Vitamin water, the new cigarettes?

Hello everyone, once again, it's been a while, I apologise. That's the thing with blogging though, when you have things to write about you don't have the time to, and when you have time to update your blog you really have nothing interesting to say so you ramble on about your cat, the weather, cornflakes and quote music lyrics that really speak to you for some unearthly reason to pass yourself off as deep. But anyway.

I got a crash course in Avid from editor on the Argentina film, and then I started my second intership, which it'll only last a few days total by the looks of it, I've been doing it for two days, and then when the remaining material arrives it'll probably be one more. What I do is that I get the footage up on the screen and find the frame where the clapper comes together, then I go to the sound file for that take and listen for the sound of the clap and time them together so that the footage and sound are in sync with each other. When you've done that with all the material, you cut it up into clips, starting after "Action" and ending before "Cut" and categorize them. This so that it will be easier for the editor to start editing the film. Basically the dirty work of the editing process, although the editor has been working simultaneously with me, so he didn't take me in so that he wouldn't have to do it himself, but so it would go faster and he could start editing sooner. He's also editing the zombie film, and I overheard him talking to a class mate about a script he's written, so he's pretty busy by the sounds of it.

As am I, because beside these two internships, we've also started an evening course in sound editing now and we're starting to plan our next projects, whilst finishing up our previous ones. So plenty of irons in the fire! (and I love it!)

My next project is a short film, a drama, I've already written the script and I also want to direct it, and this time, act in it as well. It's called "Vargens timma" (The wolf's hour. Not to be mistaken for Hour of the wolf, which was my initial idea for the title, until I realized it was already taken by Ingmar Bergman in 1967...), after that I want to do a novella film (which is in-between short and feature length, and is half an hour, which I think is pretty Swedish, or at least I never heard of it in Vancouver... but bascially it's like in literature you have short story, novella and novel... only in Sweden there's no term for novella, which is pretty ironic, but anyway, I'm getting off the topic...) which I've also written the script for, "Brev till min mamma" (Letter to my mother) and after that I have two feature length ideas and one idea that can be either a novella or a feature, I haven't decided yet, but it's inspired by the (not so good) movie "Two girls and a guy" with Robert Downey, Jr. but in my film all three actually get together like a triple (as opposed to couple) and don't just talk about it for two hours, and I think it'll end with one of the girls getting pregnant and the trio deciding to raise the child together and continue living like a family. What do you think? That's my romantic comedy, by the way. The other two features are much more gruesome and extreme. Lots of sex and violence. And sexually confused and deviated characters. And bad language. And good music. And smoking, lots of smoking, because even though I'm starting to dislike it more and more myself in reality, whenever I write something, my characters turn out to be smokers, because I still have some semi-subconscious notion that smoking is cool. Well, it does look cool on film, especially with the right lighting. Like the opening sequence in "A guide to recognizing your saints" with Robert Downey, Jr. It's just him, sitting on a dark stage, holding a lit cigarette, and steeling himself to start reading from his book, and the lighting is sort of golden, and the smoke is blue. It's really quite beautiful.

Speaking of beautiful. The footage from Argentina is gorgeous. The photographer is really talented. I love it. I forget her last name now, but her first name is Iga, I have to get back to you with her last name, because you'll want to keep track of her in the future.

A quick update!

First of all, I'd like to apologise for being MIA these past weeks. I've been sort of busy.

We're still casting for the zombie film, but we should be done with that by the end of this week. It's been really fun. We've been casting regular actors for the human roles, groups of extras as zombies, children as zombies being lobotomised! Yeah, I know... and today, there is a cup of maggots in the office! a sample for the maggots we're going to need for all the dead bodies in the film, you know... regular white ones, and dark red ones as well, I didn't even know there were red ones, they're really cool-looking!

Monday night I went to the Guldbaggegalan after party with Anja, and Ragnar and Tobbe were there from our class as well. It was sort dry at first, people crowding the place, sipping drinks and mingling (my favourites) and lots of B-list (and some A-list) celebrities looking past you like you were a ghost and making bee-lines for other celebrities and comparing current CV statuses, basically, not fun, very on the surface and high-brow, but then, magically, at two o'clock, things changed, they started playing fun dance music and people started letting loose and loads of people were dancing, and for the last hour, Anja and I had a blast dancing, it was so much fun. I crashed at Anja's place afterwards. Then but into the frey the next day, which was twice as long as usual, which it'll be today as well, because our sound course has started, and the lessons start at six and end at around ten at night.

Okay, our advanced extra, a miss Maria something, is here to audition for the priest! Have to go!

Up the rabbit hole.

So I'm sitting in school now, and I'm the only one too, besides some staff members, and it's getting light outside but I got here when it was still dark about an hour ago, only to realize I don't actually have anything that I can do, because what I was supposed to do was call around to a bunch of strangers that have shown their interest in being zombie extras in the film and book about 160 of them for group auditions for monday and tuesday next week, but since no studios seem to be available for booking, I can't very well book any zombies because we won't have anywhere to put them and it's not like we can have the auditions in the hallway... and despite having slept on and off for three days, I'm getting tired already, can you believe it? I didn't sleep any this morning, which is probably why... I woke up at half past nine last night and I've been up since, so I guess, that's twelve hours, yeah it makes sense that I'm getting tired doesn't it? or does it? how long do you usually stay awake in a normal day if you're a normal person? you get up at like seven, you go to bed at what eleven? ten? no that's fifteen-sixteen hours, I shouldn't be getting tired yet... which means that in three or four hours I'll probably krasch. Great. Then, since there is no-one here to keep watch over me and make sure that I'm being productive, I'll cave in and go home and fall asleep and then wake up at midnight and still be stuck in this upside-down day rhythm... Great.

I feel like I'm not really real. And this is a deleted scene from a Roy Andersson film, or something. The bleak light. The falling snow outside the window next to me. The quiet around me. Except for the very annoying tick-tock of a clock somewhere.

My teacher Hanna had left an envelope for me at reception with my letter of recommendation that she's written for my grant application, though, and it was really flattering. So that made it worth while to show up here this morning.

Back in my room.

Four walls, the smell of candles, sweat, dust
Empty notebooks prop the desk
My coffee cooling in a cup on top; it's got butterflies on it
I'm chasing the tail end 
of a woken dream

*

Back in my room, and you won't believe me, but this is the first time I've been properly awake since I got back, I've literally been in bed, sleeping on and off, for three days... guess I was exhausted. The worry still has its claws in me, be at least I've been properly rested now. And I've been watching some Disney Classics from my childhood, it started with Basil Mouse, since I'm harbouring a Sherlock Holmes obsession ever since the movie premiere, but then became a Disney marathon with Mulan, Beauty & the Beast, The sword in the stone and Robin Hood. All in Swedish, of course, since these are copies from my old childhood VHS collection. Nostalgia at its best, are VHS tapes. And cassette tapes. Casette mix tapes. I've been meaning to start doing mix CD:s but I never got around to it. Now it's all digital, you make fanmixes and you make a back and front cover images in Photoshop as though people are actually going to burn a CD out of the files...


Awesome movie: "Mannen som slutade röka".

2010

So, 2010. A decade since the new millenium started. Time flies when you're having a decent time, right. So tomorrow this intermission will end, I'll go back to Stockholm with my parents. My niece Milou's birthday is on the 4th and they're having her party tomorrow, and then I'll get a ride home afterwards. Back to reality (funny how the definition of "reality" is subject to such wide interpretations, when you work with film for example, the definition is almost contradictory to the true meaning of the word, if you think about it...)

So guess who fulfilled their two new year's resolutions for 2009? (they were to quit a certain special someone Brokeback-style, and to finish my book, for those of you who don't remember or haven't been told...) I think that's the first time that's ever happened to me... I'm making it a bit easier this time around in order to achieve some sort of winning streak; I resolve to make a film, no specifics on the length or budget or success, only that it should not be part of my curriculum, i.e. not a school production, so either a project I'll do in my spare time if I'm still in school, or after this course is over. My second resolution is to get my fourth tattoo, because I couldn't think of anything else on the spot.

News for today: snow, lots and lots of snow. About a metre of it, and not the good kind either, that you can make things with (we call it "hug snow" - not really, but directly translated, but it comes from "hugging" the snow into a snowball kind of thing, but yeah, hug snow, and  I always loved that name for it as a kid) but the flimsy kind that gets everywhere at the slightest touch of a breeze.