Day 1 - Arrival

yesterday I woke up at 5am to catch a 7am flight to Puerto Rico. I arrived hungry and tired. My cousin called me and welcomed me to the caribbean, took me to get some meaty fish with a side of plaintains and then took me to the casting for a kids show on which my aunt was working. It was all taking place in a studio in the University of sacred Heart. The walls where the kids auditioned were white, and filming the kids with the white backdrop made the room look much bigger than it actually was. However, I very soon realized I didn't speak the language that everybody else was speaking.

The show, from what i gathered, was about 4 children who stumbled upon un tessoro (a treasure) which held un mapa magica (a magical map). I watched for a few hours, without gathering very much more about the content. In order to audition, the kids just had to play pretend that they had found a treasure and a map, and they were going on an adventure. I was surprised at how bad the kids were at playing pretend. A few of them got really into it, as I would expect, but most of them looked embarrassed to be participating in pretending. Their ages ranged from 7 to 12, and most of them were adorable nonetheless. I wonder if I would have been able to play pretend in front of a camera at that age. Only a few stood out in terms of their comfort in talking with adults and their comfort and confidence in themselves, but I guess you only need those few to make a movie. Casting was from 8am to 5pm, and although I had only experienced the process from 2 to 5, i was happy to leave. This wasn't the film I was going to work on.

After we were done with the casting for Estu...oria....onia... we went to the headquarters of Isla Films. Its on the 3rd floor of an office building. I met the art directors with whom I would be working. They sat in an artsy room with sketchboards, guitars, and print-outs of crazy psychedelic art on the walls. The prints of the art were to be used in the film as having been made by the artist that the main character falls in love with. One of the girls who had been working in the art room wore a black shirt with red letters that read "I <3 Pot." They had the best decorated room in the building.

I was taken to the 9th floor, which was being set up to look like an abandoned office building in which the main character of Miente was to be squatting. From what I gathered about her fictional living area, she's a photographer, likes candles, and is an unfortunate victim of a burdened past.

I spent some time sweeping up the dusty floors and talking with Izabel whom I had met in the art directors room. she was hanging up blue construction plastics from the ceiling. The floor which I was sweeping was a combination of blue and purple, and had been recently painted by the art department. The entire atmosphere was cold because of the subtle blue tone on the walls and on the furniture. All the photography that was hung up on strings was black and white, except for a few that were blue-toned.

The director of art asked me if I wanted to go with her to pick up some screens for the set, and i was very happy to get to see something else. The artists whose work we are going to be using (as creations made by one of the characters) were twins who had amazing communication skills with each other. I was told that they will make a piece together, and one will be sketching, and the other will be copying his sketch. They freely change roles and have the ability to work together as one person with one vision.

I met these twins at an studio apartment which Isla Films had gotten them. The art was more amazing, more detailed, and larger than the print-outs I had seen in the artsy room earlier, but they were the same psychedelic style. The script was laid out and taped to the walls, and there was a brainstorm area filled with sketches and notes which they used to come up with ideas for their larger paintings. One of the twins with whom I got to talk with, had studied 'plastic arts,' whatever that may mean.

Later on I met the director, who is a gypsy who has lived in every major city in the world. I also met one of the lead actors, who had just flown in from san domingo. He had left his family there to come film.

We start shooting on the 5th. There are a variety of places we will be shooting in, including a video rental store, a fortress, an apartment, the studio, and a few locations on the streets. It should be interesting to see what sort of problems we run into, and how shooting in different locations requires different conditions. I will try and get some pictures in here, but for now it's the weekend and I am going to play my ukulele.

Introduction

I guess this is the way that you get your foot in the door. Of course, I'm not even sure if I want to move in permanently. I'm just testing the waters, and maybe if I like it, I'll consider renewing my lease for another month. Maybe two.

I decided I liked film. I was first invited to look at film as a form of art when I took a Introductory Film Studies class with Professor Knight at the College of William & Mary. I became involved in more than just enjoying the final product of the film. I would watch movies and research them at the same time, and became amazed at how much went into the making of films. I started to see film as the most flexible means for communication, and the most accessible form of narration. I want to tell stories. I want to communicate. I want to explore film as an outlet for whatever it may be that I may want to say one day.

This was last semester. Towards the end of the semester I called my dad (official decider of whether or not my desired career path is going to lead to happyness and fulfillment, whether or not I listen or not) and I pitched to him the idea that I didn't want to be a psychologist (something to which he was opposed to anyway, unless it was to become a business consultant giving Productivity Seminars ). I said that I really liked film, daddy, and I think I want to throw away job security, steady income, and potential for success and become a filmmaker... or at least explore that option for a while. Daddy, I know college diplomas are expensive, time consuming, (and inevitably, what i perceive to be a huge downfall of our capitalist society which makes people a commodity, and people with diplomas worth more than people without.) I know I have put 3 years of my life into college, but I think I would like to forget what I learned in the books and make movies about what I learn in life.

To my surprise, he was very supportive. I found out that my father was very reasonable and I was very lucky to have him. Turns out he would have loved to do that himself (he edits family videos as a hobby) and that he studied photography for some time in college before finding fulfillment in economics and continuing on to try and help developing countries develop. Maybe the interest was genetic, or maybe my interest and attraction to film was formed from in an infantile experience with loved ones, and it is now materializing in my life choices. Whatever the seed to all of this was, he told me of his cousin, Sonia, who had been a documentary film maker and was now teaching film at University of Sacred Heart in Puerto Rico, and often worked as a Producer in Puerto Rican films. He introduced us via e-mail, since I had never met her.

With some persistence (and ignoring my self telling me that I was probably annoying her), I got the job. Initially I was going to be the Production Assistant (getting lunch, making coffee, making sure everybody knows where to be at what time, etc.) but there was a final change of plans and now I will be the assistant Art Director. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to be doing yet, but I'm sure I'll catch on. I googled what an assistant art director does, and wikipedia gave me a little bit of a hint... Staging, costumes, possibly continuity and attention to detail, etc.

This is my blog chronicling this experience. I don't have any structure planned for this blog. That's not really how I roll. I'm excited to see if anything becomes of this blog. In order to make this introductory post visually interesting, I added a picture I took of my closet. Yes, my closet was psychedelic last semester.