post from prague for emily

it's 6:29 AM in prague and i have not slept nor will i ever for the rest of my filmmaking career.

abyss'

the past six months, the next ten months. instead of stating it all, i will just state what it's been and what it is and what it will be:
-evanston, illinois
-amherst, massachusettes
-san francisco, california
-amherst, massachusettes
-evanston, illinois
-chicago, illinois
-milwaukee, wisconsin
-evanston/chicago, illinois
-new york, new york
-evanston/chicago, illinois
-london, united kingdom
-prague, czech republic
-berlin, germany
-evanston, illinois
-knoxville, kentucky
-amherst, massachusettes
-chicago, illinois
-?

this time, i really do plan on cubicles not being a part of the picture

we chased it out with a broom to the sky

there is a beautiful gold light shining into my room right now and it is making everything all glowy.

if my parents were never around, i would love to make this house into a collective of sorts. where haggard and weary travelers come to sip perfect coffee on the porch. and in exchange they would just tell me stories from the road. or the sky. or outer space. i would take them to places where you climb and sit and jump and walk. and they would suggest good books.

i guess i love it when people come through because i get to be vicarious and this house gets a feel it's never had before and makes everything different and interesting. and bats even come inside and fly around.

i can't imagine ever leaving this room.

where the heart is

son of a bitch! it smells like shit here!

-mother

...and you, yes you

i feel like i've lost touch with practically everyone.

and you and you and you!

a sordid and unintentionally comprehensive pitchfork review from the cubicle

so pitchfork music festival was this past weekend and it was beautiful. the key moments went a little something like this:

if you're reading this and you know me somewhat well, you know my recently past obsession with beirut and it's lead singer, zach condon. so seeing him was a MUST. the problem- the two bands that were the main reasoning behind attending the festival were beirut and matt & kim. days before the festival i went through the schedule and realized that they were playing at the SAME TIME. this killed me. absolutely crushed my soul. i spent days agonizing over this, trying to decide what to do. i came to this conclusion: although matt & kim are pretty much my current idols, and their shows are SOOOOO FUUNNNNN, i've seen them twice. and about a year/6 months ago, beirut was my #1. he was my AIM buddy icon, he was my desktop background, i'm sure he was my facebook profile picture at one point. i was infatuated with him. i had every single song of his, and many videos, listened to nantes, scenic world and elephant gun on repeat. because of this, he's my most listened to artist on last.fm. his voice wooed me into oblivion. and i could NOT get enough. all that was left to do was to see him live. and then prmptly start dating him of course. SO although, i had ceased my total obsession with the guy, i kind of owed it to myself to see him. so i did. and i had a semi well planned plan to get right up front. i wanted eye contact. i wanted to see the shape of his cuticles and the drops of sweat on his brow. i wanted him to know i exist, even though he has no idea who i am, i would be just a body in the crowd, but one visible to him. one who's facial features he can define. BUT getting that close didn't really work out. i mean, we did have to eat. so we figured we'd scarf down some [unbelievable] tempura in the crowd and then make our way up. what i should have done was brought granola bars and staked my place as early as possible, so i could reach that bar. but alas, other things happen and i still had a rather killer spot practically right in the middle of the crowd. we got high. real high. and he started playing. and i don't even really know how to explain this, but, something in me happened. i had a perfect and clear path through the crowd to him on stage. i could see him perfectly, he was right in front of me, albeit far away, he was there, he existed, i existed, we existed in the same time and place and he was THERE, right THERE, playing for me. and no one else. i saw him. and he was playing for me. i swayed. and sang. and then got dizzy. after about 3 songs, my concentration with his beauty broke. and i had to get out. although he was the most beautiful creature i had ever seen exist in front of me, although he was playing ALL of my favorite songs, every single one, although i had fallen back in love with him during those moments, it was too much. i couldn't handle the emotion, i thought my heart was going to explode and my head dissipate into the thick of the crowd. the same thing had happened last year at pithfork during animal collective. the emotion and passion they displayed was so beautiful it was unbearable. so i told my friends i couldn't handle it, i was tingly i was dizzy i was nauseous, and had to get out. at least a little bit. i needed grass. i need to sit. i fantasized every single person around me suddenly dissapearing and me floating onto the ground while zach still crooned away, for no one else but me. i would lay in the grass of this field, completely alone, and he would continue playing as if nothing had happened. it would be perfect. i would be relaxed. and then i looked around and realized that was not going to happen and i had to immediately get out. douglas saw my panic and agreed with it and because he is 7 feet tall and i am not, he triumphantly led the way out and i followed behind, coyly smiling at the giggling crowd we were passing through. and found a patch of grass and collapsed. and listened. and i was sad. but convinced myself that it is about the music, that it is about listening much more than seeing, no matter how much physical love i have for zach. so it was alright. then he SEEMINGLY ended and the rest of the crew found us and we made our way over to the end of matt & kim. but to my sadness, beirut was not over. and at one point, i was standing between the two stages and could hear both bands playing at the same time. i paused. my heart split in two. one went back to where it was, regretting the decision to leave, and one lunged forward to matt & kim. my feet followed the latter. and due to inebriation my mind completely let go of beirut and forgot everything that had just happened and engulfed itself in daylight and silver tiles and it was kind of perfect because in those last 10 or so minutes i experienced, they played the songs i was lamenting over not hearing them play when i made the decision to see beirut instead of them. so, i got what i partially wanted. i got a little bit of both instead of a lot of one. which i still can't decide if that's what i wanted or not, but regret is fruitless so i suppose i need to just revel in the fact that i HEARD them. i saw no sweat on the brow, but i was there and they were there and we were all there together in union park in my chicago, illinois. MY chicago, they were in my town and i heard them live (take your pick for which "live" that is) and i got to dance and sing and shout to my two favorite music groups. and if i've done that, then i'd say i achieved some sort of satisfactory goal. at music festivals, perfection in anything executed is a distant thought. when it reaches somewhere close to that, everything is swell. so everything that day was swell. albeit cute rain drops, i discovered the grooviness of yeasayer. and the black lips singer smashed his guitar on the first song. owen pallett of final fantasy was adorableness at it's most talented. fucked up was... fat and hairy. pains of being pure at heart were not so memorable but i do remember enjoying them. after the black lips i got an ice cream cone and sat on some grass and listened to the end of the national and everything felt pretty perfect. any paranoia and panic i had previously had from being surrounded by people and bodies was melted into the chocolate chip cookie dough i had purchased for cheap from a VERY enthusiastic bearded man behind the counter. either he was acting like a maniac all day or it was the end of the day and he was really stoned or he knew i was really stoned and was making fun of me because his compatriots were laughing, but i didn't really care and went along with the jaunt because i just wanted to be saved by ice cream.

due to a HARD sleep that night (i don't really know how else to describe it, but i don't think i had every slept that HARD before), douglas and i didn't get there until about 3 the next day. but there wasn't anything we wanted to see for another hour, so i sat in grass and smoked a cigarette and he went to look at records. i met up with some kids and we saw the thermals, of which i was only slightly familiar with, and they ruled. it was a killer show and we even sat for some of it and a girl came up to me and asked if she could bum a cigarette and i said sure, they're rollies and she said ok and i handed her the pouch and she paused and looked at me sadly and asked if i could roll it for her. it was really very adorable. and i said yeah! and she explained that she tried rolling a joint once and it just did not work out. i told her that the only key to it is practice. and then she explained that she's quitting smoking and her boyfriend just went to the bathroom, so now's her chance. and then i handed her the cigarette, and she asked for a lighter and giggled, and i giggled and handed her one. and it was really all just adorable. even though i was feeding the addiction she was trying to avoid. i felt good for silly reasons.

grizzly bear was that night, and i was/am just in the thick of my obsession with them and this time had an actual plan to get to that bar when they played. i scoped out an opening at the other stage, where the walkmen were about to play, preceeding grizzly bear, and during the thermals last song, we made our way over there. the key to getting to the front of a crowded crowd at a show is via the sides. and timing. it's all about when you decide to get to where you wanna get. giving yourself much more time than you think you need is essential and you usually have to make several other sacrifices in order to stake out a spot. but if you do it right, it's so worth it and the experience is heightned because you spend the show with the band members, not smelly bodies next to you and the big hair in front of you. you get to know them by watching them so closely in the throws of their passion. it's such a different experience because it's so much more easy to concentrate on the music and appreciate the musicians when you can see the bends in their knuckles strumming the chords, not when you have to spend the entire time craning your neck to see the left foot of the bassist. i forgot about all of this during beirut, that working a crowd is a skill and there are many tricks to it. i tried to get in by just tiptoeing through the people from behind. this second day, i knew better, and was extremely determined. i needed to see grizzly bear and i knew i would have another panic attack if i was standing in the middle of bodies again, especially with those epic chords of theirs and the immaculate spliff i had rolled for experiencing them at their fullest. i wanted those chords struck in more instruments than guitars. in HEARTS. well, my heart. so we waited for the walkmen directly under the big screen, and within arms reach of the edge of the railing on the right side of the stage. as the time neared, and by the time the walkmen started playing, i was grabbing that fence and was not going to let go. i convinced friend ben that my idea was going to work and he made his way to me with company and izzy and christine left early to get flaming lips spots and my plan began to work and me and ben and company kept getting slowly pushed closer and closer to the middle of the stage. we grinned. and then the walkmen ended (and they rocked really hard, i didn't even realize it because i was there for grizzly bear, but i did a lot of dancing to them, a whole lot). and we waited. and my legs wanted to buckle from exhaustion before they even started playing. and then something in my plan malfunctioned and i lost my grip on the railing. but i was front and center. though 3 rows back, with 2 people in front of me. it was slightly frustrating because during the show i had to keep convincing myself i was alright and that i didn't need to hold on to that railing, and if i REALLY did, it was just right there. and everything was going to be ok because although i didn't have a grip on salvation, it was within arm's reach. i had lost douglas and company to the crowd. i told him i WAS going to get up front and no one was going to stop me, and i did, so he knew that's where i was going to be. and he was going to make it there too, and we were going to smoke our spliff and revel in bear glory, but he got stuck behind bodies and i spent the spliff with ben and friends and though they were appreciative, it got passed pretty far around, which was fine because i'm all about the shared love and think it's stupid when people are protective and inclusive of their pot, because it's supposed to make you feel good. so why not be nice about it? when that much care goes into the posession of drugs, you probably need to stop doing drugs. anyway, i felt completely guilty because it was supposed to be in the hands of me and douggy, but there wasn't really anything i could do at that point and i mean, the deed had to be done. it was a loaded one and i was going "oh yes oh yes oh yes" in my head while waiting for the band to play and then promptly "oh no oh no oh no" when i discovered the same panicky feelings i was feeling during beirut. and one of bens friends was talking about how my spliff just made everything better and he was in a terrible mood moments ago and now he feels completely awesome and can't wait for this show. so i smiled. even thoug i wasn't facing him. and convinced myself it's ok it's alright everything's perfect. and they started and the entire time they played there was all of this feedback and the speakers were making a very loud and obnoxious hum. that was sad. and the louder the hum, the worse i felt inside. at one point they were just standing on stage, staring around at eachother, stuttering into the mic "uh... umm... uh... i mean, ahh... we don't... we don't really know what to do... um... this is the part of the show where the stage hums..." and they stood some more. and it was the drummer's birthday, and then we the crowd started singing happy birthday to him and it was one of those moments. and they smiled and laughed and the hum stopped. and everyone was happy and relieved and they said "we really didn't know what to do there. it was one of those moments when you think absolutely everything is going wrong and you have no idea what to do next." and they played more. and 2 weeks was an unmentionable experience. i attained nirvana and wanted to call so many people and hold up my phone and sing "OHHHOOOOHHHOOOOOHHHHHHH!!!" into the reciever but i couldn't break myself from the beauty of those 4 minutes. and then the hum came back. and things were sad again and they kept shooting evil glares backstage but at this point it didn't really even matter and they just tried to drown it out by playing over it and it kind of became a joke. i hope. but nonetheless, i found god during that show and it was detrimental to my health in that it made me step out of my convultued and tumultuous spinning head, it made me take my hand off my pounding exploding heart, and threw me into this existence of sounds and sights and maybe gave me some permanent damage to my right ear drum. they were loud. and rightly so. and there were moments when me and the drummer found eachother and as he wailed and flailed, i daydreamed about our children.

the second they stopped playing, the flaming lips began their shenanigans. and i'm sorry, but they're a little ridiculous. this was my third time seeing them, and their charm had pretty much worn off. after grizzly bear, i wanted nothing other than to sit in the grass. so i did so. and friends found me and we lounged and watched on screen, and sometimes stood up to see in person, crazy wayne coin rolling around in a bubble on top of the crowd. AGAIN. the first time i saw him was at lollapalooza a few years ago and i had a pretty good spot, so good i could ALMOST touch his bubble (hehe), so good i had confetti in my hair for days and streamers wrapped around my entire upper body. the second time i saw them was at bonnaroo and me and ellie had decided to take mushrooms, but we were naive and swalloed capsules of "them" and it did nothing but make us cold and want to sit and giggle at things. so it was just like being a little bit high, which was fun and all, but pretty much ruined the concert experience because we really wanted nothing to do with it. so we didn't really experience it. and everytime i've seen him, he's done the EXACT same routine. the only difference was that the first time i saw them, the hot girls and boys dancing on stage were dressed as sexy santas and elves, the second time the hot girls and boys dancing on stage were dressed as sexy aliens and warewolves, and this third time the hot girls and boys dancing on stage were dressed as sexy cats and dinosaurs. i mean, that's hilarious and all, but cmon. cut it out already. depend on your music for fulfillment, not this silly entertainment. and all 3 times, he's rolled around atop the crowd in a giant clear plastic ball, like, don't you guys get it! he's physically telling you that he's above you! and everytime he litters the stage and crowd with TONS and TONS and TONS of confetti and streamers and literally thousands of huge ballons and all i think about is what the grounds crew is going to have to go through after this show is over and what they'll be mumbling to themselves as they're picking up pieces of confetting one by one out of the grass and what they'll be telling their spouse when they get home at 3 AM that night. there were so many oversized balloons that we, sitting in front of the grizzly bear stage on the other side of the park, were able to kick away balloons literally every minute. that shouldn't even be legal. we deduced that the reasoning behind this form of INYOURFACE show is because wayne spends so much time on stage talking. TALKING. talking talking talking about nothing. or maybe something, but you can't understand a word he's saying because he'll stop after every song and talk about the pursuit of happiness for a good 10 minutes straight and obviously the audience gets bored, so they are kept happy and fresh with all sorts of fun party favors that will never cease to entertain them. it's amazing how entertained an audience gets when they're waiting for a show to start and there's a blow up beach ball being bounced around. fans go NUTS for that shit and will give anything to make their mark on the world by hitting this ball of air as far as they can. AWESOME. so, it was kind of like that. i can respect the flaming lips, and i like their music i do, and at one point they were the focal point of my obsession, so i felt obligated to experience them this time, but after a while there wasn't even a point to being there and it was just getting silly. so me and douglas looked at eachother, and sylvia and new friend michela, and promptly left. calves hurt. eyes hurt. heart hurt. it was perfect because we didn't have to tromp and lose ourselves downtown in order to find a less crowded train like the night before, and just hopped on the empty seat filled green line, then brown line, then red line, then purple line. we transferred 3 times and it was such a smooth and completely painless process it was perfect and a bittersweet end to the night. bitter because it was the end, sweet because it was the end. we got home early enough to find lucy still awake from exploring the hip parts of town and hannah came over and we did backyard sitting smoking. and then i ate pancakes and fell asleep and woke up and went to the doctor.

Time Flies - Lykke Li (Dir: Will Galperin) (2009) from William Marshall Galperin on Vimeo.

most influential person of 2009: william marshall galperin. stay close please.

philmmind

i'm glad that i decided to do cinematography in prague next semester because it really just makes sense; every film i have recently watched i have been deciphering visually. i have been examining the way in which each scene is lit, or for that matter, each actor and where the light hits their face exactly, coming up with conclusions for the reasons behind these lighting decisions, contrast in color decisions, etc. i have been looking for clues hidden in the scenery. i have been viewing each film as a film, always keeping in mind that precisely a billion people worked on it to make it EXACTLY the way it is. absolutely everything was consciously created and decided, if it's a somewhat cohesive piece. i haven't been able to watch a film recently and not analyze every moment of it and take everything involved within in each scene into some sort of consideration, figuring out the WHY and the HOW. mainly so i can be aware of these decisions to be made come september.

this summer has truly put me in a filmic mindset. which is perfect. which is what i need for the upcoming trek to the homeland. every inspiration and idea i've come up with i've wanted to portray through some sort of film work. it is now the first form of expression that comes to mind when i want to create something. thinking like a filmmaker has become inate. whenever i see something beautiful or strange or different in the real world, i only think of how it would look on film, of what a lens would do to that scene. for some reason, i find things so much more interesting and full of depth that way. i don't really know why. it just makes the most sense to me.

maybe because this entire summer has been/is dedicated to watching great movies and that's it. really, that's the one constant thing this summer has been for, everything meaninful i've been doing has been for that sake, to watch a movie. my list hasn't gotten any shorter though.

eek.

things keep expanding and it's all attributed to my facets class and professor/cinematographer/genius. he rides a motorcycle.

cubed

no place or location should ever be named after a three dimensional geometric shape.

Avoiding the Poison: The Immaculately Quiet Beauty of Red Desert

Emma Zbiral-Teller

I recently attended a Facets Night School class called Light Narrative: The Rhetoric of Exposure in which we watched and discussed Michaelangelo Antonioni’s Red Desert (1964).When it comes to first impressions of a film, I am completely biased in a sense. If the first 10 minutes capture my full attention, which is incredibly admirable, I’m usually set for the rest of the film. If they find a way to immediately pull me in, no matter what the remaining content, I will at least respect it for its attempt. Red Desert or Il Deserto Rosso enraptured me for its entire duration. Not only did it pull me in within the first minute, it kept my eyes glued to the screen and my brain suctioned to the plot and all recurring themes. I’ve never been able to pay full attention to something that isn’t at least slightly beautiful, and this, was stunning. I was obsessed with it the moment it started and all I could think about was how awesome the rest of it was going to be.
The opening credits of the film appear over an out of focus background of treetops, and pans to factory smokestacks billowing out fuzzy smoke. It spends the entirety of the next three minutes with these same factory shots, completely out of focus yet easy to decipher as monstrous human inventions. By softening them, they were made much more innocent and dreamlike, signifying the theme of the film, that being a disconnection with reality. With these shots, Antonioni jumped right in, asking the audience the think, to say to themselves, “focus…focus…focus… why isn’t it focusing?!” In just the first three minutes, he starts an argument with his viewers, asking them to participate with what they are seeing. I was drawn in by these three minutes because I knew it was about to get real, this was serious, Antonioni wasn’t fooling around here. This wasn’t about to be an entertainment flick, I was about to witness a heavily meaningful art film. I knew I was about to spend the next two hours intently thinking as well as watching.
I’m drawn to the obscure and the unique, to what’s different, and this beginning was unlike any I had seen. Thus, I couldn’t look away, and it didn’t matter that it was my tenth hour at Facets and that I hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before and that I was previously bemoaning these facts, wondering how I was going to keep myself awake for this class, because suddenly all that mattered was how the rest of this film was going to look. Now, this may not be everyone’s reaction to the film. The pace is excruciating at times, but if you’re willing to interpret the meaning behind this excruciation and if you’re able to see its stunning visual glory, then it is completely and totally worth it. I am also easily obsessed with discreetly beautiful things, so it was easy for Red Desert to serve as a Mecca of passion for me.
As the opening credits end, the factory comes into sharp focus and balls of bright orange fire are seen spurting out of the top of a smokestack. It pans down to a crowd of people; seemingly workers in midst of a strike. It is rainy. It is grey. It is gloomy. There are factories all around, everything is metal and concrete, everything is focused on the grey pallet. Every surrounding is a human invention. Then, a woman, Guiliana, is seen walking towards the camera in a green coat with her young son clad in a yellow coat. Because of this, it is apparent that she is the protagonist. The moment I saw her I immediately thought, “We’ll be seeing A LOT of this woman.” It was easy to automatically notice the intensity in her eyes and the lines on her forehead, and you can’t introduce a character in a film with a furrowed brow without spending time on them for the rest of the film to discover why their brow is furrowed. Although their coats are the only dash of color thus far, making them important characters, they do not contrast with their surroundings. They are apparent as deep colors, yet remain in the same range of color with everything else. Although full of brilliance, there is a slightly recognizable sadness in their coats, simply because of the relation to their surroundings or the way they tiptoe through the mud. Guiliana’s desperation is easily noted when the first thing you see her doing is bribing a man for his half eaten sandwich and then rushing away to devour it amidst a thicket of bare, dark and twisting branches. There is never an explanation to her reasoning behind this, because she doesn’t seem to be penniless, and afterwards she contently walks away with her son, but even before seeing this woman’s face, you know there is something not right. She is different, and trapped. Although her coat stands out, it is natural in its surroundings. It is supposed to be there. It will not change settings. This is all there is.
Many shots throughout start with the same blurriness the film began with, yet only for mere seconds because someone immediately walks into the scene, in perfect focus. Antonioni grapples with the theme of physical space in that he puts an overwhelming amount of sky and atmosphere in this film. He gives it this space. He makes you look up into all of it, yet there is nothing to look up into because it is always overcast. The viewer is forced to look up and up and up, and there is nothing. He begins with a space and has characters enter into them, attributing the control of the scene to the surroundings and the environment, not the characters themselves. This can go on to assume that he was trying to convey our sense of non-control over the land, no matter how much we try to tame it, to build on it, to throw slabs of concrete over it, we will always remain prisoners to our land. We will always be trapped, and the only character in the film that knows this is Guiliana. Throughout the entirety of the film she grapples with the throws of insanity. With intensely bizarre mannerisms, she is consistently on the brink of reality. In one scene she even talks about how she tried committing suicide when she was in the hospital after a terrible accident because she felt like she was on a consistent decline, she was slowly sinking into her environment and soon she would be engulfed. But she, apparently, saved herself. Although she was alive now, she was still constantly disturbed by her surroundings and could never leave. Several times, she was placed wedged in a corner, up against a wall, stuck on a pole, and so on; pigeon holed in the dark, little corners of her life.
Patience in this film is essential. As the viewer, you keep waiting for things to happen that you know are going to happen, but sometimes never do. There is an orgy scene in which no orgy takes place. Yet, it is an orgy scene. It alludes to this subject, it talks about it and minimally shows it, yet it never really occurs. Instead the characters end up tearing down the interior wooden slats that make up the wall of the bedroom of this tiny shack of a house, teetering on the edge of a mysterious and foggy dock. They go on to throw the slats into the fireplace, feeding it for warmth, but they leave them sticking completely out of the fire. It’s a strange scene, because all the while they are doing this, they are hysterically laughing and jumping up and down with joy, and you, the viewer, are either waiting for an actual orgy or for the entire place to go up in flames and sink into the sea. It is ridden with this feel of anxiety, something Guiliana is constantly struggling with, no matter what is happening. This shack is an odd setting, extremely theatrical in its outlook and obviously metaphorical for the bleak and bizarre human condition. You don’t really know why these people live in a run-down shack on the edge of a foggy dock, and why they think it would make for a great party location, but it doesn’t really matter because the poetics of this are outstanding. Every single aspect of it is a perfect metaphor of Guiliana’s feelings of isolation, desperation, anxiety and depression. It is dark, grey, mysterious, they are in the middle of nowhere, no one, including the characters, has any idea what is going to happen next, and they revel in this. Just like Guiliana, you keep thinking that if they rattle the shack enough, it will suddenly slip into the unforgiving sea closely surrounding them. They are tearing at the slats of the house just as time and space are tearing at Guiliana’s soul.
Her husband is a plant manager, attributing to their location of residence, so the majority of the film is placed within factories and between smokestacks. Although many reviewers link this to a statement about the deterioration of the environment, I think it was much more representational than that. I found the outlook of these monstrosities stunning in that they represent both banality and beauty. It shows the unintentional aesthetic behind human innovation and how it will pollute our souls if we stand close enough to breathe it in, yet from a distance or behind a window, where safety is contained and survival imminent, these smokestacks are quiet, looming giants; classic and simple in their demeanor. The last line of the film sums up this theme perfectly. Guiliana and her son are walking through a factory field in which a nearby smokestack is billowing out yellow smoke. The boy asks why the smoke is yellow. Guliana tells him that it is poison. The boy inquires about the safety of the birds that fly through it. Guiliana responds by telling him that the birds have learned not to do that. Antonioni leaves the viewer with this statement, asking them to meditate on what it means. I saw it as an explanation of Guiliana’s sanity and how maybe there’s hope, because she’s learning not to fly through the yellow smoke. With her son at her side, she is discovering how to avoid the poison.
This was Antonioni’s first color film, thus it was exploding with an immaculate color palate, perfectly attuned to a central range. Cinematographer Carlo Di Palma genius-ly crafted the feel of Red Desert by keeping its tonal range smack in the middle of perfection. If one decided to take out the color, making it a black and white film, this point would be proven in that it would be incredible gray, a sign of a great cinematographer. True blacks and true whites would be sparse. You would think intense contrast in a color film would be essential, but it’s the complete opposite. Perfection on the color scale of a film comes when every one of its colors is in the same range. Contrast can be exciting, but if you want a film that is consistent in its tonality, a central range must be achieved. An honest theme can only be reached if the filmmakers are aware of every detail, if they craft it so that the visuals create a constant feel. No matter what its texture, the look and feel of it must mirror its voice. Otherwise it will attain no deeper meaning.
This class was taught by cinematographer, professor and genius, Michael Wright. Cinematography has always had an allure to me, since I am extremely interested in and obsessed with the visual aesthetic of things, especially film and art, and this class completely blew me away. It was laden with understanding the perception of a cinematographic mindset and thought process. Red Desert was a perfect foray into this mindset and is one of the only films I’ve seen that somehow knew exactly what I find essential in a film and displayed it for me on screen. That being the creation of deep meaning through odd beauty. Thanks Michaelangelo, I appreciate it.

say that ten times fast

when i'm sitting and eating an apple during my lunch break, i usually end up zoning out and spend most of the time watching people come in and out of the Walgreens across the street, as kerouac waits in pages on my lap. examining people in their cars, hand out window with cigarette. man flicked a finished one onto the road, i watched it roll back and forth for several minutes still cylindrical underneath cars. i waited for its fate when BAM it was finally flattened by tires. immobile.

on my lunch break today i also discovered that almonds are much more maliable than i ever thought. maliable almonds. maliable almonds. maliable almonds.

the ragged rim of oblivion.

i was in a cubicle all day and it was a little bit better because i got to venture out every once in a while to pretend i was helping pull film clips. and then i called 400 places to beg for employment. and then i wrote down what i probably won't tell you and scratched a love poem in my little notebook. and then i sat on the train and looked at strangers and thought about what makes me miserable and then the indian man at the health food store i asked for a job from held my hand for too long and the pimply kid behind the counter at the video store didn't know if they were hiring and then i saw a dead bird on the sidewalk and then i came home to my blind dog bumping into EVERYTHING. none of those things helped. and now i have to figure out what to eat for dinner.

maybe i should just write a memoir where i complain for 300 pages about the suburban doldrums. or the urban neurosis.

maybe i should just not take amphetamines anymore.

maybe i should just leave the country for 5 months in 3 months? the continent even? europe??? yep. that's being done.

maybe i should just be content because in time very due there will be cobblestones under my feet and a camera in front of my face and everything will start happening.



there is modern romance only in other countries. there. it's simple. see it?

Animal Collective - My Girls from Rob Chesnutt on Vimeo.

Matt & Kim "Lessons Learned" from POPFRENZY HQ on Vimeo.

dentrimentally sentimental

there is nothing left in this room but the apocalypse. where there once was abundant thriving life, there is now an empty dresser, a bare mattress and walls that look as though they have suffered through the fourth world war. this sucks i could cry.



no sleep. off to kathy's diner. on to plane. off to home. think about that one. HOME. thank god for amphetamines and jazz.

parting is such sweet sorrow

film scripts and film strips and test strips and darkroom chemicals and kurt vonnegut and rice cakes and cat litter and kittens and owls and late night art projects and red bull and fake bacon and kanye west and cigarettes and amphetamines and small children and tantrums and babies and diapers and time magazine and snow hikes and borrowed clothing and flannel and index cards and art talks and existing and airport lounge sunrises and bubblegum and avant-garde film screenings and farm mornings and smith buses and san fransisco and division II and prague and tea and reich and lykke and walking on a dream and dirty kitchens and skinny mirrors and paychecks and caffeine and stinky cigarette compost and rabid skunks and those days and those nights and UGH! THIS LIFE!

hampshire college, it's time for a break.
hampshire, i'll still call i promise.
hampshire, i'll always love you.
hampshire, you're the only one for me.
hampshire, i just need a change.
hampshire college, i'll come crawling back, don't worry.

you're my favorite moment. you're my sad day. cuz you're my number 1.

sunless

When you don't sleep at night, it's terrifying how quickly daylight comes.

people will say all kinds of things

there's no modern romance.

"One of the oldest games there is, cat's cradle. Even the Eskimos know it."
"You don't say."
"For maybe a hundred thousand years or more, grownups have been waving tangles of string in their children's faces."
"Um."
Newt remained curled in the chair. he held out his painty hands as though a cat's cradle were strung between them. "No wonder kids grow up crazy. A cat's cradle is nothing but a bunch of X's between somebody's hands, and little kids look and look and look at all those X's..."
"And?"
"No damn cat, and no damn cradle"

plastic bags full of water

see the thing about seemingly unrequited love is that it is so haunting it is almost unreal. so it's confusing. and it's tangible, it's just pointless.

like this!!!:


so much of my life has been spent as this fish in a bag!!!

oh dear.

haunts!

i'm going to prague i'm going to prague i'm going to prague i'm going to prague i could say it 700 more times and it would never lose its charm. i got into the prague film school so i will be spending all of next semester making films in PRAGUE. and doing all this stuff too:

In-between all this time you’ll find the students in the school café; chugging coffee between classes, sipping it slowly while downloading music for their film, chatting, watching films and music videos, eating one of Lima’s delicious hot sandwiches. Outside in the courtyard; fellow smokers and much more of the same; chatting about the last shoot or the next party.
Almost everyone is in student arranged accommodation. There are many parties, especially after big productions. It’s a lot of mostly hard work at PFS. And at the end of every long day you’ll always find someone to go for a well-deserved beer at one of the many neighbouring bars, if that‘s just exactly what you‘re in the mood for.
There’s a big nightlife scene; from late-night drinking haunts, jazz bars and clubs to quirky cinema retrospectives. There’s a lot going on, just ask Steve or Isaac; ex PFS students now working at the school; they always seem to know what happenings are going on about town.

chatting! parties! jazz bars! beer! smokers! sandwiches!! what. more. could. i. EVER. want. http://www.prague-life.com/prague/prague-pot it's going to be epic.

i remember thas bridge when i was there at the little age of 7. can't wait to experience it as an aaaaadulttttt.

cal. if. ornia.

kill your computer and read this in space

i got rid of my facebook a couple weeks ago and have since felt the glory and beauty of freedom and self-reliance all those poets speak of. It's much easier to focus on my own life when I'm not looking at baby pictures of someone I was in a biology class with my sophomore year of high school. that's just silly and creepy. because, really, there are so many other things to be looking at. it became such an addiction. and i really haven't noticed at all it's nonexistence in my life. instead of going on facebook, i read a book. or do my homework. or or or. the possibilities are endless when you are free. hm.

the intangibility of the internet only proves its lack of reality.
this modern human need to display personal information on screen, because that is all the internet can provide, a list of information, tears us away from our own grounding.
this "necessity" destroys everything natural about existence.
it tears our communication skills to shambles.
it puts a plethora of information in our mindset that only confuses our thought processes, because we don't know how to think for ourselves when we are enraptured in reading about the lives of others.
it tampers with the beauty of experience, which is how any sort of real connection is made.
it disables the ideals of learning, which is only wholly achieved by EXPERIENCE.
it takes away our holiness as human beings because it gives the ILLUSION that we are these tangible objects that can be felt and examined and understood by simply seeing as opposed to HOLDING.
we cannot feel with our hands experiences behind a screen.
and the only experiences worth experiencing are ones we do not look at, but ones we EMBODY.

thus, the internet has forever ruined the preciousness of human connections (yes, this blog is in that realm) and facebook has taken these ruins and constructed further lies around them that claim to be honest, but really, honesty rests in the collaboration of all senses, not this single sense of sight that makes us think we don't have to dig any further because all the information we could ever need is right in front of us, on this cleverly crafted machine whose insides are infinite. this is a lie, because it is only infinite due to human ingenuity, not nature. it is hiding more than we think. it is hiding so many so many things things things. we will never ever be able to see it all, so until we understand the idea that the internet is this singular invention we will never ever be able to see as a whole, will we be at peace with it. thus, i will never be at peace with it because i have this everlasting fear of the unknown and if i can't see everything in front of me and reason behind it, i am lost and confused and frustrated. this is why i deleted my facebook, because i'm afraid of it. because i don't understand its reason and purpose. it's. just. silly.

but don't worry friends, i'll be back. haha... afterall, i am only emma, a modern human unable to make real-life connections anymore, just like the rest of my gross generation.

godspeed...

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reduce it to the ground

everything is everything. nothing is nothing. everything is nothing. nothing is everything. ETC.

i saw a number in the sky. in the sky.
and if there's a god, he's a little god.
and he holds you closely inside these walls.
but he hates his babies
most of all.

i've been toying with the notion. i accidently typed nothing. at first. i've been toying with nothing too. and that and this and this and that.

so some of it's gone and it was valentines day yesterday so fuck thattt. i'll escape to the darkroom and get lost in chemikals. that way, i can still play god.

attention deficit definitely

infinite distractions. being infinitely distracting.

may cause drowsiness

my insides are all tied up.
my outsides are all wrong.

they prescribed me something to trick my brain into thinking i don't have to cough.
and a chemical steroid that i inhale in exchange for breath.

and everything. still. will never. leave me. alooone. drowning in the beaurocrasea. baahh.

wonder dose does

i caught the smell of last year earlier tonight. it suddenly stopped me in my tracks and made me feel everything i was feeling at that exact time last year and i couldn't decide if it was a little sad or strange.

hmm wonders what a year does?