So I have been back from France for about a week not. I can’t believe how close school is! I am starting to make an outline for my final piece but I am actually finding it pretty hard. There is just so much to write about! I also do not consider myself the best writer so staying focused and having a real style/voice or tone to my piece is going to be the biggest challenge I think.
For this entry though, I just wanted to write about some of the fun experiences I had since I don’t think I will write about them all in my final piece. We arrived in Paris really early in the morning and went straight to the little apartment which we rented for the week. The apartment was absolutely gorgeous! We actually had stayed in the exact same one about 10 years ago for a whole summer so it brought back memories I didn’t know I had. The apartment was located right in the center of Paris on the Isle de la Cite, a little island right on the Seine river in between the right and left banks. My absolute favorite part about the apartment and its location is the courtyard behind it. All the houses and apartments are on the outside of the island and then on the inside there is this old courtyard with beautiful trees and stone walkways and little boule courts in the middle. There are also tiny restaurants in the courtyard made of stone with only a few tables inside. The food in each one is just amazing and you feel like you are eating at someone’s home instead of at a restaurant.
The last time I stayed at this apartment I was only twelve so the range of things I was able to do was very different. Exploring a city on your own is totally different than just following your dad around to whichever museums he thinks are best. I was able to just search little streets and ally ways and try to get a slight insight into the non-tourist life in Paris. I have never been a big fan of crowds, so I liked finding hidden spots that look like they haven’t changed in hundreds of years. In Paris, this is pretty easy. Anopther thing which was different this trip than when I was 12 was the wine. Last time I came to Paris my dad practically had to force me to take a sip of his wine, and this time I certainly had no trouble. I’m sure coming from a college student that is not any kind of surprise, but it was nice to appreciate something which I had previously only been forced to try. My sister and I went out on the town at night a few times and it was pretty fun but we were usually really tired and didn’t stay out too late. Overall, I think this was one of my favorite trips ever.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
Cash Bash
I have been working a lot more on the cyber terror exhibit for the National Spy Museum. The time frame is very short since the opening will occur on September 11th this year in DC. I am planning to attend the opening since Baltimore is so close. It will be very exciting to see some of the work I’ve done actually being shown to the public.
This weekend one of the films Northern Light made, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison, had a premier at the Woods Hole Film Festival which is right near where my family lives so I was able to attend. It was really cool seeing the whole film because so far I have only read reviews about it and placed quotes in press kits. Its sort of funny that I have been doing promotion for the film without actually having seen it. Sometimes when I am working on any kind of marketing for a film, they will have me watch it first but usually that is just for the shorter ones. I feel better about promoting the film now that I have seen it and liked it.
After the screening, there was a party or “Cash Bash” at a nearby restaurant/bar called the Captain Kidd. They had a bluegrass type band playing Johnny Cash songs and free food and drinks. A lot of people from the screening came as well as many other filmmakers and people involved in the festival. The restaurant was a perfect setting for the party—it sort of looks like the inside of an old pirate ship with huge masts and whale bones on the walls, and seats made of old wooden beer kegs. The party lasted until about 12:30, and I have to admit, by the end of the night some of my bosses had clearly had a few drinks. It was very entertaining to see.
This weekend one of the films Northern Light made, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison, had a premier at the Woods Hole Film Festival which is right near where my family lives so I was able to attend. It was really cool seeing the whole film because so far I have only read reviews about it and placed quotes in press kits. Its sort of funny that I have been doing promotion for the film without actually having seen it. Sometimes when I am working on any kind of marketing for a film, they will have me watch it first but usually that is just for the shorter ones. I feel better about promoting the film now that I have seen it and liked it.
After the screening, there was a party or “Cash Bash” at a nearby restaurant/bar called the Captain Kidd. They had a bluegrass type band playing Johnny Cash songs and free food and drinks. A lot of people from the screening came as well as many other filmmakers and people involved in the festival. The restaurant was a perfect setting for the party—it sort of looks like the inside of an old pirate ship with huge masts and whale bones on the walls, and seats made of old wooden beer kegs. The party lasted until about 12:30, and I have to admit, by the end of the night some of my bosses had clearly had a few drinks. It was very entertaining to see.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
facebook page at Norther Light links
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Johnny-Cash-At-Folsom-Prison/8255477103
here is the link to the Johnny Cash Facebook page
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Scarred-Justice/67353233609
Scarred Justice: The Orangeburg Massacre
here is the link to the Johnny Cash Facebook page
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Scarred-Justice/67353233609
Scarred Justice: The Orangeburg Massacre
cyber terror
This week has been very exciting here at work. One of the things that frustrates me at the office, is how slowly things move. A new idea will come about for a film and I will work hard to research it and find possible characters etc., and then nothing will come of it. I know this is because funding is very hard to find, and just because we find an idea interesting, does not mean larger companies and audiences will too. However, this week we are working on an upcoming project that we know for sure is going to happen. It has been really neat to see how differently people work when there are real deadlines and the promise of implementation.
What we have been asked to do is create a multimedia exhibit which would show all the potential disasters that would come with cyber terrorism. Its really amazing to see how creative you get to be with a project like this. We not only provide all the information but we have to figure out all the lighting- which we plan to design so that standing inside the exhibit sort of feels like you are standing inside a computer. We also are going to do slideshows of photos, but not at all in a typical sense. In the pictures, elements of the photos would be removed and new ones are added, transforming the original image and introducing disruption, disorder, and disintegration. Today I have been searching through archives for pictures which could work in these pieces. I am excited to see where the project takes me!
What we have been asked to do is create a multimedia exhibit which would show all the potential disasters that would come with cyber terrorism. Its really amazing to see how creative you get to be with a project like this. We not only provide all the information but we have to figure out all the lighting- which we plan to design so that standing inside the exhibit sort of feels like you are standing inside a computer. We also are going to do slideshows of photos, but not at all in a typical sense. In the pictures, elements of the photos would be removed and new ones are added, transforming the original image and introducing disruption, disorder, and disintegration. Today I have been searching through archives for pictures which could work in these pieces. I am excited to see where the project takes me!
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Wedding Weekend!
This weekend, my brother Tristan got married. I had been hearing about the wedding plans from his fiancé for months so there was much anticipation for the event. I also knew that both of them have really a lot of fun friends, so I had been looking forward to the weekend for sure!
The whole thing started with a clam bake at my house. When I arrived on Thursday, the big white tent was already set up in the backyard, and by Friday the caterers began showing up around 10 am. I was slightly confused because the whole event did not start until 6pm and although I don’t know a lot about cooking, I am pretty sure it takes less than 8 hours to cook a lobster. Throughout the day about a million people came and left: florists, the general wedding planner with his little helpers, all the bridesmaids and groomsmen, and many many family members who I have not seen in at least a year. Everyone arrived at about 6 and the whole thing was so much fun. We had cocktails around the pool which had lanterns around it and floating candles which made everything look soft and romantic. Then we moved into the tent which had bright flowers and small candles everywhere you looked. Toasts were made, champagne was drunk, and people laughed and danced without anyone falling in the pool: an overall success!
The next night for the actually wedding, there was much less to be done since the event was happening at a hotel nearby. The day consisted of relaxing in the sun, getting our hair done, and then getting ready. My sister and I bickered a little about which one of us would where which dress since we are the same size and basically share one closet (I won in the end.) We all left in a limo and headed for the Pompanessett Inn which is about 20 minutes from my house. The room that the wedding was in is hard to describe but is sort of a permanent tent which looks out over the ocean. For the ceremony, an isle was created out of rows of chairs with flowers attached to them. The bride looked absolutely stunning walking down the aisle and it took me about 3 seconds to start crying.
Once they were officially married, everyone headed into the bar while the room was quickly converted into a reception hall. When all of the guests had taken their seats at one of about 15 tables seating 10 guests each, the whole wedding party entered one by one to “Beat It” by Michael Jackson. Their grand entrance was a perfect indication of the way the night would run. Dinner was delicious, the music was upbeat and fun to dance to, and everyone seemed to have a blast. The bride and groom could not stop smiling and I think they were very proud of the beautiful wedding they had planned. In conclusion, I feel sorry for my parents because this wedding has set a very high bar for me in the future!
The whole thing started with a clam bake at my house. When I arrived on Thursday, the big white tent was already set up in the backyard, and by Friday the caterers began showing up around 10 am. I was slightly confused because the whole event did not start until 6pm and although I don’t know a lot about cooking, I am pretty sure it takes less than 8 hours to cook a lobster. Throughout the day about a million people came and left: florists, the general wedding planner with his little helpers, all the bridesmaids and groomsmen, and many many family members who I have not seen in at least a year. Everyone arrived at about 6 and the whole thing was so much fun. We had cocktails around the pool which had lanterns around it and floating candles which made everything look soft and romantic. Then we moved into the tent which had bright flowers and small candles everywhere you looked. Toasts were made, champagne was drunk, and people laughed and danced without anyone falling in the pool: an overall success!
The next night for the actually wedding, there was much less to be done since the event was happening at a hotel nearby. The day consisted of relaxing in the sun, getting our hair done, and then getting ready. My sister and I bickered a little about which one of us would where which dress since we are the same size and basically share one closet (I won in the end.) We all left in a limo and headed for the Pompanessett Inn which is about 20 minutes from my house. The room that the wedding was in is hard to describe but is sort of a permanent tent which looks out over the ocean. For the ceremony, an isle was created out of rows of chairs with flowers attached to them. The bride looked absolutely stunning walking down the aisle and it took me about 3 seconds to start crying.
Once they were officially married, everyone headed into the bar while the room was quickly converted into a reception hall. When all of the guests had taken their seats at one of about 15 tables seating 10 guests each, the whole wedding party entered one by one to “Beat It” by Michael Jackson. Their grand entrance was a perfect indication of the way the night would run. Dinner was delicious, the music was upbeat and fun to dance to, and everyone seemed to have a blast. The bride and groom could not stop smiling and I think they were very proud of the beautiful wedding they had planned. In conclusion, I feel sorry for my parents because this wedding has set a very high bar for me in the future!
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Busy Day..
I had a very busy day at work today, so I decided to just jot things down as I did them. Here is the basic list: sign in to withoutabox.com to submit two films; Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison and Scarred Justice to a few different film festivals; put press kits together for both of the films to be sent out with the DVDs; make a Google map of all the places Johnny Cash has been or will be screened; make about 20 copies of all different DVDs and stomp them with labels; update festival lists for Killer Poet and Johnny Cash; talk to Bestor- my boss, about how to make sure the internship is not only helping them out but me out too; and finally update the facebook pages of Northern Light to make sure they had all the current film reviews, event invitations, trailers, and stills. Typically, I would do a lot of things like this in a day but not necessarily all of them. It is interesting to see how fast a day goes when it is jam packed with tasks.
This coming weekend my brother is getting married on Martha’s Vineyard so I am sure I will have a lot to write about next week!
This coming weekend my brother is getting married on Martha’s Vineyard so I am sure I will have a lot to write about next week!
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Bridgewater Triangle
One of the projects I am working on here at my internship has to do with something called psychic archeology, which is exactly what it sounds like. Basically, psychics will travel to different archeological sights around the country to help archeologists out with things that they could not possibly know on their own from concrete materials or evidence. The psychic archeologists will give their insights and intuitions and the regular archeologists will use those clues to help them find new discoveries. This is how it is supposed to work. However, I am pretty sure the psychics either just tell the archeologists things that are already common knowledge or they are just plain wrong. Either way, I was able to go on a pretty interesting outing yesterday to a place called the Bridgewater Triangle.
The Bridgewater Triangle is an area in Massachusetts where countless reports of paranormal sightings have occurred. I am not sure what the paranormal has to do with psychics but I was happy to go along for the rise. Basically, my three colleagues and I went to the area to find out if any of the myths about the place were true. If they seemed to have any real weight to them, then we could potentially try to fit the Triangle into an episode with the psychic archeologists. We first went to the Hockamock swamp, a large swamp within the triangle which means, “place where the spirit dwells.” I have to admit that the swamp was very creepy. It was a very damp, rainy day which added to the gloomy atmosphere, but even without the weather the Hockamock swamp is one of the most popular Halloween destinations for teenagers. We didn’t actually see paranormal activity of course, but we decided to shoot some b-roll since the locations had a lot of character and would be interesting to look at on screen.
Throughout the day we met with a few townspeople and asked them about the local legends- all of them knew all the details about the myths. There are “ghost lights”, animal mutations, “black helicopters” (a term I still don’t really understand), and even murders. I would have to say talking to people n the town was the most interesting part of the day. It was great to see the kind of enthusiasm people had about their town and its history. We’re not sure what to take out of yesterday but at the very least we shot some good footage and met with a few characters who could be interesting interviewees in the future.
The Bridgewater Triangle is an area in Massachusetts where countless reports of paranormal sightings have occurred. I am not sure what the paranormal has to do with psychics but I was happy to go along for the rise. Basically, my three colleagues and I went to the area to find out if any of the myths about the place were true. If they seemed to have any real weight to them, then we could potentially try to fit the Triangle into an episode with the psychic archeologists. We first went to the Hockamock swamp, a large swamp within the triangle which means, “place where the spirit dwells.” I have to admit that the swamp was very creepy. It was a very damp, rainy day which added to the gloomy atmosphere, but even without the weather the Hockamock swamp is one of the most popular Halloween destinations for teenagers. We didn’t actually see paranormal activity of course, but we decided to shoot some b-roll since the locations had a lot of character and would be interesting to look at on screen.
Throughout the day we met with a few townspeople and asked them about the local legends- all of them knew all the details about the myths. There are “ghost lights”, animal mutations, “black helicopters” (a term I still don’t really understand), and even murders. I would have to say talking to people n the town was the most interesting part of the day. It was great to see the kind of enthusiasm people had about their town and its history. We’re not sure what to take out of yesterday but at the very least we shot some good footage and met with a few characters who could be interesting interviewees in the future.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Internship- 3 main jobs
I have been at my internship for about a month now and I feel like I am really starting to get the hang of it. Basically, I am helping to develop and market different new projects that are in the works for the company. Until recently, the company has only done documentary films. But, they are beginning to look into real life television series for channels like The Sundance Channel or BBC or PBS although PBS has no money to give. There are three main projects that they have had me working on, all of which are actually really interesting.
The first, and the one I spend the most time on is about social entrepreneurship. They would like to create a show which would follow different young social entrepreneurs who have inventions or ideas to bring to the developing world. These seemingly small ideas and technology to impoverished countries and help to implement them so that they themselves can make a profit but more importantly to help the country with their major needs. I have been doing a lot of research to see what kinds of young social entrepreneurs are out there. One interesting woman who we have met with a few times now is named Anna Jaffe. She is the creator of Global Cycle Solutions which takes a simple bike and turns it into a corn sheller to help people do this daily task 20 times faster.
Another project we are working on would be based around Berklee College of Music which is right around the corner from here. The show would follow seniors who are aspiring musicians in their journeys to become professionals. This would not be your typical reality show though. We would follow students as they learn from a star studded faculty many of whom have won Grammys; we would watch them striving to make record deals, or just find gigs around the city; and we would, I think, just learn a lot about what inspires and challenges them. I like this project a lot and hope it goes through. However, some consultants who have come in to determine which pitches would make successful shows didn’t really seem to like this idea as much.
The third thing I am working on is about psychic archeology. This one is pretty strange and I will write more about it once I figure out what it is and why we are interested in it. Some of my colleges just got back from Toronto to show our film, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison. I am very curious to hear about the trip and how the fim was received.
The first, and the one I spend the most time on is about social entrepreneurship. They would like to create a show which would follow different young social entrepreneurs who have inventions or ideas to bring to the developing world. These seemingly small ideas and technology to impoverished countries and help to implement them so that they themselves can make a profit but more importantly to help the country with their major needs. I have been doing a lot of research to see what kinds of young social entrepreneurs are out there. One interesting woman who we have met with a few times now is named Anna Jaffe. She is the creator of Global Cycle Solutions which takes a simple bike and turns it into a corn sheller to help people do this daily task 20 times faster.
Another project we are working on would be based around Berklee College of Music which is right around the corner from here. The show would follow seniors who are aspiring musicians in their journeys to become professionals. This would not be your typical reality show though. We would follow students as they learn from a star studded faculty many of whom have won Grammys; we would watch them striving to make record deals, or just find gigs around the city; and we would, I think, just learn a lot about what inspires and challenges them. I like this project a lot and hope it goes through. However, some consultants who have come in to determine which pitches would make successful shows didn’t really seem to like this idea as much.
The third thing I am working on is about psychic archeology. This one is pretty strange and I will write more about it once I figure out what it is and why we are interested in it. Some of my colleges just got back from Toronto to show our film, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison. I am very curious to hear about the trip and how the fim was received.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
First post/ summer overview
Hello Everyone! Sorry it has taken me a while to get my act together. I have had an extremely busy summer so far; I can’t believe we are already half way through June. I thought I would, in this first post, just give a general overview about what I will be writing about in this blog. I should also probably tell you a little about me. I am 22 years old, going to be a senior this coming year and I live in Massachusetts. The reason I am so old for my grade is that I took a year off before coming to Loyola to travel. That would have been a much better time to start a travel writing blog actually…I have 5 siblings the oldest of whom is 32 and the youngest just turned 2. It is quite the range as you can see. In terms of the blog, I am not sure yet if I want to focus more on my work or if I want to focus more on traveling/ what I will be doing on my won for fun. Any suggestions about what you all think would be more interesting would be great!
For work, I have actually found a really awesome internship here in Boston. I am working at a documentary film company called Northern Light. They have my doing all kinds of things but I am mainly working on developing and researching new projects and then also helping with marketing them to the public and different investors and studios. Its pretty relevant to what I want to get into after school, and it also seems like they really need us interns which always helps. I have not had to make a single pot of coffee yet, so so far I would call it a success.
In terms of what I will be doing with my time off, I will mainly be going between here and Cape Cod and western Massachusetts. My family lives in a few different places, so I am always moving around to see them. I will hopefully be able to do some more interesting things besides just staying here in Mass. I am pretty sure I’m going to go to Baltimore a few times to see friends (also not too exciting since its where I spend the school year), but also maybe to France and Spain for a week or two. Not sure yet how that will work, but I will keep you all updated.
For work, I have actually found a really awesome internship here in Boston. I am working at a documentary film company called Northern Light. They have my doing all kinds of things but I am mainly working on developing and researching new projects and then also helping with marketing them to the public and different investors and studios. Its pretty relevant to what I want to get into after school, and it also seems like they really need us interns which always helps. I have not had to make a single pot of coffee yet, so so far I would call it a success.
In terms of what I will be doing with my time off, I will mainly be going between here and Cape Cod and western Massachusetts. My family lives in a few different places, so I am always moving around to see them. I will hopefully be able to do some more interesting things besides just staying here in Mass. I am pretty sure I’m going to go to Baltimore a few times to see friends (also not too exciting since its where I spend the school year), but also maybe to France and Spain for a week or two. Not sure yet how that will work, but I will keep you all updated.
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