Saturday, May 2, 2009

I saw Hunger and thought it was __________

Originally I thought it would be enough to shoot a bunch of scenes of planting out of order, snippets, like Paul Chan's videos "Baghdad in No Particular Order," and "Now Promise Now Threat." These scenes would look a lot like the stuff on my viddyou page. The idea was that it would accomplish the following within the narrative:

1. Expose the process whereby the money for the film was earned by showing the filmmaker embedded in a work environment.

2. Provide new images to people who have no idea what tree planting is and who might be interested

3. Lull people a little bit into the rhythyms of work, underscoring themes of work, how watching a film can be thought of as work

I particularly like work that addresses the conditions of its own existence, or the process of it's own creation - I like BARR or Andrew Kuo.

I couldn't buy a camera without going planting, and that seemed a good starting point for a film in my head.

Now I am thinking that there should be a loose momentum to the planting parts. Instead of trying to capture a "reality" I would stage a "realistic" narrative.

I have ideas for scenes that would not require too much from the actors - but I am not sure of the willingness of my collaborators. I suppose time will tell. The finished film still seems out of focus to me.

This is both good and bad.