Breakdown

Had a bit of a mental breakdown today. I started to feel the fear, and I let it get the better of me...saying things like "I have no idea what I'm doing," and "This film is going to be crap." Patrick talked me down from the window ledge.

I think I just get frustrated when I have ideas then try them out and they are not perfect on the first try. I must remind myself that there are steps to the process and I must walk before I can run.

We've intercut the cowboy arrival stories with my beginning voice over. Then I wrote the voice over to introduce the rainy season and to introduce Ken. It is coming together. I just have to trust myself and trust Patrick.

East West

Patrick has suggested looking at some of the old EWC footage. This is stuff that I shot from 1997 - 2000 of various East West Consulting functions, parties, etc. I shot it on an old consumer camera. Two of the main characters and several of the subsidiary characters worked there during the late 90s during the Head Hunting bubble.

Patrick thinks we can use some of this footage, particularly the stuff where Ken is really fat. I looked at some of it. Ken looks like a baby. I guess he was--22 at the time.

We've dropped the footage into the first act of the film. It really works. It shows where Ken came from...where Mark came from. That culture. I'm trawling through the interviews of former EWC people to put together a collage of voices describing this HH boom. I'm getting so excited about the film. It is shaping up. I can see it now. I can see it!

Arrivals

Still working with the arrivals stories. I've got good ones from the likes of Ken, Mark S., World Family Mark, Cloudy, and Patrick. Still capturing others. Patrick pointed out that they can be anybody's arrival story. Any of the several hundred people we interviewed. The stories are being used in the sound track only...most likely over the footage that Patrick has just cut together to form the beginning of the film.

H.P. says that I'm closer than I think. He says I have all of the bits I need to make a great film. I just need to put everything together. Yes. That's what I need to do. Put everything together...one chunk at a time.

Met with Alex about my voice over. She's the Actress/Singer/Voice Over Artist who lives next door. She's helping me to slow it down and put some feeling into it.

I feel good. I'm trying to relax into the pace of it...the rhythm of it. I was thinking it was too slow, but now I think it's just right.

Really miss my family. Wish I could go home. Feel bad that I can't.

The went there with nothing but their preconceived notions about
the postmodern
urban frontier.

They all started teaching English.
Some of them even found their passion
doing
just
that.

Some moved on...

To Headhunting
To Entertainment
To Business

Always searching.

They began to make her their home.
They found freedom and opportunity.
They were favored.

But they were still restless.
They had not yet found the thing that had
called them
to her.

And
in this restlessness and searching
they struck some...strange...kind of...bargain.

They would never find peace like this one.

So they decided they were home.

They Arrived with Nothing...

Circumventing the ailing Bruce, I'm cutting Ken's arrival story on Big Mamma. I think this is going to work: cutting together all of these mini-narratives of the Cowboys' arrival stories. Together, they create...not a grand narrative, as such, but a cacaphony of possibilities on this postmodern urban frontier. So, this is how I'll proceed.

They arrived with nothing...

First Shot

I think I've decided that this is going to be the first shot of the film. I'm thinking in terms of Westerns. They usually start with a wide shot of the "frontier." This is my post-modern urban frontier. I may use voice over from the Cowboys and others to describe Tokyo. Patrick is cutting it over the next few days.

I was freaking out again about the edit...not thinking that I was moving quickly enough...whatever. I invoked the muse praying for her to guide me. As I lay in bed the other night, this shot came into my imagination. I just decided to trust the muse. After cutting this opening sequence, Patrick will go back to cutting all of the bits together. We are on our way.

Harddrive Blues

Our 1000 GB (1TB) harddrive, code named "Bruce," crashed and burned yesterday. Fortunately, it's only media on there, so the project (the edits) are safe. We've had to purchase another harddrive (£372), which I'm hoping will be able to communicate with Bruce to take over the media. Then Bruce will go in for repairs.

Anyone wishing to submit a name for the new harddrive can do so here. Perhaps something Japanesey

Ourotherr drives are:

Elektrik Zoo (70 GB)
Slave (70 GB)
Big Daddy (500 GB)
Big Momma (1 TB)
Angelica (500 GB)

And, yes, they are all full.

Today we start cutting everything together. I pray that this is the way to go. Patrick says we should work on the stories some more before cutting it all together, but I feel that we've spent too much time on that. It's time to move forward. The only way I can see that happening is to cut it all together. Then, if we have a mess, we can start to clean it up. I can't see the forest for the trees right now.

Over the next few weeks, we will be putting all of the bits and pieces together to see if we actually have something coherent. I'm excited and nervous at the same time.

Nietzsche

I read somewhere that "one way or another...all postmodern roads lead to Nietzsche." So I do some research, but Nietzsche is so way over my head.

Beginning Voice Over

27 September 2002

[footage from Narita bus trips]

We arrived in Tokyo today, and everything has changed.
But I still have the feeling of coming home.

Even the language, which at one time seemed so impossible, floods my head instantly.

When the Japanese feel nostalgic they feel "Natsukashii"

I rode the bus from Narita Airport into the city...a two hour ride. When the jet lag hits, it's like falling into a dream of Tokyo. You have to close your eyes and settle into it.

This is where it begins.

[continue on with bus shot w/ no v.o. for a while]

I'm looking for something out here, but I'm not sure what.
Something about the Cowboys who come here...
the gaijin...
the foreign men who leave everything behind and cross oceans.

I'm sure they come for the money, but...somehow that doesn't seem quite right.

It's only the first layer.
But it's the one I'll start with.

[gap here]

There's a guy I know from my time in Japan...came here in the early nineties...just after the bubble had burst.

Back in America, he had been corn fed on the idea that Japan was a place to make your fortune...
despite the economy.

It was a land of opportunity and freedom.

In the beginning of the 21st Century, my friend owns one of Tokyo's top indigenous headhunting firms,

so he's plugged into both the gaijin and the Japanese professional communities.

I wanna know if living on the post-modern urban frontier has lived up to his expectations. I wanna know if money bought him freedom and peace.

Love from a Cowboy

Brent sent this along:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TSWaKWiAhY

In Tokyo you are released from the pain of hating yourself. You come home.

Voice Over

Been working on the voice over lately. Trying to find the right tone. I've been writing overly poetic, I think. Yesterday I experimented with a more journal-like tone, and it seems to be working. I also had this idea of using the voice over as a process of discovery. What did I go there to find? Something about the Cowboys and what causes them to cross oceans to get to Tokyo. Money, Opportunity, Freedom, Peace. This is the journey that they take. And this can be illustrated by the voice over.

On the Shoulder of a Giant

Shooting the BBQ

Inside Cloudy's Brain

Jackie and the Lizard

Arcade

Shooting at World Family