Things I've learned this week:
I've learned that not many people know how to pronounce synecdoche. Boy will they have trouble with Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut. For those of you playing at home, it's like this: see-neck-dough-key. There we are. Now if only we could all remember what it means when we walk out of class.
I've learned I can actually make my incredibly boring essay about international media and cultural imperialism a 2000 word ode to Michel Foucault's analysis of the subject and power.
And that if Michel Foucault could be reincarnated as Robert Pattinson I would marry him in an instant.
I've learned from finally reading The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl that deep down, men just want the same thing; to come in a high-class hooker's mouth.
I've learned that my office can seem a lot like the panopticon. Foucault is the gift that keeps on giving. Sigh.
I've learned that once Safety Dance gets stuck in your head, not even New York Telephone Conversation can absorb it.
I've learned that if I want to be a fan of the Kills I have to listen to Alison Mosshart coughing up her lungs on at least one track of each album. Ah, but it seems such a very small price to pay...
I've learned that the extent to which I am impulsive refers solely to impulse purchases.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
3 times!
They say that in the classical Hollywood cinema everything is said three times; you'll see it onscreen, you'll have people looking at it, and you'll have people talking about it.
In writing, you shouldn't have to tell people anything. Show, don't tell! Scriptwriting coaches will tell you. Graham Linehan thinks that Smoke and Mirrors (IT Crowd, series 2 episode 5) suffers for talking about Moss's AbracadaBra without showing it enough.
I think show don't tell is preposterous in real life. We all think we're smarter than the classical Hollywood but the truth is, I don't think we are. Or maybe that's just me.
Today marked the third time I have had a ridiculous argument with a bus driver. What do these people want? This one called me dear in a patronising tone and I was so close to telling him to fuck off. I'm not a confrontational person. In confrontation I clam up, shake and go red, then think about all the cutting remarks I could have made. This time, I needed the bus driver to get me to work. And I couldn't think of a civilised substitute for cunt.
I also think that I'm such a whinger. Instead of being active and making my own opportunities, I choose to whine.
(when I was a full time student) Why am I broke? Because you refuse to get a crappy job to support your shoe fetish.
(allll the time) Why can't I lose weight? Because your food pyramid consists of chocolate, tea, diet coke, chicken schnitzel and brie.
(frequently) Why can't I get that fabulous job in media production? Because you're too used to having a fantastic income to beg for unpaid work experience.
My trip overseas was supposed to change my whining, procrastinating ways, but instead I've succumbed to it. Waiting for other people to tell me what to do, I sit around and whinge instead of planning. Well, that's it: I'm just going to book my flights and that will be that.
At lunch the other day, a colleague suggested that the rest of us watch too much television, and urged us to look outside at the blue sky and the clouds. I remarked that I'd seen them on tv, which earned me high-five (I believe it was well-deserved). Following lunch, I went to a class in which we talk about the increasing prominence of the screen within our daily life, and that we are constantly interacting with the world through a screen. Maybe my stupid remark reveals a knowledge that within culture we need a screen between ourselves and the outside world. As if I'm that intelligent.
I'm going to watch The Night Porter instead of finishing my essay. Who cares about cultural imperialism when Charlotte Rampling's around?
In writing, you shouldn't have to tell people anything. Show, don't tell! Scriptwriting coaches will tell you. Graham Linehan thinks that Smoke and Mirrors (IT Crowd, series 2 episode 5) suffers for talking about Moss's AbracadaBra without showing it enough.
I think show don't tell is preposterous in real life. We all think we're smarter than the classical Hollywood but the truth is, I don't think we are. Or maybe that's just me.
Today marked the third time I have had a ridiculous argument with a bus driver. What do these people want? This one called me dear in a patronising tone and I was so close to telling him to fuck off. I'm not a confrontational person. In confrontation I clam up, shake and go red, then think about all the cutting remarks I could have made. This time, I needed the bus driver to get me to work. And I couldn't think of a civilised substitute for cunt.
I also think that I'm such a whinger. Instead of being active and making my own opportunities, I choose to whine.
(when I was a full time student) Why am I broke? Because you refuse to get a crappy job to support your shoe fetish.
(allll the time) Why can't I lose weight? Because your food pyramid consists of chocolate, tea, diet coke, chicken schnitzel and brie.
(frequently) Why can't I get that fabulous job in media production? Because you're too used to having a fantastic income to beg for unpaid work experience.
My trip overseas was supposed to change my whining, procrastinating ways, but instead I've succumbed to it. Waiting for other people to tell me what to do, I sit around and whinge instead of planning. Well, that's it: I'm just going to book my flights and that will be that.
At lunch the other day, a colleague suggested that the rest of us watch too much television, and urged us to look outside at the blue sky and the clouds. I remarked that I'd seen them on tv, which earned me high-five (I believe it was well-deserved). Following lunch, I went to a class in which we talk about the increasing prominence of the screen within our daily life, and that we are constantly interacting with the world through a screen. Maybe my stupid remark reveals a knowledge that within culture we need a screen between ourselves and the outside world. As if I'm that intelligent.
I'm going to watch The Night Porter instead of finishing my essay. Who cares about cultural imperialism when Charlotte Rampling's around?
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
The language of film
Since I started making films instead of talking about them, I've had a hole in my heart. A hole that could only be filled by the artful examination of distance in film, the articulate appreciation of the zombie film, and the proper use of cinematic language.
A film lecturer I had once said that film critics could go on to make good films. He was referring, of course, to the Cahiers boys; Rohmer, Chabrol, Godard, Truffaut, but I'm holding out hope it can refer to me too. So far, hmm. Doubtful.
But upon the woeful absence of film studies as a requirement within my current studies, I feel that you cannot be a good filmmaker without being a film critic. And I'm not simply justifying my own existence, here. The amount of times we have been told that in order to communicate effectively in the workplace you need to be able to follow the discourse of the particular workplace, and I would still be reading shot lists that look like they've been prepared by Noah's wife in Wayne's World - I'm not in the film industry, but I watch a lot of films. Here's a list of your key terms, and trust me, you'll find them in any first-year textbook (it's actually the only one we have to buy):
Pan: this is where the camera moves from left to right, imitating a panorama. You do not pan up. You do not pan down. You do not pan forward or backward.
Tilt: Ah, now this is where the camera moves up, often referring to the way in which the camera moves when affixed to the tripod.
Crane: This is when the camera moves, often on, what is this? A crane. It's when you want to shoot something high up in the air. Wow!
Tracking: Oh, now see this is when the camera moves forward and backwards. On a series of tracks. Hence, the term tracking shot. It can move around too! Genius!
Why do I care about this shit so much? Because I just do. And everyone I know has gotten quite tired of hearing me rail on the subject. So now it goes into the Happy Spider Web, otherwise known as the world wide web.
If you can't speak the language of film, how will you ever communicate in the film world? We argue that every shot, every movement, every word of dialogue is a conscious creative decision, yet if we don't know why, isn't that sad? Or is it truly Csikszentmihalyi's utopia, in which we are so well trained in our culture that we do not have to make any conscious creative decisions at all? Is the entire point of learning in order to be completely unaware of having learned anything? Or is that the excuse I can use next time I can't articulate the meaning of the word Subjugation? And now, I'm thinking; do we use the institution of education to make verbs think they are inferior to us when we subjugate them?
This from a girl who has been preparing for her overseas trip by planning her haircut and colour.
But the thing that I missed most in my practical study of film is that no one really discusses film. Genre, conventions, the function of the music video as a means of synaesthesia, this all seems to fall by the wayside. Or maybe I'm just doing it wrong. Do filmmakers hate critics so much that they recoil from studying film for fear of simply uttering the words that will be used to heap scorn upon their masterpiece? Martin Scorsese was a film lecturer, for fuck's sake. And look at the magnificent dialectic of masculinity and violence he has been engaging in for thirty years!
Maybe we do just have an inherent understanding of some of these crucial concepts in films. All I ask is that you never direct me to pan backwards ever again. Ever.
A film lecturer I had once said that film critics could go on to make good films. He was referring, of course, to the Cahiers boys; Rohmer, Chabrol, Godard, Truffaut, but I'm holding out hope it can refer to me too. So far, hmm. Doubtful.
But upon the woeful absence of film studies as a requirement within my current studies, I feel that you cannot be a good filmmaker without being a film critic. And I'm not simply justifying my own existence, here. The amount of times we have been told that in order to communicate effectively in the workplace you need to be able to follow the discourse of the particular workplace, and I would still be reading shot lists that look like they've been prepared by Noah's wife in Wayne's World - I'm not in the film industry, but I watch a lot of films. Here's a list of your key terms, and trust me, you'll find them in any first-year textbook (it's actually the only one we have to buy):
Pan: this is where the camera moves from left to right, imitating a panorama. You do not pan up. You do not pan down. You do not pan forward or backward.
Tilt: Ah, now this is where the camera moves up, often referring to the way in which the camera moves when affixed to the tripod.
Crane: This is when the camera moves, often on, what is this? A crane. It's when you want to shoot something high up in the air. Wow!
Tracking: Oh, now see this is when the camera moves forward and backwards. On a series of tracks. Hence, the term tracking shot. It can move around too! Genius!
Why do I care about this shit so much? Because I just do. And everyone I know has gotten quite tired of hearing me rail on the subject. So now it goes into the Happy Spider Web, otherwise known as the world wide web.
If you can't speak the language of film, how will you ever communicate in the film world? We argue that every shot, every movement, every word of dialogue is a conscious creative decision, yet if we don't know why, isn't that sad? Or is it truly Csikszentmihalyi's utopia, in which we are so well trained in our culture that we do not have to make any conscious creative decisions at all? Is the entire point of learning in order to be completely unaware of having learned anything? Or is that the excuse I can use next time I can't articulate the meaning of the word Subjugation? And now, I'm thinking; do we use the institution of education to make verbs think they are inferior to us when we subjugate them?
This from a girl who has been preparing for her overseas trip by planning her haircut and colour.
But the thing that I missed most in my practical study of film is that no one really discusses film. Genre, conventions, the function of the music video as a means of synaesthesia, this all seems to fall by the wayside. Or maybe I'm just doing it wrong. Do filmmakers hate critics so much that they recoil from studying film for fear of simply uttering the words that will be used to heap scorn upon their masterpiece? Martin Scorsese was a film lecturer, for fuck's sake. And look at the magnificent dialectic of masculinity and violence he has been engaging in for thirty years!
Maybe we do just have an inherent understanding of some of these crucial concepts in films. All I ask is that you never direct me to pan backwards ever again. Ever.
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