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I kept waiting for the shoe to drop. The past week or two has followed the pattern that if I have a good start to my day, something screws it up, but if I have a crummy start to the day, something redeems it. Today was generally quite good. I got some solid progress editing the End of Life work, I was almost late picking up William, but got there on time and we watched, and really enjoyed, Flintstones (Fred has to replace the rich industrialist for a day and just say "Whose baby is that? What's your angle? I'll buy that.". William wasn't really into Flintstones when I began this experiment, but he was repeating the dialogue all day today. This afternoon I finished the first cut on the dance piece June and I shot with Tanya. I'm pretty happy with where it's going, although a bit nervous since I've occasionally featured editing and filmic style over body and dance style, and I'm not sure what Tanya will think, and as she is out of town this week, there's a big lag time in showing it to her. The summer was a bit of a rush with many things, and this dance shoot was one of them. As I was cutting, I realized that we never sat down to really talk about what the dance was ABOUT. I can interpret some things, but may be mistaken. For example, the performance begins with Tanya sitting and typing into the computer and talking about her relationship with the machine. Since we were shooting without a plan and needed to react quickly to the dance without rehearsals, we shot with two cameras and no tripods. However, that did not adequately anticipate the stationary situation as the piece begins. Tanya stays at the computer for about four minutes and the loose cameras capture it just fine. However, it all seems too free and organic while the content is about machines and (without using the word) cyborg living. Therefore I chose to use a short clip of typing and looped it so that we see the repetitive, mechanical nature of the computer interface. What I tended to cut out at times, such as in this first scene, was the huge video projection of the computer screen. We are accustomed to the computer screen being relatively small, 17-24". In this performance, the screen becomes 10-12 feet high. However, in video taping it, I convert it back down to its original size. The sense of spectacle, at least when the dancers are not in front of it, is gone.
This evening we carved pumpkins and William and I played wrestling (I don't know where this obsession came from, I don't think it was the Flintsones) and I watched some tv. Good day.