"Mommy, am I famous yet?"
5/03/2007
Cinéma Vérité
Now that I'm finally halfway done with college, I can show you what I've been doing all semester! Below are my two magnum opi.
290 #4 -- "L'Ile de la Cité"
This film was among those selected to represent my class in the USC archives. I shot it in Paris, with LK and her friend Victor, and it's definitely my favorite 290. In some ways it was my easiest, because neither LK nor Victor had ever been in a movie before, so they never clued in to the fact that I am a Terri Schiavo filmmaker who has no idea what she's doing. Or, if they did, they were nice enough not to let on. Either way it made me more confident.
In other ways it was my most difficult 290, namely in that I had put LK in charge of finding a male star, and she chose Victor. It's not hard to see why -- look at him! -- but it was, shall we say, a challenge to direct an actor who didn't really speak English. I did my best to direct him in Terri Schiavo French (it was to him that I said "Je suis une aspirine"), and LK served as an excellent interpreter (she was heroic when there arose a confusion about which kind of kiss I wanted them to share -- the French have different words for different kinds of kisses). As it turned out, Victor had a preternatural sense of what I wanted, and by the end of the day we were BFF. If that isn't a 290 triumph, I don't know what is.
The downside is that I can never, ever listen to this song again.
290 #5 -- "The Worst That Could Happen"
The gods of 290 really smiled down upon me for this one. Yes, that is a real live wild coyote; yes, I shot that footage myself; and no, it was not planned. Sherman and I were location-scouting in Griffith Park, and the coyote appeared in the parking lot. I was holding the camera in my hands, but I was too dumb to think of using it; if it hadn't been for Sherman shouting "GET IT ON FILM! GET IT ON FILM!" it would have been but an anticlimactic anecdote. At any rate, the coyote was a real star: it stood there patiently while I fumbled with the camera, and it posed politely for quite a few minutes before trotting majestically away.
Oh, and the music in the escape sequence? It's Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, of course.
So that's what happened when Frankie went to film school. I think it's fair to say that I improved, but deep in my heart, I think I'll always regard Double Negative as the best work I ever did.
- posted by Frankie @ 8:24 PM
Now that I'm finally halfway done with college, I can show you what I've been doing all semester! Below are my two magnum opi.
290 #4 -- "L'Ile de la Cité"
This film was among those selected to represent my class in the USC archives. I shot it in Paris, with LK and her friend Victor, and it's definitely my favorite 290. In some ways it was my easiest, because neither LK nor Victor had ever been in a movie before, so they never clued in to the fact that I am a Terri Schiavo filmmaker who has no idea what she's doing. Or, if they did, they were nice enough not to let on. Either way it made me more confident.
In other ways it was my most difficult 290, namely in that I had put LK in charge of finding a male star, and she chose Victor. It's not hard to see why -- look at him! -- but it was, shall we say, a challenge to direct an actor who didn't really speak English. I did my best to direct him in Terri Schiavo French (it was to him that I said "Je suis une aspirine"), and LK served as an excellent interpreter (she was heroic when there arose a confusion about which kind of kiss I wanted them to share -- the French have different words for different kinds of kisses). As it turned out, Victor had a preternatural sense of what I wanted, and by the end of the day we were BFF. If that isn't a 290 triumph, I don't know what is.
The downside is that I can never, ever listen to this song again.
290 #5 -- "The Worst That Could Happen"
The gods of 290 really smiled down upon me for this one. Yes, that is a real live wild coyote; yes, I shot that footage myself; and no, it was not planned. Sherman and I were location-scouting in Griffith Park, and the coyote appeared in the parking lot. I was holding the camera in my hands, but I was too dumb to think of using it; if it hadn't been for Sherman shouting "GET IT ON FILM! GET IT ON FILM!" it would have been but an anticlimactic anecdote. At any rate, the coyote was a real star: it stood there patiently while I fumbled with the camera, and it posed politely for quite a few minutes before trotting majestically away.
Oh, and the music in the escape sequence? It's Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, of course.
So that's what happened when Frankie went to film school. I think it's fair to say that I improved, but deep in my heart, I think I'll always regard Double Negative as the best work I ever did.
- posted by Frankie @ 8:24 PM
