"The public has an appetite for anything about imagination - anything that is as far away from reality as is creatively possible" -Steven Spielberg
I walked by some people shooting a short film about the rapper K. Gaines of the Sleepwalkas. He asked me to be in a short segment of his video. The scene we shot was him unsuccessfully trying to sell me things off the street. Very simple, but it was a fun experience. They are submitting the film to a festival in July. And yes, you will be seeing me at the Oscar’s next year for my outstanding performance.
I stumbled upon a huge dance festival called Project Dance, which is a post 9/11 social movement to heal the city through music, dance, and entertainment. They hire dancers from all over the world to perform different programs around NYC. The music is calm, admission is free, and the dance movements are gentle. Based on my interpretation, each dance expressed a different coping emotion: happiness, despair, fear, distrust, joy, etc. In my opinion, a basic understanding of the human body is the only thing all humans have in common. So using body imagery to project a social message seems very innovative to me. Good work Project Dance.
Lame
Because the film/media culture is so big in NYC, I was expecting more people to be interested in participating in my documentary. I actually encountered the opposite reaction. Lots of people asked if I would pay them for an interview or to edit my footage. My project is not about the money, people! It’s about the message.
Bad
I was tired and not paying attention after a long day of exploring and got lost for 2 hours on the metro. I ended up in the middle of Brooklyn…
I’m having a harder time incorporating diversity into my films than anticipated. The point of this documentary is to connect different types of people and make bridges between gender, race, and ethnicity, but I’m finding that being a young white woman puts me at a disadvantage sometimes. Being young makes people think I am not legitimate, being white makes people in my out group less willing to participate, and being a woman attracts “cat-calling” types of attention (usually involving really cheesy pick up lines relating to red hair) that I don’t necessarily want to approach.
Good
Lights. Camera. Action. There is so much going on everywhere you look in NYC. Apparently it’s relatively normal to see model photo shoots and movie filming going on in the streets, but this was news to me!
I stayed on the lower east side with my cousin and his friends, close to the projects and where Rent originated. My aunt and grandma made a surprise trip down to NYC. If you are looking for good places to eat, check out Falai Italian restaurant, Atlas café (cheap, good breakfast sandwiches, my favorite), Alias (garden burger is the specialty), and Tiny's Giant Sandwich Shop, all on the lower east side. The punk rocker hairstylist taught me all about the burning man festival in the deserts of Nevada and acting in a documentary for the film maker Morgan Spurlock.
Quote
I chose this quote for NYC because I ran into some people in the film industry who really liked my idea. This documentary came out of my imagination and what I wish would happen in a perfect world. The videos are getting more attention than anticipated, which shows me that the public does have an appetite for imagination. But everyone has an imagination. All of us played imaginary games as children, so where does that creativity go? Imagination is brought much closer to reality if we just look around at the world and create the experiences for ourselves that we have imagined. No one else is going to do it for us…
Alias Restaurant
Atlas Cafe
Rapper
Burning Man festival
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