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.