It’s been a mighty long while since I updated. I’m sitting here, sipping tea and listening to Asgeir (also re-reading Harry Potter again because it’s that time of the year). I feel really relaxed for the first time in a long while. It’s been a hectic couple of months.
Last week we attended Camerimage in Bydgoszcz, Poland. It was a really good experience! I managed to catch 13 films in the 5 days that I was at the festival. I wanted to see more but I was really exhausted. I also packed in 2Â workshops and about 10 short films. I wish I could have gone to more workshops but they clashed with a lot of the films I desperately wanted to see. Many of the films were foreign language films so I would not have been able to catch them with English subtitles in Berlin. I was a bit upset that we couldn’t stay for the full duration though because there were a ton of really good films on the last two days of the festival. The main one I wanted to watch was Mommy which is currently out in Germany but with German subtitles. Upsetting. I would also like to say that I met loads of cool people there but I really did not meet anyone. It’s hard.
We were chaperoned by our school Co-Director’s husband who is a really good cinematographer. He was really friendly and had lots of discussions with us as well as just hanging out with us. He managed to get some of us into the opening ceremony in which we saw Alan Rickman giving a speech. Surreal moment.
My favorites that I managed to catch at the festival were: In the Crosswind, Birdman, Get On Up, The Last Emperor 3D (I don’t understand why they had to convert it to 3D??? Also, the fact that they spoke in bad English the whole film and switched randomly into Mandarin really annoyed me), Winter Sleep, Leviathan, Goodbye to Language and Knife in the Water. I think I beat my Berlinale record.
Most of the shorts I saw were underwhelming in terms of story but they were quite stunning to look at. One of them in particular was just glorious to watch in general. The story was punchy and odd and the use of sound was very smart. I’ve never seen anything like it. I aspire to be like that.
Being at this festival showed us how limited our resources are at the school but also the limits of our knowledge. I think I really need to go to cinematography school after this…
I sustained a really bad fall 3 weeks ago at school during a scene and my wrist still hurts. I finally got a wrist brace today but it’s made for people with bigger body parts so I had to fold it twice to make it tight enough. I hope it heals soon because this is frustrating. I wish it was my left hand so that it would heal easier but what can I do.
I’m a bit stressed to film my opening sequence because I’m not happy with my story. I couldn’t think of a better one so I have stuck to this. I’m going to focus on trying to make it look good. I think after this, I’m going to try re-editing the rest of my shorts (now that I’m much better at it) and then upload them to vimeo.
I recently met a girl from craigslist (yes, I know…) who turned out to be pretty cool. She’s Korean but grew up in the states. She’s also a huge foodie, into film and lives near me so it’s great! It’s really great to have some friends outside of school. It’s just tough to keep them. Anyways, we’re going to find a Muay Thai course to take together! I’m also thinking of joining the gym and she already has a membership so it’ll be nice to have a workout buddy. I just need to wait for this damn wrist to heal.
I’m thinking of trying to start doing language exchange again once I have a bit more free time since I’m unhappy with my lack of German. I’m heavily considering taking singing lessons again because I lost my range but I don’t know why I should bother since I’m not going to do anything with it afterwards…
We shall see.