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.