those who inspire me, part I

These people are the film directors who inspire me the most. They're also my favorite directors, which is probably part of that.

Joe Wright, Director.
Films (of note):
Pride and Prejudice
Atonement
Hanna

For those who don't know, Atonement is my favorite film, and it breaks my heart every time I watch it. Pride and Prejudice is my go-to feel-good girl movie. At the end of it, I'm so happy that I'm squealing and probably glowing pink. Hanna was a good action film, though not great. Saoirse Ronan's acting was top-notch, and the concept behind the story was good, but I think it could have used a little more tweaking before going into production. It did, however, have a great character arch for the character of Hanna that you see especially when she turns to her father and says "you didn't prepare me for this." It's actually from filming Hanna that the above picture is from. The thing I really love about Joe Wright is that yes, he gets good performances out of his actors, and yes, he picks good stories, but what he visually does is stunning. The five minute steadicam shot in Atonement is one of the strongest points of the film. But there are so many strong points. He composes the shots, from staging to lighting, from hair/makeup/wardrobe to camera placement that the entire thing looks like a painting when done. Every shot. He juxtaposes wideshots with closeups, he chooses to show things other than the face for emotion. He balances things in such a way that a good story somehow looks and feels like a great story. He also is a master when it comes to working with a score composer. He picks great composers, and works with them to do what needs to be done. He dreams big and beautiful and emotional and real. He shows life in such a way that I am reminded how beautiful it is.


Darren Aronofsky, Director
Films (of note):
Requiem for a Dream
The Fountain
Black Swan

Sick, twisted SOB. And so good at directing it's unfair. The performances that he can pull out of actors are beyond insane. His stories are always twisted and uncomfortable and push boundaries that they shouldn't always push, but at the same time, it always says something. What the character of Marion in Requiem for a Dream does in the end is grotesque, but shows the lengths she will go for an end result because her character is so twisted. The Fountain is the least uncomfortable, the main story being a man so deeply in love with his wife/queen, that he would go to the ends of the earth and beyond to try to save her. Aronofsky may not pick the best stories, the stories that must be told, but the stories he tells are told so well that it more than makes up for it.


Tarsem, Director
Films (of note):
The Fall
Immortals

Visual genius. The Fall is also an incredible story with deeper philosophical and theological meanings in layer upon layer within the film. The acting in that film is fantastic, and no part of any performance leaves me wanting more or thinking it didn't feel right. It's somewhat of a lesser known film, although it shouldn't be. But the visuals of The Fall are really the strong point, and with as strong as the story and acting are (and directing overall) that's saying something. Haven't seen Immortals yet, but I want to mainly because he directed it. If I want to see something just because a particular director did it, they're good at what they do.

Peter Jackson, Director
Films (of note):
The Fellowship of the Ring
The Two Towers
The Return of the King
King Kong
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Okay, granted the first three are basically all one film (and were pretty much shot as such), but that's like and 11 hour film, and it's one of the best films of our time. Directing wise, it's marvelous. To helm a movie like that, you have to be an incredible director. It was actually watching those three movies in the extended editions, and then watching the hours and hours worth of how they made it that caused me to want to go into film. I saw it and just knew that was where I needed to be. Jackson has done more, including a long list of B horror films, and a ton of producing and writing. The actors in LOTR tell stories about Jackson, and you can hear such a deep fondness in their voices, and you suddenly understand how good of a director he is. Actors don't bond to every director (although from a director's stand point we hope they bond to us) and to hear how much they adored him is telling.


Steven Spielberg, Director
Films (only a few of the many):
E.T.
Schindler's List
Saving Private Ryan
Hook
Jurassic Park
Jaws
Catch Me If You Can
Indiana Jones

The guy has done everything. And he writes, produces, directs, pretty much everything. He's one of those people. Everyone knows his name, everyone can name some of his films, everyone has seen at least one of his films. He's incredibly entertaining, or at least his work is, and you have to bet that if his films are that fun and entertaining, the guy probably is too. I'd say out of all his strengths, probably his strongest point is picking really good stories and telling them well. They're stories that you can't help but really like, and most of all, the masses can understand the stories and get into it. He hasn't lost his touch, he doesn't do weird things (well, he did AI, but every great director will miss the mark at some point), and he's also proven that he can do incredibly moving films as well. The guy can tell a story and tell it well.


There are more directors I like...
Kathryn Bigelow
David Yates
Mark Romanek

My next entry might have blurbs about them. Who knows.

hope and tears

Maybe I should start with the sad part of this entry so that at least it'll end better than it starts and won't leave you feeling horridly depressed.

I suppose it's time I admit that I'm in therapy. Depression runs in the family (actually, it gallops), and there was only so much that medication could do for me. After about six months on it, I felt it was doing more harm than good. From a psychiatrist post of view, that would mean it's time to try a different medication, since that one wasn't working the way that it should. Different medications in the anti-depressant family are composed different ways and do different little chemical changes within the brain. Finding the right medication means you have to mess around with what you're changing and see when you've hit the right chemical balance.

I, however, made a choice after accidentally going off medication. Long story short I got sick and didn't take them for a few days because, well.... eating wasn't working out. Anyway, I should have gone back on them, but I hadn't been feeling like me for a few months.... like I only had access to part of my personality, and that the medication had limited me as a person and made me sort of a two-dimensional character rather than a full three-dimensional character. So I didn't resume taking them. Instead, I made the conscious choice to tackle the deeper issues that my depression feeds on.

Let's get a few things straight here. First of all, I have a history of depression, as do several people in my family. Statistics show that once you've had depression once, you are over 50% likely to get depression again. Having a second span of depression increases your chances to about 80%, and three or more cases of depression pretty much solidifies the fact that you're going to have it for the rest of your life. Many mental illnesses are hereditary. One in five women will be diagnosed with depression at some point in their life, so it's not as uncommon as people truly believe it to be. Moving to a new place often brings up issues we have formerly dealt with and forces us to deal with them again. Los Angeles in particular is especially good at digging up the dead.

That I suffer is not weakness. It's a combination of a lot of things, many of which are out of my control. Getting help isn't weak--quite the opposite really, as the hardest things for me to admit in my life are that I need help on any of the big things. That I can't fight this battle on my own has been really hard for me to face.

Now that that's all sorted, I can actually get into what I wanted to say in the first place.

There are parts of my personality that have been developed over time, parts that I'm now aware of thanks to therapy, and they're not good parts. But as they are ingrained into me, I can't just turn them off. I keep walls up. Letting someone into my life, truly trusting them and letting them in on the secrets of who I am, is one of the single most painful things I can imagine, so I very rarely even allow someone a chance. My ability to trust was severely damaged as a child.

I think the core issue was finally hit, the sun around which all these issues and character flaws surround. I'll explain things this way.... think of our solar system, our planets and such. The sun is the core, then there are the inner planets, then the band of asteroids, then the outer planets. My depression is like the solar system, and I've been slowly working my way inwards to find out what fuels everything.

At my core, the issue that hurts the most, is the simplest one. I'm so very alone, and that loneliness is excruciatingly painful.

I don't know how to not be alone.

____________________________________

Now to something far less heavy.

My last entry was about this hope that I have, about the fact that I truly feel that God has someone for me, and that when the time is right, it'll be fireworks.

Lately all these notifications on facebook are showing that people are getting married, engaged, entering into relationships, all sorts of stuff. And then I'll see people upset about being single. I've heard that being single during the holidays is rough. Maybe if I was five years older, I might understand that, but I'm still rather young, and I've had it both ways, and to be honest, I don't know that there's a whole lot of difference.

With that in mind, juxtaposed with this solid hope I have, I find myself quite glad in my singleness. I feel almost like I have something that they don't--they may have a relationship, but I have hope and the promise of something amazing. I'm not rushing something, I'm not forcing anything, I'm certainly not settling for anyone.

For as stressed out and emotionally fried as I am, I at least have that. I have my singleness, which right now, is far better than any relationship.

Also, not related to the whole singleness thing, something that makes me feel less lonely.
Monday night was Disney night at a friend's apartment, and well.... Graham walked me home at 5am when the last of us decided we should call it a night. It was a long and lovely night, and I felt happy to just be there. I wasn't alone, I wasn't forgotten, I wasn't excluded or on the outside looking in. I belonged. I mattered. It was wonderful. Days like that (or nights, I guess?) give me hope, that amidst everything, despite how lonely I feel at the very core of my being, maybe I'm not alone after all.

let me come home

Home, let me come home.
Home is wherever I'm with you.
Home, yes I am home.
Home is when I'm in love with you.



Every time I hear this, I think of her. It's been stuck in my head for the past 3 days, playing nonstop on repeat.

She was a vital part of home for me.

Fresh home from vacation and all I wanted was to hold my baby.

She will always be my sassy owl-eyed cat, and I will always be her little girl.

What I feared most in these past few months was that I wouldn't make it home in time.

I didn't. She's gone.

I don't want to face the world for a few days, but I can't put my life on hold. In the real world, there's no pause button, no way to make everything stop while I make myself face the pain, and the realization that someone so much a part of me is gone forever. That she's gone forever.

I can't just wallow in my own sorrow, I can't take off and go home for a few days.

I have no one here. No one here who can offer the solace I need, the comfort I so desperately crave.

nicht kaput, und film.

The story of a broken chair, part 2.


I fixed it. And when I sat in it, oh man did that feel fantastic. Actually, I'm sitting in it now, and it feels a bit more solid. No weird creaking wood noises. So maybe I fixed it for good? I'd like to hope so, because I'd like to keep this chair around for a while. Wood glue, wood screws (that weren't all that solid, unfortunately), some clamps for the glue process, and voila, it's back to working status.


And I suppose for anyone who is like "don't buy from IKEA!!" they have valid points, but if you're willing to put a little extra work in (in case it breaks, like in my case), I'd say it's worth it. Mostly just because I love rocking chairs though.

Also, I love the fact that mine has a red cushion, rather than black as pictured on the IKEA website. Red is probably my second favorite color, and my house color (Gryffindor, duh), and even though it's supposed to be a power/anger color, I tend to just like it (mostly in smaller doses though). Although, it does make me feel a little empowered.


Moving on from the chair, I spent my week working as a receptionist and rereading Harry Potter (I'm currently about 2/3 through the 3rd book) and then my entire weekend I spent helping a friend with a film project for a class. It felt good to be on a set again, to be doing what I actually want to do with my life. The interesting part was I realized just how much I know, and it's a dangerous amount. I'm not a DP by any stretch, but as a photographer and artist, I understand a lot about making a shot look more dynamic/cinematic. They also at one point started listening to me about how to do the lights, which I thought was a very bad decision on their part considering that I probably know less about lighting than the two guys on the crew (although I do know when the lighting looks right within the shot...). I caught things for them on occasion (oh hey you have this in the shot...) and did some makeup on two of the actors (who I deemed my beautiful beat-up boys). It looked pretty good on camera, and the cast and crew loved it, so it was all good. Last night (after my 3rd late night in a row, following a week of being up early for work), I was so tired I crashed in a chair in the guys' apartment. Ooops.... They woke me up once they'd finished putting all the equipment away and sent me home, which was definitely for the best. Also, on a sort of funny side, I had some fake blood from doing the makeup, and when they were doing a quick pick-up shot, I got sort of bored and dripped the fake blood across the ground in a way that looked like someone had gotten stabbed or a really bloody nose and had walked away, and the guys thought it was so cool and decided they needed a shot of it. Krista and I thought it was hilarious that my goof-off moment turned so cinematic.

Not working today through wednesday, but I work thursday-wednesday (minus the weekend, and people have started asking me if I'm free to help them on films already...). Guess I'm sort of popular? Even if that's not the case, I think I'll believe it is for the time being, because that seems like a better answer than "we just want her around because we want to use her, but we don't actually like her because she's a bit of an insufferable know-it-all".

I'm exhausted, but I'm happy. I met new people this weekend, made new friends (at least that's how I would view them) and honestly just felt like all was right in the world. Although, unfortunately for Juan, I definitely felt my director side coming out. It can't be helped. Stick me on a set and if I know people will listen to my suggestions, I will be making a great deal of suggestions (at least in my head, I tend to tone it down vocally). It's one of my many faults, but it's part of what makes me me.


On a psychological side, I'm still clueless as to how to not be so emotionally distant, unattached. How to stop shutting myself in and others out. I was talking to my mom about it and she said that it was normal for someone who has been hurt to do this, to put up barriers and emotional shields. But I don't think I could explain to her that the extent to which I do it is unnatural. (actually, it's quite natural for me). It's unhealthy, and it's to the point where even when I want to let someone in, more often than not, I can't. There is a massive part of me that remains hidden constantly, and no one ever knows everything. Although, my best friend Nicole comes close to knowing everything. She probably knows me the best, even though we only met in January, and have been apart since the end of April. But we're soul mates, and the distance between us physically hasn't hindered our relationship. I'm blessed to have her in my life, even moreso to be able to call her my best friend.

I miss our froyo dates.

I love this rocking chair.