A place that is no place

Travis thought of an exciting way to proceed: our default so far has been to have the lights ON when we plan/discuss and to turn them off to shoot; he proposes we reverse this process, keeping as many lights OFF as possible (to the point of holding discussion in total darkness) and turning on only those lights absolutely necessary to shoot (a few candles, a flashlight, etc.). This nicely meshes a number of overlapping ideas we've discussed: the rolling blackouts, that the apartment has little or no utilities, Ad Reinhardt's black paintings and the glow of video-black. It could help us get away from the ceiling lights, conceal microphones, mask poor production design and continuity errors. Also, I think, it could focus the groups' energy and give us a basic look to work from (DARK!). But for this to work, we need to make a serious effort to bring:

candles
candleholders
flashlights
lamps
lightbulbs of all wattages, colors, sizes, etc.
lighters
matches
(email me other ideas and I will update this post)

This gets at another, more basic, issue: more and more we are trying to make the apartment into a live set in which we are not strictly ourselves, but versions of ourselves in a context as fantastical as we make it through our actions. If we keep shooting as we have been, documenting ourselves hanging out and interjecting scenes we create, the "realistic" portion of the movie will only be as far from reality as we choose to comport ourselves in the space... MEANING if we choose to discuss the project itself, movies, current events, internet anecdotes, college gossip, our jobs, etc. the movie will be partly about those things -- this is not necessarily a bad thing, but we should consider it. On the other hand, if we each avoid discussing those things we personally don't want in the movie (except when we are in the room where we keep our coats and video equipment), we can construct an alternate dimension in life and on tape that conforms to our design. Really it comes down to self-direction, each of us needs to decide what part of ourselves we want on tape and to be only that part of ourselves when we are in the space (including creating a costume and always wearing it in the apartment) -- I for one am going to try to stop talking about the movie itself and movies in general in the space, please, feel free to call me out on this when I slip. What do people think of this idea?

A quick summary of the day's events: Jacob and I went shopping at the PSFC and brought back lots of dinners and less snacks (hint hint). Aurora, Francesca, Joe, Jen and I ate pasta primavera, Travis arrived and shared his idea. Then Stewart, Aleksei and Casey joined us in the dark (lit only by votives and two flashlights). Stewart and I made cookies -- dee-licious. Aleksei and Casey shot a puppet show in which a bouquet of cloth flowers, a tape measure and Susan Sontag mingled. And we ended early to, I hope, get some sleep.

Tomorrow, Travis and I are planning to go to B&H for Panasonic tapes, and maybe a microphone (we NEED to work out sound, we can't make a movie until we have the basic tools of the craft). Then we're going to plunge head-first into the darkness, with Jacob's butternut squash soup for dinner and a list of scene ideas from Travis.