Friday, January 20, 2006

Thursday, October 20, 2005: Mad Lib Musicality

Dcfc0001_11Carrie left early to work at the farmer's market this morning.  And I worked through lunch, intent on finishing as much work as possible before we left for San Francisco.  Would have been nice to ride down to the market instead.  But my bike tire's still flat, anyway.  Haven't had the time to fix it, even though I finally picked up a cheap pump at Target.  Worked late too.  Carrie called at about 7 to tell me she had a surprise waiting at home.  And it was a nice one.  A jar of genuine Olympia oysters from the farmer's market.  She gets a friendly discount, as she works there.  We had a few raw, then I tried cooking the rest.  Didn't do a phenomenal job, unfortunately.  But they were still pretty damn good.  Here, Carrie caught a picture of me tucking in.
Dcfc0002_4The T.J. Hooper tried to nick some, but I rebuffed her.  She loves the seafood.  Especially clam chowder.  But the real event of the evening was that Carrie and I shot a movie.  Carrie's friend Warren and his friend have an empty storefront on Capitol Way downtown that they've been using as a practice studio for a quasi-band.  It's a raw, cavernous space.  And on Thursdays at 10, they've been presenting a concert for anyone who passes by.  Warren plays Nilsson-esque melodies, silently and with a little smirk.  And his friend plays crazy drums, accompanied by stream-of-consciousness lyrics.  They're both really brilliant musicians.  And the performance is captivating.  Carrie and I were enthralled last week, and a movie idea immediately started percolating.  I've got two 16mm cameras here in Olympia: a Bolex RX-5 and a Kodak K-100.  I loaded both with Double-X negative, set the Bolex and gave it to Carrie, and off we went.
Dcfc0015_2Here's Warren on keys, mug at the ready ...







Dcfc0013_6... and here's his friend (whose name I never caught) on drums.  His sister (?) and niece (? about 10 ?) were also there listening.  I think they were all really amused to see us filming.  Warren knew we were coming.  But no one else did.  The niece was really sweet, and fascinated by the cameras.  I gave her mine to use, and she took a few shots.







Dcfc0026Originally, the idea was to shoot from across the street and capture
the scene as a tableau.  But it was immediately clear that wasn't going
to work.  So instead i focused on getting longer takes, and let Carrie
just shoot as she saw fit.  It was the first time she'd used a movie
camera, and she was surprised how heavy it was.  She didn't quite make it through the roll before tiring, so I finished it off.  Then we said our goodbyes, and headed home.  And set the clock for early.  Tomorrow morning we're off to SF.

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