~slight-of-eye

Scriabin's préludes are kind of frustrating... Where, you hear it and it seems obvious and "oh, that's easy". Then you see, "oh, that's actually 5 against 7, and 3 against 2, and 5 against 4, and 6 against 3 against 2, and 7 against 9".... If his stuff wasn't so amazingly mindblowingly great, I wouldn't bother with it. Seriously. If you understand this, then I love you. He's kind of threatening to destroy me at the moment...

See the film I made this fall semester at oberlin college.

Title: Jean's Postmodern Masterpiece

About a desperate filmmaker... Click the "watch now" link to view.

[link]

All comments welcome!

I have recently finished a new series entitled "tunnel vision". At the risk of sounding pretentious, I will refrain from any in depth explanation. The series is divided into four subscripts.

subscripts:

1. tunnels
2. the natural
3. the people
4. the construct

I will be posting these along with others in the coming days. The whole series was conducted during my trip to nicaragua, where I was teaching a photography class this summer.

It's been awhile... And I haven't posted any new photography, so this all deserves an explanation. Last semester I got mono, which essentially put an end to all but my most pressing commitments. I did the cinematography for two senior films. And photography just hasn't been something I've been able to give a great deal of thought to lately until now. But, two of my photographs are poised for publication in a SF based publication, and three of them are going to be in the adult division at the marin county fair. And I know, it sounds kind of lame "county fair", but it apparently is pretty competitive, so just going to see what happens with that... Otherwise, thinking a lot about cinematography these days. The only thing that sucks about it, is that no one really knows what a cinematographer does. Most people just think they do what the director says, which is kind of a depressing and demeaning way of thinking about it, since its not actually what they do. I think Vittorio Storaro and Conrad Hall are in a completely different/better universe than Michael Bay, but no one has heard of them... That gets me down on cinematography, when people have heard of people like Michael Bay, but not Gordon Willis or Laszlo Kovacs.

Last time I was going on about David Lynch. He still is amazing, but for the sake of something new, check out Stanley Kubrick. I mean, really watch his films, he is just incredible... I've been checking out a lot of his stuff, A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket, Eyes Wide Shut, ect. ect.. Really shocking stuff. Really controversial. But man, this guy has something to say. And some people may think its really messed up, but these films are just beautiful. I wasn't so crazy about Dr. Strangelove, which was kind of slow, or Lolita (since the book was just too good for a movie to match up to). 2001 a space odyssey though, god, its got to be about 20 years ahead of its time, at least. Really jaw dropping work. No CG, some of the most beautiful images of all time. kind of slow. but just the same.

So, David Lynch's new film Inland Empire was having a special preview at this theatre where I live. And I wasn't a huge fan, but it sounded interesting. It was sold out for a couple of months, so for some reason I waited in line for 3 hours in the rush ticket line for a chance to get a ticket. That's right, no guarentee, surrounded by lynch fanatics. I had seen a few of his films, "lost highway", "the straight story", "dumbland", "rabbits". I got there at four. By six, there were over a hundred people in the rush line. And they let in the first ten people in line. That meant me! It was mostly "special" because after the viewing there was a q & a with the man himself! Which was incredibly amazing! The movie nobody got at all, but it was incredibly creepy and... it's strange, but even though it was impossible to understand on a first viewing, it was great!

Then I saw Mulholland Drive. And there is no exaggeration when I say it is one of the greatest films ever created in history. Just completely beautiful. The man is a genius. I have become a David Lynch fan.

Yes, you were right aquaraven. You were right!