From Dhaka, to Bahrain, to London, to NYC (or: Home Again, Home Again, Jiggitty Jig)
October 8, 2010
Although I certainly can’t call New York my “home” quite yet, it is good to be back in the states. I made it in to JFK around 11 and trekked to my friend Issa’s on the Upper West Side. He had kindly agreed to let me crash until I get the key card for the place I’m staying tomorrow afternoon, which made the night a million times easier.
Hence, I have been lying on the air mattress in his living room since my arrival at 1:30 (the Airtrain kinda takes forever), and I can’t sleep a wink. Not at all surprising since I don’t really have any idea what time zone my body thinks I’m in.
In the interest of being fair to hole-in-the ground toilets: since my last post, it has occurred to me that the women growing up using these types of commodes probably figured out a way around the age of 3 to not piss all over their clothes/themselves when using them EVEN WHILE wearing pants. So calling the toilets sexist may be a bit harsh. The sinks in Bangladesh, however, are really prejudice against Scandinavians (or so I’ve heard).
We have a rough cut of a 22 minute video made from our Paraguay footage, which is exciting in-and-of itself, but it needs a lot of work. The translation is a mess, for one. The most immediately frustrating thing was that for whatever reason, when I tried to download the demo while in Bangladesh, I could get audio but no video. I forwarded the link to my team to get their thoughts about it, and they graciously complied, but I have yet to see it for myself. I have about 20 more minutes to go on a new download, and hopefully I’ll be rewarded with some visuals.
The making of this demo, even if sometimes frustrating or hard, has been very enlightening. Coming into this as green as I did (and I still know virtually nothing about making a film, let’s be honest), there were and are so many things I could’ve done differently while on the shoot, and making this demo has forced me to become more aware of them. It has also lent me a fuller understanding of the entire filmmaking process, from inception of the idea, to building the team, fundraising, shooting, logging, editing, and more.
The demo I’m (hopefully) about to watch will not be the final product I’m hoping for, and I go into this with an awareness of that. But it’s strange (and somewhat gratifying as well) to think that what I’m about to see is in essence the culmination of more than a year’s worth of work, and it happened because I read a compelling article, was gripped by it, and wanted to make a movie about it. I don’t know anything, but what I do know is this: it’s possible to decide to do something, and then figure out a way to do it, and knowing that makes me feel better about the world.
THE DOWNLOAD JUST FINISHED! Sigh. I’ll let you know how it looks.
P.S. – In my insomniac state, I’ve also just been reading and very much enjoying my friend Danny McDowell’s blog, Man vs. Dissertation. Check it out: http://manversusdissertation.blogspot.com
