Day-to-Day

Ok, it was over yesterday evening and now I can sit down and write a little. Since it started, on September 24th, I’ve watched seventeen movies – not all of them part of the festival (4 regular Hollywood flicks). The main connection between the 13 I saw from the Festival’s schedule is they don’t follow standard Hollywood plots, timing, style and all that. Some of them blew me away while I was still in the theatre, others just a few days later, and some I’m still processing and thinking about. An amazing thing that resulted from watching this many films in such a short time is that I really got into thinking about film theory, history and language, stuff that it was kind of stored away since the beginning of my journey towards my film degree.

Ok, enough of random talking and into some of my favorites.

1 – Second Mother (Que Horas Ela Volta? – Brazil)

Of course the first one had to be from Brazil. It pictures an almost palpable reality, with characters that any brazilian can relate to. I felt like I knew real people to match all of the characters on screen. It starts out playful and fun and then it takes a turn towards tension that isn’t the “horror, life or death” kind, but more of a social thriller, with conflicting classes clashing in every scene, dialogue – or lack of dialogue at all. It’s hard to explain what it really is about for anyone who doesn’t know well how things work in Brazil. It’s a film that packs a punch and I’m really proud of it – even though I have no real link with it except the fact that I’m also Brazilian.

2 – Victoria (Victoria – Germany)

I didn’t read the entire synopsis for this one before watching, it won me at the very first line: “shot in a single take”. As a cinematographer, that alone was enough to justify it, but I wasn’t expecting much, specially because it starts really light and “silly” for the main characters are young and playful. Not cutting even once for its almost two hours and twenty minutes already gets you on the edge of the seat simply because you have no clue of what might be going on in different environments – and yes, you have plenty of reason to worry about what’s going on someplace else. IMDB synopsis spoils the main plot twist which was a hell of a surprise for us (May and I). The thing about continuous shots is they get harder each passing second since new things are happening and there’s so much that can go wrong. Hm, you know what? That kind of sums up the movie way too well. It’s the kind of film that as soon as it’s over, you just wanna watch it again. Oh, and the FIRST name in the end credits is the cinematographer’s – Sturla Brandth Grøvlen. Not the cast, not the director or producers, the cinematographer and yes, he deserved it.

3 – Marshland (La Isla Minima – Spain)

It’s like a spanish take on True Detective, without the excessive talking, and delivered from start to finish in under two hours. It has an amazing visual style, set in the 80’s, shortly after Franco’s dictatorship is over. We follow the investigation led by two detectives with very different styles of handling the missing persons’s case they’re working. It’s a movie that requires your full attention or you’re gonna miss out on some important details. It lacks Hollywood’s obvious style of handling crime movies, which is a great positive point. This one is also already on piratebay, if you feel like downloading stuff, though it’s totally worth of watching in the theatre.

4 – Anomalisa

I found out about this screening by chance, during one of the most empty movies I watched. It was not even noon yet, and the guy introducing the movie mentioned that a Charlie Kaufman single screening had been added to the VIFF list. I sent May a message and bought the tickets right after that movie, we knew it was gonna be full and we weren’t wrong. Shortly before watching it May told me this was a Kickstarter funded film, with Dan Harmon (from Community) as one of the Executive Producers. The movie is all stop motion and it has quite a unique look among all the animated movies I’ve seen before. It felt like watching an epiphany unfolding before my eyes for 90 minutes. Beautiful, crazy and unlike anything you watched so far. I’m not gonna spoil it, just watch it when it’s out!

Before yesterday I tracked Fernão with my camera while riding a smooth downhill with a beautiful lens and amazing sunset.

Yesterday I managed to fall on my bike – again – and broke my front breaks.

Today Lila – my sister – managed to use a whatsapp audio message I sent her as proof she could retrieve some documents at the university where I studied.

I’ve been more times to the movie theater in the past two weeks than I did in the entire last year.

I’ve been a little absent here lately. Blame it on Vancouver International Film Festival. I’m watching tons of different films – almost two every day since it has started -, besides all the writing/shooting/editing of test videos for anamorphics and the likes of that – I have seven new episodes in the making. I’m picking up the pace again soon and should be back here by the end of next week. Lots of new subjects and ideas to write about but really lacking the time to do it with the depth I want.

This ride is a wild one.

Now don’t lose your fight, kid,
It only takes a little push to pull on through,
With so much left to do;
You’ll be missing out, and we’ll be missing you.

“Oh, damn, my phone stopped working, I need a new one!”

“My computer is acting up. Well, it’s already one and a half years old, I think it’s time to replace it.”

We don’t live in an environment that values fixing things, material or not. I’m going to switch to first person here. Culture around me doesn’t value fixing things. Jury rigging something shows you’re cheap, using a cracked screen phone tells people you can’t afford a new one, in the end, what all these situations and readings imply is “if something is broken, it’s faster to replace it. You’ll get used to the new one too”. The sad part is that this kind of thinking crosses over to any other situation – “I’m having trouble with my roomate, I guess it’s easier to kick him out” – and so we start thinking people and relationships are just as replaceable as a cracked plate.

With our increasing need of happiness immediately, as soon as something starts to go wrong, we give it up and move on. It’s not on purpose, we don’t mean to be mean or to ignore the issues, we just keep postponing it indefinitely until the other person gives up. As I was reading an article this morning, people don’t even break anymore, they just stop replying to text messages and it’s up to the other person to read that lack of response as “I’m not into you anymore”. How shitty, yet ubiquitous is that? I’m not proud, yet I acted like that before, I still act that way sometimes and it’s never because I dislike you or anything, it’s because… you know… you probably did the same thing to someone else just yesterday. That never-read message on facebook, the muted whatsapp conversation, all the ignored skype calls at inappropriate times that you never return, the email that has already dragged a bed and books into your inbox since you’ll never get to actually reply.

These are all examples of us not caring about other people. It’s like leaving a book out in the rain and expect it to miraculously survive on its own. The single most important thing I learned in these recent times is that problems won’t solve themselves if I don’t actively do something about them. It’s hard to analyze if it’s worth the effort. I have a few things of late that I look back and think “why did I persist on that, when simply jumping out and starting from scratch would be faster, easier and (almost) painless?”, but then, how could I give it up something that’s so important, something that’s a part of me, something that truly represents myself, just like that, without any second thought?

I like fixing things. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but the process always leaves me with all kinds of memories. I get some weird/confusing pride by trying. That doesn’t mean I like breaking things, just to be clear. It took me years to not cry whenever I accidentally broke a cup, glass or plate, no matter how cheap it was. I still don’t understand it clearly, I have the feeling that I killed that object ahead of time, that I prevented it to achieve its life goal, its reason for existing. Hence, if I break something I’m gonna try hard to mend it until it’s fully restored, maybe with a few dings here and there, but sort of improved – or unique – when compared to the original, or until I reckon it’s beyond my ability to recover its essence and it’s time to let it go or transform into something else entirely.

Crap, I don’t remember why I started writing this post. And no, I won’t try to fix it. If you got something from it, good, if you didn’t, well, maybe try reading the one below?

Yesterday I graduated from VFS for the second time, out of two classes in a row. This was the official graduation, when I got my diploma, while the first one was more important as a ceremony, being up there with the people which I worked side by side for almost the entire year. Each one of them was a different experience, different feelings both outside and inside.

One of the faculty speakers chosen by 3D112 was Francois, our modeling instructor for the first three terms. His speech was unusual, very brief words followed by a long poem by Dr. Seuss, entitled “Oh, the Places You’ll Go”. It’s really long, I’m not gonna put it all in here, but I will highlight one bit that was particularly meaningful for me. Long poem short, it tells us about how this is just the start of our journeys through the world, about our good choices and success and how there are wonderful things out there and all the amazing things we’ll get to do because we’re fit for it. Then it takes a dark turn and goes about how sometimes things get messed up and we’re all alone to deal with them, and we try to run, and choose, and fight, and it looks bad either to stay or to go, but we’ll move and eventually “toward a most useless place./ The Waiting Place…”

“…for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or the waiting around for a Yes or No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.”

“Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for the wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.”

“NO!
That’s not for you!”

I guess I don’t need to tell you how much I could relate to this poem, like being on the verge of tears. Then Francois finished his talking and we moved on with the ceremony, but the poem was kept alive in me. Rumbling, twitching, jumping and screaming for attention so, by the time I went to bed I decided to take another quick look at it and I think by now I can almost tie each verse to specific events that took place this last year. And, man, the Waiting Place…

I’ve been there, I’ve practically redecorated the place for the amount of time spent waiting. Waiting for things to get better, waiting for the Sun to shine, waiting for my appetite to come back, waiting on other people’s help, waiting on a work permit, waiting on a job offer, waiting to know what I was gonna do with my life after VFS, waiting to see if it was ever gonna be like before, all of that and then some.

I think I stopped waiting when I went home. I couldn’t fucking wait any more, and so I started doing things. Not to meet deadlines, not to please someone else, but things I wanted to get done for myself. I got back to reading a lot, I started shooting my own videos and coming up with different ideas without having to wait on anyone’s approval. I have this habit with writing, whenever I think I have a good subject for a post, I try and wait for it to come out. Yeah, you guessed right, fuck that. I just started writing more and more. Some work out well, some don’t, and I’m fine with it.

When I got back to Vancouver, I also got back together with my bike. Our relationship had been broken sometime during the winter, when I couldn’t keep up with the weather simply because I didn’t have any food inside. I remember talking with my parents about this, about stop using the bike and start taking the bus. For this entire time I kept all the bus passes I used. I didn’t know what they were meant for, but I kept them on my desk. I still have the stack here, over a hundred bus tickets. It’ll eventually be put to good use.

Another thing I resumed was photography. I was running out of content for Instagram, and taking new pictures has replenished my stock. It also made me work on new strategies to carry my camera around – whenever I put it in my backpack I never actually reach for it, and using the strap is terribly uncomfortable after some time – as well as experimenting with new lenses and continuing my personal projects and studies in this field. It made me get back to seeing light, really paying attention to it, knowing when the sun rises and sets, what places look good at what times and that kind of thing.

This whole series of changes made me realize it’s very easy for us to just sit down and wait. Wait for divine providence, wait for that dream job offer when we need it – hell, wait for ANY reply at all regarding jobs! -, wait for that video to go viral. And Dr. Seuss couldn’t be more precise on his words, it is “a most useless place” and in my personal experience, 98 and 3/4 percent of the times nothing good comes from it. Unfortunately for us, sometimes it’s damn hard to see we’re there, and it’s a least twice as hard to push the door and leave because we can’t know what’s expecting on the other side, but we have to do it despite not knowing, we have to do it otherwise we’re just letting life slip through our fingers and that does feel pretty useless.

I’m very grateful to all of those close to me that supported me through these times – and if you’re reading this you be sure you’re in the special thanks list -, be it with pointless conversations, stupid jokes, boat riding (!), obsessing about lenses, talking about bikes, riding along the seawall, sharing a special meal, suggesting me something to read (or listen, or watch), climbing mountains (!), making plans, or even things as simple as a kind (or crazy) good morning/good evening, you made the load bearable, you gave me strength to go on, you helped me find direction, you guided me out of the waiting place.

Thank you Francois, for a speech that didn’t end there and then. This one stays with me for the long haul.

At last, but not least, thank you 3D111 for being my brothers, sisters, moms, dads and even children sometimes. It was an honor to be a part of you. I also thank you, 3D112, for the warm and welcoming embrace on such short notice and this brief little time we had working together.

How the fuck do I take out those squiggly lines?

If you ever worked with me – specially as a cinematographer, and that goes mainly for projects I developed in Brazil – there’s a HUGE chance I lied to you. I apologize now, and before you hate me straight on, I ask you to read the remainder of this post! I didn’t lie with the intention of misleading you, I didn’t lie about my intentions, it’s more like “I made things sound a little more professional than I was thinking” and guess what? You were never disappointed, because I sold that with compelling arguments that made sense in the project’s overall concept.

I believe lying is part of the job (what a contradiction!), and I’m gonna stop using the word “lie” and start using “technical terms”. If you still don’t trust me on that, I’ll write a few examples below and explain what they meant inside my head. Most of the times it’s something that affects budget directly. I don’t like being responsible for extra costs mainly because I NEVER HAD A DECENT BUDGET. That means I’ve always adopted a guerrilla-approach for the cinematography guidelines, even when the project was not guerrilla at all – except for the budget. I have a big rant about how movies are made, but this isn’t the post for it.

“For this project we’re gonna have a very small team, just director, cinematographer, production sound, producer and cast, since that way we don’t have to feed too many people and everyone is always working for the duration of the set. We’re also using natural light because we can’t afford to run power from somewhere else and can’t afford people to keep an eye and adjust and carry the lights.”

At first, it was hard to justify these things in a way teachers and supervisors didn’t question our reasons – “you can’t shoot without an assistant director! you can’t shoot without slates! you can’t shoot with no assistants at all!” and so on -, so I had to improve over time. Now it just comes naturally, it’s all about choosing the right words. So, the extract above translates into:

“For this minimalist project we’re gonna shoot with a small crew in order to keep the focus in the cast’s performance, without too much fuss about the technical aspects on set. We’ll be using natural light as a way to bring the surrounding environment into play as a quintessential part in the story being told. The events happening on the screen are inherent to that place and that specific time.”

If you don’t think I’m pushing it, here’s one for my demo reel.

“Hovering Lights is a project about two students caught up in the middle of something they can’t control. With a handheld mobile device point of view, it aims bringing some light into outside-the-box storytelling, not having to rely on pristine image quality and large cameras. With a constantly moving and shaky perspective, Hovering Lights draws the audience into the chaos of living that situation from the characters’ point of view. Using only sfx and production audio, this project aims to deliver tension through the smart use of silence and sound cues other than overused musical score. One of my references, in terms of tension, are old-days thrillers which never quite show the monster but rather play with sounds and moving shadows. Fitting Instagram’s rules, each shot must not be longer than 15 seconds”

You’ve seen the result, and now you’ll see what I was thinking while writing that.

“I don’t want to deal with actors, so I’d rather shoot with someone I know and trust. I’ll pick May! Besides, if the camera represents a character, I can be that other character. I also don’t want to spend anything with gear, so I’ll use a wide angle lens and pretend it’s a phone (shooting with a DSLR already gives me enough quality to fake that). I can’t afford stabilization for two reasons, first: it’ll slow down the set and I don’t wanna take any chances because I was on one location for too long, second: it’ll cost me money, I don’t want to spend money, plus, all the movement and first-person camera spares me from highly detailed planned shots of the ships and all the other effects, meaning the movement is another way of distracting the audience from any quality issues I might have. No music, period. It’ll take time to find it, or even more time – and effort – to reach out to someone to make it. Playing with shadows and never quite revealing the alien is a cheap way of avoiding long time renders, countless iterations on its shape and texturing, not to mention perfect animation. Fitting Instagram’s rules I don’t have to worry about perfect continuous takes and seamless cuts.”

As you can see, something set to take a long time in post, but a very brief interval of shooting. I still relied in some intricate synchronization for the lights turning off, or the alien beam coming behind May, but when I weighted my options, it was much faster and cheaper rehearse a few times rather than try doing it all in post.

I’m gonna write out a few more examples just to prove how useful it can be translating technical issues into bullshit to sell a project.

“Aiming at an organic look” means “using dirt cheap old lenses”, “the weather translates the character’s state of mind” means “it was raining and it was a sad scene” or “it was a blasting sun outside and the character is cheerful” very much along the lines of Romanticism, where the environment reflects how the characters feel. “We decided to shoot digital, getting rid of all the noisy and large gear for shooting film, in an attempt to make the crew invisible to the cast and director” really means “we can’t afford film”. “Using cutting edge experimental technology to achieve the best visuals” equals “beta testing some shit, might have a good payoff, but we’ll be figuring it out as we roll”. One of my personal favorites is “going for a documentary style”, which is the ultimate guerrilla-yet-accepted concept for “shooting handheld, small cameras, no crew, I have very little planning, will shoot tons of footage; editing will be a pain in the ass”, and “using only practical lights and natural sources, we’ll have very dynamic light placements, fast setups and easy to adapt relying on the camera’s position” which goes along the documentary style for “the producer said we can’t afford lights for the scene to be properly lit, so we’ll crank the ISO to unacceptable levels and use razor thin depth of field with a hell of a good first AC”. I could go for hours, maybe I’ll start drafting some more in future posts just as an exercise. I’ve focused on camera/cinematography statements because that’s what I’m used to, but you can extend the idea for ANYTHING.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this creative use of words. This post was inspired by a rainy morning. I was just staring through the windows and realizing I would have a perfect luma matte of the buildings near me. It also made me think of the diminished visibility and how that could fit some projects very well. Right afterwards I thought “heh, I don’t think saying ‘it was raining as hell’ is gonna cut in order to avoid re-shooting, it would have to be something along the lines of ‘a heavy atmosphere adds the desired level of mystery around the characters'”, which then lead me to think of all the “professional ways” I’d come up with to back up technical issues this far. This post might be useful for people trying to do the same. It’s less about what you’re saying and more how you’re saying it.