No Glorious Embraces

A friend sent me a link to an article the other day about one of the victims of the recent Israel-Palestine turmoil that has certainly not been in many headlines: the Gaza Surf Club. Having only been established in the last few years, it's captured the attention of the world surfing community, with some even donating equipment. What seems to have inspired this focus on the Gaza Surf Club is the purity and essence of it: unspoiled by the commercialism surrounding the sport in other parts of the world, surfing in Gaza is all about the waves. As one reporter quoted in the article puts it, "if surfing is a matter of freedom, it is nowhere more significant as in Gaza".

The article goes on to describe how the members of the club surf to forget about the tough reality they face daily and to forget the intolerance that fuels the never-ending conflict. For them, surfing unites people; they even mention how they surf together with Israelis as friends and equals. It also touches upon the significance of the sea in Arabic culture, a symbol of total freedom, perhaps another reason why the club is growing in popularity. What strikes me as most interesting is the mix of two such different cultures; surfing, an activity I'd associate most strongly with the US (even though its origins are purportedly on the other side of the world) seems lights years away from the Arabic world, at least in my mind. Perhaps its not the culture surfing that interests them so much; all they care about is grabbing a board, waiting for a wave and then riding it. What more do you need?

A documentary about the club called 'God Went Surfing with the Devil' has already been made and there's a trailer for it at the bottom of the article. It's still nearing completion but from what the trailer shows, it should make for interesting viewing. I'll just say that the article is originally in portuguese so some of translation, courtesy of Google, is a little off at times. But it's still decent enough to get a good sense of the article.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=pt&u=http://revistatrip.uol.com.br/salada/conteudo.php%3Fi%3D25754&ei=j9ynSdyUBY3BtgftjI3cDw&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://revistatrip.uol.com.br/salada/conteudo.php%253Fi%253D25754%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-GB:official%26hs%3Dk71

Carrying on the theme of surfing, another friend sent a link to these pictures taken by Hawaiian photographer Clark Little who takes photos of the insides of waves, just at the moment before they break. They are some truly fantastic photos, particularly in terms of texture and light. You can find lots more at his website.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2009/feb/27/clark-little-photograph-waves?picture=343884998

http://www.clarklittlephotography.com/main/pages/home

As they say, all good things must come to an end. And so, after four weeks of filming, it's all over. After the 1st assistant director announced the film as finished in the early hours of this morning, everyone burst into cheer. There were hugs and kisses all round, everyone congratulating each other on a job well done, even a couple of tears were shed. Someone said they loved that moment at the end of a production because it always feels like New Year's, everyone celebrating the same thing together. I can't think of many jobs where when a project is finished, there's this spirit of camradarie between everyone. At the beginning of the film I knew one guy, my friend who'd called me in the first place; by the end, I felt like I knew the whole crew and had made good friends among them, some of which I'll hopefully work with again. This might all seem a bit sappy, probably because this is still new to me, but there really is something special about working with all these people and at the end of it having a finished product that everyone can be proud of.

Now begins the long process of post-production. Not only all the manipulation of the filmed material such as editing, sound mixing, image correction, etc. but also all the business side of things: distribution, publicity, marketing, and lots of other stuff I've yet to learn about. This means that it'll still be some time before I see the film onscreen (someone said about a year at least), but like Louis Armstrong said, we've got all the time in the world.

I've also got to get back to a normal lifestyle now. Filming night shoots these past two weeks has made me a bit of a nocturnal creature. Added to this is the fact that this last week the crew started going out together for some drinks after we finished filming at 3 or 4 in the morning, which has meant that I've pretty much been going to bed at sunrise and waking up at sunset. My biological clock doesn't know what time it is anymore. I've also got lots of people to catch up with since filming makes you a social recluse; the only people I've seen this last month have been at work. But all in good time, I'm going to take a week off now and do a little bit of travelling as a friend of mine from London is here in Brazil. Relaxing on a beach is all I want to think about now...

As a last little note, I remember having a conversation with one of the production assistants one day and being asked what film made me want to make films. Not necessarily what my favourite film was, but which one had inspired me to think "that's what I want to do with my life". I came to the conclusion that it has to be 'Cinema Paradiso' (picture above). It's a story about love of all kinds: between a man and a woman, between a father and son, between two friends and, most importantly, of films. Beautifully crafted and told, it's the kind of film that makes you realise the power cinema can have over you. Funnily enough I saw this film a lot later than I should have. Ever since my parents began to notice that I had a bigger interest in films than your average child, my mum insisted that I watch this film. For some reason, I always kept putting it off or saying I'd watch it later but never got round to it. It was until I was 16, when I was at my friend's house in the south of France, that I actually saw. I was looking through his films and saw it there, and I thought to myself "I might as well". I remember watching it and being absolutely transfixed to the screen, oblivious to whatever else was happening around in the house. When it finished, I felt like a different person; any dreams or ideas about being a filmmaker became concrete. I didn't have any idea what I was going to do or how I was going to get there, but I knew that I wanted to be part of something that had that effect on people. And for any cynics out there who think this is all sentimental drivel (Harper, I'm looking at you), I dare you to watch it and not a shed a single tear at the end of it.

I came across this today during my cruising of the information super highway. It's an attempt by three men who, after much research, decided they would write the most annoying song ever. They came up with a 22-minute behemoth involving operatic rapping, organs, bagpipes, tubas, children singing about holidays, and lots of other stuff.

http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/04/a-scientific-at.html

To be honest, you can't help but think their work was all in vain when this sonic aberration was unleashed upon the earth.

The 3rd week of filming ended yesterday and now there's only one week to go. Even though this week went by pretty quickly, it wasn't an easy one. Night shoots definitely have a signficant effect on everyone's mood, even if the amount of work we were having to do seemed less than the day shoots. It tended to range from tired to grumpy-tired and occasionally half-delirious tired (the sort of tiredness where you find everything funny and you can't really concentrate or be productive at all; and I'm not using the term as a euphemism by the way...). But we managed to get through it all unscathed and ready for the final lap. Most of the week was spent filming scenes in the protagonist's house, so I didn't end up taking many photos since they would mostly have been the same. On top of that, my camera has been acting crazy recently and decided it wanted a week off from work, so I didn't actually have a choice in the matter. But this last week is going to include scenes of a large fancy dress ball in a mansion and a few of a Samba club, so there should plenty of interesting stuff to shoot. Stay tuned.

The most interesting thing about this week was actually a conversation I had yesterday with the Director of Photography in the film, Hélcio Alemão Nagamine, who shot a film last year called 'Birdwatchers' (I didn't find a release date for the UK but with its success at Venice and other film festivals, I imagine it should come out in the next few months or so). We were talking about the popularisation of HD cameras and whether or not film will eventually die out since everyone appears to be making the move to digital. His opinion was that digital will probably take over eventually but film won't die out because of the quality factor, which as much as digital might wish to reproduce, it'll never quite get there. The irony, as he put it, is that we're letting go of high quality equipment for something worse that doesn't actually offer as many benefits as people think.

The particular example he was talking about was the RED camera (photo above), a digital camera that has been built to allow the use of cinematic lenses in order to get closer to the depth of field that film cameras can achieve, as opposed to video where everything tends to appear in focus, leaving the image very flat. The RED camera has a very high definition of image (after all, it's HD) but, as I said before, it'll never quite reach film. But it's being used more and more since it can produce this high quality image for a fraction of the price of film. This, however, is only considering the price of the cameras themselves. When you look at post-production costs, the amount of money that can end being spent on image correction on video (which is much easier and cheaper to do on film) means that at the end of the day, you might have spent the same amount of money that you would have had you used film only to end up with material is undeniably worse. So the financial factor seems in favour of film.

Someone else commented on their experiences with the RED, criticising it heavily. Apparently it's still a prototype and still has many problems which filmmakers are only discovering upon filming with it. For example, every time you change a battery or unload material from the hard drive, the camera has to restart itself, which can take up to 3 minutes. This is 3 times the length of time you'd need to change a reel on a camera. The RED also has a fan that prevents the camera from overheating; since the camera will naturally heat up during filming, the fan goes faster to keep it cool. The noise the fan makes can end up being much louder than the sound of the mechanism in a film camera, which for anyone who works with sound is a nightmare. And unlike a film camera, where the sound of the mechanism can be reduced throwing a cover over it, the RED will only heat up even more until it shuts down, meaning another 3-minute restart. So the practical factor seems in favour of film too.

What's more, Nagamine was telling me that film is only reaching its peak now in terms of technology. Negatives have never been as sensitive to light as they are today. In his eyes, it seems we're moving on to something worse right when things are getting good with what we have; what we have is a change being lead by the people who make these cameras, not by the people who use them. But this of course is only one opinion and I'm sure many digital enthusiasts would be more than ready to point out all the advantages of the RED that I've failed to highlight here. It's just refreshing to see a different view on the subject, and more importantly an informed one. I'm not saying I'm turning my back on digital of course but personally, if the circumstances allowed for it, I think I'd always choose film. The idea of working with film itself has always appealed to me, the feeling of holding it physically in your hands and knowing the incomparable quality that it has. Much like the way a record collector will always cherish his vinyl LP over a plastic CD or (god forbid) an mp3. Just take a look at this guy, he definitely knows what I'm talking about.

So it turns out that I'm technically not allowed to put up any photos I've taken from the film set. Apparently it's a breach of contract as I might be giving away intellectual property that belongs to the filmmakers. Which seems a little odd to me since once you copyright a script, it then becomes legally yours so you'd be protected in all instances. Or maybe that's only in written terms. These are probably all the legal ins and outs that I don't fully understand about the industry yet. Plus, since they have an official stills photographer, they probably want control of the pictures that get posted on the internet, which makes sense. The pernickety bastards.

Truth be told, I could probably get away with putting these photos up since the production is already pushed for cash to buy enough reels to finish the film, let alone pay for a lawyer to sue me for a few photos. But that's hardly the best way to look at it. And besides, it's only until the production's finished, so you'll just have to wait a little bit longer to see more photos.

In the meantime, here's a squirrel waterskiing.

Don't you wish you sounded like James Earl Jones sometimes? A deep, resonating voice that commands dignity and respect, no matter what he says. Or better yet, you could have that famous film trailer voice that you always hear but that you can't imagine anyone actually having because it sounds so preposterous.

The thing is I find the concept of the voice-over in all its forms strangely fascinating. Not from a theoretical or aesthetic point of view, more due to its mystery factor: whose voice is that? You might argue that the same could be said about talking to someone on the phone, but it's not the same since they're not putting on a voice at all (usually) so you make assumptions about their appearance based on what they sound like, even if they're entirely wrong. When I'm watching a cartoon, I've got absolutely no idea what the voice-over artist looks like. Mel Blanc, for example, did the voices for all Looney Tunes characters, how could you even begin to guess what he looks like? A better example might be Marcus Bentley, the voice-over artist who narrates Big Brother in the UK. This is what he looks like.

I wouldn't in a million years put that face to that voice, I imagined someone completely different. Furthermore, why choose a Geordie voice to narrate Big Brother? And why does David Mitchell of Peep Show fame, who has a wimpish, sneering voice, seem to get so much work as a voice-over artist?

I bring this up because on Wednesday, I got an offer to record an English voice-over for a Brazilian advert, specifically that advert for the art school about the guy who sneezes paint that I worked on. They were looking for someone in their 20s with a good English accent and so the director recommended me. If that wasn't surprising enough, when I arrived at the studio to record, they had something else they wanted me to record: a spot for Cannes Festival involving an animation of Stalin talking to Chairman Mao with the dialogue from Empire Strikes Back where Vader tells Luke who his father really is. Due to copyright restrictions, they couldn't use the original dialogue, so they had me record Luke Skywalker's bit.

Truly a surreal experience. Both adverts still have to be sent off to be approved by the clients but if all goes well, I've got lots more work ahead of me as a voice-over artist. Who knew? More importantly though, this might just be the closest I'll ever get to being a Jedi.

In other news, we're starting night shoots on the film today for the next two weeks. Can't wait to see what's in store for us all...

So another weekend of filming has gone by and this time I’ve got quite few stories to tell. Friday saw us filming in the centre of São Paulo, which isn’t the safest areas in the city, least of all when you’re carrying around expensive equipment that someone could easily steal if you’re not looking. It’s a shame really since the centre used to be a very lavish part of the city with lots of beautiful architecture, but nowadays it’s a lot more decadent. The buildings still stand but they’re worn down now and don’t exude the same presence as before. But there is still a lot of history there and lots of hidden gems scattered around the place from restaurants to bars to clubs and so on. A friend of mine is going to be writing a chapter on the centre for the new Time Out Guide to São Paulo, so by tagging along with him I should find out a lot more myself.

Back to the story: the scene itself was extremely simple, just the main character walking up a busy street with lots of vendors, occasionally stopping to see what they sell. Except that in this kind of environment where so many elements can determine the success of the scene, even something as simple as this took hours. And at the end of the day, the best take we had was one that was most improvised, with the main actor bumping into a stranger by accident and having to avoid a passing car. All the rehearsals that had gone before didn’t compare to how natural this take felt. Talking to the actor, he said he was amazed as he had never worked in a setting like this before where there were no extras and the environment wasn’t controlled; he was simply reacting to the world around him. Seeing this made me understand why so many directors prefer to film on location: it may be more out of their hands but it means they may end up with a shot that they could never reproduce in a studio, something completely natural.

Saturday was more scenes at the factory from last week, nothing too out of the ordinary, just more conversations between the main character and his colleagues as well as his boss. It was problem-free day and everyone went home in a good mood. That was until about half an hour on the way back when it just started pouring down; torrential, end-of-the-world, “The Day After Tomorrow” (maybe not that much) rain. In fact it got so bad that the roads started flooding; I remember looking at all the cars in front at one point and they were just gliding along, with no control of the wheel at all. That we didn’t hit someone seems like a miracle to me. Eventually it got so bad that we had to just stop and wait for it to pass (luckily we were on hill). Some people tried to brave it and you could see the current taking a few of them away; the water must have been half a metre deep where we were. Thankfully we got home fine, although some weren’t as lucky. And unfortunately images like this from the weekend happen more often than one might think here.

On the other end of the naturalism spectrum, Sunday was as melodramatic as could be. It was the final scene of the film, involving a hostage situation at the factory with lots of police and cameras and reporters circling the main character and his hostage. Having to organise all the extras for every shot wasn’t easy work for the crew, and the 36 degree heat certainly didn’t help. Excuses aside, I couldn’t help but think that for a final scene, it didn’t fit with the rest of the style and content of the film. A naturalistic film about unemployment shouldn’t really end with a Hollywood style situation. Sure, these are the actions of a desperate man but it just didn’t sit well with everything that had come before. Well, I’ll have to wait till the finished film to see if I’m proven wrong.

Today was again a relatively simple day, most of being taken up by the art crew setting up a location. The main character (Oton), having met a documentary film-maker who lives in the favela, decides to visit his studio. The film-maker is a bit an oddball character (played by “Lil’ Zé”) who has a pirate channel called TV Clandestina (Clandestine TV). He makes programmes for the proletariat, interested in bringing their voice to the forefront, and finds in Oton the perfect subject character; a man who’s lost his job for no reason and who’s determined to get it back. So after filming the TV studio, we went to a favela to film the outdoor scenes. It would’ve been quick and painless had it not rained (no floods today), but luckily there were problems really. I think we managed to film everything and leave before we attracted too much attention, although one very drunk old man couldn’t help but express how much “he loved us all and what we were doing”. Isn’t it nice to be appreciated?

It’s amazing how there have been no major problems so far, with days finishing on time or even early. For a low-budget film, everything seems pretty tight so far; my only other experience of working on low-budget feature-length had 24-hour days, trouble with the police, actors getting injured, it was a mess. Not to say it wasn’t fun though, I think everyone likes a bit of chaos every once in a while. I better not speak too soon though…

For the next month or so, this blog will be pretty much dedicated to the film I’m currently working on, mainly because since we started filming I’ve barely had time to do anything else. Long days and early starts aren’t exactly the best of daily routines, which is why I’ve only managed to start writing about the experience after four days. It’s definitely worthwhile, though, these last four days I feel I’ve already learnt a lot more about the technical side of filmmaking (i.e. the camera) than I would’ve imagined.

The film is called ‘No Olho da Rua’, which literally translates as ‘In the Eye of the Street’ but I think a better translation would be ‘In the Heart of the Street’. I’ll be honest, I haven’t read the whole script yet, but it’s basically about issues with workers and unions, unemployment and the consequences thereafter (e.g. becoming homeless). It’s a low budget movie, you can see they’re cutting corners if they can, but nonetheless it has actors that are recognised in the street, one of them being Leandro Firmino, who played Lil’ Zé in ‘City of God’. It’s funny to see how he’s changed since making that, for one he’s got a lot chubbier. In fact he doesn’t seem half as menacing as the druglord maniac he played in that film, he’s a lot more like a teddy bear. Seriously. And I can’t help laugh to myself everytime anyone repeats his famous opening line in the film: “Dadinho o caralho, meu nome agora é Zé Pequeno” (“Fuck Lil’ Dice, my name’s Lil’ Zé now”). Even 5 year-old kids say it to him, which in many ways is quite disturbing really.

So the first day (last Friday) was pretty easygoing, exchanging quick conversations with people from all the different departments whilst filming pretty simple shots in two locations in São Paulo. Probably a good way to start as everyone gets a feel for how the crew works as a whole. Then on the weekend, we went to a factory outside São Paulo that made parts for old VW beetles (which are called Fuscas here in Brazil) as the main character supposedly worked in said factory. Then yesterday and today were spent were spent filming outdoor scenes, all again relatively simple, involving the two main characters having conversations. So all in all, pretty smooth-going so far. I suspect that all these easy scenes are being crossed now, leaving the much tougher and eventful sequences for later on in the month.

Not many on-set stories to tell so far, but off-set, something pretty frightening happened last night. We were supposed to be filming in Paraisópolis today, a favela here in Sao Paulo located right next to one of the richest neighbourhoods in the city (the disparity between rich and poor in Brazil couldn’t be better illustrated than this favela in my opinion; in fact the photo below shows you exactly why.)

We were all set to go today but late in the evening last night I got a call from the producer saying that the location had changed but didn’t give me a reason. I just assumed it was a slight hitch and didn’t think anymore about it. It was only this morning that I found out that there had been a pretty big incident involving people from the community and the police; right now, there are still 180 officers trying to take control of the situation (though knowing police in Brazil, it’s certainly going to result in more bloodshed). What’s more frightening is that the area where it all took place was pretty much the spot that had been chosen for filming. You hear about all these incidents all the time but when you think that might have actually been stuck in the middle of it all, well, you can imagine.

But thankfully nothing did happen, and tomorrow I’ve got another day of filming ahead of me with an early start, so my bed is where it’s at right now.