If you’re still on a Halloween kick and can’t get enough of zombies, you should check out this event coming up this Saturday:
Zombie Rally at the Hollywood Theater in Dormont.
7pm to 11pm
Music by DJ Zombo, featuring the movie, “The Resurrection Game”
Proceeds go to the Lupus Foundation of Pennsylvania.
AND read my guest post on “Hollyburgh”
I spent the past three weekends in September working on the set of a small movie being shot here in Pittsburgh. I was an unpaid production assistant, trying out something new and looking to gain some experience.
As a production assistant, people tell you what to do and you do it as quickly and efficiently as you can. When they don’t tell you what to do, you should be paying attention to what’s going on so that if someone mutters something under their breath, you can then do it before they actually ask. Production assistants carry things and move things and get people things. They stand in the rain and direct traffic and drive the transport van back and forth from the parking lot. They make runs to Starbucks for coffee and for snacks and for hardware and nails and for sunscreen. Production assistants ask people to be quiet and then they yell loudly for people to be quiet. They keep the talent hydrated and fed and amused. They hold the slate or wrangle cords or bring apple boxes then take apple boxes away. They stand in for talent so the camera can set up the shot or so the current actor knows where their eye line should be. They pose as extras if needed and sometimes their backs are used for over-the-shoulder shots. They use the walkie talkie all day every day and if all of this is understood, they say “copy that.” That’s just the basics.
I knew all of this. I’ve been a production assistant before. I have the production assistant handbook. But it was a little different trying to jump into all of this with a small group of people I’d never met, asking me to do more than just refill coolers. I should be happy. I should be glad that they needed me to do some real production things like set up lights or hold an iPad for them. On a bigger production, I hadn’t been allowed to touch anything technical. So this was pretty cool. But it took me a little while to get into the swing of it. Luckily some of these great crew members were willing to be patient and teach me a few things.
I would say I felt much more useful by the end of the shoot and I can definitely say I learned a lot. By the last day, I was able to set up a branch in a C stand by myself to make it look like a tree outside the window. I was able to set up flags and put silks on frames. People could ask me for gels or scrims or a combo or a lolli and I knew what those things were.
These were some long days, but they were worth it.
And hopefully no one recognizes the awkward girl in the background of some scenes. Because that would be me and that would be embarrassing.
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To read more about my experiences on the set of “Lemonade” check out my guest post on the Hollyburgh blog: The Real Meaning of “Lights, Camera, Action”
I went into the theater expecting to cry. A movie about poor, Indian children with HIV/AIDS is heartbreaking, why wouldn’t I expect to be bawling my eyes out in five minutes?
But surprisingly, I found myself laughing more often than shedding tears. The documentary, “Blood Brother,” focused on the reality of what this young man, Rocky Braat, was doing for the orphanage in India, but the pleasant surprise was that this reality was not all bad. It wasn’t all tragic illness and hardship and death. It was definitely those things. But the reality was also that these children are just like any others- ones without AIDS, with both parents, with a need for love.
Rocky’s goal to care for all of these kids, to love them and treat them like they aren’t sick, is heroic. His decision to move to India, stay there, get married, and care for these kids, was obviously not made lightly. And considering he moved into a completely different culture, where, in his words, “they are 70 or 80 years behind the times,” it is no wonder he faced challenges. But he could overcome those because he knew that what he was doing had a purpose and it was bigger than himself. He was and is saving these kids.
Rocky and his friend, Steve, said multiple times before the movie played in the theater and in the movie, that they aren’t funny, they wish they were funnier, that India sucked the humor out of them. And yet the film was filled with every small, happy moment that you would never imagine a child living with HIV/AIDS in India to have. They ran and laughed and played. They were hung by their pants in trees and played practical jokes. They spoke with the innocence that only children have. They loved unconditionally because they were in such desperate need of love themselves. They smiled with their whole faces and were proud of even their smallest accomplishments. They fully enjoyed and appreciated pizza more than any American kid I know. And all of this made the audience laugh- made us love the kids ourselves, made us forget the fear of HIV/AIDS.
The biggest impact of this whole movie, I believe, is seeing the human emotions cross boundaries and cross cultures. We may not understand their religious customs, or their beliefs or rituals, or why they don’t have running water or toilets. We may not understand their eating habits or transportation or the way they build their houses. We may not get the way people in India live–but we understand their sadness. We see pain and suffering. We understand happiness and joy. We see the smiles and laughter. And we get that. And that is why people will see this movie and donate money to help Rocky and the orphanage. That is why people like Rocky go to these countries. That is why we can laugh when these kids make jokes and why we cry when we see them on the verge of death, battling AIDS. We may not understand cultures, but we understand human emotions.
This documentary also shed some light on AIDS and HIV. I don’t believe it was entirely intentional, but nevertheless, the audience is struck by how people view the disease. People in India have this view that HIV/AIDS is something to fear. They aren’t entirely educated about it. They are so afraid, they shun the women and children, won’t touch them or eat the same food. Disease and illness and death is scary. But these children can feel the fear and you can see that it kills them. That is what is heartbreaking–to see how the kids are affected by hatred.
What would any American do in that situation, though? Are we so superior, so much more educated that we wouldn’t fear them as well? How many people do you know with HIV or AIDS? This fear is not unfounded and it is not something to admonish. Many people are afraid. Fear is a lack of understanding, and HIV/AIDS is a difficult thing to understand. The important thing is to learn–to realize that the kids need love and attention and care, and that touching them and cooking their food does not pass on the disease.
This film shows a true and real side of children in India that is not all tragedy and despair. Those kids captured the hearts of the audience, just as they captured Rocky’s. I did cry at the end of the movie, as Rocky got married to a beautiful Indian girl and hugged his best friend and took pictures with the kids. I cried because he found his happiness in being with these orphans.
I had to quickly wipe my tears before the lights came up, and as I walked out of the theater into the city of Pittsburgh, all I could think was, “why do we need all this stuff?”
photo credit: http://dribbble.com/shots/513963-Blood-Brother-Promo
Sometimes I compare things in my life with movies. I’m sure everyone does, but maybe I’m a romantic and you hear me saying it more often. You know the phrase, “-but that’s how it is in the movies!” or “it never happens like that in the movies.” And people respond “yes Meg, but those are just movies.”
Well I found myself doing it again. You see, I have good days and bad days, as does everyone. On the bad days I wonder where my life is going and whether I’ll ever get a real job and I think about my friends who live far away and can’t visit and the student loans I’ll have to start paying because my six-month grace period will be up….. And on the good days I remember that life is an adventure and I’m just living it- that everything will eventually work out and then when I’m old this will all be part of the awesome story I have to tell.
So the other day, I was having a good day. And for some reason I started thinking about the movie, The Pursuit of Happyness. For those of you who haven’t seen it, it is based on a true story about a young man with a wife and child living in New York City. The man is a door-to-door salesman, but his hospital equipment isn’t selling well. They can’t make rent and his wife leaves him and their son. And this man just thinks that if he wore a suit and worked as a stock broker in a big city building that his life would be happy. So he takes this unpaid internship, while still trying to sell the hospital equipment and raise a son, and he goes through arguably the hardest part of his life and comes out the other side.
I own this movie, but I don’t think I’ve seen it in awhile. Which is why I was surprised that I was just driving along and it suddenly came to me. And I wondered, are we really in the pursuit of happiness? I don’t know if that phrase is quite accurate.
I find myself in a similar, but most certainly not exact, situation. I took an unpaid internship, in addition to the job that makes the money, and at the end of it, I hope a real job will be in closer reach. I’m working almost every day and I’m busy and stressed. But remember, I was having a good day. So I kept in mind that I don’t have a spouse that just left me, I’m not saddled with a kid, I don’t have rent to pay (right now), my internship isn’t a full time job taking up all my time, and I’m not homeless and sleeping in subways. And suddenly I felt much better about the situation.
My internship is two days a week, four hours a day. So far they haven’t had me doing anything super exciting, but there is the prospect of doing exciting things down the line. I really like what the organization is doing and the projects that I’m working on. It’s all very peace-hope-and-love stuff that you can’t help but get sucked into. The interviews that I’m transcribing right now do give me a little hope for humanity, if only there were more people with as much positivity and kindness as this woman. And I love the atmosphere of this non-profit/public television workplace, the people who say hello to me in the halls and the good vibes you get when people love their jobs.
I’m definitely in pursuit of something, but I don’t think it’s happiness. Hopefully there aren’t a lot of people in the world who are in search of happiness. I think that happiness can always be there, but often people are too tired or stressed to notice and accept it. And so they think they’re not happy. In the movie, Will Smith had happy moments, I think. His son was a huge source of happiness for him, when he noticed. The problem was that he broke his life down into a tiny little word used to sum up the whole time period (example: “This part of my life is called running.“) But life is so much more complicated than a single word and he limited himself by boxing it all in like that.
As for me, I think I’m happy. I think I have a lot going for me if I have a good day and take the time to remember it. I’m in pursuit of something else. The pursuit of a plan. Or stability. The pursuit of a long-term achievable goal. I wonder if we could spell that wrong and make it a sequel. I’m clearly in pursuit of something, but if I weren’t, my life would be boring. And I’m really looking forward to having a good story to tell.
Measure with Coffee Spoons 