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edit like a filmmaker instead of an editor
full of discovery
open to the world that is present
this is a simple revelation
it has pestered me for days and i wish to dress it up in all sorts of fine words to be convincing but it is only the same every time - edit like a filmmaker
there are several elements involved in editing a transition that fall into two categories -
PICTURE: moving picture (film, video or animated images), still picture, graphic, or title
SOUND: natural sound, sound effects, and music
the basic actions involved with the transition are dissolves, fades, and straight cuts. this applies to both sound and picture.
in making transitions it is good to remember that starting everything at once is often overwhelming and jarring which can be very effective but is often distracting. start one or two elements at a time with the others joining in as the transition unfolds. allow the brain to process the information and then add more. consider editing as a musical composition.
also consider the purpose of a transition - to fold space or leap from points in time or leap from emotion to emotion. contemplating the purpose of a transition often helps dictate the kind of transition.
1) the point - learn footage, break the whole into pieces, make things shorter, search for character and rhythm
2) types of scenes
–VERITE/SITUATIONAL (a free flowing, improvising scene in which actors are put into a situation and asked to respond to it) - edit with care on first pass, leave lots and lots, cut out camera glitches or make cuts on action, compress things into phrases and character moments, compress time or show passage of time
these scenes are character building
–SCRIPTED - keep whole takes, compare them, look to let it feel like one camera, one performance
–INTERVIEWS - the first pass is only about cutting out questions and looking for silent in-between moments; always look for the physical character, vocal rhythm
–BROLL - cut long shots down to short shots (snap shots), find smooth moments, rough moments, highlight camera moves (zooms, pans, tilts, dolly, whip pans, etc.), make it short because you can always stretch out again, rhythm rhythm rhythm search for rhythm
** there are more variations but these are some basic categories to consider
part of collaboration is to listen to collaborators
another is to listen to what tugs at you and won’t let go
even if it is counter to what everyone else is saying
take the chance of being wrong
might just be ok
this first and for most: let it tell you what it is
very important to listen
the footage knows when it sings
and it will sing to you if you let it
be open
follow rules but break them when it is right
have accidents
controlled accidents
or maybe a better word is be aware of accidents and take note of them because they often open new doors
it is clay, not a house of cards
Looking at motion in extremes: hyper control and complete acceptance.
Hyper control (also referred to as micro-editing) looks at each individual motion of the camera or motion within the frame, often times neither a bump nor a nudge can be tolerated. The eye darts around the frame, following the rhythm of the cuts. (OUTSIDE)
Complete acceptance waits, allows each shot it’s moment, a revelation, a life within the frame. (INSIDE)
My process uses one to stimulate the other.
My brain felt like it was pouring out of my ears and then she stepped onto the train and I couldn’t help but smile. She got off at the next stop and a Valentine’s Day balloon that had lodged itself underneath her seat followed her out the door and my heart went with it.
Need to watch myself; operating on intuition and feeling consequently I am lost until I find my goal, which is ultimately unknown until it is recognized. Sometimes the concepts and ideas envelope me and drown my vision, my perspective suffocates, my space sucked into a black hole. When the space of thought shrinks it sometimes keeps shrinking until it is beyond focus.
Saying you’re beautiful is an admission of guilt.
Snow, slick roads, angry cabbie all tired, the city burns the snow to slush, tires mix the air and the water, blackening the road, frozen windows just bubbling silk, transparent only to the lights outside broken by swirling schools of snow, can’t see anything at the top - light, water embracing stillness.
Burnt out, lie in a feel, time passes not a moment too soon.
Every day is hard work; every day deserves the effort and ultimately demands it.
Get back on track.
She had an unfinished face, the kind that you grow to love. Angels aren’t predictable, every turn of the head a new adventure, a new person, unfinished but full of mystery - biting her lips like a child, a Mona Lisa smile, a crooked tooth grin.
Stuck in my room, spring growing every day, people popping up like weeds breaking the sidewalk. Saw a girl let her Chow moll this cat that somehow escaped and clawed her way up a tree, the dog yanked the girl as he literally ran through a metal pole connected to the chain fence in his wild pursuit of the cat. The girl tried to throw rocks at the cat to get her out of the tree. I didn’t realize it at the time but cats can’t climb down trees because they like to go head first and their claws don’t work going down. At the time I was morally outraged by this girl and her shitty dog and her shitty stone throwing. Soon it was dark and I went out to see a friend about some work. We worked, we got stoned, I passed out at 4 am woke up at noon, came home on a quiet Sunday train filled with a damp muted sunshine at 125th street. Got back to the room and started to work around 4, stopped as the computer started thinking about some stuff I told it to do, got some food, listened to music, looked out my window and there she was, the same cat was meowing in that tree. My god some one needs to do something about this, where’s my roommate Ann when you really need her. I called all my two friends, called Ann. They all said call the fire department but the fire department wasn’t answering unless it was an emergency and I wasn’t about to call 911 because a cat was in a tree so I found myself in a moral catastrophe - things to do but there’s a cat in a tree, only a little cat, scared and hungry, if I could go out there and get it out of the tree I would but I can’t that tree is too big and I’d have to throw rocks or something too and I’m not gonna do that. Call up the nerve and just call, oh alright I’ll call but I’ve got things to do - so I call the police and they give me the number for animal rescue, two numbers, the first one’s disconnected, the second one gives me another number to call in Brooklyn and then another number in Manhattan and still no answer, everything’s closed on Sunday afternoon, nobody cares about little scared kitties meowing in trees, nobody cares that its more than just kitties sitting out in those trees but that’s something else so I finally get an answering machine and leave a lengthy description full of concise and intelligent details, I tell myself I’ve done my bit for the cat and now back to work until night falls when I go downtown to smoke a bowl or two and catch some dinner with Ben. Th pot gave me a headache but the pork dumplings were good, one of those eternal sacrifices, one thing for another - went home around midnight, long train ride, hoping I might see Chia on the train but no luck, she’s probably in a cab looking out the window, lights streaming by, shadows racing on her face, pretty Chia. But not tonight, tonight my head feels tight at the temples. Finally made it to 137th street stop, walked down 139th to Riverside and passed the local shopkeeper calling “Miss!†as though he were calling an animal, the block bum kinda shadowed behind him and I asked him if they were looking for a cat because if they were there was a cat in the tree across the street. The bum looked at me without seeming to understand so I just said come on and started leading the way to the tree, the bum trailed reluctantly behind me until he saw the cat and then he ran to get the shopkeeper. I hung out there for a while but not long enough to see how they got the cat out of the tree and they did get her out because there was no sign of her in the morning. The animal rescue people called in the morning. I told ‘em they missed all the action, I did their job for them.
Secreting sweat like a frog, a constant sheen of dampness, sticky collars, dripping temples, standing water breeds mosquitoes and empire state reflections, horns of angry melody hurry the fuck up you asshole I got no place to be exactly but I like to think I should be there right away and your bones would make a perfect passage way.
home of good times and chebihentai’s arch enemy, she who will remain unnamed
is that the finger that you practiced the golden finger technique with?
Its 9am, just wrote some people to tell ‘em how much I love ‘em, been up all night, a little drunk, don’t want to sleep too much. Took a shit a couple of minutes ago, my roommate’s boyfriend just went in, hopefully he smells it. My cat is such a spaz, she’s running around attacking everything. Now I sleep.
Writing right now and stopping
plastered ideas
flat and wrinkled
cling tight to my cheeks and forehead
shrinking me and slowing the fast to faster and over
too long and more to come because I can’t finish
that’s for games and races
A DREAM POEM–
I saw the cracks in the make up at the edge of her face
applied to hide the slight blemishes that I love so much.
Wipe it off
my wet hand reveals the warm pale beneath the cold powder
her eyes never leave my face
I exist without a hand, without a face, without a body
all is reflection
all clean without mask or scar
skin without definition
a moment that aspires to itself
How easily things slip from my grasp, I often wonder how I can hold anything.
Easy to let go, filled with indifference.
What’s hard is later, what’s hard is the realization of loss, what’s hard is regret, placid regret and longing for passion that is barred from the likes of me.
Oh it isn’t true, the passion could be mine if I wasn’t afraid of being consumed by it, of humiliating myself, of overcoming humiliation and other social discomforts . . . .
DAVI
SINKS
BELOW
THE
TABLE
:
:
:
:
SANTE
WATCHES
IN
HORROR
:
:
:
:
:
REMOTE
CONTROL
GIRL
A
BIG
GLASS
OF
BEER
:
:
:
:
OH
NO
!
!
!
:
:
:
:
:
:
COMPLETE
DISDAIN
OR
FUNNY
FACE
?
?
???????????????????????????
This is serious
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
I
present
to
you
(after much reflection, contemplation, and many beers)
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
THE
AMAZING
FANTASTIC
OVERWHELMING
(in fact it kind of makes me giddy with excitement as my face contorts to such cartoonish dimensions)
.
.
.
.
.
quiet
clouds
sailing
in the night
trees made of shadow
.
.
.
.
.
.
moon
and
glass bottles
on fences
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
in front of my brother’s house
I saw a pretty girl on the subway tonight and it made me so sad. She had smooth gold skin and soft hands, her eyes were bright with wonder as she watched the Italian magician with the dummy strapped to his back do card tricks and make floating flowers out of napkins. I was sad because I’d never meet her, never have that kind gaze turned towards me, never know the sound of her laughter. . . My friend once asked me “you can believe in the possibility, can’t you?‖that’s the root of my problem, belief or rather faith in the possibility that somebody could fall for a mug like me. The thoughts that you feed yourself are the reality that finds you, never quite the way you expect but in some way the connections are always there. Its just not immeadiate and its not like buying something, I can’t just say she’s beautiful, she has soft hands, wrap her up and put her in a box to take home or maybe it is that simple, it is for some; of course they risk an awful lot of rejection.
Speech can cause me so much anxiety because I start to believe everything I am saying when I know that it is action and not speculation that counts . . . somehow words can falsify action, and man I can just gush words–it’s a hypnotizing moment, lost in my own sound and speculation, falling into a confusion . . . better listen more and say less.
There’s a wound on the kitchen ceiling, a puckered gash that never heals. Sometimes it bleeds rusty brown water that gushes into the sink then slowly subsides into a urine colored drip. I went upstairs and asked the lady about it, she told me her baby spilled the tub as three children seemed to be dragging her to the floor behind the cracked door.
I know her face better than my own. I see her when I blink, when the lights dim, in the corners of my eyes at twilight she appears to me for days, delightfully uninvited and then she disappears.
She gave secret half smiles to all the strangers that she met.
Her gray shorts hugged her thighs. It was early fall and the sun still warmed but the detached smoothness of her features held no warmth, only a vague triumph. For a moment she had won an emotional battle. It was almost like beating someone up, she thought as she hit the volleyball again.
She felt his eyes upon her but refused to look. Instead she hit the ball harder, forcing herself to jump to keep the ball from going over her head. “Ow!†she pulled her finger to her mouth instinctively. She hated it when she jammed her finger, especially at that moment is seemed to belittle her victory. It made her feel like a clumsy little girl. “Are you alright?” a concerned and sickeningly familiar voice asked.
“‘I’m fine,†she quipped trying to cover her embarrassment. Her finger did hurt and she could feel it swelling and tightening up the skin around her ring finger. Ordinarily she would run inside and get an ice pack immediately but not today. Nothing would keep her from playing today.
Russet pink sky
Horizon burning red fingered clouds
Sun a gaping wound
I hope I find you before it is too late
Poetry has never been restricted to poetry. It is everywhere and in everything.
We’re all moths flying towards the light. Some of us are a light for others but that light is just a moth too, trying for another light. That’s when the light’ll burn you, that’s when you gotta make yourself a moth light so there’s two suns in the sky smiling at one another and drifting into each others arms.
The space between you and I is limitless unless we will it to be otherwise, only together can space be fulfilled.
a fingernail of sunshine
Sun in the ground, shadows on the sky
Obi-one, the reason I have a website at all.
Miss you buddy, I don’t think you look like a crack addict in this one 
Dry eyed beyond tired rainy mornings soaked sweating sticky skin pigeons and dead mice smelling older without feeling grey skies splattering tires endless traffic everybody stay home today fat chance noise stands still nervous ready to run or fight don’t corner it or the car alarms swell slow and unabating dreams wet behind the ears at war waking every few minutes to breath or beat my dead arm or both blood flow barks angry lonely baby used to aloneness happy yellow misery myth hugs tight distant memory and make believe speculating and prophesying the never dawn instead of the ever day
The leaves fall slowly into the creek passing through waning shafts of light whisking across the rapids that cloth the jutting rocks.
Some Oscar Wilde:
“…punctuality is the thief of time.â€
“Nowadays people know the price of everything, and the value of nothing.â€
“Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed.â€
“When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one’s self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.â€
“Here’s to sugar on the strawberries.”
- Burt Lancaster as Ned Merrill in the Swimmer.
“My lost kingdom!”
- Jack Palance as Jeremy Prokosch in Le Mepris (Contempt)
A wild happiness, strange and somewhat unwarranted - Why now and not yesterday or the day before or even earlier this afternoon? Can’t be ecstatic all the time or you become scattered, can’t do anything too much or you become scattered - a good rule of thumb. Need constant change but with a positive bent. Watch the bitching, watch for the users, be up front and unambiguous (decide these things ahead of time and stick with them) don’t withhold help, just think about who you’re giving it to and why. Do things for yourself, everyone else is not depending on you nor should they, â€in order to be effective you must be selective†- be a good man, don’t worry too much about what others think, be your good man not their’s. Don’t be afraid to give, the water runs in a strong current when you do and dries up when you don’t.
A pit bull has been tied to a fence and left there for about a week now. The poor girl barks at anyone who passes by, barks in fear. The resident bum of my street, a vaguely Hispanic man with a beard and a drinking problem, told me that she was his dog and rather defensively added that she eats well and he treats her much better than the others. Every time I walk by this dog I feel as though I’m betraying her, I rebel against the filth and suspicion of the neighborhood, the cruel children with their bird calls and the thugs shouting, drinking, and playing dominos. They hate this dog that barks in fear, they want her to shut up, to go away, to disappear. They throw shit at her, provoke her, slap her. She was gone for a couple hours today and her corner was soaked with water or blood. I want to help this animal, I went outside at four in the morning and sat with her, she growled and barked and when I did nothing she quieted down and watched me suspiciously. I moved closer and then someone passed by and she started barking again. Finally the bum appeared and quieted her down, told me she’d probably bite me. I figured that pit bull was the only real friend that guy had and I forgave him and didn’t have the heart to tell him that it was terrible to chain this magnificent animal to a fence all day and feed her rice and beans. Leaving her at the mercy of children and drunks, the city dirt . . .
The train was being held when I arrived breathlessly. A woman hastily vacated her seat so I sat down thinking, “What luck” until I realized that I was sitting across from the reason they were holding up the train: a deranged looking man who would suddenly shout, “Stay the fuck away from me!” or “Leave me alone, just leave me alone god dammit!” Of course no one was within two seats of him and I was under the impression that this was rather tame behavior compared to earlier antics. At any rate he had really pissed off the guy sitting to his left who suddenly said, “You better chill the fuck out”. The conductor was so pissed off that, in the midst of telling the guy that we weren’t leaving until he exited the train, he threatened to kick his ass. He was a macho Hispanic guy and he said, “If you keep yelling at everybody, I’m gonna kick your ass”, which just caused the man to fume and curse even more, waving his arms through the thick air of the summer subway car and shouting, “Get this shit going!” After a few more minutes of this the conductor came out again and told him that we were just waiting for the police to arrive and “escort you off the train” to which the man shook his head in dismay and for a moment I thought he would change his tune but he looked up and said, “Why don’t you suck my ass?” before huffing off the train in the fumes of his own anger, choking with rage and hurling his anger upon the empty subway platform. The conductor watched him leave with satisfaction and with every taunt and insult that the man threw at him the conductor responded, “Yeah you say that as you leave. Real tough guy. If I wasn’t working I’d whip your ass.”
ON THE SUBWAY
Evelyn Hawkins pointed to a picture of Matthew Barney sitting in a bathtub full of naked Asian women and said, “There he is, that’s Satan.”
I lied twice today, it is really fucking me up. Don’t want to lie in my life, no matter what the consequences. Tactfully omitting the truth is a different matter but outright lying–can’t live like that, it never stops growing and choking all sincerity into oblivion.
Does the light play on the water or does the water play with the light?
The screaming swing sets protest the setting sun.
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