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.