in the public library. (thinking/working)

my scrapbook. my cellphone: battery almost dead. my plotting & planning next film storyline.

Collected scraps for JANE script

-These (images seen above this text) are a few crap-cell-fone images taken by ME (myself) this morning as I am preparing to write my new script.

-These scraps have been part of a massive collection of ideas gathered over many months.

-The goal here is to review these images, interpret a structured narrative from the "presumed" reasons why these images compelled me enuff to gather them (i.e. tear-them-out), and then I will begin to write a story (in some random public library).

METHODOLOGY USED FOR SCRIPT DESIGN: Torn scrap pictures that will be scotch-taped to a cheap spiral notebook and then I use a fun pen that will unfortunately by "running out of ink" . This will all dictate the foward action of the script's narrative that I will ultimately be responsible for executing.


That's it.
Have a nice lunch.
TTFN for now.

me
xo

p.s. I took a nice soapy shower. I did all of my laundry. and I just looked into the public library restroom mirror. I look greeat. I hope that you ALL do too.

clip from nominated film, "IN THE NAME OF"

God bless cell-phone photography.

( the terrorists picked the wrong family wedding to bomb )...

Oscars doc shorts nominations

LAST NIGHT I SAW ALL OF THE SHORT FILM DOCUMENTARIES THAT HAVE BEEN SELECTED AND NOMINATED FOR 2011 OSCARS. I paid for 3 of the selections. Snuck into the other 3. Was given complimentary popcorn. I paid 5 bucks for a diet coke with Xtra ice. So now, let me (us) begin.

Amazing films. Well maybe 'amazing' is the wrong word. Powerful pieces. Totally made me realize that true documentary cinema now resides in the 'shorts' film genre. Sad that so much of the public does not get exposed to these important works by true artists. True ACTIVISTS.

* I ate mussels at a french bistro after I watched all the films. From 1am till 2 am. A live crap jazz band with a pack of drunk blondes urging for a rendition of Lionel Richie's 'All Night Long'. They got thrown out before I finishes dipping my bread into the white wine sauce bowl...Not that you care to hear these details.

So, back to Janey's movienight

Iraq, suicide bombers and environmental global warming. That is what I subjected myself to.
That night. Last night. Let me continue to explain some more.

'POSTER GIRL' was my favorite piece. It should, and will, win the Oscar competition race.
The film follows the story of a girl who enrolled in the military, was sent to IRAQ, forced into combat, and returned home a different and permanently disturbed person with PTSD (POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER).
A busmans holiday for me (aka jane, aka joey) , but I was glued to my seat. It was amazing to hear that VA assistance for those who 'served' remains like it was for the VIETNAM VETERANS, BASICALLY LIKE BEGGING FOR FOOD STAMPS!

***other recommendations from the nomination roster:

- THE WARRIORS OF QIUGANG USA/39 MIN

- SUN COME UP USA, Papua New Guinea/38 MIN

- KILLING IN THE NAME USA/39 MIN

KABOOM

Saw Araki's new film KABOOM last nite. Was not his strongest work, good visual casting. Messy story filled with a potpourri of usual Araki stuff. The film had its strongest moment sometime in the middle. A character abruptly claims that the end of cinema /death of cinema is approaching. Scary thought, as I have had this conversation on more than one occassion in the past 6 months with associates. Then Araki has literal moment of clip from a Bunuel classic of the eye getting slashed across the screen. I felt devastated at the idea that cinema may soon be at its final days of pure extinction ....why???... people don't wanna go out and experience public cinema due to smart phones amd compact forms of modern technology.

That said, today I remember the gasp of the crowd when the cut of 'Un Chen Andelou' blasts across the big screen. It begs reaction. Today, I feel that there may still be Hope.

from a fan...

Dear filmmaker Joey,

Your films are intense sensitive beautiful honest important

You are intense sensitive beautiful honest important

I will talk to you soon

Sent on the fly...

Shotlist/storyboards & thinktank session

Renee and ME- some diner on a hill- brainstorming the first official appearance of Jane Public on film.
How do we shoot it? What cameras? What format/s ? How do we interpret/marry french cinema via experimental means.
We tore up the paper menu, created artificial Framing Screens and went at it. First steps towards the bigger picture. More creative updates to soon...

Paris casting / GIRLSTORIES grand finale

Florence (performance artist/dancer/actress) has been officially added to complete the final touches of the GIRLSTORIES final conclusion. Cider, Brooklyn, wigs and war stories all fit in for the creative talk needed for the upcoming basement shoot...

Our "process" has been set into motion. Birds of a feather flock together.

me
xo

p.s. it's nobodys business but ours where these 2 persons (me and Her) met up for the private "talk". BUT (all privacy aside), drive over the Williamsburg Bridge at some point in time, catch a quick Left, keep on driving, and good luck. Look for bad live music, dingy decor and long dark features (me and Hers). Then go God Bless kindred spirits. Florence WILL BE Jane Public and introduce the Girlstories trilogy to France. Stay Tuned. BYE FOR NOW.

Kim Gordon introducing Girlstories

Kim Gordon (Sonic Youth) introducing my new film trilogy GIRLSTORIES as a contemporary piece of social studies -in East Village, NYC
12/11/2010

GIRLSTORIES performance rehearsals

Actress Veronica in a tape rehearsal for, "GIRLSTORIES" film.
Film headed to Cannes 2011.

Friendship and film school

My loyal friends, after so many years.
God bless the power of art.

Dane Shitagi- photographer

Dane is Incredible photographer. He is currently working alongside some of my GIRLSTORIES production team. Here is a Link to his ballet photographic project:
http://www.daneshitagi.com/html_pages/projects_html/ballet_html/ballet_12.html

THE WOODMANS (film doc)

"The Woodmans" is a film about a family's wages of art--and the power of art to heal. It features the paintings and ceramics of George and Betty Woodman; the videos of their son Charlie; and the extraordinary photography of daughter Francesca Woodman. Original score composed by 2008 Pulitzer Prize winner.

CLICK ON THIS LINK TO SEE TRAILER !!!...
http://www.thewoodmansmovie.com/

My new pal Ed Harris's interview at SIFF

CLICK ON THIS LINK:
http://www.syrfilmfest.com/

"DEADLINE" FORCES MY CREATIVE PROCESS

The deadline for CANNES FILM FESTIVAL is around the corner.

I am forced into a position of shooting the final GIRLSTORY person (hostess).

I am grabbing, tearing and scribbling things all over my world (see above, torn scribbled JANE/JOEY ideas).

I found my location for the shoot yesterday afternoon (a cold stone basement).

I found the "look" I want for the actress.

Next Comes, THE SHOOT !

I wish God would give us fast foward buttons. I really wanna hit a LIFE-FAST-FOWARD button and watch the thing before I shoot it.

bye.

x

p.s. I love my new $3 sunglasses too. Thankx for the inner compliment.

luv, me xo

more aggravating HOPE

So I forced myself to swallow the sad reality of modern technology. I forced myself to turn on the new camera and "explore" it's potentials, learn its abilities. I continue to grieve the demise of celluloid. I like being hands on in every part of the process of creativity-I don't like digital things telling my ideas what to do.
When in art school (film school) I literally slept in the editing room. Every assignment became a film when I was finished. I would get reprimanded for not following the rules, I would get in trouble for trying to do more than the simple "lighting" or "blocking" assignments. Ironically, the film school projects became the beginning of my reputation, of my voice.

This new camera, I now see, as a tool. The "perfect" glossy look sickens me. But, my approach may change. I will view the "information" that I capture with it as raw material to sculpt in the Post production stages.

Funny, as I spent hours viewing other people's work with this 60D camera model on YOUTUBE, I was reminded that anyone can have a "tool", but only few are artisans. That temporarily relieved me. Like the Super 8mm camera of the 70's (available then at Woolworths and local pharmacies), the technology out there in the world is open to the public. Again, only few will take advantage of this fact (take advantage of its potential to create things of relevance).

I have a lot to learn. I will keep playing for a few weeks. Unfortunately, I seem to be hastened to the cinematic poem. Despite knowing that I could get "rich and famous" with a long, conservative narrative, I am more in love with the small statements that I can make. I am a fine artist, not a filmmaker in the sense of the conventional idea I am not interested in making fun mass consumable fast food. I am interested in saying things directly disguised.

I have, and will use, programs to become my darkroom (per se). I will experiment with different mixings of print and paper stocks. I will experiment with various forms of "presentation". Basically, I will follow my instincts.

Weird to use this small machine that works under the leadership (dictatorship) of a BATTERY LIFE. I layed in my bed and simply took compositions/shots of my body parts. Of things on my walls. Of "moments".

I will spend the weekend picking up, and putting down this thing called the Canon 60D.
I will do my best to have a relationship with it. I will do my best to call it my new best friend.

me

Trial by Error.

so here i am tonight...FORCING myself how to learn this new filmmaking tool (it's how I must approach this thing, as a tool)...this hyped digital object which i have kept a good 10 feet away from since it arrived to my home by UPS. This CANON 60D.
i MUST learn this thing in order to make new films. the future has arrived...film stocks are extinct. i HATE how "preety" and "Glooossssy" it all looks.

but I am certain that in due time, i will taint it with my trademark style and STAMP.


me.xo

p.s. wish me luck my precious fans. I am very excited about one thing for certain, I am excited about using "pluralizing software" that will allow me to take incredible sound with my sound field recorder and synch it up to the moving images that I plan to capture with this haunting battery operated thing .
LINK TO TESTS WITH THIS CAMERA:
http://vimeo.com/channels/canon60d

Do people change?

Rose: People change.

Ida: I've never changed. It's like those sticks of rock. Bite one all the way down, you'll still read Brighton. That's human nature.

a day at the MET (it had been years)

it had been years since i had gone to the MET. today, i made up for that lost time.
i love portraits. i love oils. i am a filmmaker who approaches cinema as a "fine art".
i felt at home at the MET today. i felt completely surrounded by family.

me
xo

p.s. these are the images/works that caught my eye the most...this is where my eye shot to.

Anne-Maree Barry's film exhibition in IRELAND

Anne-Maree Barry's, "Rialto Twillers" gallery exhibition representing her new film work (Ireland)

Amy Goodman's new book public talk

LINK TO CLICK ON:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nNVsdSWMEI

So much in common (it's strange)

His humanist approach. His confirmed "laughter on the set". So much in common. He lives via his cinema, but he is missed by so many. We owe him the ultimate. We owe to him pure honesty in the art
LINK:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-471783/Ingmar-Bergman-legendary-film-director-dead-89.html


"I was an introverted child. My family lived in a small town in the north of Sweden, and I was very lonely. I had an artistic bent, toward painting and music, and then I drifted into acting when I was still an adolescent. I played everything–music hall singers, comedy ingenues, a few of the classics on the stage. I did one thriller for an American television producer with Robert Mitchum–I think it was finally released in theatres. I can't remember most of them today. My real career began when I went to work for Ingmar."

– Ingrid Thulin (1964)

Jane's own little film review.

Q: Dear Jane, how would you describe the film, "FANNY AND ALEXANDER" ?

A: That film (F & Alexander) is very dense. It has a lot (and even a lot of humor). The film is really about "breaking free". Even the Bishop breaks free in his terrible burning anguish & death. He was also asking to die, in so many ways.
He wanted to be terminated, I feel. He knew that by severely punishing the childen, and also shaming the Jewish man, would bring definitive black karma his way.

The characters are all plagued by this quiet conservative ambience that dominates their lives, yet behind closed doors/red curtains (although the maids are always privvy), they have their fun and flings with one another, and indulge themselves in taboos beyond the imaginable. When doors are closed, they permit themselves to be human.

The mother screaming like a banshee, and pacing back and forth in the background while the children endured was so horrifying. I am glad you made me pay extra attention to that part, with all of its cultural meanings. She was completely lost in a trance of primal screaming.

The marriage of the bishop and his young bride captured the heart of the film. At first, this choice for marriage seemed perfect. Lovey. Responsible. Possible. Then, as their relationship becomes comfortable (I mean as HE becomes comfortable) the devastation of his need to dominate and restrict take course. He drained her without even meaning to. His behaviour toward her children was despicable, but it was not that behaviour that compelled her to take action and leave him. It was her realization that if she stayed there, she would end up just as inanimate as all of those puppets in the film. If she stayed inside of that world, she would be wooden.

* * * I especially liked some of Bergman's casting choices. Like the casting of Ismael (a woman Bergman cast as a male), that weird strange evil person, who basically ignites the horrors that everyone is keeping steadily within by a simple and isolated conversation with Alexander in a room.

In conclusion- The film summarized Bergman's lifelong crisis that he had with his priest father.
For others (us, the public audience), I feel the film explained just how dangerous keeping unexpressed intense family emotions can be. Especially if there is some kerosene hiding somewhere around the house.

KODACHROME R.I.P. : 1935-2010

My last 2 films (Nice People + Homewrecka) could not have been as visually beautiful without my use of Kodachrome.
The only lab left in the world (Kansas) that was developing the film stock for artists like myself has now declared its discontinuance. Its unfortunate demise. A very sad day for artists. The Kodachrome stock was known to have a "color" archival rate of over 100 years when stored inside a freezer :(
Link:
http://www.npr.org/2010/12/30/132485438/photos-steve-mccurrys-last-roll-of-kodachrome

Link to another important article, citing the famous "Afghan Girl" photo captured on Kodachrome.
http://mashable.com/2010/12/30/say-goodbye-to-kodachrome/

Another sad passing today.

link has details...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101230/ap_on_en_ot/eu_france_obit_caro

The future of the avant-garde theatre ?

The future of experimental avant-garde cinema...click on link...
http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-12-22/film/year-in-film-culture-high/

Kenneth Anger interview at ANN ARBOR FILM FEST

click on link...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfySTA-ey4c