weeks ten, eleven, and twelve

Week ten was during the last week of November when we all definitely realized “oh man, only two more weeks”. Not only two more weeks to be here in Berlin but two more weeks to get our films to completion!


This week, my group did a lot of filming for my part of the film, running around all over the city just to get a 10 second shot. It was nice that all of my group members came with me even though only one of them was usually filming because I really appreciated the input from them about what I should be doing in the shot. I wrote the scenes and scripted them in a way that I knew what I was going to be doing in the shot, but sometimes I wouldn’t know what looks the best on film or what is funniest, so it was nice to have a lot of opinions for that. This week I also realized how great our camera’s capacity is for really great effects and also really great zoom (as we have used on my shot of the Brandenberger Tor). After all my shots were done being filmed, Ed and Joel came back, put them on the computer, rendered and renamed all of the clips so they are easy to know which clip is which. Sometimes I wouldn’t even expect them to do these things, and I would come back and see that it was already done!
I feel that our group’s enthusiasm level for both filming and editing our film is very high. Joel will usually even do this for fun, and because of that, editing the film has been an extremely easy and low-stress process.

Since filming these shots this week, I’ve realized that my part of the film bares a lot of similarities to “Lola Rennt” in that it is about a girl who the viewer gets to know quite about throughout the course of the film, and you see this girl running all over Berlin carrying out whatever her mission is. When I wrote my script and ideas for my part of the film, I had not even seen “Lola Rennt” before, so I think it’s kind of cool actually that it has come out with some similarities to that film.

In class this week, we watched “Me Boss, You Sneaker” which was a very different film from previous ones we’ve seen. It was a ridiculous comedy almost in the style of the Marx Brothers that shows the gritty side of life of Turkish immigrants moving into Germany, Kreuzberg in particular. I did enjoy it (although slapstick-like comedies like this is not really my favorite type of film) especially for the shots of Adalbertstrasse and Oranienstrasse, right down the street from where I live. Now every time I walk southwards down the street and see the “Kreuzberg Centrum” apartment complex, I always think of this film and how they used street-life in Kreuzberg. I have never seen a film by the Marx Brothers yet unfortunately so it was a bit harder to relate to the readings which mostly just spent time comparing this film with various Marx Brothers films, like “Monkey Business” or “Animal Crackers”. I am glad I did have the opportunity to see this film, especially since it is not available anywhere else and the “doner fight scene” was priceless.



Week 11 and 12 were definitely “crunch time” weeks for my group. Fortunately, mostly all of our filming was completed by this point, although we still had to film the ending and touch up a few scenes to some of our portions. This week was very significant because our group spent a lot of time together talking, filming, walking, editing which was very good because we were able to discuss exactly the direction we wanted our film to go.

My favorite part of this last week and a half was learning how to use the editing software. I knew exactly where I wanted to piece my film clips together, but had no idea how to go about it on the computer. Luckily, Adobe Premiere is a very easy program to learn how to use and after about an hour, I was editing my part of the film needing little help from Ed or Joel. However, it was very handy to have Joel “on hand” for my complicated editing needs. He knows how to use functions in that program that I would have never even thought about. I was able to put my entire eight minutes of my part of the film together in about four or so hours of editing. I had heard other groups often complain about how long the editing process takes in general. So when I finished, I was thinking “what??? That’s it???” I honestly don’t know why other groups had such a hard time with this!
Each one of us was responsible for editing our own portions of the film and then together, we all present to work on the beginning, in between segments, and the ending. In hindsight, splitting up the work of our film like we decided to do in the beginning was an absolutely brilliant move. It is much easier to cooperate and have creative control over your own part of the “art”. It reminded me a lot of playing in my band—each person being responsible either lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass guitar, keyboard, or drums and each person could get as creative as they wanted with their own instrument. I could see where there would be a lot of problems if two people were trying to play the bass guitar and had different musical ideas of what it should play. Same with making our film. We haven’t argued over anything and we each have managed to make our part of the film work with every other part, like making music. I was thinking a lot about this because I have overheard other groups having difficulties working with each other and varying creative perspectives making it hard to piece everything together. I am very thankful for being placed in the group I was placed in with such talented people but all with very different ideas. It really made our film unique and each person gave their own section a special flavor.
Last night when we pieced it all together, I watched the entire film for the first time and felt really proud of how it turned out. It’s so easy just to get caught up in your own specific section of the film that you are responsible for, but yesterday I really started thinking in terms of “the film” and not just “my part of the film”. I feel a lot better seeing how everything has ended up tying together in the end and fitting together so well.
I am also really impressed with the interest that my group members have taken in helping me film or just being there as a group instead of one person feeling like they have had to do everything. I hope my group feels the same way about that too, because we worked together as a team really well.

When we weren’t filming, editing, or generally thinking about our group film, our class watched the film “Goodbye, Lenin!” I had seen this film before maybe two or three times, but was extremely excited about seeing it now that I know Berlin a lot better and will be able to recognize all of the sites that the story takes place in. I knew I felt different when even the intro to the film (which showed pictures of places in “East” Berlin against a red background with pictures of Lenin) made me feel a lot different than the other times I have seen it. I was happy to have recognized the places in the photographs, but I got this really chilling feeling and goose bumps while watching this. I’m not even sure why to tell you the truth; I definitely think the reflective piano music helped this feeling. Maybe it was thinking about all those places in the context of being “walled off” into their own little country called East Germany.
We also did a little class reading in preparation for watching this film about “ostalgie”. I have done a lot of similar readings about the phenomenon of “ostalgie” for my german culture through film class I took last winter. However, this particular reading brought up points I hadn’t even considered before, for example the thought that perhaps Alex Kerner was putting on this big show for his mother because of his own “ostalgie” and longing for how things used to be in the East. I couldn’t believe how deep the readings went with some of the issues between Alex and his mother. I felt almost silly for having not thought that deep into the story before.

week nine

week nine was the short week for thanksgiving break!
we had no classes or readings for eric this week and only thorsten's class & excursion happened.

in this classes that we did have, we discussed the "final solution" and wannsee conference in pretty great detail. nathan and frodo gave their presentation, and our excursion out to wannsee was very pleasant besides the obvious considering how those crazy nazi men could think of this "solution".

because we did not have much classwork this week, i had a lot of time to think about my film.
at the beginning of this week, i simply decided that i absolutely hated my idea for the part of the film. it had no great plot/ filler to the story and i was really unsatisfied with what i had. for a few days, i didn't even want to think about it because it depressed me so much about my story.

on tuesday afternoon before class, i played a part for the josh-kelly-sean group's film, which is a kind of "love affair" with the city of berlin. we filmed a lot near the victory tower/tier garten area, then moved on to film more at the brandenburg gate. at first i thought it was silly that i was working on someone else's group's film and neglecting my own film so much, and then i realized that being around people like josh and kelly who are really into filming things was really, really refreshing. it definitely gave me the fresh breath of air i needed to start thinking about my own film again.
after some hesitation, i decided to tell them that i was completely stuck on my film after awhile and they gave me some really great ideas about what direction i should take my story in. i've never been a great fiction writer (always preferring to discuss real events) so writing this story had been so hard to do. however kelly, who apparently is a good fiction-type writer was full of ideas for me and i felt so happy to hear her fresh ideas. i spent the next 3-4 hours writing like crazy with tons of inspiration flowing and feeling fabulous about the future of my part of the film.

i have already set time to begin filming, and i am so excited to start with my part.

week eight

week eight was like the others i suppose, an interesting week and a bit of a different week for me. i came home early from prague on monday to meet my dad and his wife for dinner that night. it was so nice to see my dad after not seeing him for over two years. the next day i showed him around the main touristy berlin sights (unter den linden, potsdamer platz, topagraphy of terror) which i think he enjoyed.
after he left i just kind of was left in a funk for a few days for some reason and didn't feel much like going out in the city. i feel like this is also partly because i had realized that our program has just reached the "only one month left" mark, which makes me a bit sad since i love this city so much and could definitely see myself just staying here.

in thorsten's class tuesday we discussed daniel libeskind's design of the jewish museum for a portion of the class, but we also delved more into the subject that chris and i presented at saschenhausen that last friday-- the question of how one goes about memorializing something and controversies surrounding memorializing. i was really glad that we went back to touch on this subject because i didn't get to speak hardly at all about this at our presentation.

this week was a good one for our film group because i felt like a lot got filmed and talked about. the workshop on friday was particularly successful in helping each other understand more about our group goals, where we are heading with our filming, and what our game plan is for the next week or so.

as it is right now, most of the time usually one person accompanies the person whose turn it is to film their part of the film. i went along with ed and joel to film a lot of footage for ed's quarter of the film, but felt like i wasn't being a huge help to the process because both ed and joel already knew what they were doing and there wasn't much else i could do. i feel like just two people filming at a time is a good enough system because it really only takes one person to film and the other to be in the film. on the other hand, i really appreciate the other ideas from my group members, and this is why i wouldn't mind if everyone wanted to be there when i film my part.
i feel that our group is working really well together so far. we are all really open-minded about eachothers' ideas and fortunately there has been zero conflict so far. if anything, i feel like i would like to do more when it comes to the editing process. joel is very good with editing and really likes doing it, so it is very easy to have him quickly edit what needs to be fixed. hopefully in the future, i will be able to learn from him so i can get a feel for this editing software as well.

i really enjoyed this week's film, lola rennt-- specifically how the director shows prominent areas of berlin as the back-drop for lola's drama. it reminded me of how i would like to make sure to show berlin in a way that could only be seen as "the streets of berlin" for example. i don't think this will be hard since there will be a lot of u-bahn type shots but hopefully i can capture the same sort of "berlin spirit" that is captured in lola rennt.

week seven

week seven was a big one for me! we had just returned from our class trip to hamburg/luebeck and it was time for me to crack down on my project for thorsten's class that i was to present on friday with chris h.

my project that i wrote my paper on (and was to present) was comparing the class readings on saschenhausen concentration camp to texts written by two different authors (isabella engelhardt and harold marcuse) about dachau concentration camp and the way in which the memorials there differ from other camps. also, these texts bring up "big" questions about memorialization (which apparently, microsoft word says is not a real word?) in ways that i have never thought of before and which continue to baffle me.
some of these questions that are raised are so difficult that i feel like they can't be definitively answered, such as "who has the power to create memorials?" and "what makes a memorial successful?". both authors have similar arguments that differ only slightly.

chris and i spent lots of time going back and forth from the topographie bibliothek at potsdammer platz to re-check out our two books because they only let you take them for one night and you have to bring them back early the next morning. later, i felt thankful they at least lend them for one night since the jewish museum library doesn't lend out at all!
i felt really happy with the paper i had written for the class and i tried to examine the arguments about memorialization the best i could. it is possibly the most difficult subject i have written a paper on before because there is almost no right answer to these questions!

in eric's class this week we watched the film, die mauer.
my first impression was that i wasn't so entranced by this film than i was when i watched wings of desire. however, i feel like seeing these pieces of the wall and everywhere that the director/camera takes you through out the film was a point of view that really made me feel like i could have been there and talking with the people that he talked with during the film. it was very real and raw and showed real people in a really unabashed way. for example, the older woman at the beginning that tells the japanese tourists to stop chiseling at the wall so she can hear what is going on. the little boys talking with the director about the pieces of wall they are selling. the director/camera taking the viewer to a new years' party at the brandenburg tor that really makes us feel like we are there. the film leaves in parts that normally would be taken out by other directors but we get the opportunity to see it (like the newscaster practicing his "spiel" several times before it is taped), and this makes the film really real, and therefore likeable to me.
at times the footage was a bit slow, but still kind of beautiful and easy to appreciate from a filmmaker point of view.

as for my group film, progress was slow this week due to every single one of my free hours being put into reading and writing for thorsten's class project. as i write this now, we have plans to film tomorrow. i feel excited about our film, yet a bit apprehensive because it is going to be difficult to get our completely different stories to tie together in a thoughtful manner. i am always trying to think of ways it could that would be thought-provoking to the viewer. as for my own portion of the film, i have planned out mostly all of what i am going to do and what the camera will do but i am a bit stuck on how it will end, again, in a manner that will be thoughtful to the viewer. this aspect is in my opinion one of the most important when i watch films so i would love to have my portion at the very least be one that really makes the viewer think a bit and say, "........ huh". i feel that when we are filming, our group will be able to collaborate together as we make our film and bounce ideas off each other to create the best possible film that we can collectively make.

week five and six

During week five, we focused on different eras of German history in both Thorsten’s and Eric’s classes.
In Thorsten’s class, we largely focused on the readings about the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe which gave me more of a background on the history of the actual site that later became the memorial. It was interesting to me because I had visited the memorial last year when I visited Berlin for a few days but really knew nothing about it. I knew what it was a memorial to, but for a site so large it had little explanation or plaques to read so I couldn’t really get a good feeling about how I should be “experiencing” the monument unless there was a German present who could explain it to me (which there was). Revisiting the site for Thorsten’s excursion later that week made the experience a lot more meaningful because of the readings. Also, I would say that I valued the time inside the small museum underneath the memorial a lot more than even the memorial itself. The museum displayed a very detailed history of how the Holocaust came to be paired with really provocative photos from private collections. Unfortunately we did not get to spend very much time there, but the next site was almost equally as interesting—a photo exhibition about the Jewish Memorial.
This exhibition touched on a topic that I have been thinking about a lot myself between readings of Brian Ladd and other assigned readings that deal with the city and memory: As a citizen of a city, how does one treat a memorial as part of the city landscape? The city is a public place for everyone to go about their daily lives in. So where does an extremely large memorial taking up the space of several city blocks fit in? The photo exhibition showed pictures of Berliners and tourists lounging around on the blocks during their lunch breaks or just enjoying the sun, using the area of the memorial like any other area of the city. Some people believe that these memorials should be treated with the most respect and reverence—but what if the memorial is so large and has very little explanation that it actually is a memorial??? I guess these are the kinds of questions we try to investigate during our class discussions.

In Eric’s class this week, we watched the film “Berliner Romanze”, a very sweet little love story from the 1950’s…. at least, that’s what I thought right after watching it. After doing the readings about Wolfgang Kohlhaase/the film and talking to my roommates about it, I realized that this film was absolutely saturated in symbolism. I didn’t even think about the fact that the film was made with a completely East Berlin bias while watching it, so it blew my mind when we discussed all the little eastern biases together in class.
So far through the quarter, I’ve been learning to read a little more into the film while I’m watching and not after. So often, I find myself getting sucked into the story too much to realize little things that are pretty important to the social-cultural context of when the film was made or who made it.


Week six really marked a point in this study abroad for me in which I realized how precious my time here in Berlin is. I had taken a weekend trip to Franconia/Northern Bavaria that weekend so I was actively thinking about everything I have to accomplish over the next few weeks here. My assignment for Thorsten’s class was always on my mind in that I needed to start working on it as soon as possible to present to the class at the end of week seven.
This week in Thorsten’s classes, we focused in on the Topography of Terror with both our readings and our weekly excursion there. I had visited it last year on my “Berlin whirlwind” of museum-going but this year there were English translations, which obviously greatly helped my comprehension of the exhibit. What I found very interesting was that the Topography featured detailed biographies of each of the Nazi party leaders, including what happened to them after April 1945 and what they ended up doing for the rest of their lives.

This week in my film group, our goal was to research or plan out different shots and what exactly the plot will be for each of our four portions of the film. I made a sheet full of different shots I wanted to make sure that we filmed, and also ideas for where I wanted my plot to go. I really wanted my part of the film to make you think, but so far I have found it to be pretty difficult to think of something that I am satisfied enough with. I figure that during the filming of my portion, I will realize how best to end my story with the input from the rest of my group members. Next week we are planning to begin our filming with Ed’s portion. His film involves him actually getting a tattoo which he wants to do soon, so it will be nice to get off to a good start with this.

In Eric’s class this week (Halloween night!) we all ate candy and cookies and watched the film “Wings of Desire”. I went into this film feeling pretty skeptical because other people who had seen it had said things like “weird”, “bizarre”, “long”, and other semi-negative adjectives such as these. Maybe I am just used to these “weird” films because I absolutely loved it.
I think it’s because I deeply feel for films that show just this raw emotion on the part of the characters. It makes you look at life and the people around you a little differently than before.
I felt the suffering of the random characters that you see once and then never see again. I felt the pain of Marion wanting someone to love and someone to love her. I felt Damiel’s longing to be human so he can feel, experience, and just be. When Peter Falk started talking to Damiel at the Imbiss, I felt some kind of hope. The man jumping off the building! The little boy feeling lonely and isolated from the other boys.
It really just is the kind of film that makes you feel what the characters feel. Even with the characters that we see once and never see again, I thought it was perfect to get a glimpse of all of these different kinds of Berliners and what they were going through in their lives.
The way that the city was portrayed in the film was absolutely beautiful. I don’t think I would have appreciated this as much if I was not in Berlin or had not lived there for a period of time. Images of the angles on the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial church and the Victory Column made me think about these Berlin landscape icons in a different way from now on. The way in which the Berlin wall was portrayed in the film was like nothing else I had ever seen! Usually if the wall is pictured in a film, the entire story revolves around it but in this film, it was simply a fact—the wall is part of the landscape of the city that everyone is used to.
I was really excited to share thoughts on this film in class, but I honestly was bummed out that at least half of the class discussion revolved around an article written by a woman who did not like “Wings of Desire” because of its “obvious” (?) portrayal of male superiority and the dominance of the “white race”. This film does not have to do with either of these things, and I wished that didn’t have to spend a lot of time talking about one woman’s opinion instead of how beautiful this film was and the differences between this film and the ones we have seen in the past. I guess that race is an important issue to talk about but I felt another film may have been more appropriate in dealing with issues like these. To me, a story is a story and stories do not need to always be overanalyzed to death. Sometimes, films should just be taken for what they are.

week four

Week 4 was the first week that Humbolt University was actually in session, so we shared the halls and the cafes with all the other students milling around, trying to get to our classes. This also marked the first week of the super early classes (eight a.m…. dun, dun, dun.)
I had just gotten back from our class trip to Koldenhof, so I felt particularly appreciative of Berlin this week. When you are in the city so much, you tend to forget how great it really is and all that it has to offer, so I intended to take full advantage of Berlin this week, since I did not have weekend plans to travel that weekend. The day we got back from Koldenhof and walked to the U-Bahn station, I felt almost in awe of being here in the city and started taking several pictures of our neighborhood and little things I want to remember when I don’t live here anymore. There’s nothing like a little weekend trip out in the country to make you feel refreshed and ready to be back in the city. I was determined to do every single thing I could and to be out and about as much as possible, as well.

For our first 8 AM class, we all met in the new classroom at Dorotheenstrasse to watch this week’s film, Germany Year Zero. I liked that it was the first film we have seen in class with a constant, easy to follow plot and it was extremely interesting to see the actual Berlin rubble documented in a film. I couldn’t believe that it actually looked like that here those years after the war. In all the German history and culture classes I have taken in the past, no one ever really told or taught me about how Berlin was doing immediately after the war (and judging from the film, apparently it was not faring all so well). It was also interesting that the characters spoke in Italian. Nathan mentioned that he thought that the Italian perspective gave the characters more Italian attributes and mannerisms.
I felt that the final scene of the film (that we watched more than once in class) was a really epic-type scene that I would expect to analyze in a film class. The hidden meanings behind what Edmund’s last actions were in the film really blew my mind—especially the comparison someone thought of when Edmund slides down the plank right before he jumps off of the building as if the plank were a slide.
Although the film was kind of a downer, some of the best films are, I think. Sometimes happy endings make the film a little too boring and thoughtless, in my opinion, because it’s as if the director is giving in and showing the viewers what they want to see. The viewers can’t always pick what they want every time!

During the Friday class, our film group screened our short film project (Point of View) for the class, and I thought the final product turned out very well. Initially right after we were done filming the party scene, I was a bit worried that it wouldn’t turn out the way we had intended. However, when we all edited the film together as a group two nights before, I began to feel more and more confident about our final product, especially when we managed to splice the end scene with the party scene flawlessly. Also, I was very happy with how the intro looked and the beer bottle opening sound we added in worked nicely as well.
It feels a little weird to tell people that “yeah, our film consists of three takes in total” and “we actually got most of our footage on the first try”. Normally, people might assume that we didn’t really care or spend much time trying to get everything right for our final product. In truth, I feel that it was with a great deal of luck that everything went according to our plans the first time. We had intended for the majority of the film (party scene) to be one long take because it would look unnatural for it to consist of different takes. Also, the less takes for the party scene the better because we were using so many of our classmates as extras in our films that they might have lost their “party energy” for the scene so to speak if we kept telling them to do the same thing over and over.

week three

Week 3 as I remember it was just a normal week in Berlin, becoming more and more acclimated to our surroundings and neighborhood.

We had plenty of readings for this week, including the long reading for Thorsten’s class by Barbara Kirschenblatt-Gimblett called “Exhibiting Jews”. This text went into great detail about the ways in which Jewish peoples and culture was portrayed at different Worlds’ Fairs in the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century. I felt a little bit like the article was a bit drawn out, but I just tend to favor texts in which the author manages to make his point in a short and concise manner. Thorsten seems like a really nice guy and I’m glad he is our teacher for this part of the class. I feel like he really cracks down on us as a class, however. Perhaps making sure we are always busy with some kind of coursework!
In his excursion last Friday, he took us around to Rosenstraße and what most closely resembles Berlin’s Jewish quarter, which is around the Hackescher Markt area of the city near Alexanderplatz. We finished off the rainy tour with a visit to the Neue Synagogue, which stood as more of a memorial to the once complete synagogue before the time of the Third Reich. I was surprised because I had expected it to be synagogue that was in use by people today.

In Eric’s class, we watched the film Kuhle Wampe oder Wem gehört die Welt?. I was excited to see this film because I had done one of the readings for class that week (which was about the film Kuhle Wampe) early so I already knew about the controversy that surrounded the release of that film. I also have never seen a Brecht film (or at least, I don’t think so) and was interested to see how the characters and situations were portrayed. For a film of this nature, I was impressed with the way in which the film was done and thought the subject matter was particularly interesting. I do not know very much about Germany in the period of the Weimar Republic, so I liked watching how people lived and worked (or tried to work) in the film.

My film group decided to film our short assignment this week, which is the “Point of View” from a beer bottle’s opening. Wednesday night we filmed the very end of the short film (the part when Ed falls and the bottle breaks all over the floor) because none of us really felt energetic enough to host a believable party scene that evening. We broke a beer bottle, and when Ed “fell” with the camera, Joel threw the pieces of bottle out into the camera’s view. The next evening, we were determined to film the party scene—now or never! We got out the music, empty beer bottles, and invited everyone to come on over and have a party with us. Since most of the film consists of Josh holding the camera like a bottle and walking around the party, I was really hoping that the other participants in our party scene wouldn’t really notice we were filming and continue to act natural to get the most authentic “party feeling” for the shot. This halfway worked out—most people acted pretty normal, and a few people who had just walked into the apartment (like Christopher) didn’t know we were filming and we got a few really authentic lines from him to use. (“Where’s the party??!?!?!”)

Next week, we are going to edit the film to completion to get ready to show to the class, because our due date for showing this film has been moved up to next Friday.

week one & two

this is the beginning of week three in berlin (already!) and i cannot believe i have already completed two weeks of class.

week one of classes was a short one, as it was only for three days out of the first week, but the classes really got me thinking fast about what i wanted to film and how the classes were going to work. we were immediately assigned a fair amount of reading for week one, including the first chapter of brian ladd's book, "ghosts of berlin", which i really have liked reading so far. it is really interesting to me to read so indepth about certain monuments, buildings, or historic places here in berlin while actually being in berlin. one of the first school nights here, nathan finished his chapter in brian ladd and proclaimed that he wanted to go hang out just under the brandenburg tor. i had not finished this chapter yet and was confused why he would feel like doing this so late at night, but after having read the interesting history of this gate, i too felt like going to the gate just to simply be around it and reflect on its long, interesting history.
the other readings for week one i thought were an interesting supplement to the ladd readings, although some were very dry reads and hard to grasp certain concepts the first time around.

before the week was over, we were also put into four groups of four students that would become our "film groups" for the rest of the quarter. i was a little nervous about this because although i have been trying to think all summer long about what i wanted my film to be about, there was no one single idea that stood out above the others to me. i was feeling pretty open about the subject, only that i had hoped to make a historical fiction film instead of a documentary.

i was grouped with josh t, ed, and joel and we had our first group meeting that weekend. i was pleased to find out that each of us were equally open about the subject of our film and no one person was really enforcing their idea on the rest of the group. at the end of the meeting, we had settled on the idea of four seperate stories about one's experience or impressions of berlin that we will somehow tie together by the end of the film. our group's inspiration was mostly drawn from various tarantino films such as pulp fiction and four rooms which both involve different characters' stories that actually tie together in the middle and end of the movie, to the viewer's surprise. although each of these four stories will be of very different film styles and subject matter from the last, we will manage to tie them together in unsuspecting ways. i feel that as of now we each have a very equal role in the film and it will be interesting and challenging to help eachother film each story and ... what i am dreading.... the actual editing of our films because i myself have zero editing experience.

week two went a bit more smoothly in that we all knew where our classes were and how to get there, and more time could be focused on thinking about our films and doing readings instead of running errands around the city. i feel that each coming week will allow more time for our classwork, which will be good and very necessary.

in terms of readings this week, they were very similar to week one's (another brian ladd chapter plus e-reserves) but this was the first week that we had readings assigned for thorsten's class, which was held in the judisches museum this wednesday rather than in humboldt because of german unity day. most places in the city including the university were closed to commemorate this holiday. i thought it was awesome to hold class in the judisches museum because just last august, nathan and i traveled to berlin for a few days and visited this really great museum. it would be funny to know then that one year later, i would actually be sitting in an upstairs room of that museum for a class! life is sure interesting sometimes.
so far, i have really enjoyed thorsten's classes because the memory of the city is a subject that i am interested in and feel that i have a background in as well. (i have taken a very similar class last winter quarter-- german 293 contemporary culture, as well as a modern european survey history class-- hist 113 which dealt with a lot of the same questions) i liked the kinds of readings he assigned for us because this is the kind of material i am used to reading and am very interested in.

this week in eric's class, we watched a film titled berlin: symphony of a big city which i thought was generally enjoyable and very creative. even though we were told not to focus to much on the score of the film, i cannot help but to consider how important it is to the film and how much more poignant it makes the images to the viewer.
we were also assigned our group assignment's this last friday. our group chose the "point of view" film assignment in which we are to film from a person or thing's point of view somewhere in berlin. initially, our group chose to film from the point of view of the opening of a beer bottle at a party, so essentially this would mean filming straight up in the air and there would have to be a lot of action at the party to make this an interesting piece. i am a little bit concerned that we would get enough lighting in our apartments to make it look good, but i suppose this will be worked out. we are planning to film very soon, this next week at the absolute latest because we are to present our film the last friday of october. (it feels weird not to spell it "oktober" now.)

in terms of my experience with speaking german for the past few weeks, i feel some days really proud of myself and accomplished, and other days kind of embarrassed and not very smart. i guess i am kind of hard on myself because i consider it a failure when an interaction i am attempting in german turns over to english, which it sometimes does. however i get really excited with a transaction is successful in german. today for example, a man on the street asked me for the time in a way that i have not learned yet so i was not exactly sure what he wanted, but turns out i guessed correctly of what he was asking me and there was a successful transaction. this probably sounds a little bit pathetic to a german speaker, but any little progress that i can make is a big deal to me when it comes to learning the language.

first post

i have just set up this production log! however, it is july and i will not be using it quite yet.
but i will be probably late september. exciting!