Utopian Cinema

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Back in October I wrote about my visit to the Bend Film Festival. Without expecting to, I met a couple documentary directors, both of whom gave me some really sound advice. (For that advice, see my October blogs.) One of the directors, Tom Putnam (Red, White, Black and Blue) told me that I could send him my film, and that while he wouldn't be able to watch it anytime soon, he would eventually watch it and let me know what he thought. I decided I needed a few more things together before I went ahead and sent it to him, and ended up sending it a couple weeks ago. Well, within 10 days of sending it to him, Mr. Putnam sent me an email saying that he had watched it, and that if I wanted to talk with him about it, I could give him a call at home. So I did.

So in a perfect world, my Bible Camp film would have looked much different. I would have chosen three or four kids in different villages (probably something like Galena, Nulato, and Selawik because of their differing sub-cultures) and periodically followed them around for an entire year, culminating in coming to Kokrine Hills (or not) in the summer. The actual formation and story of the camp would have become the backbone of a film about life-change as evidenced in the lives of a few kids. This would have eliminated the need for so much narration, and would have created a real bond between the viewer and the subject. Now if I had spent $50,000 of someone else's money, I could definitely have gotten that done, and would have had a far superior (well, at least a more universal) film. But I spent over $8000 of my own money because I didn't know of any other way to get this story out there. So it was great to talk with Tom about how my film could have been better, but ultimately his advice was exactly what I would have wanted to do if I had had the budget (and time...) to do so. So while it was slightly disappointing that I didn't feel like I had received some incredible jewel of wisdom, I did feel like I was far more knowledgeable about this stuff than maybe my experience alone would dictate. Score one for understanding.

So what did I come away with after my 25 minute conversation with Tom Putnam? Pretty much a little more confidence that someday I'll have the chance to really make something stellar, and I think I'll know how to do it, or at least I'll think I know what I'm doing and will dive headlong into some project which will completely absorb me, and eventually I'll have something to show for it. Maybe. Oh, I also came away with a home phone number for a real-life filmmaker. Prank calls anyone? Just kidding. (I'm only explaining that I'm kidding on the off chance that Tom Putnam accidentally runs into this blog someday and is totally creeped out by that last phrase, which would be completely understandable... He said as he nervously rocked and giggled to himself... Heh... Go get a copy of "Red White Black and Blue!" It was 7 years in the making, and it's really good! Props to Tom.) The end.

Take it with a grain of salt. Heck, take it with a BAG of salt if necessary...

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So I've been thinking about grief lately. And I understand that there is plenty of Christian literature out there on the topic, but because of my own personal prejudices, I haven't read them, so if I write something that sounds like a copy of what someone else said, props to them for thinking it first. (It's not that I'm opposed to Christian lit [anymore] it's just that I know so many people who take to heart so much of what a particular author says, there's no longer any room to take things with a grain of salt. Just a single grain of salt, that's all I ask for... That and a 17" macbook pro. But I already mentioned that in blogs past. Wink.)

This evening I saw a rather interesting film called "Across the Universe." The film follows the lives of a half dozen characters as their lives and relationships change from the ultra-conservativism of the 1950s to the radical upheaval of the Vietnam war in the 1960s, and winds down near the beginning of the 1970s. The film itself is definitely worth a viewing, though I recommend it with reservation (there is some drug use, sexual content, and brief nudity that keep me from freely recommending this to everyone and their mom.) The filmmaker does a great job showing the contrasts between where each character starts and where they end up at the end of the film. There are two main characters from a rather well-to-do family, who make some rather radical turns away from the lifestyle of their upbringing. One poignant moment is when the daughter of this family is making a phone call to her mother from a phone booth just outside a demonstration she's planned to join. The mother says something to the effect of "I don't want to lose my beautiful daughter," and I was struck by that for some reason. The mother didn't think she'd be able to bear the grief of losing her daughter. This is certainly not revolutionary thought, but it really seemed to connect with other events today, events I've been pondering.

I've been thinking a lot about the way we deal with hardships. For we Americans, pain is something we avoid, something we loathe, something we fear. So much of what we do in our lives is to further aid us in our blind quest for comfort. And we won't be happy until we're comfortable. (Now, ever so slowly take a heaping tablespoon of salt and slowly grind it whilst reading on.) I need an iPhone. I need a new jacket. I need (gulp) a new 17" Macbook Pro. And yet in all our quest for comfort, we have become some of the world's most mal-adjusted people. We are the ones who have sheltered ourselves from pain and grief and discomfort so much that when we do experience those things, we don't know how to deal with it. It's like the little kid who never quite engages socially, and from then on has a hard time relating to people. (And as you're still grinding, you quietly think to yourself, hmmm, that last part seemed a bit on the auto-biographical side. Crunch, crunch, crunch...) We have become a nation of socially-retarded little kids who don't know how to deal with our own problems. Broadly speaking, of course. In a general and stereotypical mindset. But hey, if I fit that stereotype, there's a good chance someone else out there does too. (Crunch. And you're now only half-reading because you're imagining Dayn awkwardly sidling up to other kids on the playground, hoping someone would have some strange desire to talk with him and be his friend even though he doesn't have the juevos to initiate any sort of conversation. Crunch. Grind.)

From my observations of other cultures, so many people groups are either content with little, or don't know any better, and are at the very least not a society of over-medicated angst-ridden little social-lepers. I certainly don't begrudge those in that position, myself included. I grew up with very little grief other than the very American self-inflicted kind, and therefore I am not able to condemn as much as I'm able to observe. Does anyone else think, generally speaking, that people in the good old US of A we don't understand that life that is not tempered with grief leads one to a path of inability to deal with problems later in life? Of course we all deal with grief in our lives, but sometimes I think what we call grief is often just dissatisfaction with discomfort. Or maybe I'm just ranting because I feel like it. (Okay, you now have two options: A, you can spit out the salt, thereby beginning to rid yourself of its negative properties, or B, you can swallow the salt, providing a much needed amount of grief, and potentially followed by the need for a deluge of water to quench the salt's fury. Choose wisely...)

Voices for the voiceless?

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So I'm becoming increasingly convinced that certain people never learn to speak properly. And I'm not talking about parts of speech or grammar, or any of the usual things I complain about. I'm discovering that certain people never got beyond using some sort of weak falsetto. Unfortunately I've only observed this phenomenon in women, so this may seem fairly gender-biased, though that's hardly the point. Anyway, some women don't know how to use their voice.

I don't know if the problem is that some women discover they have a low voice and just try to bump it up a few notches, or if it's simply an inability to access the strong part of their voice, but I know of a few women whose voices are so piddly, it's a wonder they ever made it this far in life. So the specific person I'm thinking of is the art teacher at the school I work at. I try not to bask specific people in my blog, people who can be discovered by certain sleuthy-type people who happen to know all the right people, but I think I can make an exception this time. No real names, but if you work at my school you'll know who it is, though I can't imagine anyone from my school reading this... ANYWAY, to start, this woman has no classroom management skills. Threats may be made, but the kids know she's the furthest thing from threatening. Once a sickly kitten subbed for the class and held things together with greater ease and panache. The kids certainly don't respect her, and I think the number one problem is her lack of a voice.

For a moment, imagine my voice, which projects fairly well, and gives me some sort of initial credibility to those who don't know me. Now imagine me talking half as loudly, but in a mock-woman's voice, laden with frustration and apathy. The longer I keep this up, the more foolish I appear. Ugh. And on top of it all, every silly art project is given weeks to be finished, while the kids I work with finish each one in fifteen minutes, leaving the rest of the week nearly completely devoid of structure. Oh joy. And all because this poor lady never learned how to use her voice. Amazing.

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So how did it go?

Well, that depends on your criteria.

Explain that.

Well, I was hoping for a lot more people than came. Ultimately most of the people came not because of the subject matter, but because they knew me. It's certainly nice to have the support of people in Anchorage, so no big complaint there. Between forty and fifty people showed up, which was cool, but I was hoping for more. Well, maybe I was hoping that the amount of effort and worry I put into this thing would somehow mathematically equal the results in the end. Maybe people didn't come simply because the holidays can be a hectic and busy time of year for anything, let alone some homemade movie some nobody put together. Maybe a lot of things happened to keep people from coming or remembering when this was happening, but the fact remains that nearly fifty people came, and that's nothing to sneeze at. Maybe cough at, but certainly not sneeze-worthy.

But, all numbers aside, it was a success in every other definition of the word. Though I spent more money getting up there and renting a space than I took in from attendees, I only lost a hundred dollars or so, which is not bad at all. And now that I've put aside all numbers, I'm going to pull one back in. We sold eighteen DVDs at the showing, and the next days I sold another four, which was very encouraging, especially with a couple people buying two or three at a time. And now let's re-put that aside. People expressed their appreciation of being this subject to the light and really appreciated the film itself. One man told me that while he knew its purpose wasn't to entertain, it WAS entertaining as well as being informative. It has certainly taken me a long time to appreciation the balance in film between entertainment and information, and that comment spoke worlds of encouragement to me. The heart and information is the most important part, but the entertainment is what makes it watchable, tolerable. As the showing started, I got those goosebumps I only get when I either feel cold, or that the Holy Spirit is doing something cool, and while it was a little chilly in there, I'm quite certain it was the latter that gave me the goose flesh. Holy Spirit goosebumps are the best thing in the world, I think. At the very end of the film, I got the same feeling, and it was at that moment that I knew this had been a huge success. Though the numbers may deny my feeling of success, the sensation of the Lord blessing the room gave me all the affirmation I needed.

It's taken several days to come to these conclusions, but I'm very encouraged with the way things turned out on December the twenty-eighth. It was good, and I look forward to the next time, and the times after that. Woo hoo!

Lessons learned, etc...

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So I started writing a blog about three weeks ago, and then the fit hit the shan, so to speak, and I got super busy all of a sudden. And then our internet at our house went out, and it won't be back up for another few days. I'm like a computer vulture right now, scavenging on other people's computers whenever I can, and when I can't, I fly up to 5,000 feet and make sweeping circles above what will soon be carrion. Heh, I wonder what carrion luggage would look like. Take a moment to pause like I am and quietly laugh to yourself about some dead animal being stuffed into an overhead bin while the huge line of impatient people behind me gripe about me blocking the aisle. Double-heh. But I digress... (Oh, and props to Denee and Steve for letting me borrow their computers, further planting seeds of dissatisfaction with my ginormous desktop and it's proliferation of jet-engines for fans. Sigh... Someday I will have my 17" Macbook Pro, and all will be right in the world.)

So I think recently I've been learning a thing or three about prayer and trust in God. As has been typical in the last 6 months, I'm thinking about showings of my film Bible Camp. I'm also thinking about the fact that every showing I've done has been an extreme disappointment. Some of you may disagree with that statement, and it is worded awfully strongly, but rather than retract the statement with a barrage of backspace, I'll just keep wordily spewing forth some sort of jilted stream of consciousness, which may or may not make sense in the end. (Oh big words, how I love thee...) And I'm back. Anyway, I've always hoped for some semblance of a sign of success with each showing of Bible Camp. My very largest showing was the very first time I got to show it to my friends in Anchorage in early July. I think there were a dozen or so people there. I showed it at my parents' house, and four people showed up. I showed it at my parents' church and I think 8 people showed up (mostly repeats from the house showing.) I showed it at Jason Reando's campus house at Multnomah, and 2 new people showed up. I talked about it and showed the trailer at my own church, and nobody showed up. I tried to show it at a large camp-supporting church in Gresham, and they wouldn't even host a showing. Basically every avenue I've tried has been a failure, in terms of number of people coming. So what have I taken away from this, aside from a unhealthy level of cynicism and sense of failure? Sometimes it's hard to say. But I'll try anyway.

So one thing I've learned through all this has been that I, like so many other people, have an innate tendency to gauge my success in terms of numbers. We all do it, I think. Bigger numbers show greater success. A graph that is taller than it is wide, shows that you're a winner. I completely understand that having that perspective is like trying to make teddy grahams out of a pile of horse dookey. It's just not realistic. I know that individuals have been greatly affected by this thing, which should make it all worthwhile. And sometimes my mood allows me to genuinely feel this way. But there is one other thing that I've really been learning, especially in lieu of my potentially-biggest showing ever: I don't pray about it.

Seriously, if there's one lesson I've learned throughout this project, it's that I can't do any of this on my own. AND YET I TRY SO HARD TO DO THAT VERY THING!!! Sorry for shouting, and all the exclamatory punctuation, but I'm kind of an idiot and I think everyone should know it. After analyzing every showing, I realized that I almost never prayed more than once for a lot of people to show up, or at least the right people. The only force anywhere that can affect whether people come or not, and I forget to place it before His enormous feet and say, "Here it is. Do with it what you will." So that's what I'm trying to do. I'm actually praying, and praying multiple times throughout the day, and not necessarily in some desperate state, but in genuine desire to communicate with God about something very important to me. It's so simple, and so good.

So I've been stressing about all the details of showing Bible Camp on the 28th in Anchorage, but have this underlying peace about it, a confidence that God's work will be done, and great things will come out of His faithfulness. It's so good! I want all you who are willing to do the same thing. Please pray for the 28th. I think significant and valuable things will come about because of it, which is a very exciting prospect. And if you're in Anchorage, please come. Bring everyone you can. It may not click with everyone, but the more people we have there, the greater chance we have of affecting someone for all eternity. So please pray, please come, and please give blood. And also forget that last one. I'm terribly excited, and I want to share it with y'all. Talk to you all soon, and in person!

Back on track

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So, in preface to what may be a silly blog, I must first confide that I am currently watching "Waiting for Guffman," my all-time favorite comedy, and a film I haven't watched in a ridiculously long time. So if there is a perceptible air of disjointedness , it's all Christopher Guest's fault. Fie on his comic genius.

So over the last month or so I've been going to an osteopathic doctor. Apparently my cycle is merging with all the females I work with, which is wreaking havoc on my school's plumbing. We still haven't figured out who the alpha female is, and why my levels of estrogen are so high. (Aaaaand a hop skip and a jump back off the first of many ridiculous rabbit trails, back on to the beaten path.) So actually I've had back problems for the last few years which usually culminate in severe stabbing pain in my lower back for a week or so, and after two weeks I'm mostly back to normal. Anyway, I wanted to see what was causing the problem, and after multiple adjustments and x-rays a conclusion has been drawn: I have a short leg. My right leg is between half and three-quarters of an inch shorter than the other. ("Stool boom, from the parlor to the pool room..." ah Guffman) So this short leg has thrown off my alignment, which gets severely aggravated every 6 months or so. The x-rays also said my back has a severe arch, which means I have to change the way I sit and stand and walk and if I found any joy in dancing that would have to change too. So yesterday I got a lift put in my shoe, which feels strange but I can feel things are straighter, so it's all good. But I can't help thinking I should be able to just live with my short leg and hunchback. And now I shall explore those thoughts.

So maybe I should make a living walking along hillsides, making sure my right leg was always the upper leg as I traversed the side of each hill. That would mean that only half of a two-way trip would have to be done in reverse, which isn't that bad. Yes, perhaps hillside dwelling is for me. That, or maybe I should invest in slightly-askew possibly condemned homes just so my right leg can sit in higher ground. And as for my being a hunchback, I should look for large places of worship who have openings for bell-ringers or bell-technicians, as long as their foundations are ever-so-slightly off-kilter. Yes. Quasidayngo shall henceforth be my moniker. So if any of y'all know of any openings for aforementioned job positions, let me know as soon as possible. My life may depend on it. Or at least my back will.

Red White Black & Blue

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So when I went to the Bend Film Festival a few weeks back, I got to see a film called Red White Black & Blue. I also got to meet the director, a really nice guy, and very talented. Anyway, thought I'd let y'all who get PBS on a nearby TV, a shortened version of the film will be playing November 6. It's a great film, and I'm sure that even as a shortened version, it'll still be great. So take a look at it if you remember to. For more info, go to www.alaskainvasion.com Thanks guys.

Thank God for you, awkwardly-unaware man!

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So in recent years I've gotten a lot better at not being judgmental of others. It used to be that I would make snide comments about people I didn't even know to not only myself, but any near-standing half-friend within earshot. With that said, I saw this guy at the gym today who was practically begging me to return to my roots of sarcasm. (I think I saw Roots of Sarcasm open for Whitesnake years ago...)

The short and sweet description of this guy: imagine a slightly older Kip from Napoleon Dynamite sauntering his heart out on an elliptical trainer. A more detailed description to follow. So here is a man in his early to mid forties, probably some sort of businessman because he is doing what seems to be non-recreational reading, and has a full manila envelope resting on the control face of the elliptical trainer. Perhaps his cluelessness is evidenced in his complete focus on his reading. He is wearing a simple white tee shirt, nothing unusual there. It's everything else he's wearing, or not wearing that makes things interesting. (Not to worry, the "not wearing" comment only holds a small weight in upcoming statements. I simply threw it in there because it makes for a titillating read.) The rest of the ensemble, from the top down, begins with the slightly yellowed, formerly white sweatband which is grasping desperately to a slightly-balding, poorly-shorn head of straw-like hair. Skipping down past the unusually usual white shirt, we can see he is wearing black spandex shorts, which only seems appropriate for a man who is moving at an astronomically intense two miles per hour on a low-impact exercise device. Not only are the shorts spandex, but they're that old sort of spandex, late-eighties or early-nineties, the slightly shiny stuff that people who don't normally exercise wear to appear like they regularly take trips to the local gymnasium. Before going on to the last item of clothing, I have to describe the piece of flesh connecting the shiny shorts with its podiatric counterpart. The legs are veiny, but not the kind where you can see the blue of the veins. These veins seem to be lumpily holding together his two generally neglected collections of half-muscle, which still seem to struggle despite the fact that the poor guy's torso couldn't have weighed more than fifty pounds. Not to be outdone, the feet are of particular magnificence. Firstly (and here's where the titillation comes to a disappointing end) they are sporting only white tube socks, which, as tube socks tend to do when not held in place by footware, have begun to floppily-increase in length. There are no shoes whatsoever. And, as if this caricature of a man could not get any more precious, he had over-large round glasses and a thin wiry mustache, no doubt to catch the eye of those gym-skanks whose outfits continually shrink to ever decreasing levels of modesty. Oh, I almost forgot the very best part. He is sporting (sporting, mind you, not just wearing) a black leather fanny-pack over the white tee shirt, just above the shiny spandex shorts. Now imagine this sight one row in front of you as you try not to laugh aloud not only at its pure unaware genius, but its comically-slow traipsing along on the elliptical trainer. Honestly I think he could have simply walked around the halls in the adjacent mall-space and gotten a better workout. But then I couldn't have basked in his splendor. Thank God for you, awkwardly unaware man. You bring a smile to the faces of people all over the internet and yet still maintain both your anonymity and dignity because I did not have my camera with me.

Film Festival hilight

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So last weekend I went to the Bend Film Festival. I remember missing it the year before, and wishing I had gone. My parents live in Bend, so I have a place to stay, making a weekend visit both feasible and affordable. The last, and only other film festival I've attended was the Anchorage International Film Festival in 2005. Jannell Brisson, as an early birthday present, bought me a pass for any and all showings at the AIFF. It was one of the best weeks I ever had to that date, so I figured I could at least get a small slice of that at the Bend festival. So I looked over all the films playing over the two days I could be there, and made myself an itinerary of 6 full-length films, and a smattering of short films, all in the span of 2 days. They also offered free Q&A kind of sessions with film-makers, organized by topic. I attended one on documentary filmmaking and one on how to promote your film once you've already finished it. They both seemed appropriate to my particular situation. Anyway, I went to the film festival to see some cool independent films, and try my hardest not to let my brain ooze out my ears from sitting for so long. But what I came away with was far more than just a couple amazing films, though there were some really amazing films.

So though the films were great, my favorite parts were the little Q&A sessions, particularly the one featuring a panel of documentarians. They talked about their craft, their inspirations, their current projects, and while nothing they said really blew my mind, I was just happy to get to listen to people who vocationally so what I want to do. Two of the filmmakers were particularly interesting to me. Tom Putnam recently made a film called "Red, White, Black and Blue" which is about Attu Island on the tip of the Aleutians. The film follows two WWII vets as they revisit the island 60 years after the 17-day battle to win it back from the Japanese. Attu is the only American soil occupied by a foreign force since 1812. Anyway, it's a great film, and for those of you who are interested, it'll be on PBS on November 6, I believe. The other filmmaker I was interested in is named Adrian Belic. He and his brother were nominated for an Oscar for a documentary they finished in 1999 called "Genghis Blues." If you're a fan of Tuvan throat-singing, (and who isn't in this crazy post-9/11 world) you'll love "Genghis Blues." Adrian's newest film is called "Beyond the Call," and was my favorite documentary of the festival. It chronicles the journeys of three post-middle-aged men as they display the most incredible humanitarian effort three independently-funded men can display. Seriously, these guys are pretty bad-ass and love helping people who can't help themselves. So, coming back to the story, Tom Putnam and Adrian Belic were pretty cool and knowledgeable guys in the business. So I decided to meet them.

For some of you, it may come as no surprise that I'm a bit of a social phobic. Well, close to phobia. Meeting new people is quite a chore for me, especially people who happen to be attractive or important. These two guys are actually eking out a living as documentary filmmakers, which is quite a feat, so I was a little intimidated. Fortunately I didn't find them attractive. That would've really been a chore. Anyway, the two of them, Tom and Adrian, were having a conversation or networking session, so I waited nearby for them to be done. I was going to talk to Tom because he seemed a little more conversational. Well, when they finished my conversation and asked if I needed to talk to either of them, I managed to rope them both in. Because Tom's film is based in Alaska, I used that as a common point, mentioning that I'm from Alaska, and that it was nice to see a film made about Alaska. We talked a bit about Alaskans and their starvation to see themselves larger than life, about how his showing of his latest film sold out its first showing, forcing a second one. I don't remember how it came about, but I got to tell them I just finished a film set in Alaska. Adrian congratulated me and shook my hand at that, and they wanted to know more about it. I told them that "Bible Camp" is a documentary about a Bible camp in Alaska's interior, a camp my grandfather started 43 years ago. I had this unusual energy as I was telling them about it, and managed to keep their attention throughout my little Bible Camp exposition. So I had the complete undivided attention of two actual career filmmakers, and got to share about the film I made about a camp I love. Wow.

After talking up Kokrine Hills a little longer, I asked them about self-promotion, ad how one gets better at it. Probably my least favorite part of this process has been the fact that I have to sell myself to everyone, and never think I do a great job. they stopped me right there and said that not only do all filmmakers have a hard time with self-promotion, but that I had in fact done a great job selling the film to them. They commended my use of knowing my audience (Alaska as a commonality) and said that I had both their attentions throughout. That was pretty much the most encouraging thing anyone could have ever said to me. Two guys who know how it works told me one of my greatest weaknesses wasn't nearly as bad as I thought. Tom even offered to view my film and let me know what he thought. They both told me I needed to submit my film to the Anchorage film festival, and that I needed to drop both their names to the guy in charge in Anchorage. Turns out the deadline for entrance into the Anchorage festival was the beginning of September, so I lost my chance, but I tried anyway. Tom and Adrian both gave me great advice on selling myself and networking, both of which are paramount to the filmmaker existence. I needed business cards and post cards with my film's info on them, didn't have either, and was chastised by the two guys for my lack of connectibles. But I suppose I hadn't ever come with the intention of even mentioning "Bible Camp" anyway, so no big deal this time. All in all, it was an incredible 15 minute interaction.

I came to a festival to watch movies, and ended up with connections to real filmmakers, something I've not had until this point. AND, I really feel "Bible Camp" got a whole new lease on life. I emailed Tom and he gave me his address so I can send him the DVD, and now I'm back on the trail to setting up showings and selling as many DVDs as I possibly can. What had become an elephant on my back, largely a film people showed little interest in, has now become a revitalized passion for me to get out into the world. Man. It's just so amazing how God will orchestrate situations to give us exactly what we need right when we need it. Woo hoo.

Woo hoo!!!!!

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So apparently there are all these beautiful single people out there! I know they're out there because myspace and facebook tell me they're there. And all these beautiful people are just so desperate to meet possible romance, they all have congregated on these internet dating sites! And apparently the same people who were single six months ago are still single! I can tell by their pictures, or those really insightful little videos that appear on my web page. So logic tells me that most single people out there are terribly beautiful, and that in order to find these people I will need to join the club. Or clubs. This is the greatest discovery since the world's first discovery was made! What a strange and beautiful place we live in! So says the internet...