Last weekend I started cleaning junk from my room. As I got rid of my items, I was astonished at the number of things I owned. Even more surprising was how little I cared about each item. I figured out that there were pretty much three reasons I kept the stuff that I had.
I'd always had it so I just got used to it.
I felt morally obligated to keep it.
I had an emotional attachment to the item that linked me to a previous time in my life.
For some of these items, I could find legitimate reasons for my emotional attachment. For other items, there was almost no explanation. I would like to share some of the latter, because they are amusing.
Russian Doll?
Is it Russian? Ukrainian? I don't even know.
An Old Souvenir from Corfu
This used to hold two blocks; one for the month and one for the date. The blocks were lost a long time ago, but this piece has been sitting at the bottom of my drawer for six years.
A Plush Lamb
When I was at Eastern European folk dance camp, the children created a puppet show. We knitted some sheep. This has been sitting on my top shelf for longer than six years.
My Old Inhaler
I had walking pneumonia in the middle of 8th grade, so I had to use an inhaler. To remember what true sickness is like (?), I kept this inhaler.
A Rock I Kicked Around with My Friends at Camp
One year, I had some great friends at camp. We had a rock we kicked around. I kept it.
A Small Sparkly Hat
I bought this hat in the city because it was cheap and it looked ridiculous. I wore it once for a Halloween costume. No one knew who I was dressed up as that year. Not even me.
MRSA
This is pretty self explanatory.
Now for the Grand Finale
My Friend's Toothbrush
Alright, this one I am kind of embarrassed to share, but let us commiserate together. One time a friend of mine spent the night at my house. He and his girlfriend (I guess?) made out my guest room the night before. After they both left, I realized he'd left his toothbrush. My original thought was to mail it in a box to his girlfriend with the message, "Now you can have his taste in your month whenever you want!" Was it bad humor? Maybe. Was it my attempt to mess with her because I was jealous? In hindsight, probably. Thankfully I never sent it, but toothbrush had remained in my closet for the past two years.
Now, the toothbrush and its memories are finally where they belong: in a landfill.
Yesterday, I decided it was finally time to finish the Stitler project. I figured it would be easily and fun to complete, and I would end up with a quality product.
I must admit though, when I attempted the project again, I felt as if it had lost its luster. It wasn't as funny to me as it was before. I didn't acknowledge my feelings at the time because I did not want to be discouraged, and I didn't want to be negative. Danny and I downloaded a number of slow motion clips to add in between. I edited things together and tried to make the foreigner lyrics more in sync with the voices of Hitler and Stalin. After piecing a good amount of it together, Danny recommended that a change of song might uplift the project.
At that point, he had to leave for chorus, and he gave me the permission to do whatever I saw fit for the video. I used the song MacArthur's Park, because it is a silly romance song, and I thought it would uplift the video. Unfortunately, I think it made me even more unenthusiastic. Perhaps I had already heard the song so many times, it no longer seemed silly to me. On the bright side, the song had a number of instrumental sections, so the film was easy to compile.
Once I had pulled everything together into a generally cohesive video, I decided it was finished. I had completely lost all willingness to continue. It wasn't that I was angry. I was simply done. I had nothing else to add.
So does this project have added meaning? In the beginning I would have said yes, but at this point, I do not think so. I don't think there is anything profound about the video. In fact, I barely find it entertaining to watch. It is nothing more than random clips compiled with mediocre pop song lyrics. Where did the magic go? I'm not sure. It disappeared.
For someone who is often very open about what she does, I think it was noticeable this week when I chose worked on my film clandestinely. A number of you were quite confused when you saw Matt dressed as a psychologist, flipping through pictures of nearly nude men and women.
I decided not to write about my project because I somehow felt like if I explained it, I wouldn't be able to do it. The movie covered a number of serious topics. I feared if people knew what I was doing, they would shame me and tell me no. That is why I have waited until now.
I will start from the beginning.
I have a friend who is a very conservative Catholic. He is basically a self-made theologian. Though I generally disregard those who believe in religious dogma, he made an impression on me by having the ability to logically explain the conservative point of view. Often we do not agree, but he respects my opinions and I respect his.
One day this friend of mine engaged me in a debate about homosexuality. He claims that homosexuals are diseased people suffering from a pathological disorder. He believes this "disorder" can be cured with proper psychological treatment, and that such a cure would benefit the homosexual. Of course I thought this was preposterous, but instead of writing him off, I wanted to hear how he could come to such a conclusion. He had read a book by the Dutch psychiatrist G. J. M. van den Aardweg, explaining the process of how this psychiatrist cured homosexuality in his patients.
This friend of mine is an incredibly good debater, and though I tried my best to refute his points, I could not. Still, I knew my belief was right and his was wrong. Most people would give up, saying that it's not worth arguing with a crazy person. But not me. I love to debate. I love to win. I wasn't done yet.
Last week I had to look up logical fallacies in my English class. I discovered that my friend's argument suffered from an appeal to authority, and I told him right away. He responded, "At least I have evidence. You haven't given me any factual information."
He had valid point. I couldn't argue my point because I didn't have enough information. "Fine," I said. "I will do my research, and then we shall resume this debate."
I pulled out my kindle and searched "homosexuality." A majority of the books had titles like "A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality" or "Leaving Homosexuality: A Practical Guide for Men and Women Looking for a Way Out." This mildly disgusted me, although I probably would have gotten better results if I searched the word "gay." Magically though, I came upon an excellent book on the subject, Understanding Homosexuality: The Pride and the Prejudice by Roger E. Biery. This amazing book explained all of the logical ways in which my friend was wrong. I read it in between classes, on car rides, and late at night. I was infatuated with it.
I returned to my friend and refuted a number of his points, and I'm pretty sure I gained the upper hand. We debated some more until he gave up on rhetoric and decided he would send me the book he read, which will apparently "blow me away." This book is in Spanish and my friend is painstakingly translating parts of it for me to read. He has yet to send it to me. I am waiting.
Now that you have context, I can talk about how I ended up making the movie that I made. On Monday, Luke sent us this assignment.
"You are to tell the story of a couple, from first meeting to break-up, in a series of shots overlaid with music. "
I had two ideas. One involved the story of a girl who falls in love with a boy in a library, but he pays more attention to his books than her. She tries to get his attention, which throws him into a fit of rage, and he breaks up with her.
The other was to make a story about a lesbian insecure about her sexuality who falls in love with a girl. She brings the girl to meet her family, but they don't approve and they send her into reparative therapy, changing her as a human being.
The second idea had a stronger pull on me, but I wasn't sure if it would be appropriate for me to make a movie about lesbians. I felt like I had no authority on the subject because I am not gay. After some pondering, I realized that it would be judgmental for me NOT to make a story about a gay couple. Why does every love story have to be straight? This is a standard perpetuated by our society. It is a social construct. Gay people make movies about straight love. Why can't straight people make movies about gay love? My book defines homosexuality as "the consistent, predominant or exclusive, emotional and erotic attraction to persons of the same gender." There are only two differences between gay and straight couples. The first is that they cannot have children. The second is that they have to deal with prejudice. There are no other differences.
I may not know what is it like to be judged for being gay, but I have been judged, and I did my research on sexuality, so I figured I had sufficient authority on the subject to attempt a film.
Writing
These are my notes on the plot
This is what the notes say. I named the first girl "Insecure" because she is insecure. The other girl is labeled as "Strong" because she is confident.
"An insecure girl walks through hallways seeing women. She is confused and visibly unsettled.
She sits in a secluded area reading books on sexuality. A friendly girl approaches her. They talk, look at each other. Strong girl puts her hand on insecure girl's hand. They smile.
They meet in a number of locations secretly. Insecure girl is somewhat reluctant. Strong girl holds her.
Insecure girl does more research, harsh news paper headlines.
Insecure introduces Strong to suspicious parents. They eat dinner. Parents see them holding hangs. Father storms out. Mother cries
Insecure is taken to therapist. She has episodes of mild self-harm.
Two girls are in the same place as the beginning. Strong goes up to insecure. She looks goth, depressed. Insecure shoves Strong and walks away, dropping book. Strong picks it up. She cries."
Storyboarding
I immediately drew out a storyboard. The movie was so vivid in my mind I was able to convert it to storyboard format very easily. The plot did end up changing a good amount in the drafting process. (Note: many of the storyboards are marked up because I checked them off as I went)
I drew out the first scene but crossed it out because it seemed unnecessary.
I also cut out the section where she reads newspapers because it would be difficult to acquire a newspaper with a desired title, and it seemed unnecessary anyway.
This is the draft of when they meet.
I later cut a number of the shots.
For their love montage, I honestly did not plan much. I figured I could accomplish it spontaneously.
This was the plan for dinner with the parents.
The therapy montage was also not as fleshed out. At the time I had trouble thinking of examples of therapy. I knew that electrocution was used, so I drew that. I ended up removing it, because I thought it would be too violent, and it would distract from the film.
This was the break up.
Filming
I knew immediately I wanted Emily in my film as the insecure girl. Not because I think she's insecure. I thought she had the sensitivity needed for the role. Also, she's a beautiful girl and she should be in more films. As for the other girl, I saw Danielle walking through the hallway and I thought she would be great for the role of a strong lesbian. Again, not because I think she's a lesbian.
Meet up/Break up
The first day, we filmed the meet up and the break up, since many of them contained the same shots. I made a chart to parallel the two scenes.
I cut out a few shots, but I was generally consistent to the storyboard.
In a number of ways, the filming went better than I expected. I told Danielle she had to try and get Danielle's attention, and I wasn't expecting her to try this.
The actors did a good job changing so quickly between drastic emotions. I'm sure was a difficult task.
Love Montage
I finished filming the meet up/break up quicker than I expected, so I ended up filming the montage on the same day. We all thought on our feet, brainstorming ways couples have fun together. Emily and Danielle had a snowball fight, played hide and seek, spun in a circle, and made a snowman.
Filming the spinning was particularly fun. I handed the camera to each of the girls and they filmed themselves spinning in a circle. It looked ridiculous on the outside, but great on film.
The snow man segment was cut, but everything else was saved.
Therapy
For this section I did some extra research, especially since I knew that I couldn't use electrocution therapy in my film. I found two kinds of therapy that I could depict non-verbally.
The first was Behavioral Modification. This involves showing pictures of men and women, and punishing the patient when they react in an "undesired way."
The second was Reparative Therapy. The patient is shown pictures of "masculine" or "feminine" things, in hopes that they will begin to act more like their gender.
In the end, I decided that the therapist would impose his authority by whacking Emily's hand with a ruler. This seemed sufficiently painful without being overly violent.
I had Luke print out the images I wanted to use because my home printer has terrible quality. Matt was my therapist.
Matt certainly had a way with words. He said many terrifying things to Emily as he went through the pictures. We ended up making her cry by the end. I view that as a success.
Meeting the Parents
I made some extra notes for how I would film this, because I didn't want to waste time. Emily and John had to get back to the school for music.
I ended up disregarding most of these notes, because the first storyboard I made had planned the scene enough so I could improvise in between.
John and Kat were Emily's parents. They did an excellent job.
Editing
Once I got all the footage, I worked swiftly on editing. The song I picked for is You Showed Me by The Turtles. This song sticks out to me because it sounds so sad, even though it's a positive song.
During editing I learned something important. The more raw footage you have, the more difficult editing becomes. In the scenes that I plotted out shot by shot, editing was a simple task. However, the scenes I let the camera run on left me a lot of work for later. The meet up and break up took me a period or two to edit. The therapy segment took me up until now.
Especially for the therapy segment, editing was more difficult than I thought. Although I had shot most of the movie, I crafted that scene, if that makes any sense.
There are a few continuity errors, and there were people in the background of some scenes. Hopefully, these aren't very noticeable.
The Movie
Here it is.
Bibliography
Biery, Roger E. Understanding Homosexuality: The Pride and the Prejudice. Austin: Edward-William, 2010. Print.
When I first got this project, I was very confused. In-betweenness? Transitions? What was this supposed to mean? Since I was very confused, I asked for a bit of help from my dad, and googled the subject. From what I gathered, liminality was the threshold between 2 places. Sort of like a boundary line, or an interface. At first, I wondered how I could possibly photograph such a thing, but after a walk with my dad, I found it was more common then I thought.
These interfaces were everywhere. I visited the High School and I examined the road that leads off from the side of the back parking lot. The road was like a portal, leading from the school straight to an area filled with houses. I photographed these situations, where it seemed like you're in one world, but then suddenly you enter another. Examining my surroundings in this way makes it seem like I can teleport, almost like I'm not even on earth, but in a mythical place. It's quite interesting.
In my psychogeographic quest, I have decided to analyze some of the clutter in my house, probably the biggest hinderence in my enviornment.
When you look at these pictures, I want you to keep in mind. This is what my house looks like on a regular daily basis. My family's not moving, or cleaning any areas out, or organizing. For as long as I can remember, it's been like this. Stuff, just piled all over the place with no end. For those who's never lived in a house with hoarders, it's hard to understand the story behind it. It just seems like junk, but in reality there's so much more. I can think of so many times when I was a child when I lost things that were precious to me, like my favorite toys, parts of craft kits, just disappearing out of nowhere into the piles, never to be seen again. As an energetic kid I would run around my house. That is until I'd trip over a random box and fall onto the floor and injure myself.
You know the mess is really bad though when your dad is sneaking out late at night with a garbage bag right before the truck comes because he knows that if he leaves it out even a day before, you mom will try to delve into the bags and retrieve the stuff that he threw away. At least thats what my dad used to do, before he would just throw even more stuff away when my mom did that so she couldn't keep up. I know that parents argue quite a lot, but I'm pretty sure that's a lot more aggressive than what's healthy.
In my photos, I demonstrated this paranoia often by viewing one or few objects close up (in the rule of thirds of course), showing individual clutter, and then showing how all this individual stuff piles up as the background. This shows how a lot of small objects can end up making a huge difference, in a negative way.
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