This week we watched Good Bye Lenin! which is an excellent film. From the reading it seemed like Good Bye Lenin! gave the best representations of each character. The previous films on the topic of a reunited Germany seemed to paint West Germans as exploitative whereas with this movie a West German, Denis, goes far out of his way to help Alex make his mother believe the wall is still up. There still seems to be a bit of the stereotypical older characters seeing the reunification negatively as opposed to the younger generation like Alex's sister who see the Wall coming down as somewhat of a godsend. I say there's only a bit of that because Alex's mother finds out about the Wall falling and reunification but she seemed to care very little. She was much more concerned with something that actually mattered: her family (mainly her son).
It was interesting that Alex did most of what he did just to hang on to his childhood. It's interesting that you could associate your childhood with the ruling regime and to be nostalgic for that. I understand his nostalgia for the products and events in his childhood (East German food products, Sigmund Jahn, etc.) but to recreate an entire government through the television seems to be going a bit far. Maybe I'm just not fully understanding the concept of Ostalgie.
This last week was pretty much a complete blur. I was rarely out of the apartment because we were editing for the majority of the week. One great night was Tuesday when we went out to Zimt und Zunder again to try to get an interview with the owner of the bar. Unfortunately she wasn't interested in doing the interview that night because the front part of her bar got smashed up. Luckily there were several people in the bar that were already playing ping pong and invited us to join along. Not only that but they didn't mind us filming either. We got some great shots and an interview with a girl named Jana. The guy with the green shirt (I forget his name) was kind of a asshole to be honest. He kept slamming whoever he could while we were playing. Not only that but when we were interviewing Jana, he kept dicking with the camera. That would have been fine but his comments detracted from the interview which overall I think was the best one we got mostly because it was completely relaxed.
We realized that our shots of the various bars needed transitions so I figured we could shoot a fake group meeting that put out that we needed to do a project and what to do it on. Initially I was thinking that it would probably work better as just voice over but when it was put together it actually turned out pretty decent by itself. I forget who came up with the idea of interviews ala The Office but those really helped transition from one bar to the next and also help explain our thoughts on the project and just how that form of ping pong is played. Those made it so that our movie at least had a somewhat coherent storyline. For the group meeting I did say more than ended up in the movie but I kept getting talked over so it was cut out.
The editing process was long and tedious. I don't have too great of an eye for what makes an alright shot and what makes a great shot. There were some shots that were equally as good as others but because they were so similar one had to be cut. I guess I'm not great at deciding which one should be cut completely. The rest of the project was basically how much to cut off of a clip and lighting/volume normalizing. It was a crunch right up until the very end. We didn't even have time to put on a title or make better credits; just enough time to burn it onto a DVD (turned out to be a bad idea).
Watching the movies immediately made me realize that almost everyone else went for a slightly deeper approach with their ideas. It was great because every single movie had either some really cool shots or ideas that I had neither seen done like that nor thought of before. Some of the movies completely blew me away put together (Kelly's for instance). I now feel like I've barely scratched the surface of the editing software we're using and definitely feel like I should delve deeper into it. I just wish I could afford a camera.
I'm glad people liked ours. We were shooting for laughs and that's what we got. I learned that jokes (or funny lines) need to be timed because there were definitely a few instances where people were laughing too hard to hear the other funny parts of the clips. Oh well at least the idea came across and now people don't think our idea of a movie on ping pong is so odd.
One movie that really made me think about different perspectives of the audience was Ed's part of his group's film. I was left wondering if Jason's voice over was meant to narrate Ed's perspective on tattoos, Jason's, or just a general perspective. That would completely change if I didn't know Ed and was just some random viewer. It made me wonder if when I get home, people will find the humor in our film funny. I wonder if there are certain aspects of our film that are basically inside jokes that nobody else will get. That's not a bad thing, it just changes how broad the appeal of the film is.
I had an amazing time in Berlin and wish it could go for at least a little while longer. I'm glad I got an idea of the processes that go into to making movies and my analysis of movies will be a lot different from now on. I wish at the beginning of the quarter I possessed the editing skills I've acquired because things would have gone a lot smoother and we probably wouldn't have been so crunched for time. But I guess that's part of the process of coming into contact with problems and then figuring out just how the hell you're going to solve them.
Tschuss!
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Monday, November 26, 2007
Week 9-10
This week we didn't get too much done seeing as it was the week of Thanksgiving. The previous Friday, Jesse went out to Dr. Pongs to shoot. I stayed in to work on the project for Thorsten's class. I looked at a couple of the clips and it looks like he got a casual interview with at least one girl. I'm not sure how good most of the footage is though.
I traveled down to Munich on Thursday so there wasn't much filming I could do. Jessica and Jesse went to the ping pong tournament at Zimt und Zunder. I was really hoping there would be a lot of people there and some good action shots. Unfortunately from what Jesse and Jessica tell me, that wasn't the case.
For the coming two weeks...well we need to finish our project completely. We still need a few more iconic Berlin shots and definitely some more interviews. I'd love to get shots of people actually training but the person that Jessica contacted never replied. Somehow we're going to have to put together a film with what we have and what we can get within the next couple weeks. We're all going to have to kick it into overdrive to get that done. We plan on going to Sez because Chris McCarter told us there is some really intense ping pong there. I'm hoping he's right because what we've seen so far has been kind of lacking. It might just be that ping pong is more of a summer sport and we just came at the wrong time.
For week 10 we stepped it up a notch. Jessica went and filmed the Reichstag, Brandenburger Tor and Potsdamer Platz for iconic shots in the movie. Afterward, Nathan and I went to the construction site on Friedrichstrasse to attempt to shoot a time lapse scene. We got about 20 minutes of footage before the battery crapped out. All of us tried to go to Sez where Chris said there is some really good ping pong but when we got there we realized it was a fitness gym that you had to pay to even get into. The next day Nathan and I went out to shoot Oberbaumbrucke, the East Side Gallery, and some more stills of ping pong tables. By the time we got the first two shot we were freezing and it was getting close to class time so we decided against trying to find the three or four ping pong tables within that area.
While we were editing we realized that it took an extremely long time to export. I gave Joel a ring to figure out what was wrong. He told us it would go faster if we shrunk it down to widescreen NTSC. That sucks we can't use HD but I'd rather have a movie that makes sense and looks mediocre than a movie that looks amazing but isn't coherent. We started editing the intro and it looks pretty cool. My main part in the intro besides helping place where things go is the shot of the stills of the ping pong table and the music that is accompanying the intro. I wished we would have gotten more stills because they only fill up a couple seconds but I like the effect it has. Before we put in the music we couldn't figure out exactly how to put the intro together because there didn't seem to be anything decent to transition between each scene. I think the music makes a great transition for each of the shots. I hope it's not too intense for the scenes though. The editing software seems pretty straightforward so far and I would actually enjoy working on it more if it didn't cause Jessica's computer to crash every hour or so.
The next day we spent going to the Eberswalder U-Bahn stop and shooting character intro, training shots, and action shots. We haven't worked with these in the editing software yet so I'm not exactly sure how they'll turn out.
Ich Chef, Du Turnschuh was quite an entertaining movie for how small the budget was for it. I really enjoyed recognizing a lot of the places where it was filmed. The discussion in class was pretty interesting as well. In our group discussion, I brought up that it was interesting that Kutlucan played an Armenian instead of a Turk. Someone's point about making fun of yourself makes it more okay to make fun of others doesn't really apply that much here. Yes, he is making fun of immigrants which he is one of but he doesn't even play a character that is from his country of origin. I wonder if the perception of his character would have been different had he been a Turk. This was played to a German audience which seem to have a lot of reservations about the Turkish population. Kutlucan may have made the main character Armenian so he could be more relateable to the viewing audience. It's pretty well known that there are tensions between Armenians and Turks so maybe Kutlucan played on the German population reservations about the Turkish population by making his main character have an ethnicity that also has problems with the Turkish population.
I think the movie overall though is a commentary about the ridiculousness of the immigration policies in Germany. I think the Marx Brothers played on the ridiculousness of immigration policies as well but in the US instead of Germany obviously. I'm not sure how comparable the immigration policies of the US in the 1930s and Germany in the 1990s are but I'd imagine they aren't horribly far off. I recall looking at the numbers of immigrants arriving during each year and it drops off in the 1930s. That may be because the economic chaos created a much lower incentive to travel to the US.
The anarchy of the immigrants almost seems to mock the immigration policies by attempting to one up them on how silly they are. How can you expect immigrants to come to a country to work and live for several years and then send them home while expecting no complaints? That seems like politicians were trying to compete with who could come up with the most dysfunctional immigration policy.
The stereotyping in the film was kind of mixed for me. While the immigrants did use it to their advantage, they also seemed extremely naive. I'm not sure the German characters were portrayed the best either. For the most part they all seemed to be trying to take advantage of the immigrants with the exception of Frau Dutschke. That seems just as bad as portraying the immigrants as naive.
The views on Seattle with regards to diversity were pretty interesting. Seattle to me seems fairly diverse. Obviously places like LA that are close to the Mexican border are going to have a much larger foreign born population. It's proximity to the Asian eastern coast is similar to ours and so I would expect the Asian populations to be similar.
Berlin, in terms of foreign nationalities, seems to put most US cities to shame. Almost every day I here somebody speaking a language other than German or English. When the question was asked how Berlin compares diversity-wise with what we've experienced, I started wondering what was considered diversity. Is it only different nationalities that count or do different races count too? Germany definitely has a large amount of different nationalities but that's because their immigration policy is still pretty rigid even after the liberalization. I guess German ideas of citizenship seem completely foreign to me due to the US having the 14th Amendment for so long in our history. It seems odd to me that you can be born in a country and still not be part of that nation. Maybe
I traveled down to Munich on Thursday so there wasn't much filming I could do. Jessica and Jesse went to the ping pong tournament at Zimt und Zunder. I was really hoping there would be a lot of people there and some good action shots. Unfortunately from what Jesse and Jessica tell me, that wasn't the case.
For the coming two weeks...well we need to finish our project completely. We still need a few more iconic Berlin shots and definitely some more interviews. I'd love to get shots of people actually training but the person that Jessica contacted never replied. Somehow we're going to have to put together a film with what we have and what we can get within the next couple weeks. We're all going to have to kick it into overdrive to get that done. We plan on going to Sez because Chris McCarter told us there is some really intense ping pong there. I'm hoping he's right because what we've seen so far has been kind of lacking. It might just be that ping pong is more of a summer sport and we just came at the wrong time.
For week 10 we stepped it up a notch. Jessica went and filmed the Reichstag, Brandenburger Tor and Potsdamer Platz for iconic shots in the movie. Afterward, Nathan and I went to the construction site on Friedrichstrasse to attempt to shoot a time lapse scene. We got about 20 minutes of footage before the battery crapped out. All of us tried to go to Sez where Chris said there is some really good ping pong but when we got there we realized it was a fitness gym that you had to pay to even get into. The next day Nathan and I went out to shoot Oberbaumbrucke, the East Side Gallery, and some more stills of ping pong tables. By the time we got the first two shot we were freezing and it was getting close to class time so we decided against trying to find the three or four ping pong tables within that area.
While we were editing we realized that it took an extremely long time to export. I gave Joel a ring to figure out what was wrong. He told us it would go faster if we shrunk it down to widescreen NTSC. That sucks we can't use HD but I'd rather have a movie that makes sense and looks mediocre than a movie that looks amazing but isn't coherent. We started editing the intro and it looks pretty cool. My main part in the intro besides helping place where things go is the shot of the stills of the ping pong table and the music that is accompanying the intro. I wished we would have gotten more stills because they only fill up a couple seconds but I like the effect it has. Before we put in the music we couldn't figure out exactly how to put the intro together because there didn't seem to be anything decent to transition between each scene. I think the music makes a great transition for each of the shots. I hope it's not too intense for the scenes though. The editing software seems pretty straightforward so far and I would actually enjoy working on it more if it didn't cause Jessica's computer to crash every hour or so.
The next day we spent going to the Eberswalder U-Bahn stop and shooting character intro, training shots, and action shots. We haven't worked with these in the editing software yet so I'm not exactly sure how they'll turn out.
Ich Chef, Du Turnschuh was quite an entertaining movie for how small the budget was for it. I really enjoyed recognizing a lot of the places where it was filmed. The discussion in class was pretty interesting as well. In our group discussion, I brought up that it was interesting that Kutlucan played an Armenian instead of a Turk. Someone's point about making fun of yourself makes it more okay to make fun of others doesn't really apply that much here. Yes, he is making fun of immigrants which he is one of but he doesn't even play a character that is from his country of origin. I wonder if the perception of his character would have been different had he been a Turk. This was played to a German audience which seem to have a lot of reservations about the Turkish population. Kutlucan may have made the main character Armenian so he could be more relateable to the viewing audience. It's pretty well known that there are tensions between Armenians and Turks so maybe Kutlucan played on the German population reservations about the Turkish population by making his main character have an ethnicity that also has problems with the Turkish population.
I think the movie overall though is a commentary about the ridiculousness of the immigration policies in Germany. I think the Marx Brothers played on the ridiculousness of immigration policies as well but in the US instead of Germany obviously. I'm not sure how comparable the immigration policies of the US in the 1930s and Germany in the 1990s are but I'd imagine they aren't horribly far off. I recall looking at the numbers of immigrants arriving during each year and it drops off in the 1930s. That may be because the economic chaos created a much lower incentive to travel to the US.
The anarchy of the immigrants almost seems to mock the immigration policies by attempting to one up them on how silly they are. How can you expect immigrants to come to a country to work and live for several years and then send them home while expecting no complaints? That seems like politicians were trying to compete with who could come up with the most dysfunctional immigration policy.
The stereotyping in the film was kind of mixed for me. While the immigrants did use it to their advantage, they also seemed extremely naive. I'm not sure the German characters were portrayed the best either. For the most part they all seemed to be trying to take advantage of the immigrants with the exception of Frau Dutschke. That seems just as bad as portraying the immigrants as naive.
The views on Seattle with regards to diversity were pretty interesting. Seattle to me seems fairly diverse. Obviously places like LA that are close to the Mexican border are going to have a much larger foreign born population. It's proximity to the Asian eastern coast is similar to ours and so I would expect the Asian populations to be similar.
Berlin, in terms of foreign nationalities, seems to put most US cities to shame. Almost every day I here somebody speaking a language other than German or English. When the question was asked how Berlin compares diversity-wise with what we've experienced, I started wondering what was considered diversity. Is it only different nationalities that count or do different races count too? Germany definitely has a large amount of different nationalities but that's because their immigration policy is still pretty rigid even after the liberalization. I guess German ideas of citizenship seem completely foreign to me due to the US having the 14th Amendment for so long in our history. It seems odd to me that you can be born in a country and still not be part of that nation. Maybe
Week 8
This week we watched the film Lola rennt. I saw the movie a couple years ago and I really liked it. I was really excited to see it again now that I've been living in Berlin for a few months. I wish I could have stayed for the entire movie but Nathan, Jessica, and I had to head over to Serene Bar to film ping pong action that I'll talk about later in the blog. Run Lola Run was even better the second time around, I think. The shots are almost all fast paced which seem even faster when paired up with the superb techno soundtrack. I definitely want to go download the soundtrack and see which tracks are usable for our film. If we can portray that type of fast paced action, I'll be very happy. Techno would be perfect for the intro to our movie which I want to involve very quick cuts that go along with the beat of a song.
It was pretty cool to recognize parts of the city as she was passing by them...although you realize her run is completely impossible for a normal human being to run. One thing that struck me were the construction sites. I remember talking to Sean about them in the movie and he said he didn't even notice them. Maybe they've become so much a part of the Berlin background that people don't even notice them anymore. That, to me, was one of the few defining shots that show it being Berlin in the movie.
On the way to Serene Bar, Nathan and I discussed how she succeeded in the end. We came to the conclusion that the problem in the first two segments was that the two main characters were relying on others to help them out; Manni depending on Lola and Lola depending on her father. It was only when they became self reliant do they come out ahead. The author of the reading seems to agree and takes it a step farther by saying this is an allegory for German culture. He states that the film tells German culture to take self responsibilty. I'm not sure how right that is because I'm not familiar with German culture in the late 1990s. I do agree with his point about this film being about a change in culture though. You can see the contrast in the different generations; Lola's father is business-like and fairly rigid while Lola seems to be the complete opposite.
One phrase I liked in the reading was "chaos theory." I was thinking the exact same phrase watching the movie but for a different part. The snapshots of each random person's future reminded me a lot of chaos theory. How they run into Lola changes slightly each time which drastically changes their lives. I do agree with the writer's use of the word, however.
With regards to the discussion in class on taking a Bell Hooks sort of perspective...well she probably would have inevitably found something wrong with this movie. There were comments in class about her being a sexualized object but I didn't see any of that. Lola's clothing isn't particularly pleasing to the eye and the actress herself is attractive but not overly attractive. Plus you have the fact that Manni depends on her several times to help him out. This is a strong woman that knows what she's doing (excluding the robbery scene with the gun). Actually it didn't seem like that part of the scene fit in at all but it was made up for when she goes to rob the bank and knows exactly what she's doing.
Most of the week was spent finishing our acoustic movie. Nathan and I spent a lot of time going out and retrieving sounds. We attempted to get one of the women that asks "Speak English?" but unfortunately we never got them at a point where they could be heard on camera. That would have been great to have in there because I actually did get asked three times that day but two of them were when I didn't have the camera on me and the third time there was really loud music playing so you couldn't even hear her. We did get a free style rap which I thought was pretty cool and also kind of funny because the guy screwed up horribly. Unfortunately we couldn't get that across decently in the final version. Nathan spent quite a while figuring out the sound editing software and editing the clips. The rest of us were listening and saying how it would sound best. Cross fading is a glorious function. None of the sounds would have sounded nearly as seamless if it wasn't for that function. Even with that we had to fiddle around with volume levels on a few of the tracks. For the acoustic film, we were supposed to get an idea of what to do by listening to the Ruttman sound film but I don't think this correlated so much with that film. That was just sounds of the city whereas this one told a story.
Wednesday night we spent at the Serene Bar. The bartender the previous week told us that Wednesdays are when they play ping pong so we skipped out on the last part of Lola rennt to head down there. Initially there were only a few people playing doubles against each other. After about 15 minutes or so there were a few more people there so it turned similar to Dr. Pongs where you wait in line, hit the ball, then run to the other side of the table. The background in the bar is pretty interesting. We got some panning shots and used the night setting a little bit. I'm not a huge fan of the night setting on the camera because all it does is change the shutter speed and make everything blurry and choppy. Playing was fun though, the three of us all participated in the action and we got shots of it. I was glad when we got a short interview with the bar tender. He thinks the reason ping pong is so popular in bars is because it's something you can do while your drinking. I would think the opposite to be honest. It's hard to drink more than two beers and play in a reasonable amount of time. Maybe future interviews will shed some light on the real reason.
It was pretty cool to recognize parts of the city as she was passing by them...although you realize her run is completely impossible for a normal human being to run. One thing that struck me were the construction sites. I remember talking to Sean about them in the movie and he said he didn't even notice them. Maybe they've become so much a part of the Berlin background that people don't even notice them anymore. That, to me, was one of the few defining shots that show it being Berlin in the movie.
On the way to Serene Bar, Nathan and I discussed how she succeeded in the end. We came to the conclusion that the problem in the first two segments was that the two main characters were relying on others to help them out; Manni depending on Lola and Lola depending on her father. It was only when they became self reliant do they come out ahead. The author of the reading seems to agree and takes it a step farther by saying this is an allegory for German culture. He states that the film tells German culture to take self responsibilty. I'm not sure how right that is because I'm not familiar with German culture in the late 1990s. I do agree with his point about this film being about a change in culture though. You can see the contrast in the different generations; Lola's father is business-like and fairly rigid while Lola seems to be the complete opposite.
One phrase I liked in the reading was "chaos theory." I was thinking the exact same phrase watching the movie but for a different part. The snapshots of each random person's future reminded me a lot of chaos theory. How they run into Lola changes slightly each time which drastically changes their lives. I do agree with the writer's use of the word, however.
With regards to the discussion in class on taking a Bell Hooks sort of perspective...well she probably would have inevitably found something wrong with this movie. There were comments in class about her being a sexualized object but I didn't see any of that. Lola's clothing isn't particularly pleasing to the eye and the actress herself is attractive but not overly attractive. Plus you have the fact that Manni depends on her several times to help him out. This is a strong woman that knows what she's doing (excluding the robbery scene with the gun). Actually it didn't seem like that part of the scene fit in at all but it was made up for when she goes to rob the bank and knows exactly what she's doing.
Most of the week was spent finishing our acoustic movie. Nathan and I spent a lot of time going out and retrieving sounds. We attempted to get one of the women that asks "Speak English?" but unfortunately we never got them at a point where they could be heard on camera. That would have been great to have in there because I actually did get asked three times that day but two of them were when I didn't have the camera on me and the third time there was really loud music playing so you couldn't even hear her. We did get a free style rap which I thought was pretty cool and also kind of funny because the guy screwed up horribly. Unfortunately we couldn't get that across decently in the final version. Nathan spent quite a while figuring out the sound editing software and editing the clips. The rest of us were listening and saying how it would sound best. Cross fading is a glorious function. None of the sounds would have sounded nearly as seamless if it wasn't for that function. Even with that we had to fiddle around with volume levels on a few of the tracks. For the acoustic film, we were supposed to get an idea of what to do by listening to the Ruttman sound film but I don't think this correlated so much with that film. That was just sounds of the city whereas this one told a story.
Wednesday night we spent at the Serene Bar. The bartender the previous week told us that Wednesdays are when they play ping pong so we skipped out on the last part of Lola rennt to head down there. Initially there were only a few people playing doubles against each other. After about 15 minutes or so there were a few more people there so it turned similar to Dr. Pongs where you wait in line, hit the ball, then run to the other side of the table. The background in the bar is pretty interesting. We got some panning shots and used the night setting a little bit. I'm not a huge fan of the night setting on the camera because all it does is change the shutter speed and make everything blurry and choppy. Playing was fun though, the three of us all participated in the action and we got shots of it. I was glad when we got a short interview with the bar tender. He thinks the reason ping pong is so popular in bars is because it's something you can do while your drinking. I would think the opposite to be honest. It's hard to drink more than two beers and play in a reasonable amount of time. Maybe future interviews will shed some light on the real reason.
Friday, November 9, 2007
Week 7
Production this week was pretty good, I would say. Tuesday we went out to Dr. Pong's on Josh's geburtstag. We were planning on getting some footage after our everyone else in the program had left but by the time they did, all the people that were good at ping pong had already left. It was so bad that I even got in the final three...and then quickly ate shit running around the table. The night was not over for us though as we still needed to stop by a place called Zimt und Zunder. There were rum(u)ors of a table there and we were not entirely disappointed. There was a ping pong table and people were playing but they were worse than we were and I think they were Spaniards. Nathan armed with his skills of broken German managed to get some information out of the owner. She told him that most people come and play on Thursdays and Sundays and that there was actually a tournament being held on November 22nd. Sundays are out of the question for our group because for the next month all of us are going to be traveling on the weekends. The tournament is unlikely but still a possibility.
Thursday night we went out to another place that is supposed to have a Tischtennis Tisch called Serene Bar. We planned on stopping there before going back to Zimt und Zimmer for what we were told was one of the big nights for ping pong. Unfortunately there is no table tennis at the Serene Bar on Thursdays; it's on Wednesdays. The bartender was really helpful though and said he would send out an email to all of the regulars to tell them we would be there filming next Wednesday.
This week we talked to Wolfganng Kohlhaase. It was interesting to see how movie design went in the eastern part of Germany. I thought it was really weird that he thought Solo Sunny was his favorite movie to work on. Out of the three of his that I've seen, that one was definitely the worst. Maybe I was reading a little too much into his statement, he did just say that was his favorite to have worked on, not his favorite. The one thing I recall writing down was, "shoot what you know." That seems to make perfect sense but unfortunately I don't really know that much about film making and in spite of having been in Berlin for so long, I don't feel I know enough about it. Our group is trying to get involved into the ping pong scene to get a feel for Berlin and I hope that comes close to accomplishing its task. Ping pong is pretty fun and seems pretty unique to Berlin and Germany as a whole.
The movie we watched this week was Die Mauer. I think a few of the shots in this film were pretty useful. Our group has been trying to get iconic shots of Berlin but for some reason we never thought about the Wall. We definitely need to get shots of the East Side Gallery in our film. Our film of the Reichstag and the Fernseherturm are great but what most people know Berlin for is the Berlin Wall that was in place for 28 years. The interviews in the film were kind of hit or miss to me. Some of them seemed kind of awkward or contrived. It seemed like some people wanted to talk as much as possible so they could get their 15 minutes of fame. Hopefully our interviews don't go like that. I'm not sure what was up with that woman in the dress that seemed to be molesting the Wall.
The destruction of the Wall seemed to be a monument in and of itself. People came just to see the destruction of the wall that had been up for so long. Some people even seemed to take anger at it having been there and were just beating it with a hammer. I really wish the government would do some better restoration on the artwork that is still there because it starting to look like crap. From the pictures I've seen, it had
The guards seemed out of place to me. Not so much out of place, I guess, as useless. All they were doing was standing around not knowing what to do. By that time their jobs had become obsolete but they hadn't been put out of work yet.
Thursday night we went out to another place that is supposed to have a Tischtennis Tisch called Serene Bar. We planned on stopping there before going back to Zimt und Zimmer for what we were told was one of the big nights for ping pong. Unfortunately there is no table tennis at the Serene Bar on Thursdays; it's on Wednesdays. The bartender was really helpful though and said he would send out an email to all of the regulars to tell them we would be there filming next Wednesday.
This week we talked to Wolfganng Kohlhaase. It was interesting to see how movie design went in the eastern part of Germany. I thought it was really weird that he thought Solo Sunny was his favorite movie to work on. Out of the three of his that I've seen, that one was definitely the worst. Maybe I was reading a little too much into his statement, he did just say that was his favorite to have worked on, not his favorite. The one thing I recall writing down was, "shoot what you know." That seems to make perfect sense but unfortunately I don't really know that much about film making and in spite of having been in Berlin for so long, I don't feel I know enough about it. Our group is trying to get involved into the ping pong scene to get a feel for Berlin and I hope that comes close to accomplishing its task. Ping pong is pretty fun and seems pretty unique to Berlin and Germany as a whole.
The movie we watched this week was Die Mauer. I think a few of the shots in this film were pretty useful. Our group has been trying to get iconic shots of Berlin but for some reason we never thought about the Wall. We definitely need to get shots of the East Side Gallery in our film. Our film of the Reichstag and the Fernseherturm are great but what most people know Berlin for is the Berlin Wall that was in place for 28 years. The interviews in the film were kind of hit or miss to me. Some of them seemed kind of awkward or contrived. It seemed like some people wanted to talk as much as possible so they could get their 15 minutes of fame. Hopefully our interviews don't go like that. I'm not sure what was up with that woman in the dress that seemed to be molesting the Wall.
The destruction of the Wall seemed to be a monument in and of itself. People came just to see the destruction of the wall that had been up for so long. Some people even seemed to take anger at it having been there and were just beating it with a hammer. I really wish the government would do some better restoration on the artwork that is still there because it starting to look like crap. From the pictures I've seen, it had
The guards seemed out of place to me. Not so much out of place, I guess, as useless. All they were doing was standing around not knowing what to do. By that time their jobs had become obsolete but they hadn't been put out of work yet.
Week 6
Well I didn't expect Columbo to be an angel that's for sure. I kind of wonder why Wenders picked Peter Falk as one of the main characters for Der Himmel über Berlin. I realize that Berlin was supposed to be seen as an international city but Peter Falk, to me at least, does not seem like the perfect portrayal of an American. Dung's point about there being no clear Berliners that are main characters was interesting. It seems like there would be at least one character that was from Berlin. I kind of wonder though, what personified a Berliner at that time? Was it Homer that was constantly searching for Potsdamer Platz? I could see him personifying Berlin (with regards to it searching for its past) but not necessarily a 1987 Berliner. Even today it's hard to pin down the exact stereotype of a Berliner due to there being so many different social groups.
Bell Hooks, despite being near certifiably insane, I think made a decent point about the lack of feminism in this film. She was pretty far off base when it came to the racial (or lack thereof) aspect of them film. It did not seem like that was a topic for the movie at all. While it did show some elements of race such as the car with a Turkish man, it did't seem to focus on that at all. It seemed like most people in the class agreed but it might just be because there weren't really that many minorities in the group. She does make a good point that Berlin is not a 'white city' like her friend said but it certainly isn't as diverse as your average American metropolis of several million people. Bell Hooks may be looking at it from the wrong perspective as well.
It did seem kind of odd that the female character wasn't complete until Damiel came into her life. There's also the fact that Marion did seem like a fairly sexualized character that was seen as an object of desire for Damiel. But that may be an incomplete view of the subject. The male angels in Der Himmel über Berlin were very gentle characters. Gentleness is usually seen as a more feminine trait. Couple that with the idea that angels are usually supposed to be more perfect than humans and you might be able to make the argument that Wenders was trying to say that men need to take on more character traits from women.
This week we didn't get too much done in the way of filming for tischtennis. Jessica went out and took some shots of the Reichstag which were pretty good. We actually do need to get some more shots of icons in Berlin so it was good that we at least got some footage of that.
Bell Hooks, despite being near certifiably insane, I think made a decent point about the lack of feminism in this film. She was pretty far off base when it came to the racial (or lack thereof) aspect of them film. It did not seem like that was a topic for the movie at all. While it did show some elements of race such as the car with a Turkish man, it did't seem to focus on that at all. It seemed like most people in the class agreed but it might just be because there weren't really that many minorities in the group. She does make a good point that Berlin is not a 'white city' like her friend said but it certainly isn't as diverse as your average American metropolis of several million people. Bell Hooks may be looking at it from the wrong perspective as well.
It did seem kind of odd that the female character wasn't complete until Damiel came into her life. There's also the fact that Marion did seem like a fairly sexualized character that was seen as an object of desire for Damiel. But that may be an incomplete view of the subject. The male angels in Der Himmel über Berlin were very gentle characters. Gentleness is usually seen as a more feminine trait. Couple that with the idea that angels are usually supposed to be more perfect than humans and you might be able to make the argument that Wenders was trying to say that men need to take on more character traits from women.
This week we didn't get too much done in the way of filming for tischtennis. Jessica went out and took some shots of the Reichstag which were pretty good. We actually do need to get some more shots of icons in Berlin so it was good that we at least got some footage of that.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Week 5
"A Berlin Romance" by Wolfgang Kohlhaase was the film we screened this week. It was a nice East German take on the Hollywood romance genre. Even without the narration the socialist undertones to this movie appeared obvious to me. The Western Sector, as the narrator refers to it as, seemed completely run down and had an attitude that was completely uncaring and superficial. That seemed very overexaggerated.
That actually leads me to question how much action DEFA put forth to censor the way Kohlhaase originally envisioned it. It makes me wonder why he chose to produce movies for the East instead of West Germany. From the readings it says he was a pretty ardent socialist but I don't see why he didn't go with a Western film studio to express his ideas. Maybe their his work would have been more censored in the West than it was in the East. For "A Berlin Romance" it seems like the narration is the main force pushing the SED party line which makes me wonder if it was even supposed to be so pro-socialism in the first place.
In Thorsten's class he was kind enough to give a very detailed history of the reasons for the rise of the Nazi Party. He gave historical reasons for the basis of anti-semitism in Germany which made sense. I'm not sure his explanation of the events was complete, however. The popularity of the Nazis was not because of their anti-semitism. The Nazis offered Germany economic stability at a time when unemployment was ridiculously high and there were a series of banking crises. The communists offered similar things and were also got a decent amount of votes. The Nazis came to power by political maneuvering. The Nazi party then instituted a plan that capped wages which made the unemployment rate plummet. I think that had a lot to do with people allowing and in many cases agreeing with anti-semitism. The Nazi party got people back to work and so they were more open to their ideas. Plus you have the fact that Jews were largely affluent compared to other groups in the country. I did find it interesting that Jews were painted as both ultra capitalists and communists. I really wonder how the hell the Nazis sold that contradiction to the public.
One fact that Thorsten mentioned that kind of sickened me was the change in the orders given to troops on the front line. Initially they were told to shoot Jewish adult males because they might cause insurrection. I can almost see a valid reason for that. But what I can't see is how anybody followed the later orders. The troops were later ordered to shoot all Jews on the front line including women, children, and even babies. That's one thing I don't think I could ever understand. That actually reminded me of a story in the book Night by Elie Wiesel where he had heard a story of Nazis coming into one of the towns closest to his. When they got hold of a Jewish baby they would throw them up into the air and use them as target practice. The people in his town didn't believe it because it seemed so absurd. It does seem absurd but unfortunately it was probably true.
We went around to several parks for shooting this week. We got great shots of a couple playing ping pong in Volkspark. I'm not sure them playing ping pong in the park will fit with the premise of our film but it never hurts to have more footage. We even got a short interview from both of them because they seemed interested in just what the hell we were filming them for. They gave us a tip that there is a bar in Friedrichshain that is pretty big with ping pong so we'll have to check it out.
A few of us attempted to go to some of the parks near Karl-Mark Allee but our camera wasn't cooperating. On our trip there we thought it'd be a great idea to get sounds from the U-Bahn for our acoustic movie so we closed the lens and let the mic roll. While we were on the U-Bahn we got an error message from the camera and the LCD screen was only displaying white. We decided to stop filming for the day so there wouldn't be a possibility of us screwing it up more. Luckily later in the day it started working perfectly normal but by that time the Sun had started to go down.
That actually leads me to question how much action DEFA put forth to censor the way Kohlhaase originally envisioned it. It makes me wonder why he chose to produce movies for the East instead of West Germany. From the readings it says he was a pretty ardent socialist but I don't see why he didn't go with a Western film studio to express his ideas. Maybe their his work would have been more censored in the West than it was in the East. For "A Berlin Romance" it seems like the narration is the main force pushing the SED party line which makes me wonder if it was even supposed to be so pro-socialism in the first place.
In Thorsten's class he was kind enough to give a very detailed history of the reasons for the rise of the Nazi Party. He gave historical reasons for the basis of anti-semitism in Germany which made sense. I'm not sure his explanation of the events was complete, however. The popularity of the Nazis was not because of their anti-semitism. The Nazis offered Germany economic stability at a time when unemployment was ridiculously high and there were a series of banking crises. The communists offered similar things and were also got a decent amount of votes. The Nazis came to power by political maneuvering. The Nazi party then instituted a plan that capped wages which made the unemployment rate plummet. I think that had a lot to do with people allowing and in many cases agreeing with anti-semitism. The Nazi party got people back to work and so they were more open to their ideas. Plus you have the fact that Jews were largely affluent compared to other groups in the country. I did find it interesting that Jews were painted as both ultra capitalists and communists. I really wonder how the hell the Nazis sold that contradiction to the public.
One fact that Thorsten mentioned that kind of sickened me was the change in the orders given to troops on the front line. Initially they were told to shoot Jewish adult males because they might cause insurrection. I can almost see a valid reason for that. But what I can't see is how anybody followed the later orders. The troops were later ordered to shoot all Jews on the front line including women, children, and even babies. That's one thing I don't think I could ever understand. That actually reminded me of a story in the book Night by Elie Wiesel where he had heard a story of Nazis coming into one of the towns closest to his. When they got hold of a Jewish baby they would throw them up into the air and use them as target practice. The people in his town didn't believe it because it seemed so absurd. It does seem absurd but unfortunately it was probably true.
We went around to several parks for shooting this week. We got great shots of a couple playing ping pong in Volkspark. I'm not sure them playing ping pong in the park will fit with the premise of our film but it never hurts to have more footage. We even got a short interview from both of them because they seemed interested in just what the hell we were filming them for. They gave us a tip that there is a bar in Friedrichshain that is pretty big with ping pong so we'll have to check it out.
A few of us attempted to go to some of the parks near Karl-Mark Allee but our camera wasn't cooperating. On our trip there we thought it'd be a great idea to get sounds from the U-Bahn for our acoustic movie so we closed the lens and let the mic roll. While we were on the U-Bahn we got an error message from the camera and the LCD screen was only displaying white. We decided to stop filming for the day so there wouldn't be a possibility of us screwing it up more. Luckily later in the day it started working perfectly normal but by that time the Sun had started to go down.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Week 4
In Thorsten's class we talked about decentralized monuments and eventually talked about displaying something to figure out just how the Nazis came to power and why many in Germany were apathetic to what happened to the Jews. That latter part is where everything started falling to shit. Jesse brought up the idea of establishing something to remember that they democratically came to power and many were apathetic about their abuse of civil and human rights. Unfortunately he said memorial or monument (I forget which) and at that point it stopped being a discussion and everyone flew into attack mode.
Essentially he was trying to call for some sort of display of the fact that it happened and that people should watch out for the signs. Unfortunately some people were automatically shutting that idea down because of how he worded his original comment. One comment that I thought really stuck out was someone saying that the explanation of that is something that is for textbooks. To me that comment seemed out of place in this program where we're supposed to look at memory and meaning through monuments/memorials/exhibits. Reading about stumbling blocks and counter monuments is nice but you don't get a great feel for the meaning of them.
The discussion on the Schoneberg signs and stumbling blocks was luckily much more civil. This actually got me to think about who notices each type of monument (centralized and decentralized). Centralized monuments seem largely for tourists. Go there, take pictures and maybe do a little bit of reflecting on the meaning of it. To Berliners though, I would imagine it just becomes another object you pass by on your daily routine. Decentralized monuments, however, seem like they would have more of an impact on the people that live in the city. I definitely notice the stumbling blocks each time I walk by even though I see at least half a dozen each day. The Schoneberg signs are a lot less decentralized unfortunately. I would think they would have a larger impact on locals if they were a little more widespread. There would most likely be a more widespread misinterpretation of the signs but because they are all in German, I'm sure it wouldn't get too bad.
Speaking of the signs, there was one sign that really struck me. There is one sign that displays that Jews aren't allowed to own pets. There is another sign that has a story that sort of accompanies the other sign. A woman tells about how after that law, her husband couldn't bare to abandon their canary. She goes on to say that one of the neighbors must have told on them because her husband was picked up by the Gestappo several days later. A few days after that she got a letter in the mail saying that she needed to come to an office with 3 Reichsmarks to pick up the ashes of her husband. Fuck beans that is beyond messed up.
Anyway on to Germania: Anno Zero. This one was a real roller coaster of happiness. Edmund's life must have really sucked. He was relied upon by his parents to provide for the family but was unable to do so in a legal manner because adults saw him as competition for work and food rations. Before the discussion on this film I wasn't sure what to make of the ending. Somehow I missed that the film was about the guilt of the past being placed on the new generation.
The film made little effort to talk about the preceding decades. When the father does show remorse for the past saying he should have stood up to the Nazi party, it seemed like he was regretful because of the atrocities the Nazi party committed but more because they started a war that cause Germany hardship and one they eventually lost. It seems odd that a film about guilt would leave out something that the German people should possibly feel the most guilt for.
Rosselini painted his film as an undoctored truth. I really wonder though if a foreigner can actually portray Berlin as it actually is. That's one thing I worry about with the films we are making. We're trying to make movies that portrays Berlin. I am wondering if our films are just going to reek of foreign interpretations of Berlin. I guess all we can do is try though.
We scoped out Dr. Pong's this weekend. It's a really cool place. People form a big circle around the ping pong table and then one by one people take turns hitting the ball back and forth. If your miss, you're out. Usually it was the same people that ended up toward the end. We didn't film because we wanted to map out what to do before bringing in an $1800 camera. We could get some great shots by standing on top of the chairs. Shots of the players at the end will be great because they are pretty good players and do a few crazy moves.
Essentially he was trying to call for some sort of display of the fact that it happened and that people should watch out for the signs. Unfortunately some people were automatically shutting that idea down because of how he worded his original comment. One comment that I thought really stuck out was someone saying that the explanation of that is something that is for textbooks. To me that comment seemed out of place in this program where we're supposed to look at memory and meaning through monuments/memorials/exhibits. Reading about stumbling blocks and counter monuments is nice but you don't get a great feel for the meaning of them.
The discussion on the Schoneberg signs and stumbling blocks was luckily much more civil. This actually got me to think about who notices each type of monument (centralized and decentralized). Centralized monuments seem largely for tourists. Go there, take pictures and maybe do a little bit of reflecting on the meaning of it. To Berliners though, I would imagine it just becomes another object you pass by on your daily routine. Decentralized monuments, however, seem like they would have more of an impact on the people that live in the city. I definitely notice the stumbling blocks each time I walk by even though I see at least half a dozen each day. The Schoneberg signs are a lot less decentralized unfortunately. I would think they would have a larger impact on locals if they were a little more widespread. There would most likely be a more widespread misinterpretation of the signs but because they are all in German, I'm sure it wouldn't get too bad.
Speaking of the signs, there was one sign that really struck me. There is one sign that displays that Jews aren't allowed to own pets. There is another sign that has a story that sort of accompanies the other sign. A woman tells about how after that law, her husband couldn't bare to abandon their canary. She goes on to say that one of the neighbors must have told on them because her husband was picked up by the Gestappo several days later. A few days after that she got a letter in the mail saying that she needed to come to an office with 3 Reichsmarks to pick up the ashes of her husband. Fuck beans that is beyond messed up.
Anyway on to Germania: Anno Zero. This one was a real roller coaster of happiness. Edmund's life must have really sucked. He was relied upon by his parents to provide for the family but was unable to do so in a legal manner because adults saw him as competition for work and food rations. Before the discussion on this film I wasn't sure what to make of the ending. Somehow I missed that the film was about the guilt of the past being placed on the new generation.
The film made little effort to talk about the preceding decades. When the father does show remorse for the past saying he should have stood up to the Nazi party, it seemed like he was regretful because of the atrocities the Nazi party committed but more because they started a war that cause Germany hardship and one they eventually lost. It seems odd that a film about guilt would leave out something that the German people should possibly feel the most guilt for.
Rosselini painted his film as an undoctored truth. I really wonder though if a foreigner can actually portray Berlin as it actually is. That's one thing I worry about with the films we are making. We're trying to make movies that portrays Berlin. I am wondering if our films are just going to reek of foreign interpretations of Berlin. I guess all we can do is try though.
We scoped out Dr. Pong's this weekend. It's a really cool place. People form a big circle around the ping pong table and then one by one people take turns hitting the ball back and forth. If your miss, you're out. Usually it was the same people that ended up toward the end. We didn't film because we wanted to map out what to do before bringing in an $1800 camera. We could get some great shots by standing on top of the chairs. Shots of the players at the end will be great because they are pretty good players and do a few crazy moves.
Week 3
Thankfully over the past week we scrapped our original film idea. I think it was a great idea but we definitely bit off more than we could chew. I'm sure quite a few of the people that we planned on talking to would be wary in front of a camera and the language barrier would have been extremely difficult to overcome. Plus I'm not so sure how my parents would feel if that was what I had been filming for the past few months.
So instead we are doing a film about the phenomenon that is ping pong. I was quite surprised to hear that there are clubs with tons and tons of ping pong tables. I shouldn't have been that surprised seeing as there are two giant slab outdoor ping pong tables within a block of our apartment complex. This film should have a funner tone than our original idea which I think is good. Hopefully we can find the right mix of information and entertainment so we aren't bordering on boring but also not bordering on stupidity. We actually got some footage of some of us playing ping pong with a few kids in Koldenhof. We really need to start getting more footage of around the city and obviously more footage of ping pong.
Kuhle Wampe oder Wem gehört die Welt was the film for the week. Actually if I hadn't read the reading before watching this I wouldn't have known it was a communist propaganda film until the very end of the film. It clearly had a leftist lean which can easily be seen by the newspaper flashing the horribly rising unemployment. The scene with the bicycles racing to each job sight in search of work was pretty cool. The film was shot soon after the collapse of Creditanstalt which caused a series of banking crises across Germany so I'm sure that portayal is decently accurate. The poor in this film didn't seem like they were in actual poverty to me. It didn't seem like anyone was starving and the female lead is always fairly nicely dressed despite her living in a tent colony. That may be one reason why it didn't seem like propaganda to me until the end. It's like everyone in the film is showing mild amounts of struggle in their lives but not anywhere near what you would think would be in a propaganda film. I personally was expecting to see scenes that showed the horrible excesses or cold heartedness of capitalism but that only came out in the last scene on the train. Even that was pretty ridiculous when you think about it logically. Brazil burning coffee beans instead of putting them on the market would not hurt their profits. Them putting the beans on the market would cause the price to drop so much that they were maximizing their profits.
One thing that I really liked about the film is that several characters gave a wink to the audience to acknowledge they are there. I realize it's to send you a message but I've always liked when films/writings do that because it makes you feel as if you are part of the film.
For Thorsten's class our readings centered on Jewish exhibitions. It was really interesting to see the different ways that Jews portayed themselves. It seemed like in the early stages of the exhibitions Jews were eager to show off their best artwork to show others that they could be just as good. One monument at an exhibit late gave no clue to the fact that it was a Jewish sculpture but instead chose to focus on religious tolerance. This was in response to calls in America to proclaim that it was a Protestant nation. To me this seemed like a rallying call for all religious minorities to stick together. Later still Adler tied Judaism in with the beginnings of Christianity and with other Western cultures. That seemed to say that the Jewish people were one and the same as other Westerners.
So instead we are doing a film about the phenomenon that is ping pong. I was quite surprised to hear that there are clubs with tons and tons of ping pong tables. I shouldn't have been that surprised seeing as there are two giant slab outdoor ping pong tables within a block of our apartment complex. This film should have a funner tone than our original idea which I think is good. Hopefully we can find the right mix of information and entertainment so we aren't bordering on boring but also not bordering on stupidity. We actually got some footage of some of us playing ping pong with a few kids in Koldenhof. We really need to start getting more footage of around the city and obviously more footage of ping pong.
Kuhle Wampe oder Wem gehört die Welt was the film for the week. Actually if I hadn't read the reading before watching this I wouldn't have known it was a communist propaganda film until the very end of the film. It clearly had a leftist lean which can easily be seen by the newspaper flashing the horribly rising unemployment. The scene with the bicycles racing to each job sight in search of work was pretty cool. The film was shot soon after the collapse of Creditanstalt which caused a series of banking crises across Germany so I'm sure that portayal is decently accurate. The poor in this film didn't seem like they were in actual poverty to me. It didn't seem like anyone was starving and the female lead is always fairly nicely dressed despite her living in a tent colony. That may be one reason why it didn't seem like propaganda to me until the end. It's like everyone in the film is showing mild amounts of struggle in their lives but not anywhere near what you would think would be in a propaganda film. I personally was expecting to see scenes that showed the horrible excesses or cold heartedness of capitalism but that only came out in the last scene on the train. Even that was pretty ridiculous when you think about it logically. Brazil burning coffee beans instead of putting them on the market would not hurt their profits. Them putting the beans on the market would cause the price to drop so much that they were maximizing their profits.
One thing that I really liked about the film is that several characters gave a wink to the audience to acknowledge they are there. I realize it's to send you a message but I've always liked when films/writings do that because it makes you feel as if you are part of the film.
For Thorsten's class our readings centered on Jewish exhibitions. It was really interesting to see the different ways that Jews portayed themselves. It seemed like in the early stages of the exhibitions Jews were eager to show off their best artwork to show others that they could be just as good. One monument at an exhibit late gave no clue to the fact that it was a Jewish sculpture but instead chose to focus on religious tolerance. This was in response to calls in America to proclaim that it was a Protestant nation. To me this seemed like a rallying call for all religious minorities to stick together. Later still Adler tied Judaism in with the beginnings of Christianity and with other Western cultures. That seemed to say that the Jewish people were one and the same as other Westerners.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Starting Out
When everyone was being put into film groups, I was hoping to get placed into a group that had at least one person that knew a decent amount about either film or audio. After that names of my group members were called out, my immediate question was: which one of us has film experience? I already knew that Nathan had even less experience than I did and Jessica had already told everyone who went to Oktoberfest that she didn't really have any. It was immediately clear that none of us had any experience. There is a plus side to that though. Since none of us have experience, we'll all be learning as much as we can to make a decent production. Learning everything is going to be a slow process and in the end our production may not be top quality but at least I'll have learned more than I would in a group where I was the only one that knew nothing.
Jessica seemed to take a large interest in the editing aspect of production. I realize that may be an overwhelming amount of work so I'm definitely going to learn the software as soon as she gets it installed so that I can help her out. I'll obviously be helping out in setting up shots and sound recording/editing but I'm not sure if I have an eye for a great shot or the ears for great sound.
Earlier this week we decided to sit down and think up ideas for our final project. That actually went really smoothly because we all had a few ideas going into the meeting. The idea I had was unfortunately a little more than we could handle. I was thinking that we could recreate one of the stories from Stasiland. There is a very interesting story about the father of the man that drew the line for where the wall was going to be. That would have needed a script and actors which I don't think any of us are experienced enough to figure out.
One of the other ideas that we were seriously considering was Frodo's (me) Walk Through History. That would have entailed me dressing up as different German characters of the last century and explaining the history behind the characters and each period. I'm assuming that's what they were going for because I didn't completely understand the idea or have much of an idea of how it would be fleshed out.
The idea that we settled on was a documentary on non-conformity in Berlin. This would involve looking into the history of sexuality in Berlin and also research the history of the punk/anarchist movements in Berlin. We may also look into all the graffiti in Berlin. That might relate to the punk/anarchist movement though so it would be good to look into anyway.
One area of that that definitely would be interesting is interviewing people at the commune near our apartment. It may not actually be a commune but Jessica says it appears to be one. Hearing their views on things like the roles of the state would be a very interesting topic.
Sexuality is a pretty broad topic so hopefully we'll focus it enough so that it is entertaining and informative. It seems like we may be focusing on prostitution or possibly burlesque. If that's the case, I think it'd be worthwhile to look into the protections the state offers to them rather than them doing it on the black market. It may be a good idea to interview a prostitute and your average citizen to get their views on the industry.
One problem I could see setting us back is the language barrier. I've been told that most Germans speak English and while that is true it can still be very difficult communicating with people that don't have the best grasp on the English language. Even then we have the problem of actually finding someone that will be willing to speak with us. People that are largely rejecting the system may not feel completely comfortable conversing with a group of foreign students who are clearly much more conformist. A possible solution to this is to recruit a native German speaker to help us out. We would definitely want a few German speakers so we don't have to rely on just one person.
Nathan seems to be figuring out the camera so I'm hoping he has an eye for what makes a good shot. The film terms were very helpful in that regard, at least for me, because previously I hadn't really thought about most of those but now I can pick out instances of each type of shot and cut from various films. I'm hoping that Nathan can do the same and decide what will make a successful shot.
After reading the articles about the flaneurs, I've figured that's the best way to get an idea of the city. Sometime next week I'm going to grab a bus and get off at a random stop in the city and walk around. This will help me get a decent sense of direction in the city and also might give me new insight on where to find aspects of non-conformity.
One of the movies we watched in class that really struck me was Berlin: Symphony of a Big City. It's extremely rare that a film with no plot and no dialogue keeps my attention. I was actually reminded slightly of Metropolis when I saw this. I think it may have been all of the shots of machinery that made me think of it. I'd have to rewatch both to pin down everything that reminded me of it. I really wish the original score hadn't been lost for this movie. I realize that the score in the DVD version was written specifically for the movie but the score was almost directly related to the thoughts and emotions I had in each scene. Each shot of machinery seemed to be accompanied by harrowing music but I'm left wondering whether or not that was Ruttmann's original intention.
The one reading that really stuck out for me was for Thorsten's class. The article on counter monuments put forth an interesting point. It's extremely hard to remember the destruction of something by just rebuilding it or building an abstract memorial. By using negative space, you immediately ask why there is a negative space there whereas with a normal monument you might look at it and then put it in the back of your mind. With the negative space you look at it more closely and figure out what happened.
I'm excited for the coming weeks of more films, readings, and the actual start of the filming process.
Jessica seemed to take a large interest in the editing aspect of production. I realize that may be an overwhelming amount of work so I'm definitely going to learn the software as soon as she gets it installed so that I can help her out. I'll obviously be helping out in setting up shots and sound recording/editing but I'm not sure if I have an eye for a great shot or the ears for great sound.
Earlier this week we decided to sit down and think up ideas for our final project. That actually went really smoothly because we all had a few ideas going into the meeting. The idea I had was unfortunately a little more than we could handle. I was thinking that we could recreate one of the stories from Stasiland. There is a very interesting story about the father of the man that drew the line for where the wall was going to be. That would have needed a script and actors which I don't think any of us are experienced enough to figure out.
One of the other ideas that we were seriously considering was Frodo's (me) Walk Through History. That would have entailed me dressing up as different German characters of the last century and explaining the history behind the characters and each period. I'm assuming that's what they were going for because I didn't completely understand the idea or have much of an idea of how it would be fleshed out.
The idea that we settled on was a documentary on non-conformity in Berlin. This would involve looking into the history of sexuality in Berlin and also research the history of the punk/anarchist movements in Berlin. We may also look into all the graffiti in Berlin. That might relate to the punk/anarchist movement though so it would be good to look into anyway.
One area of that that definitely would be interesting is interviewing people at the commune near our apartment. It may not actually be a commune but Jessica says it appears to be one. Hearing their views on things like the roles of the state would be a very interesting topic.
Sexuality is a pretty broad topic so hopefully we'll focus it enough so that it is entertaining and informative. It seems like we may be focusing on prostitution or possibly burlesque. If that's the case, I think it'd be worthwhile to look into the protections the state offers to them rather than them doing it on the black market. It may be a good idea to interview a prostitute and your average citizen to get their views on the industry.
One problem I could see setting us back is the language barrier. I've been told that most Germans speak English and while that is true it can still be very difficult communicating with people that don't have the best grasp on the English language. Even then we have the problem of actually finding someone that will be willing to speak with us. People that are largely rejecting the system may not feel completely comfortable conversing with a group of foreign students who are clearly much more conformist. A possible solution to this is to recruit a native German speaker to help us out. We would definitely want a few German speakers so we don't have to rely on just one person.
Nathan seems to be figuring out the camera so I'm hoping he has an eye for what makes a good shot. The film terms were very helpful in that regard, at least for me, because previously I hadn't really thought about most of those but now I can pick out instances of each type of shot and cut from various films. I'm hoping that Nathan can do the same and decide what will make a successful shot.
After reading the articles about the flaneurs, I've figured that's the best way to get an idea of the city. Sometime next week I'm going to grab a bus and get off at a random stop in the city and walk around. This will help me get a decent sense of direction in the city and also might give me new insight on where to find aspects of non-conformity.
One of the movies we watched in class that really struck me was Berlin: Symphony of a Big City. It's extremely rare that a film with no plot and no dialogue keeps my attention. I was actually reminded slightly of Metropolis when I saw this. I think it may have been all of the shots of machinery that made me think of it. I'd have to rewatch both to pin down everything that reminded me of it. I really wish the original score hadn't been lost for this movie. I realize that the score in the DVD version was written specifically for the movie but the score was almost directly related to the thoughts and emotions I had in each scene. Each shot of machinery seemed to be accompanied by harrowing music but I'm left wondering whether or not that was Ruttmann's original intention.
The one reading that really stuck out for me was for Thorsten's class. The article on counter monuments put forth an interesting point. It's extremely hard to remember the destruction of something by just rebuilding it or building an abstract memorial. By using negative space, you immediately ask why there is a negative space there whereas with a normal monument you might look at it and then put it in the back of your mind. With the negative space you look at it more closely and figure out what happened.
I'm excited for the coming weeks of more films, readings, and the actual start of the filming process.
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