27 March 2013

Flickering

A flick of the switch. Picture on. I press record too soon, and my squeaky, "Action," is registered for cringe-inducing posterity.

Today I dove into production with four hours of sleep, nothing but a feverishly scrawled shot list keeping me tethered to the ground. Chaos loomed constantly, from the sudden gaggle of willing background actors to pushing the door of an abandoned building and finding it unlocked. But now that we've gotten the ball rolling on filming, I feel like I've found the rhythm again.

There's a certain casualness to this project. The barest of bones. In some respect, it's exciting to push the boundary of minimalism, to see how little you can get away with. It's also terrifying to freefall.

I'm reminded of Jane Eyre (2011), especially the brief moments shot during the setup of other scenes. Filler moments breathe life into a fictional world. It's only the first day of our project, but so far it feels as though it is composed entirely of these stolen, impromptu vignettes. A wisp of hope returns and pushes the cynicism from my lungs. Maybe this will work.

Photos via I Capture the Period Pieces

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22 March 2013

Snow and Sand

Not so different after all. 

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20 March 2013

This Time Last Week

Woke up to cars transformed into man tou, those plain buns my dad would steam up and shove in my hands during the early morning rush to school. French cars are rounder than American ones, I think, which makes them ready-made for man tou transformation. 
Strong sunlight on snow makes everything look oddly hotter. 
Everywhere, the city being slowly covered by powered sugar. My boots end up with chunky snow hats at the toes. 
And as night falls, I could see my apartment in the landscape outside.

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17 March 2013

Spring Break in Barcelona

Driven by a vague desperation for summer, I flew to Barcelona after midterms and spent four gloriously stress-free days there. I didn't find sunshine until my last day, but it was wonderful nevertheless to let the foreignness of everything briefly sweep my worries away.
Our room at the hostel had five sets of bunk beds and a ledge at the window, five feet off the ground. We climbed up onto it and spent the first evening holed up five feet from the ground, scribbling in navy blue pocket notebooks and snapping pictures at nothing in particular, eager to document what little had happened. Come to think of it, it was something like this:
Our first night, we went to Nasty Monday and danced the night away, finally landing in our beds just before dawn. The next day, determined not to spend our vacation within the yellow walls of the hostel, we pulled ourselves out of bed and ventured into the city. 
She looks so beautiful draped in string and bathed in acidic erosion. Don't you love that humanity creates works of art in an attempt to beautify the world, but is also responsible for the destruction of that beauty?
Ah, the disembodied cherub - a reoccurring motif in European decor. 
The day brightened up significantly when we stumbled upon Happy Pills, a concept candy store. And then Casa Battlò, our first taste of Gaudi's imaginative brilliance.
Ancient Roman wall, meet tiny alleyway. 
This bizarre cross between an empty lot, construction site, and an archaeological dig was right next to the Roman wall. 
In a narrow street we came across this mask shop, with its windows full of all different kinds of puppets and masks. 
I was so pleased to see Jack Sparrow I didn't say a thing about the inaccuracies in his outfit or hair beads. Imposter.
Aside from Gaudi's architecture, my favorite thing about Barcelona was the food. We went to the same tapas place two nights in a row, which was awkward because they had the same two waiters running the place: the woman with the strong forearms (which proved to be not so strong at the end of the second night when she dropped some plates) and Paperman.  
Hello sir. Greetings! Can someone explain the shrimp with ridiculously large claws? Excuse me, I meant claw, because each shrimp had one normal size claw and then a huge one.
The waiters in this place near the Museo Picasso were so happy and they kept blasting We Are the Champions, each time louder than the next. Then one of the waitresses lost her earring on our table, and another waiter couldn't handle the calculations required to give us change. 
We played pool and foosball in the hostel game room until three in the morning. These guys have seen better days, but they don't call it armball for a reason. And culture shock of the week: a royal decree hanging in the hostel regulating the temperature and humidity in the building at different seasons. 
This boy was all over the metro, with his shirt photoshopped into two colors for use on different posters. The purpose is kind of defeated when the posters, often ten in a row, are placed right next to each other. 
On our last night, we went to the beach under the cover of fog and had fideua, serenaded by a jolly busker beneath the heat lamps while PSG played Nancy on a screen to our left. 

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15 March 2013

Barcelona: Hilltop Wonderland

I absolutely loved Parc Guell. We hiked up other side of the hill and wandered back down through the park. Montmartre, Parc Guell...ever notice the prettiest places are always on hilltops?
Some colorful anarchy to the left of the messy sprawl of Barcelona. Let me never again refer to Los Angeles in the same way.
A grand boulevard showcasing the work of giant dung beetles. They take pride in their work. The juxtaposition of the sunshine struggling to break through the curtain of gloom and rain was beautiful. 
As we reached the top, the sunshine won and the skies finally cleared. I think rainbows are my favorite kinds of frowns. 
We spent a good half hour at the top, drinking surprisingly delicious cappucinos, watching pigeons, and noting other places we wanted to visit before our time in Europe was over in our notebooks and Museo Picasso maps.  
It was around this time that all the vendors suddenly wrapped up their goods and split to avoid arrest. This is also when I realized how clever it is to use an umbrella as a portable shop. I think for a moment I forgot I wasn't with my sisters and referred to the police as "po-po," and then all the other tourists around me started muttering "po-po," as well as an explanation for their sudden exodus. 
And then the sun came out in full force and I could feel its warmth on my face and shoulders. I squinted into the sky for the first time in too long.
This is the beauty of sunshine just after rain. 
One minute you're walking through endless greenery and the next you come across this monolith. 
I loved the surprise rocky peepholes and the black trees whose bark peeled away to reveal fiery skin underneath. 
I spy with my little eye a cat with a red collar slinking around the park. 

You almost expect a tiny person to peek their head out from behind that grass curtain. On the long walk back to the metro we took this narrow colorful street and stopped for churros. Parc Guell was my favorite part of the week and a wonderful ending to the trip. 

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