Travel, yes. Stupid, maybe.
My old blog site from my Natural History Filmmaking and Communication course
- good luck making sense of the stream of consciousness (and subconsciousness) -
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
The Prairies and its new bandit... "More than 70 years after vanishing from the Canadian Prairies, the black-footed ferret is once again scampering in the wild at Saskatchewan's Grasslands National Park." Anne Kyle, Leader-Post
I am currently living and working in Canada, and it is BIG. After four months of researching the Species At Risk Black-Tailed Prairie Dog at Grasslands National Park, the time has finally come for the reintroduction of the Black-Footed Ferret, making this the third popular of the species since its near extinction barely 29 years ago.
Despite them being the 'bad guys' who will be the new bandits of the prairies, feeding on our dear prairie dogs who our team has grown very attached to, we have our fingers crossed tightly and our breathes held in hope they make it through this winter and settle well into their new home.
WELCOME TO SECMOL – The Students' Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh –
Video can be found on Youtube.com: "Welcome to SECMOL" or type in/copy-paste http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-JRnYVkSAU
Huge thank-yous go out to all those who supported this project and donated equipment or funds; Bryan, Fraser, Helen, Chris, Katrina and, of course, The Folks. And a massive cheers for the support and encouragement; Natural History New Zealand Ltd., Henrik, Stan, my family, and most of all, Gaya and Jazza.
In less than 10 days, 1 1/2hrs a day, 5 students learnt how to use cameras and make a short film. One of the most popular responses from people when I mentioned my plans to teach filmmaking in India was, ‘but India has the largest film industry, I’m pretty sure they know how to make films’.
These students may be privileged enough to live on a campus such a SECMOL (Ladakh, India) to help them study and pass their national exams, but none of them have ever heard of youtube, played with filming or even seen a short film. The students made this short film in the final 3 days of the course, hoping to give the outside world a tour of this dusty, spellbinding part of their world.
Gaya, Jared and I had put aside one month of our Indian travels for Ladakh, and two weeks of that was all that SECMOL could afford us. My goal was to teach some students how to express themselves through film and share the way they see the world. Right from day one I knew there were going to be more hurdles than I could anticipate. I had done everything I could to prepare, but it was near impossible to know what was waiting for us in the Himalayas. Email responses were rare, info on the students and available equipment was vague and no one had a solid idea of when would best suit this new course. The campus was much of mystery to us right up until we arrived at its doorstep, still not sure if we were in the right place after a flight from Delhi to Leh, a bus to Phey in the middle of nowhere and a 7km walk along an unmarked dirt road in the middle of a dry moonscape.
Here are a few shots to give you an idea of what it was like to teach at SECMOL, some of these were taken by the students as my camera was on a free-for-all basis.
WELCOME TO SECMOL The self-sustainable SECMOL campus from afar.
Two of my students, Deachen and Tashi Lamo.
Tenzin and Tashi Lamo with two of the doanted cameras.
Dorjay filming the winter greenhouses.
Tashi Lamo trying her hand at editing.
Jigmat rehersing the oven spiel.
The rubbish sorting system.
Some local graffiti.
A lovely blurry shot of the film's first audience.
Dinner time.
Jared and Gaya in the dining hall.
Myself, Jared and Gaya catching rays in front of the solar cooker.
Our one night away, we hiked 9 hours up the valley to a remote village called' Diskit'. The altitude was outrageous - we could only walk about 10 minutes at a time before collapsing, but there is no stopping the mini-harmonica action.
The grandfather and grandson of the family we stayed with were more than photogenic.
A quick pan of what the landscape is like.
SECMOL is made up of a handful of volunteers and at least 50 Ladakhi students who want to better their English, pass their exams and live as sustainably as possible. They all live on campus, and travel into Leh for school. English is their second language in a land where they are raised to speak in Ladakhi, schooled in Urdu and used to sit exams in Hindi. I tried to learn as much Ladakhi as I could but this proved pointless as everyone wanted to speak in English with us.
It only took a day before we were good friends with many of the students. In class, they have an incomparable respect for their teachers and a hunger to learn anything anyone is willing to teach, which made my task far too easy and fun.
My lesson plan had to kept basic, as most of the time was spent double-checking that everyone knew what I was saying and what the point of all this was. It took them a while to believe that these cameras now belonged to them and the campus, that they could take them everywhere with them and that they could film whatever they wanted. I handed over 3 small digital cameras that had a movie filming option and took AA batteries, 12 rechargeable AA batteries and two wall chargers (and two more that broke one by one), 6 memory cards, a card reader, computer cables, a directional radio-microphone that can also plug straight into the computer and a basic movie-editing programmed.
Day One: camera care, how to charge batteries and what all the buttons mean. It turns out Ladakhis have a thing for taking photos of each other, hundreds and hundreds, however one of my students was strongly against this trend and only took photos of surrounding landscapes, plants and wildlife. They guarded those cameras day and night, not even removing it from their wrists when trying to shovel food onto their dinner plates.
Day Two: taking still shots and all the different styles you could use. This seemed to get the students away from the snap-happy shots and experiment a bit more.
Day Three: making your still shots tell a story and how to make a stop animation. This was difficult – breaking down a 3D moving world with no beginning or end and finding a short sequence to portray with a beginning middle and end. The best analogy I could find was to imagine you are writing an essay – what do you want to say exactly? Too many vacant expressions moved us onto stop animation; fun, simple and has an instant result.
Day Four: Computer class – adding music to your still shots. I made the mistake for showing them a slide show from my diploma film, so from then on they spent all their free time on the computers lining up the hundreds of photos of them and their friends with local pop tunes.
Day Five: Using that movie option on your camera and all the different styles of shots. Batteries found a whole new challenge and they learnt pretty quick that it was up to them to keep one set charging overnight and to be sparing with camera usage.
Day Six: Story telling with shots, making a sequence and putting on a timeline. Storyboarding took a while to get the hang of but they got the gist eventually. However, with homework of filming their basic storyboards the message was lost, they simply went out and took more still shots or made more slide shows.
Day Seven: Filming our short film about SECMOL using an audio recorder, two movie cameras and one stills. With time running out, it was time to dive in and learn from mistakes. It took only an hour before it all made sense to them and they learnt what worked and what didn’t. They were their own bosses; I simply followed them around to make sure everything worked smoothly. They nominated who would talk in front of the camera, who would take stills, who would do the locked-off filming and who would do all the cut-aways. We always used an audio sound recorder to avoid problems with the changing sound from the digital cameras. To practice, they sometimes spoke in English, and other times in Ladakhi so we could write out subtitles.
Day Eight: Filming and editing the short film They came alive and worked well into their tea and meal breaks, turning up to class early and taking turns at fetching each other snacks and chai. This was the passion I saw in the New Zealand students I helped out a couple of years before. It gave them a new self-confidence, with each of them having a certain specialty. Tenzin was a natural Director of Photography, Dorjay was the mic-master and kept everyone laughing, Deachan was an efficient organizer and loved editing, Jigmat was a natural in front of the camera and Tashi Lamo helped to keep everyone motivated and the filming/photographing ticking over.
Day Nine: A whole day of editing and final bits’n’bobs for the short film. They coined the term ‘short but sweet’ as a reminder every time they went out to re-film things or do pick-up shots, practically running all over campus. Day Ten: The Premiere of ‘Welcome to SECMOL’ in front of all the students and volunteers. Jigmat stood up for the traditional pre-screening speech, first in Ladakhi then in English, apologizing for the amateur nature of their first film and how they hoped everyone would like it. It was such a hit they screened it twice. Rebecca, the volunteer coordinator, had been away for our whole two weeks at SECMOL and returned just in time for our leaving and the film's first screening. Apart from a few misinterpretations in the subtitles, she seemed impressed which was a huge relief.
My fingers are crossed the students’ film can be used on their website to help explain the mystery of SECMOL to the outside world. I learnt a lot about sustainable living and options that I will give a go back home.
I can’t wait to try this project again with another group of students, maybe elsewhere in the world *FINGERS CROSSED*
A friend brought me back the Sahara Desert - my ultimate dream to film after the rains. We finally made a picture from it on my last night, and hung it in the backpackers. Cheers Sam!
England has outdone itself with the political-correctness
The Bristolian remnants of the famous Banksy
An attic I was allowed to play in and attempt to turn into a den - shame about the mess I made of the room below. Cheers Phil!
Bulletholes in the wall of my accommodation - Bristol feels like home/The Hutt
"In Soviet Russia, internet beat you"
Seeking refuge in the London Underground after being caught in the snow in OCTOBER!
'The Kings Library' - spans several floors
Paddington
Never seen something like this...
One of the most emotional places in the United Kingdom - The Natural History Museum The Man A display on hundreds of tiny birds - beautiful yet vulgar My childhood favourite - the Spider Crab
Every single stone of this building is breathtaking The cycle of life in the Ecology section Inside a plant cell! YUSS!
1. Kimchi may taste good the first few hundred times you eat it, but soon the 24hr sounds of a scuba-diver in your guts will be enough to give it a haunting taste. Same thing with whole chillis - they may seem like a good idea at the time, but...
2. Jay-walking is a no-no. Robotic, uniformed, mono-expression walking is a yes-yes and a great way to fit in with the 44million other people, until you look in a mirror.
3. Why are our public transport not as good? A 3 minute wait for a subway train is something we should all be taking for granted.
4. Who needs street names? Just tell the taxi driver a department stores name and you will get home. Or to somewhere out in the whops. Yet no street names doesn't stop every car having a GPS road-guide thingy.
5. James is not the person to stay with if you want to recover from 40hrs of traveling. We managed to live on NZ time - sleep at sunrise for 4hrs then repeat the previous evenings antics. It takes stamina and mild insanity to keep up with that boy. But there is no better way to be completely immersed in Korea. It is amazing that after only 9 months, a boy from a small town at the bottom of the world has a massive loyal following of Korean alcoholics.
6. Soju, $1
7. The toilets empty before they fill, so be careful not to overflow before you flush.
8. WiFi kicks arse and leaves to rest of the work to shame.
9. When catching a train from Daegu to Seoul, and the helpful attendant at the ticketing touchscreen computer repeats cautiously 'Dongdaegu, Seoul', don't be surprised when you find yourself sitting at an empty train station in the middle of whops and playing the role of 'lonely-honkie'. And to answer your question, Roper, yes, yes they do check your ticket. They will check your ticket if they notice you are in a seat that should be empty, since you were meant to get off at Dongdaegu to transfer to Seoul, and not simply sit and wait to magically appear in Seoul. But fear not, simply use distressed expressions and flailing sign-language and the ticket-master will scribble all over your ticket in Korean and you will not have to pay for any tickets to get you back on track for the next KTX. A 2hr journey can easily turn into a 7hr journey which cuts very close to the 12am train station closing time, but you get to learn some great Korean on the way.
10. Printing your own business cards in Korea is possible without knowing how to speak fluently. You just need a couple of hours and some patient and lonely helpers in a 24hr print shop deep in the heart of the city.
11. Tuesday night can be chaos and carnage if you just try. Bar staff are always willing to join in the fun if the bar is empty. But be warned, it is near impossible to find a bar in Daegu that can play Concord Dawn, Scribe or Shapeshifter even if you scribble the words all over your arm.
12. Karaoke. There is so much you must experience ONLY in Korea. It is incomprehensible. Finding a closet with a kangaroo suit in it made Roper a living legend in seconds. Anyone can pretend they are famous when in one of the front glass-walled rooms in the massive five-storey Karaoke doll's house in the centre of Seoul. A great place to watch the sun rise.
13. Need a lighter, power drill, lingerie, pokemon alarm clock, gum or some anonymous pills? 1,000WAN in a street crane-game, highly addictive. Yes... I won a lighter, and yes I nearly set Roper's flat on fire. I'm guessing proper lighters aren't filled with cotton wool?
14. Every girl has the same size feet. Size 8.5 max. Never 9.
15. Strangers WILL come up to you on the train or street to practice their English. I now know the ages and hobbies of nearly 30 random Koreans.
16. I forgot to call Carrot when with James - sorry!
17. I felt like a poor excuse for a female. Korean girls have mastered the art of looking gorgeous all the time, with ridiculous heels, mini skirts and meticulous hair and make-up. Not all of them, but enough to send the guys into blinding dizzy-spells of disbelief. Funky indie fashion makes them the cool cats of Asia for sure.
18. There is a pie-guy. Koreans are confused by the concept of a 'pie', but that didn't stop Brian, who lived in Timaru for one year, from returning to Seoul to open his own pie-cart. Kiwis are regulars here.
19. So hot and so cold! 25 degree days (even with the thick warm cozy haze of smog) but 5 degree nights.
20. Korean Air/Asiana Airlines rocks with its touch screen TVs on every chair, over 40 movies to watch whenever you want, games and credit card phones! Its not jet-lag when you choose not too sleep because of movies.
*COUGH* *MUMBLE* yes, well, um.. ok I finally learnt how to change the settings so now anyone can leave comments, so no more angry emails please... and no more porn ads! *HUG TO ALL*
so now it is time for a story-book style post. the only type any of you would actually be interested in reading, simple because there is not reading (the comments are merely a compromise for those with no imagination).
after travelling to and fro so often, we formed some habits but roadtrip ALWAYS = fun even when sober and driving we never got lost and we always acted like tourists... dignified tourists
Lawrence, even though you popped our tyre one rainy night at 3am with 2 tonnes of gear in the boot, we still love your playground. But you will never be no Milton...
so now for a recap: Some of us felt it necessary to be prepared for a 1080 film-shoot. I think I was just an excuse to look like we were serious... and hide that I-haven't-brushed-in-3-days breath.
but we did look like pros. even with faulty cameras (NB the photos quality?)
to make a film about a tree, we first had to get inside the trees mind... found inisde a tree
we got up close and intimate with every part of its world.
some things were harder to film than others
but we had the skills, baby
and ALOT of gear (cheers Ed)
yes. there were sandflies but we had ways of escaping their tourment
after working long hard days, well into dusk... we would retire... to our luxury accommodation
but we were missing a key character. a caterpillar i headed to Te Anau when the season was right i got a bit distracted by things weird wonderful and damn delicious
i found a short-tailed bat roost (1140 bats!!)
then i found him. the one we have been searching the valleys for months for. along with about 10,000 others just like him. it was love at first sight.
then came the holiday. my first time in the Marlborough sounds. accosted by an octopus, meters from flipping dolphins...
romantic dinners in the dark on a building site
with the most amazing view to wake up to from the boot of a station wagon.
in picton i visited my dad's old boat from his navy days
then headed to welly to help out the folks at home, and dad's 'new' boat
even though i worked everyday there, it was a beautiful change of scene
but there's no place like dunas, and sarah and i are in the midst of some hard-arse knuckling-down. and i am seriously loving it.
more photos as they always go down a treat you're all smart enough to work out which ones are from the premiere (who looks the most tired??), the Softshoe gig (with special dance troupe) at Backstage the night before the premiere and my wee nephew Monty (don't worry - I ain't turning clucky - just wana help the boy on his way to fame - and only have a few photos in my email inbox to choose from)
yeup. a picture speaks a 1000 words... 1000 words more than I could on day 3/6 of no sleep. that drawing tablet was like a comfort blanket that never left my clutches *SIGH* i miss it SO much
but nothing can be hard when you have film partner like this. we never let the other one get blue. just down another hot cuppa or can-o-energy and have another i-love-this-film rant. there is no way in hell this film could have been as much fun as it was to make with this wee chica - that's what a film partnership is all about... aaaw *GROUP HUG*
So yes... it's finished - but it isn't over... there's the festivals, the DVDs, the thank-you-very-muchlies... and of course the job hunt - the IDEAL JOB hunt
I have so much I could ramble on about to recap the past month or two... but I am at work and the boss is looking over my shoulder (yes that's right: work + boss = life after the film - at least until September).
The strangest thing is to go from 6 sleepless days+nights to intense celebrations (a dance presformance, a gig and a premiere all within 24hrs of the hand-in) to home-time in Welly, then into a 9-5 job helping put together a book. My folks came for the premiere and kidnapped me back to Welly for a few days. Saw my newest niece, Isabel, for the first time and got me the obligatory bad photo of Aunty Lu - to be saved for a tacky 21st T-shirt print or cake-image ha! And I hope the act of putting a bad photo on the net of myself says something good about me (despite the fact I have yet to find a good one)
Its only when you have time to stop do you realise that your entire NHFC family is breaking up and going back to where they came from... and only then do you truely understand that they are the only 10 people who shared the most intense 12 months and know how it feels... I would love to compare notes with those who went before us and those who are about to start - even though the days of '12months' are over and now to be '2years'
Cheers for checking out this blog - sorry for the lack of exciting posts - but I'm sure the silence speaks for itself (hmmm too deep to make sense?)
And now that I have discovered the internet again, there will be more posts to come.
We got accepted to our 1st festival, up in good ol' Palmy N. Fingers-crossed for a few drive-by shootings at the time just to add that extra spice factor to the Aotearoa Environmental Film Festival
Sarah loves this internet thing so no doubt our film's webpages will be undated to the max yo! Our film "A Moment of Clarity..." has a blogger site and a BEBO site. But I'm still a techno-phobe... Ha... go figure...
BOOYAH! taught mahsel' how ta do dem words links to pages thang! Look out Bill Gates!
Lots tend to happen in between postings if almost 4 months goes by without a word. So here's the plan Stan, of the millions of stories to tell between then and now, here is a few you may be interested in. The catch is you have to leave me a comment as to what ones you want to hear about, the more votes, the faster I'll get round to blogging. Hmmm, hope this doesn't sound too pretentious, lazy, presumptuous and several others words I can't spell. Here goes:
* The marathon film shoot involving tree climbing, nest raiding, cameras in bread bags, a 2hr bug lecture after 24hrs of no sleep and a flat tyre in Lawrence at 2am
* Bats - of the long-tailed variety. Hunting, trapping, shaving and transmittering. More hunting, more tracking, losing the trail and sleeping all day. Possibly the last surviving roost in Hanging Rock. Keep and eye out for the short film.
* Music man of the moment. Stalking The Nomad for need of his juicy beats. Meeting up in Wellywood and having the best night out in lil' ol' Eastbourne village at his gig.
* The second and *FINGERS CROSSED* final shooting trip. 5 days of beauty shots, jib arms, heavy packs, hunting bugs and a waaay too over-the-top car commercial. Not to mention letting the Glenorchy motor camp believe we are a mad lesbian couple.
* Internship - make 2X 30s commercials for the EARTH FROM ABOVE exhibition by Yann Arthus-Bertrand - piece of cake right? I still can't work out how those brick walls pop-up so quickly. A simple 1-week job and its now almost 2 months.
* Escape from the dirty South to knuckle down into some rough-cut whatnot. Once again, those damn brick walls! But its ok, I have now discovered the secret order for narration, music and shot sequence *TAPS NOSE*
* Discovering the animator within - and the lack of professionalism and time without
* Our first NHFC design class. *SIGH* it feels like home. Even the new lecturer Ralf had me swooning over his ironic and synical outlook on technological fads... such as blogging
