LACC - The late 80s
CINEMA 002 3.00 UNITS
BEGINNING MOTION PICTURE WORKSHOP (UC:CSU)
DESCRIPTION: Required for all Cinema Majors. Introductory workshop in practical filmmaking. Each student will be responsible for the making of short films in super 8
Four shorts need to be created
one abstract, one how to, one short story, one .........
Aww man cant do it.
Why?
Got an assignment, the film class has me doing a set of four films, I need to create an abstract film.
Any fucked up shit can be on it? _ Yes _ lets do this!
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Reseda
Whats going on man! - it was RJ, I havent seen him for about a year, at my friends place in Reseda,
High School was a mess for me, I was an inner city kid with very bad acne and a bad case of depression, Mom knew I was miserable in King Jr high and so she applied and shipped me off with the city of Los Angeles Magnet school program.
It was as the height of the Reagan 80s - the Valley soaked in a Trillion (not a typo - a trillion) dollars in creating the gravestone for communism - the New Wave/Preppie movement rose, felt its quick height and would fall all with my tenure of being bussed over the hill - I despised the bright colors and snotty - too young to be arrogant - kids, but to be fair I was a snot myself - I was sent off in 8th grade - I would finish out high school being bussed.
It was browning out as the 80s leached to its meaningless end. - The lower middle class brown people were stating to crowd the center and glitzy rot held the air still-- I really really really did not fit in - but I made no local friends
We banded together hunched over Atari computers - reading Douglas Adams, reciting Monty Python and listening to metal - aesthetically I was a nerd - I had glasses an inch thick and wore sweaters in the summer - two hours daily commute via bus and the sourness in me was slightly mitigated by my friends -- culturally I did know - Echo Park and Reseda were both one in heart in some way that was surrounded by cultures - Silverlake in its Gayest moment and Sherman Oaks in its citadel of aspiring to be a poor mans more tasteful West LA - Cocaine highs trying to push a 70s ecstasy way past the expiration date with a bit of suburban bliss.
By the end of my run I was running on a self image that had tanked. Hard. I did not fit in with my Valley friends but I did not have the wherewithal to connect to the aspects that I felt but could not vocalize - and the virginity was not helping... at all.
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I enrolled in a set of general education, philosophy was a favorite -- I came to the conclusion that it was fuck of all - I WANTED to toss my future on its ass
-it wasn't much and I wasn't much ----_-==__ so I did the most punk thing I an inner city bookworm could think of doing
I became a film student.
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Reseda cont....
The night was filled with the electricity that one only finds in youth - I needed some compelling visuals and I had little time in doing so - the rushes that I had where muddy and not usable - I had a bit of color kodachrome and a borrowed City 8mm and we had a pocket of Jim Beam - less then sense
I knew I needed light - and a road trip to Sherman Oaks at midnight was just the thing - The old Sherman Oaks Galleria was the neon womb of innerworld that encased all into its plastic sealant - coming from a family that felt K-Mart was the apex of material accession it filled me with mild envy and the slightest dread....and a desire to see it all ascend to landfill -- and for the girls to be bowed to me --needing me ,,,
The garage is what fascinated me - it was oil pitted concrete that the blue tinged neon lit up - I took a damn class on the chemical properties of film and still did not know how to work the damn camera - the filmed result would be lights draped by blurred vague darkness.
We broke into the garage - as far as I knew the security did not care - I rolled down the window stuck my upper body out of the window and pointed the camera upward and we threw the Honda Civic in neutral and rolled down the garage - - I could not get the camera steady. Cursing to myself RJ noticed -
Hay let me have this - OK what are you going to do? - let me try this - a gleam filled his eyes -
Back to the top of the garage - RJ has less sense then guts but even for me this is nuts, he is a guy who is about 210 pounds and he lays on his back on the hood of the car and then we kick the Civic back into neutral and let gravity take it course from the top of the garage, a small car in neutral can reach some decent speed going downhill with the drivers vision is impaired.
Basic physics says - a sudden stop or a sharp turn and 210 pounds of human flesh holding a City owned 8 mm film camera gets tossed onto blue neon drenched concrete. This is something you can do when you are 19 and desperate for entertainment. JR was sliding slightly and held the camera upward - it was the best shot I ever got.
Fucking cool! - We where now infected - AJ suggested we get more lights - like the mad Kerouacen Dharma Bums running down the mountain chasing life by tasting the spice of danger, lets get the shot - damn personal safety!........
Right by the Galleria is an interchange of freeways- Sherman Oaks nexus of connection with the rest of the valley. Near one interchange there was a fence that had a hole, unnoticed that we slid under - climbing up and pushing the brush away we were exposed to the freeway at a sharp turn - The headlights streaked straight ahead to your face and then they looked liked they cut a sharp right - it was a bit of an illusion but the cars where going 70 plus as we stood right on the corner where the dirt met the freeway- the automotive headlights bobbed came dangerously close, closer then streaked away.
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Is Ken there?
Ya - Kennny!
Huh?
Phone
Listen can you help me I am going to need help and I know you are a good guy and I need help!!!!!
OK - GP - (I secretly wanted her - all of her nicotine stained breath, her short kinky hair, her rapier wit and artistic pretension - but she was living with a successful 30 something was right out of the playbook that I even I would not cross - it fed my I am the worse loser in the known universe anti ego that was ego - only 19 year old males who never dated or even connected on some gray level could know )
A short walk to Silverlake and I was in a short bungalow house - the Dad was a single post hippy parent of two collage age women and was not around this afternoon - GP wanted to create a short film with her Sister B as a nymph - the background would be the window that I would have to setup lights.
Her sister - they must not have had the same mother - she was the opposite in many ways - dark skinned, straight dark hair, a lean body in a multi veiled costume -- shear near topless
I was braking out in a sweat as I duck-taped the lights to the wall - moved the bed, hung drapes, was told to turn around as B would change her costume (I guess topless was OK but not the full Monty) - She arched her back as the blue shaded her form - the top fell off - fluidly the outline moved --------my inner lecherous young man kept perfectly still
Later we put away all of the stuff - sliding down the dead drop hillside she thanked me with Cafe Tropical coffee and pastries, ---was she flirting with me? cant tell..
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In film history we saw Double Indemnity - and examined the film noir period of Hollywood, it brought forth clearly that the current movies hollywood was churning out was - at lest in terms of dialog - shite
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the Red and the White - a communist allegory. Alejandro Jodorowsky - nutjob or genuis? - both, French New Wave - good but not as good as one thinks, - wanna have a vision a dream -- how did they do this? -- 70 rule -
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Studying film - i.e. watching good old movies and reading about them - talking about trends in movies over the years - messing with cameras and actors and shots in a nervous sort of way -- class at 10am - time to dream - criticizing the current crop of films - arguing over the relative merits of the New Waves--late nights at galleys with too little light and too much caffeine
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The eyes are opened the greats of the past - the golden 30s, the dark 40s the experimental 60s the banal blockbuster 80s
What academia does not tell you is that the utter transience transcendence of an ecstatic film experience - the one that haunts your dreams - makes daily living worth it - the primal force of your first realized narrative --- is something they simply can not teach you, skills yes - the underlying story of primal myth - yes,,,,,,,,,,,,,but vision the ability to touch people in ways that strike a comment primal cord
That is only born out of a combination of very hard work and love and a lot of luck - transmitting the ability to feel alive its a bright comet streaking in the sky - it lights up all of the darkness around you then vanishes.....
Just when you think you know the answers - the questions change - you change and so does everything around you ---------
Primal memories remain but transmitting the dirt and grit and power to those who do not see what you see, and did not feel what you felt so acutely ...... usually having them understand what Popular culture meant so deeply to you .... it does not work - most people do not posses desire (nor the need!) to connect to that spirit and if they do it needs to be seduction not propaganda
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I have allways found seduction hard and ego brusing - but keep trying - keep moving
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