A Sort of Calm in Magyarorszag

Like I said in my last post, I’ve been struggling to keep up with my life: the office, the nights of planning, the shooting, the waking and aching in the morning. After last weekend, it was time for a change.

And change I did. This week has been low key, to the point that I can actually think straight without stopping to think, ‘Wait, what happened last night?’ Not that that is necessarily a bad thing, because its not, as all are shaking their heads, but it is something different here in Magyarorszag. There’s an accent somewhere in there, but I don’t feel like racking my brain to figure out which letter. (It means Hungary.)

Instead, this week has been a sort of detox. Jaro almost got fired from his job after sleeping through another English lesson (it was the homemade wine) and he has sworn off alcohol for seven days. I’m broke, because it’s the end of the month, so its not like I can do much of anything anyway. And the general surroundings have just calmed down. It’s probably the excessive heat, which is really that bad. I walk to the office (10 minutes) and it feels like I’ve taken a bath. In sweat. With my clothes on.

Lovely.

….I love when I’m writing and I’m thinking of the end product of what I really want to say and I get halfway there and then poof! Its like I was never meant to write that paragraph because I really have no idea where I was going with it, at least now, now that I’m actually writing about how I don’t know where I’m going with it. I think that sort of defeats the purpose of writing. It’s like Jamie said back in Prague: In the past, people have written masterpieces all their lives and never got published. Now, any chump can be published online.

I obviously take that to heart.

And what I can’t write, I can show with pictures. This is the second (of many) mini-albums which I hope to put online over the next couple months about what I see and do in my crazy life over here.

But first, some back story.

As I said before (I think I just remembered where I was going with this back in the first paragraph), Jaro and I have taken it upon ourselves to shoot our first film together. It just so happens we throw the most difficult and ridiculous attributes into the mix, that we must be crazy. And I don’t doubt it.

The first weekend of shooting went well, though we’re going to have to shoot everything again. The reasons are plentiful. Sometimes it was the actors, forgetting lines or just not being off paper. Or it was me trying to hold the camera against the gravestone mimicking a POV shot (and failing). I can’t think of what Jaro did wrong but I assure you there were plenty of things.

The best story that came out of all this involved Jaro, Tamas and I. Tamas plays the philosophical homeless man (seen below) teaching the weed what his purpose is, and he definitely looks the part and did a good job. But when it came to the climactic scene, when he leaves the sack on a gravestone and walks off…well it did not go off as planned. To explain: Jaro was the voice of our green and mellow hero. He stood off camera and said his lines (all of which we realized needed to be dubbed – but that’s another story) while Tamas spouted his unending wisdom to the camera. The whole point was that he was always looking at the camera, because that’s where our protagonist’s voice was ‘coming’ from.

It took me a couple takes to realize he didn’t understand this difficult concept.

As he walks off, Jaro yells ‘Hold on! I’m not done yet!’, and Tamas turns and looks at Jaro, and says his line, ‘You’re absolutely right’ (but its in Hungarian and I cant remember exactly how it goes). He hit the line perfectly, but every time he looked at Jaro. Not at the camera. The lense is the character and the audience, and he’s standing there saying the line and he’s not looking where he’s supposed to. After going through it multiple times, Jaro and I realized that he would have to stand behind the camera for him to look at the camera.

Sure enough, Tamas still looked off camera. Damnit…

In a normal shooting situation (when you actually had paid actors and permits and lights and money), this would not be a problem. But our shoot was especially difficult because of our scenes being entire long shots, as I’ve already mentioned. Any fuck up, which is sure to happen, brings you back to square one. It’s one of the most frustrating film exercises, but when you pull it off, you feel like a golden god.

We were not golden gods that day.

However, we found that our original blocking was wrong, and needed to change. So some good did come out of it. Next weekend (heavy showers are forecast – why not?!) it should be better.

Here are some pics that I thought were worth mentioning:



The light that day was pretty amazing.


Tamas was ready for anything that day.





















Cemeteries are sad but so beautiful sometimes.



Jaro tries to make Tamas look homeless. It's tough (easy?).



We throw the camera out the window. This is the view. The open window in the middle...thats the window it drops from.



The opening scene. I probably should be on my post. But I love the shot.



Kristof and Dori take a break...this is what happens when two people get camera happy.


Elvis wants you!


Jaro relaxes between bottles...I means breaks.



Our three actors after a long afternoon. They deserve a sitdown.

A Birth Day

I'd like to stop and wish my little bro a very happy birthday.



Talon,

Happy Birthday.

I love you buddy. I wish I was there to watch you grow taller than your big brother.

Not Just Another Stoner Film

I've been wanting to post a bunch of stuff over the last week, but Jaro and I have been working hard on getting this short film off the ground. Today and tomorrow is the shoot, as long as the weather holds. The last seven days has basically been getting the actors together, going through the script, hard, going around looking at locations, running from security guards with beat sticks in the air, playing with f-stops, explaining to the actors ok this is what we want, they do it, stop them, ok this is what we really want, watch them and do it again.

So I have two full time jobs these days: My work at Move One, where I edit short informational videos and print business cards, and I get home, have an hour to eat, and then do the film thing until 2 or 3 in the morning. I can say one thing: this shit is hard when you're going full tilt running on 4 hours of sleep and its just non stop.

Be that as it may, it has been an awesome experience so far, and I'm going to post short excerpts and photos from the shoot once (if?) we get through the next two days. The editing and music process will start soon thereafter, and whenever it is a polished project I will most likely put it up for all to see. It depends on what happens and if we take it to small short film festivals over here and what comes of that.

But I'm jumping ahead. Here is the short plot synopsis:

One day someone wakes up to find he is a bag of weed. Or, depending on your viewpoint, the weed gains consciousness. The latter is probably the most correct. Anyway, this is not turning out to be a short plot synopsis. So he gains consciousness to find two guys talking, and after a brief interval, a pissed girlfriend comes around and throws the weed out the window, to where he is swept into a trashcan and found by a philosophical homeless man. Unlike the prior two guys, our homeless hero is able to hear the weed and begins to tell him a story about life and purpose, going to a cemetery, where he is left to find out where he is going in his life. By freak coincidence, the nemesis girlfriend finds him again, and learns a little about herself while in the presence of the sack.

I know what you're thinking. Oh christ its just another stoner story, and maybe it has a little of that, but this film is completely shot in the point of view of the weed, with only long shots. So there's a lot of dialog, tons of blocking, weird camera angles, long periods without cuts and lessons on life. Oh yeah, and it's shot in Hungarian. The only English used in the film is the weed's lines (which are minimal).

Jaro and I had to choose some of the most complicated attributes to put into our first short film.

Which makes it all the more fun.

So more to come on this exciting adventure.

the Mind before the Bear

The human mind is a pretty amazing thing. It is the titular evolutionary significance that puts us ahead (depending on who you speak to) all other life forms on the planet. I don’t mean to start off on a philosophical tone, because that would just be so unlike me. But I do marvel at what we are capable of doing, just because we somehow came upon this unique attribute of the human body. Which just so happened to be a highly advanced super efficient super computer. Housed in bone and tissue. Pretty remarkable. Some would say this was evolution, and others would say it was religion. Others might say it was something else.

What really amazes me, is the stuff that comes out of people’s mouths. Because you know those words are coming from somewhere. And it’s usually spouting from that super computer everyone has (some might say men have a second processing and computing zone…fair enough). I have heard many conversations that I have disagreed with completely, and others that have been right up my alley. Of course, I have had my fair share of ridiculous moments, that I argue just for the sake of arguing, and half way through I realize that I’ve already lost, but I want to keep it up just to make sure I don’t look wrong (ask Jamie—she has stories).

However, I did not start out writing this to talk about any of this. I really only wanted to talk about the bear story, which is really only an anecdote, but for some reason, after a glass of wine, I started pondering the human mind. Yes, one of my favorite quotes is this:

‘I am not prophetic! I don’t know what that word means! All I know is what the future holds.’

This, is exactly what I sat down to write about, and just got sidetracked. But it’s a perfect example of the workings and intricacies of the brain. What you do and say is not always explained, and can forever remain a mystery. Oh yeah, and that was me up there, prophesizing about knowing the future, while not understand what I was saying. But I still believe it, at least in a certain sense that I could never explain.

My story, what I wanted to just begin with and then didn’t, is this:

I was sitting with Sam and she was obviously bored and started flapping her arms about and starting to go into weird dance mode so I looked up one of my favorite web sites, which is really just a bunch of collections of photos from all over the place. The best are the collections of old Soviet machinery and huge projects. Gotta give it to them: they really thought big. If only they had gotten those space-capable fighter jets off the ground. What a world it might’ve been.

Instead of monstrous Soviet projects, I clicked on ‘Funny Animal Photos Part 11’. I thought that might catch Sam’s attention. And actually, it was funny. Those animals do the darndest things. When this photo came up:

This was the conversation:

Sam: That’s a strong rope.
Jaro: That’s a ballsy bear.
(laughter ensues)

That was it. That was all I wanted to tell you about. I had all intentions of starting and ending with the bear story, but I made off with some weird intro about the human mind and how fucking crazy it is.

And this might just be the perfect example.

self portrait

I was on Erzsébet Hid (Elisabeth Bridge) shooting for god know's what and I captured a short self portrait of mine.



I thought it was pretty cool.

Kossuth Lajos tér

I’ve been toying with putting pictures and video on here, and I want to start making mini photo albums. While words are the key component to any story, images might give you a better idea of where I am and what I do over here. Especially those people without facebook, where I put up all my photos (I was never one for flikr or jalbum), miss all that stuff. So. Here is the first of the mini albums:

Kossuth Lajos tér.

Sam, Jaro and I are walking back from Iguana, one of the only Mexican restaurants in Budapest. It’s decent. No Mexican food like home though. Iguana has shut down the street (conveniently located 50 meters away from the heavily fortified U.S. Embassy) and has lights and tents and a Mariachi band. We get there early but by the time we leave, it’s packed with expats. All speaking English. Jaro and I see a couple real (!) Mexicans, those from back home. It’s amazing to think they actually came to Budapest. Of all places.

Iguana’s also happens to be located right by the Parliament, which as probably all of you know, is amazingly beautiful. Across the street, there’s a metro station named after Kossuth Lajos, one of those famous Hungarians (there really are too many of them). And this is where we begin:

Waiting for Jaro to stop talking and finish his cigarette.


Down into the depths...


Waiting with a man and his dog.


The metro finally comes in.


It's not ours.


What not to do in the metro.

After waiting 15 minutes, a woman came down and told us to leave the station, because the last metro had run long ago. Then why the hell didn't you block off the entrance to the escalator?! Her answer is incoherent. Great.

So we walk. As we're going back the way we came, towards Deák tér, we stop by Imre Nagy and pay our respects.


Imre Nagy was the political leader of the 1956 Revolution against Soviet oppression. After his friend sold him out to the Russians, he was hung for his misdeeds. Today, long after the Hungarian battle cries roared above the city and Soviet tanks came marching in, Nagy still stands watching his rightful place: Parliament.

the relationship between twister and age

When adults get together, they can do stupid things. Not to say that kids don’t do stupid things when they get together, but they usually don’t know any better. Unless their parents told them not to do something stupid. You can probably count on them doing it. Right after you told them not to.

Now, take Twister. The game. What’s the social demographic for this game? I’d say 40% for 8-11 year olds. 30% for 12-13. 15% for 14-15. 5% for 16-17. And so on…

Notice as the age increases, the proportion of people playing lowers significantly (data not actually based on scientific figures).

There’s probably a reason for that.

So when Sam says we should play Twister, we all look at each other like what the fuck no way am I playing Twister that’s a stupid game that no one wants to play!

Five minutes later 6 of us are standing above the mat, beers in hands and arguing about how to play Twister. We couldn’t agree how to start. Jaro and I said on each roll (twist?) everyone went, it was a collective turn, but Sam was adamantly opposed to this and stated that each roll was one person’s turn. And I realized we were never going to win this argument, because really, we’re standing there drinking and arguing over the rules of Twister, one of the most self explanatory games ever invented.

Screw it! Ewa! (Ewa was designated roller. Her foot was broken.) Roll it!

As everyone knows, or, I would think everyone knows, Twister is pretty ridiculous. Your hands and feet are splayed across this mat filled with giant colored dots, and your face is stuck in some nook or cranny of your perspective neighbor. The beer probably didn’t help the situation. And it gets hard. Like it’s a workout. I mean really. At the end of the second game, it was just me and Sam left, and my arms are giving out. It looks like I’m doing the crab walk, with Sam arching over me in what looks to be some type of yoga move. Wait how did this happen? If she wasn’t a dancer I would’ve won by now damnit. And I’m still there, arms about to snap. Ewa is talking to Tamas or somebody and Ewa roll the damn thing!

I lost. But not before taking Sam out. Which is what I did in the last game too. Like dominoes.

The point of all this, and yes, there is a point: games are fun! Too many times we’re just sitting around discussing the universe, wondering what our real purpose in life is. And we could be playing fucking Twister instead!

So all of us are excited about this newfound knowledge. Oh yeah lets play games! Sam and I sit down. What games do you know? I don’t know any games. What do you know? Umm. I know telephone. But I hate that game. Well that’s great. I get online. I google group games. Its all children stuff. And exercise stuff. Ah! Idea! I google adult group games. This looks interesting. I click on the first link. Hmm. I don’t think this is an appropriate game… actually I’m fairly certain that’s not a game at all. I click on the next one. This one has ‘legitimate’ games, but its all stuff like ‘the name game’ and ‘the kissing game’ and ‘spin the bottle’ and I’m thinking huh this all sounds really familiar.

When adults get together, they’re just like a bunch of children. The rules are different, true, but the basic principles are the same. They entertain each other with what is around them. Usually, adults entertain with drinking, talking, smoking, dancing, and drinking. Now mash that together, and throw Twister into the mix.

When you’re bent over backwards with five people weighing down on you from all sides, you realize the recipe is stupid and seriously how did I get myself in this position (literally)?
Somehow, it just makes sense.