Technology-induced self-laceration aside, I am blissed out over my film project. The footage looks 100% like what it is: the work of a first-time filmmaker; editing on my computer is like trying to get an old, dozy dog to fetch a stick: it does it once, slowly, then lies down and looks at you woefully; and I put off shooting the sacrifice of Iphigenia so long that snow dusts the ground, which just doesn't read as Ancient Greece.
I don't care.
A few years ago, I dreamt I was dancing in the arms of a film director--an impressive old woman, charismatic in her easy self-assurance. She was nothing like how I normally feel. When I started working on this movie, that dream came back to me. Was I dancing with my future self?
Meanwhile, my film editing has encountered a new glitch: insufficient memory.
Not mine. Well, maybe that too, but that's not the problem here.
No, the movie that I thought would be 3-5 minutes is already 8 minutes, edited, and that's only half the story. A 15-minute movie is fine with me, but iMovies informs me I have no more room to add film clips.
Plus I've been having a ball putting together the Making Of/blooper reel, but of course there's no room for that either.
So, I am going to give up and admit my limitations. (Bonus: I can chalk this up as a sign of maturity). This old laptop isn't going to cut it.
In the fine old tradition of artists mooching off their friends, (e.g. Thoreau, one gathers, always showed up at the Emersons' just as Mrs. Emerson was serving dinner), I am taking my computer and my video camcorder over to Bink's this week, where I will download Orestes and the Fly onto her 2008 Mac, which is a desktop job just packed with lonely GBs waiting to be fulfilled.
Bink had volunteered this solution earlier, but I didn't want to bug her or go through the hassle of working in someone else's space. She swears she doesn't mind. Not only is she motivated by friendship, but of course her brilliant acting work as the Fly will not see the light of day if I can't edit the footage.
I will finish shooting the film and then do all the editing on Bink's computer.
Then I'll make another one, and it will be better. Or not. (Did Ed Wood's films ever get better?) At any rate, it will be my second film, and that will sound better.
Hey! Look, depending on your timeline,your vision, (and your need for warmth!), I think you really could shoot the slaughter of Iphigenia with snow and cold on the ground, cuz, depending on where and in what season it was s'posed to be in Greece, snow is not necessarily an anomaly. To wit: somewhere I have a winter photo of icicles on an ancient palm tree--winter of 1984/85--on Lesbos!! And, Troy in the depth of summertime 1982 felt windswept and dismal... For real..and who knows the climactic patterns-- at Aulis was it?!--way back in the day? If anyone might know offhand, or have the knack for looking it up, that'd be you, our inveterate, itinerant, guerrilla geographer. So, would "Orestes and the Fly" be a prequel to "Fresca and Her Crone-Muse At Bink's"?
ReplyDeleteMy verifying word to send this is "glothik", which rings with the possibilites of interpretation and riffs. Think I'll start me a cyber vocation as a prophet who reads the cyber-entrails of verifying words...Truth be told, they seem oracular and mysterious more often than not!
Love and Happy Creativity!
Stefalala
Good point, Stef.
ReplyDeleteA wintery look could have just the right emotional tone, too.
How come I never get these evocative word verifications? Mine are always, like sgksb...
Hey! Even with the more densely consonantal or gobbledegookie ones, just let your mind flow into shorthand mode for various linguistic roots and think of weird and juicy acronyms and free associations...so, for instance, I might give up on "sgksb" initially, but then I go into Greek (food) mode and think--(as would Homer Simpson, that bald-headed, flaming yellow Greek cartoon guy!)--"mmmmm...SaGanaKi submarine sandwich..uuuuhhh....!!!" Saganaki is that wonderful flaming feta meze dish served in some restaurants...So, a saganaki sub'd be like a Greco-pancetta/bruschetta thingy, with a bit of a charred flavah! Sounds like a great idea for a new Quiznos item! Speaking of Quiznos, looks like we've circled back to a potential verification word. I could go on forever, but the cokking of Sunday brunch awaits!
ReplyDeleteLove!
Stefalala