Diary of a Fledgling Filmmaker, Part One- Holy Fucking Shit, We’re Making a Movie!!!???!!!
March 26th, 2007by Zoe Brock
ANYWHERE, USA-
The night is still and the purple scent of wisteria fills my nostrils.
I feel heady, dizzy, drunk on smell.
I’m also drunk on sake and celebratory champagne, but it’s the drooping clusters of flowers that make me nauseous.
I feel sick.
Regurgitated sushi rises in my throat like chunks of phlegm.
Downstairs I hear Alexa, my producer, my partner, my co-director, my co-pilot, my friend, banging around in a seemingly epileptic panic. In the third bedroom our cameraman slumbers, surrounded by just-opened boxes of microphones, booms, batteries, tapes, THE CAMERA, his iPod firmly jammed into each ear to drown out our girlish squeals of excitement and clumsy accidents, providing a loud musical respite from our incessant, schizophrenic, nervous/panicked/emotional/bickering/giggling chatter.
He’s exhausted.
I’m exhausted too.
I’ve exhausted myself.
Tomorrow is day one.
Tomorrow, when I awake in this peaceful, quiet house, dress myself and climb into that car I will officially become what I have always dreamed of being. I will be a film-maker, and I cannot believe it.
DAY ONE-
Fog.
Like a pale green bullet we speed into it, all the time praying that these atmospheric conditions are not a metaphor for what we are embarking upon. The world is practically non-existent. The car races through a lost wilderness, a smoky super-highway… into the nothing up ahead.
Catching my reflection I realize I look like a small rodent in the headlights, eyes wide with the knowledge of impending BIGNESS and NOISE.
I titter, nervously.
The weather clears before Barstow, and suddenly we’re in Nevada, then, just as suddenly we’re out of Nevada and into New Mexico.
I like New Mexico.
There are dinosaurs.
I like dinosaurs.
We’re all alone in a desert with some extinct shit, and we feel empowered.
I discover a thing called a Motel 6.
It pleases me on a basic level. Clean, boring, bland, ugly, cheap, clichéd.
Faceless.
This first day, spent entirely inside a Volkswagen, has been difficult.
It’s hard to find the rhythm, figure out the dialog. Jon, our cameraman, is unused to the familiarity between Alexa and I, we bicker and argue, only to turn around and howl with laughter a second later. Jon looks perturbed. I get the impression that he wants to film us instead of the subject matter we’re seeking.
The further we drive the more unsettled I become. Will we ever find the rhythm? Can I do this? Jon films me talking for a while but I feel uncomfortable and nervous and unhappy with the way things are going.
The camera isn’t the problem, it’s my lack of a personal relationship with the person handling it that frightens me.
I bite my nails and turn my iPod up loud to drown out the world, for, as is always the case for me, the only thing that is going to afford me any peace is really loud rock and roll music screaming into my soul.
We stop in funny places. Look at pretty things. Grimace at nasty shit.
At some strange, elusive hour we hit Texas… and by then a different energy has fueled the car and we’re all smiling.
It’s easy. We’ve all become friends.
We have the rhythm.
Friendship can happen in an instant… it can surprise you at any twist and turn, and it can blossom in a moving vehicle. Never undestimate it or take it for granted… it’s the glue that holds us together when all we want to do is unwravel.
Next stop Dallas.
x
Tags: documentary, filming, MBFRS, myspace movie, zoe brock
Oh, Zoe, I could have SO done without regurgitated sushi at this hour of the day.
Other than that, looking forward to the next installment.
Oh, Zoe, I could have SO done without regurgitated sushi at this hour of the day.
Other than that, looking forward to the next installment.
boy, that decipher this to post test is surely annoying… only took four tries last time - let’s see how many…
Dear dear Zoe from Oz
You missed the opportunity for the Bartles and James joke - Ed
who are Bartles and James???? I feel left out.
I love all these little snippet blogs about the trip in different places, giving away different things.
Eek. It’s almost Wednesday already and I said I would call this week…
ps - I don’t know who Bartles & James are either. And that G up there is a different G from this G here so I don’t want you getting all confused about your G’s and saying things to G that you meant to say to G. Clear?
pps - John was probably intimidated by the fact that he’s in a car with two hot loud chicks who are driving him into the desert. As with all rear seat passengers he can rarely make out the conversation in the front, except that seem to be alternating between yelling at each other, and laughing maniacally.
ppps - Nothing. I just wanted to write ppps. Actually, I wanted to write pssssss in the hope it would make lots of your readers need the toilet.
According to Google he’s an Associate Professor of Cell and Molecular Biology. Errr, not sure where that’s going, but keep on trucking!
Heh - I found that too Rich. I assumed that G (who isn’t this G) meant Bartles & Jaymes and it was some advert reference that us non-Septics wouldn’t get.
heeeeeee. G is laughing right now. i can tell.
Heh.
Motel 6 and dinosaurs and you and Alexa, bantering in the middle of nowhere.
Outstanding.
Looking forward to more…
(Zoe above)
Darn tootin
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
EPIC! EPICALLY LUCKY! KEEP HAVING FUN WITH IT!
WEll done! Funny how the chemistry of friendship works, isn’t it?
Nice picture of Owlie in the outhouse.
Keep em coming!
=)Great stuff, but be nicer to that poor owl. He might just snap one day and take you out.
Thanks for sharing your adventure. Keep ‘em coming Z.
Wow folks dont know Bartyles and James OR Tickle Pink?
B&J were a popular wine cooler among girls who wore flap down shorts from Girbaud and Tickle Pink of course was Boone’s Farm wine.
NIce tone Zoe, you keep us guessing once again.
I’m glad to see Owlee in on the action. He needs his Mamma to make him feel like a big helper.
Your in my thoughts. Travel with the angels chica.
OHMYGOODNESS!!!
All the cool kids are commenting.
George, Loree, Trip, Locked, BRAD LISTI, Zoe, esther, and that 11:59 guy who’s blogs I keep on reading.
I CAN’T WAIT UNTIL I CAN GET IN ON THIS COOL ACTION
hey zoe:
looking forward to more tales from the road.
rock on, girl.
Ewww. Sushi chunks.
Yaaaay. Dinosaurs.
Hunter S. Thompson would be proud.
Sally forth, you crazy kids.
“B&J were a popular wine cooler among girls who wore flap down shorts from Girbaud and Tickle Pink of course was Boone’s Farm wine.”
Thanks for taking the time, only the thing is, I’m STILL none the wiser!
Isn’t a wine cooler somewhere you put wine to keep it cool? What are flap down shorts? Where’s Girbaud? Who’s Boone’s Farm?
Heh. I must drink less booze….
“B&J were a popular wine cooler among girls who wore flap down shorts from Girbaud and Tickle Pink of course was Boone’s Farm wine.”
Thanks for taking the time, only the thing is, I’m STILL none the wiser!
Isn’t a wine cooler somewhere you put wine to keep it cool? What are flap down shorts? Where’s Girbaud? Who’s Boone’s Farm?
Heh. I must drink less booze….
I love this.
G (this G, not that one)in case you were serious… a wine cooler is an alcoholic beverage popular amongst the high school/college crowd - usually fruity in flavor.
Girbaud was (is?) a brand of jeans.
Nevada is followed either by Utah or Arizona, sometimes both, but never neither. Perhaps they just went by in a blur.
I am off to read the second one.