Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Life, Empowerment Style
My apartment is starting to come together. I've got a full-sized bed, a recliner, a computer desk and a chest of drawers (with tv on top) in my room. And I have space to walk around. This is so much better than living in a dorm room. The other day I found a bookshelf in prime condition that someone had just left out by the dumpster. It is now sitting in my closet (might as well use it for something) with a few books and video games on it. I love free stuff.
***
Work is going well. I'm almost done with transcribing interviews from one of the film-in-progress. All I have to say is: I now hate Bush more than ever, and I have serious doubts that the United States will ever fully recover from where we're at now. I already knew stuff about how the administration has been taking away civil liberties, engaging in illegal acts of torture, getting rid of habeus corpus, etc. But when you hear people that actually know a lot about the details of what's going on (ex-CIA and government officials, for example) explain the specific details of laws that have been passed and in other cases broken, it's pretty eye-opening.
As a side note: It looks like Obama is now officially the Democratic nominee. A.K.A. our next President, if there is indeed a God in heaven. If McCain gets elected I might actually go back to being a pre-millenialist, since he will clearly be the Antichrist.
Today some of the intern's went over to Barb's house to watch one of the movies they've made recently. This one was called Soldiers Speak Out, and it's a 30-minute short meant to be shown in schools and anti-recruitment seminars and whatnot. Basically, it's a bunch of veterans from various wars talking about what it's like to be a soldier and how different it is from all the propaganda the government and culture likes to put out.
I'm sleeping over at Barb's tonight. I'll probably end up doing that twice a week to save on gas money to and from Raleigh. After the screening I helped her out in her garden, spraying for bugs and stuff. Barb's got a great little farm going on, complete with chickens (fresh eggs for breakfast!), cats and dogs living in harmony together. There are a couple other people living with her - she really has a heart for others. Also, because of her "contribution to the industry" she is a member of the Academy, meaning she gets to vote on the Oscar winners every year. That means that around October/November she gets a ton of screener DVDs sent to her of all the big contenders, regardless of whether or not they've been released yet. In other words: she's one of the few people I've met who has a DVD collection that rivals my own.
She's a total child of the 60s and 70s, probably the closest I've come to meeting a hippie. Her garden has a variety of vegetables in it, from greens to turnips to onions to garlic to lettuce, etc. The whole place just screams "eco-friendly", and I know that's something that's something she's really into. For dinner we had salad, grain, greens and salmon. All of her vegetables are entirely organic. It was probably the healthiest meal I've had in ages.
After dinner we went back out into the garden and I helped her pick garlic and kill slugs. We were out there until around 9:00 or 9:30, so I'm pretty exhausted. It's kind of nice to be out of the city, though. Gardening's hard work, but I'm betting I'll do enough of it while I'm here that by the end of the summer I'll want one too. I told her a bit about my passion for film, which eventually led to conversation on the morality in films these days, particularly all the violence. I get the impression she really doesn't like much violence at all, even in fiction - a true pacifist. I on the other hand think that there is a time and a place for violence and sex in the movies, though I agree often times it's way too gratuitous. I also don't agree with the notion that violent movies and video games cause violence, though Barb pointed out that the media and entertainment do have a great impact on the culture. It's a chicken-and-egg scenario, I guess.
I mentioned the argument that watching violent images, regardless of the entertainment factor (which I think is important when dealing with film), is often a cathartic experience and can be an outlet for anger and violent impulses. She commented that that's a good point, particularly since she feels the same way about pornography and sex drive. I had never thought of that. I've heard some people say that masturbation is an outlet, but that pornography is immoral and unnecessary. Why is it that there is a double standard here? Pornography is often not considered an appropriate outlet for sexual desires because of its degradation of women (an opinion I happen to hold, but that's a discussion for another time). But violent images are okay as catharsis for violent impulses, when I suppose it could be argued that when you watch someone get killed you are watching a form of degradation. Thinking about it in this light, violence in film seems much more immoral regardless of how it is portrayed. Hmmm. Ponder this further I must.
***
Over the weekend I went to Greenville to help a woman I met at Full Frame film her documentary. It's about a Christian family and various people that have been affected by them and their beliefs/work. Saturday night their daughter was getting married, so we helped film it. It was amazing. I don't go to a lot of weddings, but it was just about as perfect as it could be. I can only hope if/when I get married the ceremony and reception will be that fun while retaining such a feeling of intimacy. Everyone laughed, everyone cried, everyone danced, good times were had.
Sunday we followed around a 19-year old Mexican-American guy named Edgar, who is one of the coolest kids I've ever met. He's basically a clone of Kenneth from Seguidores. Not kidding. If he keeps it up he's going to have a great impact on people. Anyways, we followed him to a local church where he had been asked to play drums for the worship service. We filmed them practice. It was pretty hardcore - basically a bunch of skateboarders on electric guitars and drums letting loose. It was an interesting combination of fairly traditional contemporary worship songs with very loud, deafening music.
Hopefully I'll get to go back a few times during the summer and get to know people a bit better. The feeling of community I got just from being there 24 hours was phenomenal.
On Monday I went with David on a film shoot that ended up lasting until around 11:00 at night. In the morning we went to a latino community in Durham and filmed some interviews on the street about what it's like to be an immigrant in NC. Then in the afternoon we had to drive to Winston-Salem to interview a woman in her home. This was a freelance job, so we had to FedEx all the tapes to the network by 9:30. We barely made it. It was pretty frustrating - the FedEx center was right near the Greensboro airport, but the Google directions failed to mention that to get to it you actually have to go into the airport and follow the cargo lanes. We drove around in circles for ages, and finally found it with around 5 miles of gas left to spare. We knew that even if we ran out of gas it was more important to get the tapes in on time... it was close. So yeah, it was a long day and there were some frustrating parts, but I learned a lot by watching David work so hopefully he'll let me go on another shoot soon. The segment we shot is supposed to air on HITN (one of the big Spanish networks) tomorrow. Hopefully it will appear on their website and I can link to it.
***
So yeah. I'm staying busy. Hopefully I'll have time to watch a few movies this weekend. Speaking of which, don't see the new Indiana Jones movie. It sucks. For my more detailed thoughts/rant you'll have to wait for the next MovieChatter podcast.
***
Work is going well. I'm almost done with transcribing interviews from one of the film-in-progress. All I have to say is: I now hate Bush more than ever, and I have serious doubts that the United States will ever fully recover from where we're at now. I already knew stuff about how the administration has been taking away civil liberties, engaging in illegal acts of torture, getting rid of habeus corpus, etc. But when you hear people that actually know a lot about the details of what's going on (ex-CIA and government officials, for example) explain the specific details of laws that have been passed and in other cases broken, it's pretty eye-opening.
As a side note: It looks like Obama is now officially the Democratic nominee. A.K.A. our next President, if there is indeed a God in heaven. If McCain gets elected I might actually go back to being a pre-millenialist, since he will clearly be the Antichrist.
Today some of the intern's went over to Barb's house to watch one of the movies they've made recently. This one was called Soldiers Speak Out, and it's a 30-minute short meant to be shown in schools and anti-recruitment seminars and whatnot. Basically, it's a bunch of veterans from various wars talking about what it's like to be a soldier and how different it is from all the propaganda the government and culture likes to put out.
I'm sleeping over at Barb's tonight. I'll probably end up doing that twice a week to save on gas money to and from Raleigh. After the screening I helped her out in her garden, spraying for bugs and stuff. Barb's got a great little farm going on, complete with chickens (fresh eggs for breakfast!), cats and dogs living in harmony together. There are a couple other people living with her - she really has a heart for others. Also, because of her "contribution to the industry" she is a member of the Academy, meaning she gets to vote on the Oscar winners every year. That means that around October/November she gets a ton of screener DVDs sent to her of all the big contenders, regardless of whether or not they've been released yet. In other words: she's one of the few people I've met who has a DVD collection that rivals my own.
She's a total child of the 60s and 70s, probably the closest I've come to meeting a hippie. Her garden has a variety of vegetables in it, from greens to turnips to onions to garlic to lettuce, etc. The whole place just screams "eco-friendly", and I know that's something that's something she's really into. For dinner we had salad, grain, greens and salmon. All of her vegetables are entirely organic. It was probably the healthiest meal I've had in ages.
After dinner we went back out into the garden and I helped her pick garlic and kill slugs. We were out there until around 9:00 or 9:30, so I'm pretty exhausted. It's kind of nice to be out of the city, though. Gardening's hard work, but I'm betting I'll do enough of it while I'm here that by the end of the summer I'll want one too. I told her a bit about my passion for film, which eventually led to conversation on the morality in films these days, particularly all the violence. I get the impression she really doesn't like much violence at all, even in fiction - a true pacifist. I on the other hand think that there is a time and a place for violence and sex in the movies, though I agree often times it's way too gratuitous. I also don't agree with the notion that violent movies and video games cause violence, though Barb pointed out that the media and entertainment do have a great impact on the culture. It's a chicken-and-egg scenario, I guess.
I mentioned the argument that watching violent images, regardless of the entertainment factor (which I think is important when dealing with film), is often a cathartic experience and can be an outlet for anger and violent impulses. She commented that that's a good point, particularly since she feels the same way about pornography and sex drive. I had never thought of that. I've heard some people say that masturbation is an outlet, but that pornography is immoral and unnecessary. Why is it that there is a double standard here? Pornography is often not considered an appropriate outlet for sexual desires because of its degradation of women (an opinion I happen to hold, but that's a discussion for another time). But violent images are okay as catharsis for violent impulses, when I suppose it could be argued that when you watch someone get killed you are watching a form of degradation. Thinking about it in this light, violence in film seems much more immoral regardless of how it is portrayed. Hmmm. Ponder this further I must.
***
Over the weekend I went to Greenville to help a woman I met at Full Frame film her documentary. It's about a Christian family and various people that have been affected by them and their beliefs/work. Saturday night their daughter was getting married, so we helped film it. It was amazing. I don't go to a lot of weddings, but it was just about as perfect as it could be. I can only hope if/when I get married the ceremony and reception will be that fun while retaining such a feeling of intimacy. Everyone laughed, everyone cried, everyone danced, good times were had.
Sunday we followed around a 19-year old Mexican-American guy named Edgar, who is one of the coolest kids I've ever met. He's basically a clone of Kenneth from Seguidores. Not kidding. If he keeps it up he's going to have a great impact on people. Anyways, we followed him to a local church where he had been asked to play drums for the worship service. We filmed them practice. It was pretty hardcore - basically a bunch of skateboarders on electric guitars and drums letting loose. It was an interesting combination of fairly traditional contemporary worship songs with very loud, deafening music.
Hopefully I'll get to go back a few times during the summer and get to know people a bit better. The feeling of community I got just from being there 24 hours was phenomenal.
On Monday I went with David on a film shoot that ended up lasting until around 11:00 at night. In the morning we went to a latino community in Durham and filmed some interviews on the street about what it's like to be an immigrant in NC. Then in the afternoon we had to drive to Winston-Salem to interview a woman in her home. This was a freelance job, so we had to FedEx all the tapes to the network by 9:30. We barely made it. It was pretty frustrating - the FedEx center was right near the Greensboro airport, but the Google directions failed to mention that to get to it you actually have to go into the airport and follow the cargo lanes. We drove around in circles for ages, and finally found it with around 5 miles of gas left to spare. We knew that even if we ran out of gas it was more important to get the tapes in on time... it was close. So yeah, it was a long day and there were some frustrating parts, but I learned a lot by watching David work so hopefully he'll let me go on another shoot soon. The segment we shot is supposed to air on HITN (one of the big Spanish networks) tomorrow. Hopefully it will appear on their website and I can link to it.
***
So yeah. I'm staying busy. Hopefully I'll have time to watch a few movies this weekend. Speaking of which, don't see the new Indiana Jones movie. It sucks. For my more detailed thoughts/rant you'll have to wait for the next MovieChatter podcast.
# posted by Andrew Johnson : 6/04/2008 11:15:00 PM 
