Okay, so... I tried to use the camera for taping some of my students as they gave their Informative Speeches (I teach Public Speaking), and it was having the same problems as with Tape 22 -- a kind of digital flipping & skipping on playback of the tape I was testing to see if it was the right tape to use. This means I really do have to bring the camera somewhere to get it looked at -- sh@*!! :(
Saw my brother in an independent film here recently -- 'Further North.' Lee's in it, along with small parts for Laura (his wife) and Calvin (one of their sons), and a bunch of local actors I know, including Pete. Took them two years to film it over three seasons! They used high-end professional equipment -- the director has access through his job, I understand. Producer was boom operator, that sort of thing -- I'm not sure how much money they had. A lot of it was shot outside in the snow when it was like 5 degrees! In fact, Pete was supposed to get shot and the bloody back of his head was going to go flying off, but the blood contraption kept freezing, so they couldn't use it.
As truly "indie" films go (friends working together, no one getting paid), I don't think it was any better than See & Believe could/will be. There were things about it that showed more feature experience, and that camera really did take beautiful pictures, but the characters were pretty cliché, for the most part, and the story was skeletal -- some intriguing shapes, but basically pretty shallow. It was an hour and a half of people shooting people, thinking about shooting people, and trying not to get shot. I respect its labor and effort and, if I do say so myself, my brother's performance, but I'd much rather work my ass off on a film that was at least trying - even unsuccessfully - to be worth the ones and zeros it's printed with: to make an audience think about something. Or else to laugh and feel good. 'Further North' just made one feel ill, and not for any philosophical purpose.
Those are the movies I like: movies that make you think, and movies that make you laugh and feel good. These seem like worthwhile endeavors. ...although-- there are movies that are trying to make audiences laugh that I do NOT like, but I think this is probably because these movies are at someone's expense; they're not respectful of humanity and its intricacies.
Layers, dude: I like me some layers.
I like that in music too.
Okay, well. There it is. I'm going to look into buying a playback deck and fixing my poor camera. Maybe tape 22 will play in a real deck.
On a personal note, we haven't been able to move into the house yet -- still too much work to be done -- but the water is now on, the new door is in and we're getting impatient, so it will probably be only a few more weeks (five more weeks of teaching - hmmm...).
Hope you're all well. Let me know you're there!
Rachel
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