June 23rd, 2007
The beginning of this story >>
The DFA classes have started, and I have a lot of new things to learn. Now I am working on my screenplay. I’ll try to shorten it. Pictures really help me to see for myself the story that I’ll try to shoot.
Other THE KIND PEOPLE pictures>>
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June 14th, 2007
I really like Brain Bomeisler’s classes. Now I want to tell about his Sketching Class that I’ve attended at May 12, 2007 in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was really fun class.
Class was nearing its end. I didn’t have time, I had to hurry up and finish the sketch in three minutes. And what was the result? My best sketch of the day. I really draw better when I’m limited in time and can’t hinder myself.
- You need to think about that, – said Brain. He was right. He usually is.
Sketches of Asian statues, pen, 05/12/07
More about sketching class
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June 13th, 2007
This month I will start taking the 15 weeks Digital Filmmaking course at Digital Film Academy. It includes writing, producing, directing, shooting, editing and web-publishing your own DV movie. So I’ll be directing and shooting my own movie.
Philomena Zito and Michael Koy agreed to play this game with me. They would be interested in acting in my film, but also they helped me tin my search for a story. We’ve tried to find the right one by following the following basic rules:
- The story has to be happening today (be absolutely contemporary).
- The target audience is regular middle class Americans working 5 days a week 8 hours a day.
- Their average age — thirties and forties.
- It is not a story of romance. Love can be in it, but not as a main plot line.
- Genre — eccentric sitcom, possibly with some musical elements.
- Any serious questions we want to discuss there are never named directly, only shown through the action.
- As some examples that first come to mind I can name Cabaret, Young Frankenstein and an Italian movie Bluff with Adriano Celentano.
- Real people, real life and real problems, only with slight element of grotesque.
I’m very lucky to be able to work with such talented people as Michael and Philomena. They are full of great ideas. I’ve used practically all of the ideas they’ve suggested. Michael and Philomena, thanks a lot!
After long debates I’ve finally finished the rough sketch of the screenscript. And also Ilya Yudin helped me so much to translate from Russian original (see it here) into English. Ilya, thanks a lot!
I think that the script will undergo many changes for the better after the DFA screenwriting classes.
It’s current work name is “The Kind People” and you can see the full text here.
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June 12th, 2007
We went to the 10th Brooklyn International Film Festival. The Festival took place from June 1st to 10th, 2007 at the Cobble Hill Cinema at 265 Court St., Brooklyn, NY.
You can see the list of Festival award winners at the WBFF web page
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We watched a few movies included in the following four programs:
- Saturday, June 2, 3:30 PM, Program 4;
- Saturday, June 2, 6:00 PM, Program 6;
- Sunday, June 3, 6:00 PM, Program 14;
- Sunday, June 10, 3:00 PM, Program 72
Not many of them were among the winners, but they were all interesting. And each one was interesting for different reasons and from the different point of view.
More about The 10th Brooklyn Film Festival>>
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May 22nd, 2007
Six years old kid Bobby made such friends as the mouse, the pigeon and the toy dump truck called Lou. He dreams to be sea captain. His dream helps his mother and father to solve their own grown-up’s problem.
1.
The rich smell of hot macaroni and cheese has reached Bobby???s room from the little kitchen of the first floor apartment. Bobby???s beautiful slender Mum with American cheese yellow hair usually used grater looking like small house of iron with the windows wide opened. Cheese slyly looked out from the windows and tried to jump on the floor. Bobby liked to spy on cheese mischief, his big Daddy was fond of macaroni, Mum loved Daddy and Bobby, but mice were interested just in cheese.
What has happened next? Read the full text
Original by Lokki Walle, 2004, Rus
English translation: Lokki Walle, Ilya Yudin, 2007
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May 20th, 2007
We hunted for three months to get the last one of these three shots.
At the Atlantic coast in Connecticut there is a nice little place called Greenwich Point Park. It has lots of interesting things, and many stories can be told about them, but we were especially charmed by one of them, a little lagoon that we immediately called The Swan Lake. Do you remember this ballet by Tchaikovsky? This clear and full of fairy tale enchantment music? We can hear it inside our heads every time we get there.
A cold lagoon upon which swans (and geese, and ducks, and seagulls, and cormorants, and herons too, but most prominently and magnificently the swans) glide surrounds a small covered with trees island. On a level with these trees there is a column there on top of which a statue of an eagle spreads its wings 14 feet wide. From the looks of it it’s an old bronze covered with green patina.
A pair of live eagles decided to make their nest on the back of their bronze relative, right between those huge wings. On some of our first pictures of the statue we could see a small, blurred white spot but couldn’t make out what it was. After a while it got bigger and sometimes we were able to here its crying. An eagle’s cry! It was the little eagle that we were watching.
The American Eagles
picture by Lokki Walle, 2007
????People call the bald eagle an American Eagle, a symbol, a live spirit of the US. And we think that we were actually able to catch on film something along these lines. See for yourselves.
The American Eagles
picture by Ilya Yudin, 2007
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May 5th, 2007
Brain Bomeisler’s drawing classes. We learn to draw.
- You usually see the signs, – Brian told us at the class, – the sign of eyes, the sign of mouth. It is a verbal block. If you can watch without using the left side of brain, you can see things as they are.
He strikes home. It’s absolutely true. Take a look at my pre-instruction self-portrait and self-portrait drawn after the classes.
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Self-portrait, Pre-Instruction Drawing, 04/18/07 |
Self-portrait, lesson 7, The Self-Portrait Drawing, 04/22/07 |
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On the first picture I have eyes much bigger than the ones I really have, I imagine myself younger than I am and much thinner. Before classes I really draw the signs, the symbols of things rather than things themselves.
More about drawing classes>>
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April 25th, 2007
Last week I’ve attended the 5-days drawing class called Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.
It was time well spent. Now I know that I can draw. And speak English. Thank you Brian Bomeisler, thank you Roya, and thank you to all my classmates.
Go to Photo Gallery >>
As any immigrant at the first encounter with English language I’ve had a linguistic shock. Sure enough I can make a store clerk or a city bureaucrat understand me, compile a reasonable resume or find out what was the Yankee last game’s score (alas, they’ve lost 6:7 to Red Socks).
But!
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March 20th, 2007
On Sunday we made some photo shoots in the snow. It was at the Bronx, New York. We went to the nearest boulevard. Squirrels there were very interested in the roses.
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