Fish... meet water

You never forget your first time.

I'm talking about directing. What did you think I was talking about? This is a respectable blog. Well, most of the time at least.

Strangely though those two firsts have some commonalities:

1. It's hella scary before you do it.
2. At first you're all insecure and timid.
3. Once you have a basic grasp of how it works though you begin to notice how much fun it is.
4. And as soon as you've done it once you'll want to do it again and again and again.

While one has happened for me quite a while ago the other experience has been a more recent one. Last Saturday I had a ten hour directing workshop scheduled at film school. I was wary, at best, of spending ten hours on my feet when I currently get exhausted by about two hours of running errands. I also had no idea whether the teacher was going to be any kind of good or all kinds of bad. But I packed my energy rations (coffee, water and nuts, never leave the house without nuts, and some chocolate) and an extra dose of Ritalin in case my Concerta wore off to fast. I printed out the scene I was going to work on and hopped on a curiously empty Saturday bus on a lovely spring day.

Boy was I wrong to be apprehensive! The teacher turned out to be fantastic, running us trough the basics of directing, giving immensely helpful feedback, and he even has a sense of humour (sadly, that's not always a given). Otherwise he pushed us into the deep end - the best thing he could do.

About two hours after arriving I was already in the middle of DP-ing for one of my colleagues, sketching storyboards on a whiteboard and discussing the benefits of purposely jumping over the axis. Then, before lunch break, I set the lighting for another colleague's scene and watched from the side as they took their first tries at directing.

The differences in style are completely fascinating. Everyone has a different way of easing into the job, of talking to the actors, the crew. I was learning a lot just by watching. Suddenly it was my turn. I jumped right in, assembled my crew, briefed the actors, and there I was, doing a first read-through already, then setting up the scene, blocking, sketching floor plans, figuring out the best camera angles with my DP. Shooting. Tweaking. Shooting another take. Working with the actors. Giving my DP the chance to get a focus change just right considering the limited amount of time we had for our practice shoots. Shooting another angle. Another take. Saying "Action" (although I prefer the more friendly "Aaaand go") and "Cut". Thank you, you were wonderful. Great camerawork. Everyone take a break. I got great feedback from the teacher, the actors, the crew.

And all of it - ALL OF IT! - felt so fucking right. Much like, fish... meet water.
Felt like I was meant to do this. Never supposed to do anything else. Like every other job I'd ever had was just a youthful indiscretion before getting hitched to this wonderful thing called directing. I fell in love, fast and hard.

I suppose this isn't surprising. Because me and directing, we were set up ages ago. After all, I grew up watching my father direct. He started out as a theatre actor, then became an editor at the Austrian Broadcasting company. He started directing for TV even before I was born. I suspect he did some work on documentaries early on but I mostly watched him direct television broadcasts of operas, concerts, theater productions, ballets etc., both recordings and live broadcasts. My mother was his assistant director a lot of the time then became a director herself. When I was older I even worked with them as a floor manager.

Sure, it's a bit weird working with your parents (though it didn't even take me that long to hammer it into their heads that it was definitely not okay to call me by my embarrassing childhood nickname on set) but I learned so much from listening to my dad's voice transmitting through my headset. The way he maneuvered the giant and intricate system of cameramen/women, sound mixers, lighting technicians, cable pullers etc. through live broadcasts has given me a certain instinct for directing. He was always respectful, never without a sense of humor, knew that everyone on set was indispensable and took care to treat them as such.

He knew how to talk to people, knew when to be strict, when to be diplomatic. Ironically, his communication sucked big time in familial settings but while working he knew what he was doing. He felt safe, I assume, like he had a spot in the world that fit him just right. I'm lucky to have seen him work, and while I wasn't aware of it at the moment, soaking up all that I could learn from him.

I was way to scared during my first directing stint last Saturday but I think if I had been viewing myself from the outside instead of, well, being wide-eyed and in the moment, I would've been able to spot a lot of my dad's directing style in my work. I choose to believe that had he seen me in that moment (and maybe he has, I'm agnostic after all) he would've been proud of his director daughter. I'm finally proud of myself as well.

Here's to my dad who unwittingly taught me a lot while I unwittingly learned from him. You would've loved seeing me do this, dad, I just know :)
I love you.

PW-Protected: Family, removed

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The fortune cookie is a fucking liar!

There's a ton of shit I haven't told you. Or maybe I have, that is if you've seen me in reality instead of in writing only. But if you only read me you definitely don't know this. What happened?

Back in November I got a job. Then in January I got a new job. One I deemed better. Then I got a new iPod - but that might be a little irrelevant however very pleasing. And now I have no job. I got fired. Not exactly sure what for, but in a very informal text message I was told to not bother to come since a replacement had been found for me. Mmmmkay... That was last weekend. Ever since I have been irritating people by being spectacularly nonchalant and chipper about this. It's not even a fake chipperness (chipperyness? chipness?), I am actually, fantastically okay with this. I did like the job, don't get me wrong, at first at least but last week I found myself beginning to wonder how to get rid of it without being a complete asshole; See, text message quitting is not my thing. Ahem. Ironically.

I felt like I was wasting time. There was nothing wrong with the job per se, but it was keeping me from something. For the first time in a very long time I have been feeling the need to go forward. It was odd, what with all the delving into my past and feeling stuck in the present (= the sofa) I couldn't place it at first. I thought I was just getting restless again. I know the feeling, the urge to run, I know it well. All my life I have been told that I give up too easily just like I've been told that my father was like that too. Giving up, throwing in the towel, being a loser. Why thank you very much for that compliment... But you were wrong, that's not it at all. I finally figured out me and my father. We were, in fact, not quitting things fast enough; We got ourselves stuck in the wrong things because we didn't dare quit them for fear of what that would say about us. Of course, I'll never know this certainly about my father but I can definitely confirm this for myself. I have wasted so much frakkin' time sticking to things that I very early on discovered were making me unhappy just because I didn't want to look like a quitter - weak, uncertain, undecided.

But that made me weak in the first place! I get now that walking away would've been the much braver choice. I always did it in the end but I could've spared myself so much pain if I'd only done it faster, the instant I knew for sure, follow my instinct instead of keeping up appearances. I believed them when they told me I was running away, but damnit I was running towards something, couldn't they see that? I couldn't, not for sure, not without giving in to the doubt that was implanted in me so carefully all my life. It took me all these years and getting fired at the right moment to see it. Getting the boot was a blessing! Otherwise I would've held out just like that fortune cookie said years ago: With perseverance you should go ahead. (Don't ask me how I'm still remembering a fortune cookie I ate about a decade ago but can't remember to take out the trash when I leave the house...)

I would've waited too long, again, just to keep up appearances. Well, pardon my language, but fuck perseverance, and fuck appearances. I'm done walking through doors that turn out to be nothing but the fake door leading to the back of the stage. The next door I'm taking I'll sniff the air first, see if there's an actual horizon waiting.

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