So I’ve always wanted to make films. And now I have the freedom to try it. This may end up a spectacular failure. But since all failure is just success … but a lot shittier, I’m looking forward to it.
Inquisitor
So tell me what’s going on with this cinema thing.
Aspirant
Well, it’s something that I’ve always wanted to do. I think it fits me the best.
Inquisitor
Have you done it before?
Aspirant
I helped out a friend with a music video thing once.
Inquisitor
Did you like it?
Aspirant
No.
Inquisitor
Right. Did you not like the whole thing, or …
Aspirant
Well I didn’t like how messy it all was.
Inquisitor
Well, everything is like that right? I mean writing a novel is a fucked up process of looking either at a blank page every morning, or looking at the pile of crap you excreted yesterday and trying to clean it up.
Aspirant
Yeah, so I don’t know if I’ll like it or not.
Inquisitor
It means working with people. Working really closely with people.
Aspirant
I can work with people … as long as they do what I tell them to do.
Inquisitor
Right. So what happens to the photography thing?
Aspirant
It stays. It’s really important to me. It’s already taught me so much about seeing visually. About converting the world into a flat plane with edges which conveys some kind of feeling.
Inquisitor
Well, it’s going to be hard to be first rate at both.
Aspirant
I know. If the cinema thing works out. If I can do the work, and I look forward to doing the work, once I get up to some basic competence, then it will be primary. If not, then I’m more than happy to dedicate myself to photography.
Inquisitor
It’s a really different thing to photography you know. You’ll have to write a lot.
Aspirant
I have been writing a lot.
Inquisitor
No, but it’s different. You know those posts that you put off, that you dislike revising? Well it’s that kind of work all the time.
Aspirant
I’ve got a desire to craft something more perfect. This first step has been to learn to work, to learn to produce. Over and over again.
Inquisitor
Are you done with that? Have you learnt it all?
Aspirant
Of course not, stop being a bitch. What’s up with you today?
Inquisitor
I don’t know, I don’t like Autumn.
Aspirant
Is it Autumn already? I though you didn’t like Spring?
Inquisitor
It was the first day yesterday. And no, I don’t like spring either. So, I know you’ve always loved films, but loving it is not the same as doing it, you know that.
Aspirant
You’re repeating yourself.
Inquisitor
I mean, it’s not as easy to get into film. I think you’d be good at it. The stuff you’ve been writing recently, a lot of that has been blurring into fictional stuff. I mean this conversation you’re right up, it’s dialogue.
Aspirant
Yeah, well I find it easy to write dialogue. I like how it takes all those battling, cantankerous bits inside you and lets them battle it out. I like how you can get new knowledge out of it. Letting the characters take charge, run wild, or whatever.
Inquisitor
Yeah, yeah. Well that’s good, that’s a good start.
Aspirant
But you know I don’t want to make talky films. I don’t think they respect the medium, and really allow for the kind of truths that can be found say visually, or through sound.
Inquisitor
You were saying that a couple of months ago about photography.
Aspirant
Right, right. I mean, it was one of the most important things I’ve learnt about art I think. I mean the medium, really getting the medium. I think I’m only getting that with photography right now.
Inquisitor
Aren’t you going to see that through to the end?
Aspirant
Well, it’s going to be continuing. I mean, I think I’ll be taking pictures forever, no matter what I do. It’s an about looking at the world intensely and that’s crucial right?
Inquisitor
It’s quieter form though. I mean, you don’t have to talk so much with it.
Aspirant
Well, I actually saw that as a weakness.
Inquisitor
Oh photography?
Aspirant
No, I mean of me. To get very, very good at it, you have to work so, so hard at noticing the visual feeling in the world. Not the verbal complexity, or motives of people, or the feel of the breeze, or the gradual movement of bodies in motion.
Inquisitor
But the best photos hint at all of that stuff.
Aspirant
Right, they hint at that stuff visually. I feel that constraint too strongly.
Inquisitor
Do you? Or is it that you just didn’t try hard enough. That you didn’t want to put in the ten years of lonely walking around to cultivate that visual thinking.
Aspirant
I don’t think so. That’s what I’m doing now. That is such an interesting problem that there’s no way I’d let it go. You know, avoid it. And I think the best film makers. Guys like Antonioni, Hou Hsien Hsiao, or Wong Kar Wai, or especially Ozu, I mean …
Inquisitor
Right right. They pack in visual weight right? I mean from their visual arrangements meaning is made.
Aspirant
Right. You know all that stuff about the silent period, I think there’s gold in the way those directors conveyed meaning. Not the facile hand waving, leg kicking comedy stuff, that’s still necessary, but say Fritz Lang and his dark visual hallucinations.
Inquisitor
Yeah. But I’m worried about all the other stuff. You know getting money to make films, distributing and stuff. I know you hate that kind of stuff. You know, people …
Aspirant
Well, I gotta get over that. I can do it, when I care about the thing. I think that’s what brings people together and allows them to deal with an asshole like me. If they are committed to the thing. I don’t think I’ve really been committed to anything without abandon before.
Inquisitor
Without abandon? Women?
Aspirant
Listen, why are you being so negative about all this anyway? I mean, that’s what this year’s all about for me right? I’m supposed to on this experimental acid trip right? Break free of the manacles of slavery.
Inquisitor
Well, it’s about focus right? I don’t want to see you getting lost in something else. You’ve been doing great at this photography thing. You’re photos are looking great. And you were making some theoretical breakthroughs too.
Aspirant
Well, all that doesn’t go away.
Inquisitor
I know. I know you can build of that. But it’s still a fucking risk right?
Aspirant
That’s what I’m liking about it.
Inquisitor
Really?
Aspirant
Well no, of course not. Who the fuck really likes change and putting themselves at risk? It’s a necessary lie. But I have to try this. Death to regrets.
Inquisitor
So it’s a forgone conclusion?
Aspirant
Well, I don’t need to do what I needed to do before.
Inquisitor
You mean cutting your past life clean off?
Aspirant
Yeah. That’s been done, I’m much freer now. This time it needs to be a transition. I want to make sure I get my photography published or in an exhibition or something. I have to make sure I continue to produce on that. I still want to execute on the Australia thing. But I’ll incorporate video into that. I think it’s a good place to develop an aesthetic out there. Make some stories with Anja. You know boy girl stuff, or boy dragon, whatever.
Inquisitor
Well, I really think it can only result in good things. I mean, you’ll find out pretty fast if you like it or not, and knowing you you’ll do the critical apparatus building so you can judge if what you’re making is good or not.
Aspirant
I think it’s easier to tell if a film is good or not. I mean, you know, at the most basic level. Is it interesting or not.
Inquisitor
You really have no respect for photography do you?
Aspirant
That’s not true.
Inquisitor
Well, you always seem so …
Aspirant
Well I’m embarrassed to be a photographer. But that’s still a problem I need to work through. A photographer is a pariah in a way. Or maybe a piranha. I mean, they are these judges that are walking around pointing out the significance of a moment, or of something, or a person you know.
Inquisitor
No one likes to be judged.
Aspirant
But I love it too you know. I love the fact that anyone can pick up a camera and become the photographer. It is the ultimate testing ground for the ego. I mean, you’re competing against everyone, and skill, I mean skill appears over time, through editing, through inter-relations and juxtopositions.
Inquisitor
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Aspirant
Me either. I mean to say, at the top level of photography are some of the most sophisticated artist who’ve ever been. And brave. You know, really brave people.
Inquisitor
I know how much you like courage. So what? You’re going to make these ponderous films about love and silence and god and stuff? Bergman?
Aspirant
Bergmann fucking Fellini. That’s my angle.
Inquisitor
Well, you better get started writing.
Aspirant
I’ve got some plans.
Inquisitor
What are you going to do about the technical aspects? I mean how are you going to learn the whole editing thing, and the camera and so on. I know it’s all minor stuff, but you have to do it.
Aspirant
Yeah. That’s going to be a bit of a bitch at the start. I’ll see what Wesley is up to. If I can help him out with stuff. I’ve basically got a four to six months to figure that stuff out and I’ve got some money for some shitty gear. But, it’ll work out. I’ll have to get a job I think when I get back.
Inquisitor
How about school?
Aspirant
Nope. It’s tempting. It would be a nice way to get a job and so on, but I want to do it a different way. I don’t want to go the school route. I’d rather borrow that money and spend it on gear and the time to make stuff. I have to get into making stuff as soon as I can.
Inquisitor
Well, how about now? I mean why not take some video around Paris?
Aspirant
I think I will. But I want to get the photo stuff finished as well right? I want to make sure those two sets are well edited, with all the things I’ve learnt in the library by the time I get back.
Inquisitor
Well, don’t make excuses.
Aspirant
I won’t.
Inquisitor
Here, have a toke of this you serious fuck.
Posted 11 months ago
