Chocolate & Cookie Filmmaking Metaphors

These just come to me as I'm working...so thought I'd share.

1.

When I finally get a scene translated that I have tried to edit into the timeline, it's like after looking at a huge delicious box of chocolate and trying to decide which ones to eat first, and then finally getting the little picture map of what is inside each chocolate. You have the answers and then you can really dig in.

2.

The whole long process of making my documentary is like following cookie crumbs through a dark, bleak, and scary forest. Every now and then I get a big cookie crumb and trudge happily ahead and then it's months till the next crumb and the doubt sets in. Am I on the right path? Is there even another cookie crumb ahead? Will all the crumbs actually even lead to a huge cookie at the end? No turning back now, I know there's no cookie crumbs left where I came from! So, we can just know there will be another crumb to inspire us and lead the way, and also know there will probably be many more dark spells in between, so strap on some comfortable shoes.

ARMED WITH CHOCOLATE (and maybe some ice cream and cookies), I CONTINUE THE EDIT ADVENTURE....THE SLOWEST ADVENTURE I'D EVER AGREE TO.

1 week across America!

This is actually my 2nd cross country road trip, but the last time was VT - CA. I also have done CHI - CA after college for my move. This time it was CA - VT.

It's all about the journey...blah blah...but no, really, it is. Sure my car is loaded with all of my belongings (except 2 shipped boxes) and sure the goal is to move my home base to a new city, but before that huge new chapter begins, I had a week of pure FUN on the road. A perfect vacation. Being stuck in a car forces me to do nothing and enjoy.

In the words of my road buddy, oldest college friend, and DJ GPS,

"We have to hit the road to get somewhere tonight."

Somewhere was along this route....

THE MAP

I started the trip up CA HWY 1 to San Fran and then the "official" trip began...

The first day was an adventure, which is what we asked for, but we quickly learned to ask for maybe..."a little easier adventure". After Yosemite, Day 1 was an amazing roller coaster road that caused extremely high pitched screams to echo across the empty desert in the middle of no where.

After considering sleeping in a very creepy casino desert town (ALL hotels were booked - what??), considering camping at a rest area (rest area = epitome of bad ideas), and considering camping by a recommended crater (crater ended up being created by a missile, proven by the missile next to the road and the "testing area" sign), we instead drove into the night imagining the other worldly desert landscape around us and ended up a the nicest hotel we could have hoped for!

The 2nd night was camping in Flaming Gorge, mostly chosen for the name, which provided amazing water front views and fields of grazing antelope. An old man in a pickup came at dusk to collect the required $10. The 3rd night the landscape changed as we

climbed in elevation to Rocky Mountain National Park. A view of spectacular yellow aspen leaves, and yes some snow, met us. Our fire was shared by a friend who I made 2 years ago on a show I worked on, time means little on the road. Night 4 & 5 were a hotel night in Des Moines and then couch in Chicago, for time with the best of college friends. We barely made it through Indiana on day 6...but did...and then just one more night on the road before the destination.

Wondering when all this will set in....because this isn't real life.

work hard, play harder

Endlessly am I amazed at the group of people Luis is able to pull together to one table in the jungle of Peru. After a FULL day of complicated surgeries, holding cameras and filming, painting, and teaching kids and adults (all with no time for food, in between down pours of rain, and often lacking a common language) each person is still standing - or sitting - at the table at midnight clinking their full glasses of pisco sours and laughing. Thank you Luis and happy birthday, may we all be half as amazing as you when we are on the "other side" of 70 years.

Only two more full days in the Yantalo area - the fastest trip here yet. It does feel like the right amount of time though, since really all the film needs now is a finished clinic, fully functioning. But - isn't that what everyone needs?

But, this trip was made 100% worth it yesterday. Sometimes when filming a documentary for over 5 years, you loose track, or wonder what the film will look like. Other times, it is perfectly clear. Yesterday as the group of over 20 volunteers / visitors saw the construction

site for the first time, Luis got a call that parents with a sick baby had flown all the way from Lima to see the visiting physicians. When they arrived in Moyobamba, they heard the American doctors had just left the hospital to go to Yantalo. So, the parents drove to Yantalo - came to the constructions site - and there, among the blue prints, mud floor, and construction material, the doctors performed an examination. The Yantalo clinic's first patient.

Now this is the film.

Peru Trip #6

After over 24 hours of travel from Los Angeles we landed in the jungle. We had to stay thenight in Tarapoto (where the airport is), since we landed in the dark and the drive to Yantalo is not safe at night. We got a good 4 hours of sleep and then climbed in the van at 5:30am for a sunrise 3 hour drive to Moyobamba. We arrived at the hotel with 10min to unload before heading to Yantalo for a full day of filming. Welcome to the jungle. The arrival was made complete by ice cold Cusquena beers and a cold shower before bed. Always a reminder here how much less people,including myself, can live with and how much we have in the US.


Day 2 was AMAZING due to stumbling upon a circus in a town we had followed Luis to for ameeting at the city hall. I got up the guts, after filming the outside of the tent, to wander in and find the owner. We had the most wonderful interview. Even in the jungle of Peru when asked what circus means he replied, "it is art, it is culture, it is in our veins."

On the way back to Yantalo we passed fields of pineapples, I don't know why they made me so happy... just the FUNNIEST thing I had ever seen. Think of small plants in a huge field with a whole pineapple just sitting on top of them. It's like someone went out there and glued them to the top of each plant in a HUGE field.

I also ate a fried ant, actually really tasty, kind of smokey, salty, crunchy snack. But as soon as I thought about what I was chewing I gagged. Just don't think. Nothing like post meal turning to your friend and asking, "do I have ant legs in my teeth?"

Mis amigos. The best of the best. :o)

New York departure & return

After two weeks apt / cat sitting in Harlem, I headed north to Nyack, NY luggage in hand (barely as my trusty strap on a suitcase of my dad's I'd used since grade school broke). After a screening of my short doc, Runaway Circus, I caught a ride with Karen a little further North / East to Westport, CT where I took the train to Springfield, MA where I got picked up by my mom & Tom for a delivery home in VT.

The sky was such a rich black and filled with so many stars it was if a sheet had been laid out right above me I could touch. And the quiet. And the breeze.

Two nights in my downstairs room and then packed up and moved to the 3rd floor in preparation for guests, then packed for a night in CT. On return home, I re-packed in preparation for a stop in Chicago to see friends and then landing in LA. August in LA for work, 2 weeks in Peru in September, and then...move to NYC. Yup. Road trip and the whole pack up & sell everything thing. Surreal. Slowly telling people as I slowly believe it myself. Could it really be this easy?

Am I coming or going? I've lost track if I'm unpacking or packing. But, what's new?

Vermont to Hawaii

The only place I know I'm really home is Vermont. I'm like a robot that needs to go re-charge. Laying in the thyme covered yard reading and drinking make shift mojitos. Wading in Stickney Brook, such cold water my bones hurt, remembering sliding down the rocks as a kid completely unaware of the temperature. Going to bed smelling like campfire, fingers still sticky from marshmallow.

Then a night on a New York couch in the stagnate humid heat & the constant city noise.

Then Hawaii again, you know, to work. :o) My hotel room has a doorbell and a dining room table. I just love that there is a door bell...really the room is so big I might not hear a knock?! Amazing.

This is what I woke up to the first morning.....

Life is kind of amazing. Thank you.

New York City

A city you step out into the streets and feel surrounded by people. Well, because you are, but I feel this impulse to run around and hug everyone. People exist. They aren't just mad drivers in LA traffic, they're human and all so so different.

Bars close at 4am, some adjusting there, but makes the weekends seem much longer. Well, I guess they are - adds a good chunk of time to your awake-ness.

It's been raining. It is wonderful. Just like the people - it exists. Weather and change and mother nature exists. I love sun and blue skies, I do, but I also love rain, snow and wind. So what? I want it all.

Maybe I'll get annoyed by it, but for now I welcome the humid mist blurring my glasses and puddles making my feet soggy.

Karen's loft has always been a haven for visiting circus performers and friends. And it doesn't stop now. I'm in the upstairs guest attic room, but people still come and go down below, including Karen. If only the walls could talk.