Progress

had a fit and they remixed it remixed it

Tonight was the first time I left the clubhouse feeling better than when I arrived. Among my goals for the project was to create a space in which to make movies but also in which to live our lives (eat, sleep, hang out) and where we could safely express/explore our inner lives (ideas, worries, fantasies, etc.). But I started the day feeling that we couldn't make progress because we had no mechanism by which to make decisions. Also, as I wrote in my last post, I was sure that the semi-decision of the previous night was a mistake and that we needed to abandon a "normal" narrative entirely. I hadn't been getting enough sleep, I was unhappy, stressed and angry.

Each day I arrive at the apartment and spend a strange indeterminate time being alone in the space. Today, I listened to Joy Division, ate Kix, drank orange juice and scribbled a few notes. When Francesca arrived, we looked over and discussed the erasure texts Casey sent to the Google group. Then we left the apartment to get hot chocolate and coffee. We walked to Atlantic Terminal and talked about personal, non-movie stuff. It was such a relief to talk about something other than the movie, I was sad to go back.

Isaac and Jacob arrived, we talked about process and goals for the project, we tried to work together towards a piece of writing to shoot in the evening, Francesca and Isaac left, and then we went out again, Jacob and I, on an errand. Trader Joe's was out of toilet paper, so the long walk turned out to have been unnecessary, but again, it was nice to be outside the movie space, even though we talked about the movie -- and we got pretty negative about ourselves and the project. Before dinner, Jacob left to celebrate his and Lauren's year anniversary (congrats!). Ariel, Travis, Evan and I ate dinner together, lentil soup (lots of soup left in our huge pot), collards and apple cider (Ariel's contribution, along with chips and grapes, thank you!), which we had to drink from the bottle because we were using the mugs as bowls. Ariel talked about therapy.

Travis had an idea about mime/charades-like acting exercises, which we tried it out in the ugly empty green room. We shot with the Flip, acting as a Rubik's cube, La-Z-Boy chair, bow and arrow, sprinkler, etc. It was fun. Then Ariel shot the three guys reading lines from Casey's erasure scripts at each other, trying to make sense of them. That was even more fun and after Ariel left we kept reading (not on camera) until we got into a discussion about the kinds of texts we want to try, the kinds of texts we need and how to produce them.

Of course, it disintegrated into a discussion of what process we should use to make decisions and to make the movie in general, whether we should write a manifesto and what kind of product, if any, is possible. I talked about how I originally envisioned the place as a coop to live and make movies in. Also, how I don't want to loose my way of life to make movies. That I don't like much of the process of movie-making but want, contradictorily, to make them. It was like therapy for me (or the movie monastery Aurora suggested I might want to start), Evan and Travis helped me to understand some of my movie beliefs, material impermanence and inner peace. We questioned the necessity of a text to make images. Travis offered the possibility that good/cool production design could lead to ideas as opposed to my own way of thinking that ideas lead to production design -- it could work. We agreed that we should go forward with yesterday's tentative consensus for the idea: the beginning of a new world after the end of the world as we know it (like Ragnarok in Norse mythology, after calamity the world is sinks into the waters only to rise again, fertile and reborn). My original idea was about a group of people who gather, work and wait for a epiphany. This is along the same lines but even more ambitious, not only to search for meaning but to make it, to build order out of chaos -- and it still reflects the process but is more optimistic about what is possible. I am excited. If you haven't already, start thinking of ideas, writing scripts, thinking of prompts and gathering stuff to fill the apartment -- we might rent a UHaul soon and pick stuff up from everybody (does anyone have access to a car or van). We also need lamps/lights and a way to record sound (boom, mic and 10' XLR cable, at least).

I need to sleep till noon tomorrow to keep from getting sick. Call me if you want to come over in the afternoon or evening. Dinner is turnips, brussel sprouts and seitan over couscous with leftover soup for dessert.

From Francesca's notes:
"the resulting clutter -- collection, hoarding, lenses, associations"