Chanson à la melusine

Impossible de travailler et de monter quoi que ce soit depuis le 1 janvier. Etendue sur mon rocher, je rêve et j'entends mes soeurs chanter des profondeurs :

Jef Klak

Des fois tu fais une soirée où tu rencontres plein de gens et où tu découvres plein de trucs, et où ça fait ah ! mais ouais ! comme hier soir avec le collectif Jef Klak…

Gawk hawk

Film funding is a serious killer. God, it's painful. The whole world should know what we all have to go through as directors. Before throwing myself (or my computer) out of the window this afternoon, I decided to surf the web. Here is what I found:

Hawk glamour shot. Past two weeks really got me out of a rut. Was good to remember how to live in the present and not get dragged down worrying about nonsense you can't control.

Text and photo by John Sortz 

@Goshute Migration Site, October 2015

See also: Cuttlebone

J'ai morue d'amour

Les morues sont des animaux grégaires. Pour se reproduire, elles ont besoin d'être nombreuses. De grouiller… A cette seule condition, elles adoptent un comportement propice au frai. Elles émettent dans l'eau des phéromones qui les excitent, les conduisent à l'orgie collective et provoquent la ponte des femelles et l'éjaculation des mâles. Au-dessous d'un certain niveau de population, ces poissons n'ont tout simplement plus envie d'amour. Trop rares, ils s'ignorent. Ils sont frappés de "mélancolie génésique".

Extrait de Voyage au bout des mers de Yves Paccalet

Writing scripts is joy (II)

I have struggled with discipline a lot in the past. And even though I think I've solved that problem there are still moments where I feel nothing's working.
I begin a script on impulse most of time. It's like a combustion process, it just propels me strongly enough not to need extra discipline. So if I have inspiration, it's easy to ride on a scene. It lasts hours and I'll stay up all night writing it out. But If can't write a passage in one shot and I need to finish it the next day, then I lose my momentum and start to panic and eventually call it a day.
Unfinished business is a serious bummer and a killer. This is why I've trained myself to write on demand and I must say I'm happy I did.

Film funding

(Mmh, not that pleased of last post with the Facebook embedding. Nice try guys but, heh, cross-posting from FB to Blogger is, I'm afraid a major fail. Icon and thumbnails won't load and all you get is a hypertext link, which I could have done myself… anyways…)

… I just wanted to tell that I am one day away from a 3-month-long funding campaign for my next short fiction (the one I recently did location scouting for). I'll do my best to keep you posted with this, for you must know this is the most terrific aspect of filmmaking…

In the meantime, I give you a hint of what this film will be about by giving my main inspiration for it: Serge Bozon's La France. If you understand French, check this out. I believe it is an awesome feature!

More location scouting

I am reposting from the Susu-prod Facebook Page to check if the embedding code works...

Publication by Susu-prod.

Leninland

I just returned from the Kino Festival where I saw a great documentary from Russian director Askold Kurov. No need to be a Soviet-era specialist to get what's going on in this film which tells of the everyday hassles of Lenin Museum built in 1985 in the revolutionary’s hometown of Gorki. Check this out:

Souvenir de Californie

C'était en 1993 à San Francisco. Je venais de voir Reservoir Dogs au Red Vic Movie House à une époque où la salle était encore ouverte (on pouvait y fumer et on s'y sentait comme au Spoutnik) et où Quentin Tarantino était à peine connu en Europe. J'avais beaucoup aimé le film, je crois, et du coup, cela m'a rendue attentive à cette rue à côté du centre commercial Safeway sur Market où j'allais parfois m'approvisionner. Aujourd'hui le magasin a bien changé mais il est toujours bel et bien là !

La rue Reservoir à côté du Safeway  © 1993

Le Safeway sur la rue Market © 1993

My first purchase on Google Play is Automotive

Just saw Automotive (directed by Tom Glynn and starring Will Estes and Emily Baldoni) on Google Play and I really liked it. Among other things, I was intrigued by the selling point of the movie: action is shown entirely around the perspective of a car. The film is independent to the bone and definitely not for everyone given its minimalist and near experimental streak.

Emily Baldoni in Automotive

Here is one of my takes on the puzzle story (watch out if you haven't seen it because I am giving away hints which might spoil your pleasure of being driven by the plot) :

Someone who betrays his/her significant other is a cheater. Someone who betrays his/her dream boy/girl, fantasy or real is a complete loser. Someone who betrays his/her father/mother figure, fantasy or real is cursed. Now what chances do he/she have to escape when this authority figure itself is a corrupt?

In a Mary Poppins' mood

October began and I feel puzzled and torn inside. I don't know whether it's the red moon or the writing process that is stirring my emotional mud up.

Julie Andrews on the set of Mary Poppins

Eclipse lunaire

Aujourd'hui, 8 octobre 2014, seconde éclipse de la tétrade lunaire…
Ne plus avoir besoin de penser aux prophéties, juste se contenter de la regarder.

Flying Birds

Forest Whitaker as a modern day samurai in Ghost Dog embodies my idea of grace in movie acting. Especially in this extract. And I am not talking about RZA's music coming along.