The Ken Burns Effect

When I was maybe 10 years old, I started watching documentaries for fun. The first ones I watched were those by Ken Burns, shown on PBS. When I started making documentaries of my own, the fact that I could bring stills to life like Ken Burns did was incredibly cool, and I was really proud of myself. Ken Burns talked about his signature "moves" on POV recently. Enjoy.

Movie Diary: Argo, Cloud Atlas, and Flight

This entry would have packed more punch had I not procrastinated writing it for over a week. Alas, the information is the same.

Two weeks ago, SM and I went to three movies in 6 days, after a theater drought lasting a month or two. There are lots of movies out that I actually want to see, which doesn't always happen, so I'm glad to be able to take in at least a few of them.

Friday: Argo We've started somewhat of a tradition or habit with our friend JRF that involves us hanging out for a time at a bar — catching up, watching a game, what have you — and then getting the hankering to see a movie. The past two times we've done it, it was almost like we were daring each other, calling each other's bluff to stop everything and go see it now. The last movie was Looper; a solid and thrilling effort all around that we rushed to at 11:30pm on a Saturday night. I'd give it a B+. This time, we were watching the Bulls game along with JRF and our friend VP and decided on the 10:30 showing of Argo.

Argo was good. I loved the commitment to the time period throughout: even the opening production company credits were from the 1970s. The acting was great by all of those involved. I was especially happy to see Clea DuVall, an actress I've rarely seen outside of Carnivale and that one Buffy episode where she's invisible because no one noticed her. I've also been a Chris Messina fan since Six Feet Under, and, while I think The Mindy Project is too meh for me to actually stick to watching it, I'm glad he's popping up in more places. (Yeah, yeah, the bigger-name actors great too, and I was happy to see John Goodman, Bryan Cranston, etc, etc...) People complain about Ben Affleck, but I thought gave a solid performance, in front of and behind the camera. SM and I had a conversation about his range, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, and I do really want to see the other projects he's helmed, but I think we've calculated that it takes us 3 years to get completely through our Netflix queue, from bottom to top. Good movie - B+.

Saturday: Cloud Atlas Our friends J&C had asked us to form some sort of book club to read Cloud Atlas before the movie's release at the end of October. SM missed out, but the three of us were all read up by the time we reunited after Hurricane Sandy and celebrated both our power being back on and their recent engagement by going to a movie and dinner.

I have this problem where, if one of these things is not like the other and someone is experiencing something under different circumstances from me, I'm taken out of my experience and spend most of my time fretting about how that someone is handling it. I worry about a parent in a theater full of teens, or a co-worker among my friends, etc. In this case, I spent the entire movie trying to get outside of myself and see the movie how SM must have been seeing it, without the context of the book. As a result, I concluded that it was much too confusing to take in without the background of the novel. Afterward, SM said that he could follow along fine, and he really liked the movie, but that was after I'd given up hope that he'd been enjoying himself. All that said, I really liked what the Wachowskis did to the story. I am always thinking about media being the best whatever it is they are that they can be (the best novel, the best movie, regardless of them being based on the same story), so I appreciated the choices and cuts they made to the stories. I actually thought the film did a much neater job than the book ever did of tying up loose ends and putting fine points on each story as well as on how they all connect. It was this aspect of the movie that SM said came across as heavy-handed, but I guess since I knew what I was missing, I was rather satisfied. I'd like to watch the movie again without all of the pressure of thinking and feeling for my company, but for now, I'd give the movie a B.

Thursday: Flight GC and AW emailed us and VP about going to see Flight, and we saw no reason to say no. The power of the Denzel picture has certainly diminished in my eyes, but not to a point where I'll refuse to see his work. I'm really glad we decided to go, and not just for the bonus of seeing John Goodman in two pictures in 6 days.

First of all, the story was more unique than I'd acknowledged before. True, it's just a good old fashioned redemption story, but the nature of the obstacles the protagonist encounters — beyond alcoholism — aren't your normal movie fodder. Granted, I haven't seen many addiction stories that are purely about addiction, so maybe I'm just ignorant of the genre. The aspect of them film I liked best was that it was first and foremost about a man and his demon. Friendship, love, occupation, etc. are all parts of the film, as they are parts of our lives, but they don't triumph over the man's problems. He is given so many chances, and you see so many points at which you expect him to bottom out, at which another movie would give in for him and sober him up. But then you realize that it's gotten bad for us and bad for his friends on his behalf, but it hasn't gotten bad enough for him. And he's the only one who can really decide that enough is enough. The denouement is perhaps a little too overwrought, but I did like the very end. One last aspect I would be remiss to mention is that he reminded me a lot of my dad. Not that my dad has a problem with addiction or anything, but the relationship Denzel has with his son is reminiscent of what I saw between my dad and my siblings. It actually made me uncomfortable throughout the movie, and seeing middle-aged Denzel in general might cause discomfort for similar reasons. I think that's one reason the very end spoke to me more-so than it did to SM. A-.

Calling out the Bullshit

DS gave me this essay by Jonathan Franzen to read, and I thought it was fabulous. I recommend it. I've never read Franzen's work because I was afraid I'd encounter the post-modern headaches he so aptly rails against in the piece. After this, I think I'm more willing to give him a try.

Here are my favorite parts:

Fiction is the most fundamental human art. Fiction is storytelling, and our reality arguably consists of the stories we tell about ourselves. Fiction is also conservative and conventional, because the structure of its market is relatively democratic (novelists make a living one book at a time, bringing pleasure to large audiences), and because a novel asks for ten or twenty hours of solitary attentiveness from each member of its audience. You can walk past a painting fifty times before you begin to appreciate it. You can drift in and out of a Bartok sonata until its structures dawn on you, but a difficult novel just sits there on your shelf unread — unless you happen to be a student, in which case you're obliged to turn the pages of Woolf and Beckett. This may make you a better reader. But to wrest the novel away from its original owner, the bourgeois reader, requires strenuous effort from theoreticians. And once literature and its criticism become co-dependent the fallacies set in.

For example, the Fallacy of Capture, as in the frequent praise of "Finnegans Wake" for its "capturing" of human consciousness, or in the justification of "J R" 's longueurs by its "capture" of an elusive "postwar American reality"; as if a novel were primarily an ethnographic recording, as if the point of reading fiction were not to go fishing but to admire somebody else's catch. Or the Fallacy of the Symphonic, in which a book's motifs and voices are described as "washing over" the reader in orchestral fashion; as if, when you're reading "J R," its pages just turn themselves, words wafting up into your head like arpeggios. Or the Fallacy of Art Historicism, a pedagogical convenience borrowed from the moneyed world of visual art, where a work's value substantially depends on its novelty; as if fiction were as formally free as painting, as if what makes "The Great Gatsby" and "O Pioneers!" good novels were primarily their technical innovations. Or the epidemic Fallacy of the Stupid Reader, implicit in every modern "aesthetics of difficulty," wherein difficulty is a "strategy" to protect art from cooptation and the purpose of this art is to "upset" or "compel" or "challenge" or "subvert" or "scar" the unsuspecting reader; as if the writer's audience somehow consisted, again and again, of Charlie Browns running to kick Lucy's football; as if it were a virtue in a novelist to be the kind of boor who propagandizes at friendly social gatherings.

And near the end:

I know the pleasures of a book aren't always easy. I expect to work; I want to work. It's also in my Protestant nature, however, to expect some reward for this work. And, although critics can give me pastoral guidance as I seek this reward, ultimately I think each individual is alone with his or her conscience. As a reader, I seek a direct personal relationship with art. The books I love, the books on which my faith in literature rests, are the ones with which I can have this kind of relationship.

Why I Joined Twitter: Part 2

What a time to join a micro-blogging network! I'd composed a few Tweets before Hurricane Sandy, but what a great tool for breaking news! As soon as the danger of the storm became real, I was able to email concerned family and friends with the URL to my Twitter account and give them a play by play of how we were experiencing the storm. Facebook seems to hold this gravitas of Announcement to me, a declaration that "I am doing this, and I stand for these things as a person", whereas Twitter seems a bit more forgiving and only declarative of current circumstances. While Facebook has moved to viewing posts through a more historic lens, emphasizing life events and the changes one goes through in their lives (see: timeline), each Tweet supersedes the last.

Of course I'm over-thinking this just a bit, but I was really pleased with how easy it was and how it was the perfect communication tool for getting information out to my family. Instead of wasting texts and battery power briefing every family member keeping tabs on me in the Midwest, I was able to point them to a single source from me as well as other, more professional sources from those I follow, including The New York Times, The Atlantic, Nate Silver, Ezra Klein, WNYC, etc. for both local and national views on the developments.

In short, I think I'm hooked. I have yet to see whether my actual Tweeting will be of any import, but at the very least I love sharing articles and opinions of those I'm following without having it feel like I have something to prove to all of my high school classmates and far-flung relatives. Facebook certainly does have a place in my social network existence, but I'm really enjoying this new discovery. For now.

P.S. SM and I are still without power or running water (day 4...we expect everything to be on tomorrow), but our friends have been kind enough to give us access to their apartment for showers and Internet. Everyone has been really great through this whole thing, and I'm grateful to have so many great friends and family in my life. Also, I called and emailed my dad, so there's that.

Why I Joined Twitter

Last night, I caved and joined Twitter (@tasalone, for those who are aching to know). The reasons are twofold.

1) Throughout the debate season, I've been looking over SM's shoulder, constantly asking him to refresh his Twitter feed (he recently joined because it was mandatory for j-school students) to get the latest reactions and fact checks. From the comedians' commentary to the stats by various news outlets, I spent more time perusing the feed than looking at the tv screen. I thought it was about time I tap this sort of information myself.

2) I completed a job application yesterday on which they asked for my Twitter handle. Now, of course it wasn't necessary, that I have one or share it, but I thought it was an important reminder that social media is increasingly a large part of the news media market, and Twitter has become a skill that is valuable to have. If this is going to be a part of my job applications in the future, I'd better join now before I'm truly out of the loop.

When Twitter first started, my perception of the microblogging site was that it was just too much information about people's lives. I can't find the XKCD right now, but there's one where a guy basically tweets about his every move including the fact that he's on his way to the bathroom. The concept was enough to annoy me from afar and keep me away. Fortunately, the site has evolved into a tool for news and entertainment, and I think it's much better off. I'm not sure how much I'll tweet myself (beyond RTs), but I'm tentatively glad to be owning my own feed.

Bored now.

For the first time in ten years, I'm completely unemployed. No UChicago, no AF temp job. It's been about a week. I'm miserable. I'm beginning to think I'm the type of person who can become lost without structure and purpose, but I can't be sure, since this has never happened to me. In general, my day to day activities and discipline haven't changed much since my previous arrangement of having two work-at-home jobs has finished, but the feeling is markedly different.

My first order of business during my last week with The University of Chicago was to secure a volunteer arrangement, something that could consistently get me out of the apartment and around the city I haven't yet begun to explore. I sent an email to Educational Video Center, a place a lot like a job I had back in 2007-08, and got a call the same day. Monday through Thursday, 2-5, I am a teaching assistant for two classes teaching social justice documentary filmmaking to high school/alternative school students. So that's something. (Perhaps more on this in another post.)

Other than that, my existence consists of applying to at least one job a day (though that drive has been waning), and interminably working on my production reel (UGH), so I can finally apply to all of those jobs in my queue that require one. I've also been teaching myself Adobe After Effects through online tutorials — and trying use it to come up with some kind of graphic identity for said reel. I usually end a variably productive morning with some Buffy or Angel, though I'm beginning to tire of it lately.

I'm beginning to tire of everything lately. As you can see, it's not for lack of things to do. As I've written here before, I can be by myself for hours and come up with an endless list of tasks I should take on. But for all of the busyness I put myself up to, lately, I still find myself thinking the word "bored" — a word and concept I loathe — and sometimes even saying it aloud. I don't believe one can be bored as long as there are things to take care of and thoughts to think and even people around (I guess). But I'm increasingly sad and bored and lethargic, and the false sense of discipline and purpose I give myself just isn't cutting it.

Now, if you know me, you are probably a bit surprised that I didn't plan for this, at least in part. But that's part of the problem: I did. I knew I might be unemployed for some period of time, but I thought I would be driven to give some attention to some of the priorities that had been back-burner'd over the past year. When I left Chicago in July, I did so with a vision of my temporarily-freelance existence, a picture that included cutting a feature-length documentary (pro-bono) for my friend DS and staying financially solvent through a few odd freelance editing jobs here and there through JS. Alas, DS reneged on the documentary after pressure from his production company — months of my work for nothing; I won't even be in the credits. And JS, well...that was probably doomed to begin with. I haven't heard from him in quite a while.

While I don't directly blame those guys for my current situation (wouldn't it have been great if I'd found a job here in NYC back in April?), and while I'm certainly grateful to have been able to live in this new, expensive city for three months now without much worry, I now find myself without any of the preplanned activities I'd banked on and been assured of just three months before, not to mention without the invaluable resume fodder I need to stand out in this insanely competitive market. I don't even want to broach the topic of money. It's just a disappointing situation, and I'm feeling helpless.

Unfortunately, the timing of my complete unemployment has come right as SM's work is ramping up. He has five classes, night lectures, reporting/field work, and hours of reading and writing assignments. By the time we're both home (thank God I'm out and about at least 3 hours of the day so I can say I get back from somewhere), I'm starving for connection, while he is stressing about school. I know I wrote here that I could go for days without talking to anyone, and I still think it currently holds true, but I don't think I realized how much purpose there is in working, even remotely, and resting assured that you will connect with at least someone, and that your work is meaningful to at least someone. Without that component, my world has shrunk that much more.

I'm volunteering at EVC in a program that isn't usually supported by others outside of the main teacher, so outside of helping students (who sometimes mistake me for one of them anyway) with camera work and learning FCP, I often feel superfluous. My friends here in NYC, with the exception of a few graciously involving people, all have their own lives and social groups, and they're often too busy or forgetful of my now-consistent presence to hang out. The perceptions of New York as an isolating place are starting to resonate. I have almost zero desire to get out and meet new people, I just miss having friends I could contact to hang out whenever, or friends with whom I'm comfortable enough to be some type of reliable social group. I remember feeling this way in 2009, after several friends of mine and SM's had left Chicago, and we didn't feel that bond with many people left in the city, so I know it's only a matter of time before that gets better. But feeling out of step with the busy, working world and with SM in school (and meeting new people there), it's hard to look very far ahead. I just hope I'm able to land a job before my money and sanity wear out.

A Little Career Daydreaming

I was recently thinking about career and end goals (a perfect storm of a well timed email from KAC and a future-oriented conversation with DS), and I'm fairly confident that this video has been my guiding inspiration since I was three or four years old. Isn't it amazing? The video opened up my mind to a new way of storytelling and a new view of the world from the behind the scenes that has proved to be even more influential than I thought: I think it pushed me into documentary filmmaking.

Anyone who knows me knows that I have always had one eye on education and the other visual media. From my babysitting jobs, to selling educational games at a toy store, to taking up photography, to teaching Chinese. Somewhere along the way, I discovered documentaries; first I watched them, then I wanted to study them, and finally I wanted to be part of making them. One of my favorite things about filmmaking is the behind the scenes nature of it, both in documenting how something works and, on a meta level, in thinking about and being a part of how such a piece is constructed. I also love the educational aspect: wondering about something, and then figuring it out — the pursuit of knowledge. To me, documentary has both of these aspects: you're pursuing knowledge and you're making something in the process that will in turn open up those doors for other people. And the small scale at which one can do this is fascinating: crayons, gardens (my introduction to jazz, by the way), plumbing systems. It follows that I think the most impressionable audience for this is young children. What cool ways to explain reality to children! In short, want to make videos like these. How to do this is what I've been trying to figure out. I really liked working for the University of Chicago because of the way we were supporting education with video. My favorite projects were for the Oriental Institute and the Mansueto Library. But the scope there includes promotional as well as educational video, so not every project could be like those. I'm trying to move into more specifically educational video work in my recent job search, so at least the content will be in the right place. It would be really cool if I could get into the creative aspect of that work, though. What I would love to do is to make those Sesame Street videos and/or come up with a similar show. That's where coming up with children's show/vignette ideas with KAC comes in. Hopefully one day we'll have our own show, and we can make all the crayon videos we want.

Settling Down

Things in NYC are finally calming down. I'm feeling pretty good about things, and feel a bit more grounded. The adventures with home delivery still continue, but the furniture is trickling in, and as AL wisely said, "first world problem."

I think I might have a lead on a job! More on that if I land it. In the meantime, I'm trying not to become a hermit. I'm pretty sure I could go weeks without talking to anyone, and I'd be perfectly happy with reading, internet, running errands, and silence. Sometimes I think the only reason I talk to others is out of obligation: oh yeah, I should probably have some social interaction now. Oh right, there are people out there who care about me and I care about them, and I should probably do something to keep that up. And it's not that it's not fun, it's just that it's so easy to get caught up in the silence that I don't leave the apartment for days. Yesterday, outside of an early phone meeting, I worked and stemmed the tide of my inbox and cleaned and didn't talk to anyone until I helped SM cut his Final Cut project on my computer.(Oh yeah! Teaching others how to edit can be super fun!)

So I'm going out to lunch today. I'm going up to Columbia in the wind and rain, and I might be better for it in the end. I'll keep you posted.

"New York's Abandoned Railway Station"

This is awesome, and I want to go as soon as possible. H/T Paul. It reminds me of the Low Line project that I would also like to see come to fruition.

Americans in China

I've recently been thinking about getting back into Chinese, reading more about China, and reacquainting myself with Chinese pop culture. Every time I talk to one of my friends in that world, though, I'm reminded of why we all have such a love/hate relationship with China. And it's not just us. This American Life did a recent episode on Americans in China, and the anecdotes and sentiments I've heard and expressed are echoed here.

I think the reason I stopped engaging with China is summed up in Act 1: the act's main character, Kaiser, and the narrator encounter the realization that there will always be a chasm between who they're trying to be — Chinese, in language and habit — and who the Chinese will always see them as — American, an adorable foreigner trying and failing to fit in. The narrator says that when that moment came for him, he suddenly became embarrassed at all the effort he had put in. I had that moment of my own, but instead of trucking onward, I felt so defeated that I stopped. What was the point? What is the endgame, if not to be able to be seen as a peer by the people I've studied so hard to understand? As I hopefully but warily ease back into whatever it was I was doing with China, one thing is clear: I still love Chinese, I just don't think I can love a China that doesn't (can't?) love me.

Unreasonable Olympic Spirit

I get inexplicably excited for the Olympics. The first games I remember are the 1992 Olympics in Spain, though I remember the candy jars my mom bought commemorating that summer more than the events themselves.

SM and I were talking the other day about how I always cheer for the American team. That might seem like a given, but I am rarely a blind fan of anything; all of my allegiances have been thought about (though not necessarily "reasoned") and applied deliberately. Reasons may be little more than gut feelings, but they're feelings nonetheless. I guess what I'm saying is never assume I'm a fan of anything.

The best counterexample is the World Cup. I am rarely going gung ho for the American team. I usually have a good feeling about France. Not that they'll win, but that I will cheer for them. With gusto.

The best explanation for this I could come up with is that the World Cup, in my eyes, is a celebration of international vigor and country/team personality. The common ground is already soccer (okay, fine, football), so the variables become the countries themselves. The individual team members, while certainly important and loved by fans and noted by commentators, take a backseat to each country going head to head. And, frankly, I don't care if America comes out on top. America doesn't even care if America comes out on top. I'm rare enough in America that I even care about and watch the Cup itself, which I do. With gusto.v The Olympics, on the other hand, is all about the individual. Amateurs from all over the United States, Americans as young as 14 years old, are chosen for their superior skill to join Team USA, and around the world other athletes do the same for their countries. They all come together to compete as representatives of their homelands in a ridiculous number of niche sports. It's beautiful. So, in my eyes, it becomes less about rooting for skeet shooting or badminton, and more about supporting this random American who comes from who knows where but who is really good at skeet shooting or badminton for some reason. And when it comes to some random American with a heartwarming story going up against some other rando from Country X in some crazy sport, I'm going to choose the American because that individual amateur got to the Olympics to represent America and is therefore awesome. Every four years the Olympics remind me that the United States is made up of some pretty talented people who excel at their activity because they love it and they work for it, not because they're getting paid millions of dollars.

I'm going to leave it at that, but I will say that the obvious exception is basketball. I have to admit the fact that our professional basketball players from the NBA can play sucks a little of the fun out of it. Basketball is not my favorite sport by a long shot, but I already know these guys. I know who all of them are, and not even by the random nicknames I give them to remember who they are when SM talks about them. That's lame. I would much rather watch some kids come out of nowhere to represent America on the court. It's a lot more dramatic, and a whole lot more fun.

Picking the Nolan Bros. Apart Again...But Not Too Much

After we saw The Dark Knight Rises last weekend, the four of us left the theater a bit underwhelmed. Not necessarily disappointed, just underwhelmed, noting the lackluster dialogue in particular. But my reaction was a bit more nuanced: what does it mean to dislike a film, anyway? Didn't it do what it was supposed to do, namely entertain? Should every film aspire to an Oscar in screenwriting and direction? I have mixed feelings about this, but I'm leaning toward no. I don't necessarily like the idea of Hollywood pouring millions of dollars into box office bombs, but I will admit that I enjoy a good thrill ride of a movie, whether it has hokey one liners or not, as long as it does its job well.

So what makes TDKR different? I think what gets people (myself included) particularly fired up about Nolan brothers films is that they pretend to philosophical depth. They make people think, both about the complex plot of th movie and the larger ideas their characters and plots stir up. But think about them too much, and you see just how fragile their complicated setup ends up being. The catch is, I don't think this is a bad thing. How much do you really have to think about a movie? And this is coming from someone who writes about films for fun. Just because they stir up questions, does it mean they owe us answers? I think A.V. Club's Noel Murray puts it best when he brings up the following points:

would answering these questions (and the questions their viewers have about the movie) enrich the movie and experience, or would it just make the film longer?

If a film does take a political or social stance, is "that alone...a reason to dislike the film?"

And lastly, when does a weak story irrevocably diminish the spectacle, craft, or thrill of an enjoyable movie?

I very much enjoy thinking about cinema, and I have zero desire to just experience a movie from a purely passive point of view. However, I do think there's a point where analysis can go too far, and "suck the fun out of discussing" and watching movies. It's an interesting notion to keep in mind.

In Limbo

It's been a while since I've posted, but I've had good reason and several unfinished drafts to show for it.

SM sent in his applications for graduate schools of journalism back in December, and time has been indiscriminately rushing by ever since. Of course, he was accepted into all four schools to which he applied — Medill at Northwestern, NYU, Berkeley, and Columbia University. By March, he had whittled the list down to the two best, Berkeley and Columbia, and we headed west to check out Cal on March 17.

It was both our first real vacation together, and our first times in California. For me, it was my first time west of Mandan, ND. I had a blast. Check out my iPhone pictures. One thing that stood out to me, though, was just the feeling of isolation; it was palpable. I felt that moving to California would be a conscious choice to leave my friends, family, and connections to a certain life that was buzzing about on the east side of the country. They are on a different frequency there that felt good just as much as it felt somehow selfish. Anyway, by SM's second day of admitted student activities, I was having a bit of a panic attack about being so disconnected. My pictures of California, I told him, were full of beautiful places; my pictures of New York were filled with my friends.

In the end, SM settled on New York, but necessarily on his own terms. In mid-April, we visited NYC for the Columbia admitted students weekend, and by the second day he was sold by the prestige, the challenge, and the job opportunities afforded by Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism.

And so on July 2, we shipped our things and left Chicago on a train. And I've been in limbo ever since.

I definitely feel less isolated than I think I would had we moved to Berkeley, but at this point, 8 days after leaving SM's childhood room in Goshen and moving into our new place on 30th and 9th, and 17 days after pulling out of Union station, I still feel like my feet have yet to touch the ground. I don't like it. It's not as much that I miss Chicago — I do miss certain parts, certain people — as much as I haven't fully grounded myself here in New York. And I'm not exactly worried as I am impatient; I want this feeling of detachment to be over. It makes me sad.

I wonder if I felt this way in college, when I first moved to Chicago. It's the only other time in my life when I've made the leap into such new territory. Maybe not, though, because I thought I knew Chicago, and of course I didn't, but I thought I did. It's strange. It will probably just take some time and some walking around and some feeling that I know this new place. It will probably also take some more detachment from Chicago: a new job would probably go a long way, for example.

I'll let you know how this turns out.