fish whip through muddy water that luscious velvet blooms rest peacefully above...

Thai Times

I think a reference manual should be written about filming in Thailand. Perhaps it should be a manual that covers "filming outside of the US". There are certainties that vary in each country and customs that can make your life immeasurably easier or more difficult.

A few quick points for the book before I run off to work:
- Beware Thai time. When you say "be here at 8:00am", that is translated as "some time between 8:30 and 11:00 is ok"
- Confrontations in Thailand. Don't do it. No matter how much the Thai you're working with was late or didn't do their job, there is no point in arguing. You will be wrong. Best to smile and try to explain, humbly, how you could have possibly misunderstood what they know to be obvious.
- 220V outlets. I knew this before, but apparently filming crews bring you american plugs (110V) when they see you speak English.
- Buddhism. Get to know it and love it. Thais love to talk about Buddha even at work. And before they do anything (buy a house, sign an agreement, breathe) they must check with Buddha first.

Images of Bangkok...

What a business trip to Thailand looks like... not quite as exotic as you might think:

Up working at 5am









On set by 7am










8 t0 10 hours of shooting









Try to relax at the end of the day










And then crash out

Trouble in Paradise

Equipment didn't show up. Will need to research the new gear coming in - what are its limitations? Language barrier loses precious time. Conversations run long. Need new strategy. Seven hours of sleep in the past two days (sleep on a plane never counts as decent REMtime). Haven't gotten through all this new material. Eyes swelling. Clock ticking. 7:00 am breakfast set and then slam-bam shoot. What permits? I know I only need sleep. And tomorrow will be brilliant. Fucking brilliant.

The Story Begins...

With a firm handshake and a gentle glance, I meet the man whose story I am here to hear. His stature is short but his stories more than compensate... The years of hard cases, dead bodies, and difficult decisions have been worn off by the warmth of this country. For hours we sit outside under an umbrella. And I listen. A few questions here, a laugh there, but mostly I just let him talk about things no one here could understand. I watch as his face becomes softer and he relives hour after hour of a different lifetime. I can sense that now is his time to set the story straight, to open up to a world he had to close off. And I love the fact that he just handed me a monstrous stack of paper to go through about his life and his investigations. Very few people have seen what I have in my hands now. And I know that more than this is me investigating his life... what is really happening over the next few hours is his investigation of me: how much detail will I remember from these pages? How thoroughly will I read what he gave me? Will I ask the right questions when we meet again after dinner? And ultimately, am I the right person for him to tell his story to...?

Yes.

Einstein

As I prepare for this series of interviews, feeling that I am lacking indepth knowledge of the events, the players, and the motives involved in the situation I am documenting, I look at the quote of the day: Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Some new, some old... Bangers revisited

After over 20 hours in the air and multiple almost-missed connections, it's good to have my feet back on the ground. We landed at Bangkok's new International Airport, which just opened two months ago and is absolutely stunning.

It actually reminds me a lot of Hong Kong's airport as far as the immigration floorplan and the glass-steel (is it steel or aluminum? I'd check but I'm only getting thai google) architecture. Say "sawadeeka" to the BMW that takes us to the airport and a few minutes later, I've moved into my home for the next five days: Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit. It's a favorite from my Hong Kong days when James and I would take quick weekend romps here. Still a beautiful and accomodating hotel. My room looks something like:

We are exactly 12 hours ahead of New York, so it's almost 3am here and I'm wide awake. Figure I'll go through a couple of notes and read myself to sleep in preparation for tomorrow when we meet the lead investigator in the 1978 massacre... a time and a place that is eras away from the view out my window on the 24th floor. Just hoping that the recent violence here doesn't make me feel too close to the story I'm trying to tell...

Happy New Year!!

Dinner with James, Nicoli and the Atlanta crew in New York's Little Italy before going to the New Year's celebration...














Bringing in the New Year at a Soho loft party...















The boys from Atlanta bust it out and break it down...















Big hugs as we bring in 2007...















James gets love from the ladies!