Class Canceled for the Holiday!

We have just returned from a July Fourth getaway in Asheville. I'm tired from the trip and won't be able to post a movie critique. Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday and/or enjoyed their weekend.

Before we left we received a delivery from Dwaynes Photo that included lots of fun stuff. I am very excited about the above photos that we took with my grandmother's old Kodak Duaflex. My sister had used it once before and her photos had too many light leaks. My husband and I trekked down to the arboretum to take a test roll and I am very excited about how they turned out. Can't wait to use it again.

Flip'n Friday: Monday Night Pottery

Today I am not going to post a video shot on the flip camera. I have needed to make a trailer for a documentary that I have just finished for the past couple weeks so I dedicated this week to completing it. Monday Night Pottery is a cinema verite film that documents a pottery class over a two month session. Here is the synopsis of the film:

In the tradition of Wiseman and the Brothers Maysles, this film explores a group of local amateur potters who meet every week as a haphazard, yet loving community of artists. 

Enjoy!



Monday Night Pottery Trailer from Chelsea Wayant on Vimeo.

Beginning Filmmaking

Editing Rain last Thursday made me think of my beginning filmmaking professor, Mrs. Robinson, yes, that was really her name. Since we were all film students we of course (more specifically the boys in class, so all the students except me) were super sensitive to calling out her name, there was a lot of, "umm, uhh, Mrs, umm, Robinson..."

The class focused entirely on experimental filmmaking (check out this, this, and this) and by the end of the class I was worried I had made a huge mistake in choosing my life's path. For my final film I was "adapting" a Jim Morrison poem and I had created a slight narrative path. Narrative films often rely on certain shots to tell the story; imagine The Graduate without Ben and Elaine on the bus at the end. Whole different movie.

Anyway, one or two reels of the film did not turn out and needless to say they contained the most important shots. I went to Mrs. Robinson, near tears, imploring to her that I could not make my film. She asked me if some reels turned out, I nodded. She told me I had a film, it wasn't exactly what I planned, but to remember the films make themselves and not the other way around. So I went back looked at the footage again (and again) until I found the film.

Often I think about this even when I'm not making a film because life is never cut and dry either. The best laid plans...

When I projected my film for the class, still not confident, it didn't help that Mrs. Robinson kept taking her glasses off and rubbing her eyes. I thought she was falling asleep. It turns out she was crying, she even needed a moment when the film was over to compose herself. It was amazing to know I had touched someone so deeply.

My last year of college I wasn't handling criticism well in a video production class and lamented to a fellow student. In disbelief he looked at me and said, "Didn't you make Mrs. Robinson cry? Not many filmmakers can say that."

Wordless Wednesday: Kendel (as Emaline) at Dinner

{Music to accompany photographs}

Lazy Summer Day

Yesterday was a very busy day. I did all the laundry in the house, cooked a big dinner, cleaned, took a long hot walk, and a wrote a long post. Very draining. So today we are takin' it easy. I think we'll take our walk later in the day when the heat index hopefully drops a little bit.

Meanwhile, I'll enjoy watching my daughter dance to her favorite songs: this and this. Very different. Hope you can have a lazy summer day this week as well.

By the way is there any way to make Basil stop flowering (as in the second picture)? Is it ok if it flowers? And why do squirrels like to dig up basil? Any ideas?

Monday Film Class: It's Complicated

Alright so this is more like a year in review post and won't necessarily include films you have to add to your must watch list, though I would recommend it. Last year was a really good year for women filmmakers not even including the obvious. Almost all of the top women film directors released a film: Kathryn Bigelow (Hurt Locker), Jane Campion (Bright Star), Nora Ephron (Julie and Julia), Mira Nair (Amelia), and Nancy Meyers (It's Complicated). Even though there are more and more women directors cropping up these five have been around for awhile and are trailblazers. It's almost overwhelming that they all had films come out last year.

Kathryn Bigelow {Source}

Jane Campion {source}

This weekend I finally watched It's Complicated, and now the only one I haven't seen is Amelia. I'm dragging my feet because I am not a huge Hilary Swank fan something about her really rubs me the wrong way for some reason and more than likely she will be in every scene of the film.

My favorite of all the films is, hands down, Bright Star, it is a beautiful and breathtaking film. It even has Paul Schneider in it who is one of my favorite actors and is also from Asheville, NC, where my husband grew up. It is shocking to me that both Campion and Bigelow were not nominated for best director at the Oscars last year, they both deserved the nominations. I guess film's biggest night is not quite ready enough to give up two seats to women behind the camera. While I can appreciate Hurt Locker, Kathryn Bigelow tends toward films that are a little too intense for me. I also really like a film with a female lead particularly a female who bucks tradition.

 Nancy Meyers {Source}

Thus, bringing me to It's Complicated, which I finally watched this weekend. Since the arrival of the little baby girl into our lives we are not able to make it to the movies as often as we used to go. We're starting to get better about this arranging for a babysitter thing (i.e. my sister or my grandmother), but we're still a little limited. Thank goodness for Netflix. Nothing really substitutes for watching in a theater with the film projected on film (with digital projection I might as well stay at home). Yet, Netflix is a good, yet, distant second. For some reason I don't seem to want to talk about the movie...

Perhaps, because I didn't love it, and I really wanted to love it. My husband really wanted to love it as well, no luck there either. To begin with it felt too long. All the pieces were there they just needed to be rearranged. Meryl Streep was wonderful, but really, when is she not? Notice that she was in two of the above mentioned films, hmmm. Though the scenes with all "the girlfriends" did not ring true to me; they just laughed a lot and were giddy or something. Those scenes were really hard for me to watch. I think that Streep could have done more with the character she was a little one dimensional. She is used to being perfect and gets stomped on and then she breaks the rules and does the stomping. Streep could easily handle more complexity in a character so go ahead and give it to her. There was not enough of Steve Martin he wasn't allowed to really shine. His character was too perfect, too easy. He should have come up earlier it let's Streep off the hook because she ends it with Baldwin before she really starts dating him. The characters need to be allowed to have flaws (besides Baldwin, though somehow his flaw seems not to be a flaw because he is eschewing his young skinny wife for the older ex wife, how noble of him).

Actually, Meyers' last film The Holiday was a little long to me as well, but had a lot of heart and some really wonderful moments.  Some fell flat like Cameron Diaz crying at the end, a little over the top if you ask me. I love when Kate Winslet experiences the Santa Ana winds I almost feel them myself every time I watch the film.

Of course, there is always the chance that my expectations were to high and when I see it again with low expectations I'll appreciate it more. I hate it when I have to say that about a movie with a good movie hopefully expectations wouldn't matter. Though you should still watch it and tell me what you think. Plus, I do love the trailer.

Alright, so next week, Last Year at Marienbad, I promise. Hopefully, I'll be a little more positive. Though, I wasn't all that impressed with the film when I was in undergrad, but now that I've aged a little I thought I'd give it a another go. It just may have been the first French film I ever watched (other than The Red Balloon when I was young).

Visiting Mayberry a.k.a. Mount Airy NC

Last week my husband had the day off and we went for a day trip to Mount Airy. For some reason we thought it was about 45 minutes away, but it ended up being more like an hour and 15 minutes. It was a very nice place, as we walked up to the main street we immediately started hearing this. Most of the stores and restaurants had Mayberry themes. Even though the town is saturated with the Andy Griffith Show it didn't feel commercialized; mom and pop shops playing up the most famous angle of the town.

By the time we got there we were all very hungry, but had a hard time finding food for a vegetarian like me. If I was vegan I think I would have starved. I ended up having a grilled cheese. It was so-so.  After eating we went to the Andy Griffith museum, which was a little bit of a disappointment because it was only one room. They did have one of Matlock's suits, which impressed my husband because he didn't realize Matlock wore seersucker. We had been wanting to visit Mt. Airy for a long time because we constantly meet or hear of people that are from there. Also my mom is country singer and Mt. Airy native Donna Fargo's editor and we wanted to see her museum display, unfortunately we went to the wrong place. Once we figured out where we needed to go it was too late and we were ready to go home. Even though it was a nice visit we probably won't go back. Unless, of course, they get a good vegetarian restaurant.