“The Band” Trailer

Next week I am going to see Anna, director of “The Band”, a movie which sprung from her lovely naughty mind quite some time back …

Miss Anna Brownfield will be in Europe

• to attend the Opening Night with her movie in our lovely capital Berlin
• to bring me some love and squeeze me really hard
• to check the  dubbed version before release
• to bring me some Vegemite
• to bring me Keens

“The Band” will be out in Germany, the US and Canada mid November 2009.

I could not resist to put a link to Vegemite’s and Keens’ homepage. They are just so ridiculously and geniusly hilarious. Very entertaining.

Siobhan, what was the song again with the little Vegemites??

May it be forgiven to me to link-fetish above a bit…

Wo die wilden Kerle wohnen.

I grew up with it, convinced it is a German book. ’cause it belonged to me and my world as much as my bed and the garden behind my house. Later, I bought it for my boys. But they are kids of the 90ies…

The 70ies spirit of this book, telling you, that it is a fantastic thing to disobey rules and not follow authorities, sadly did not reach them. They found it a bit boring, that behaving badly is great, but being home eventually is even better than that.

When I lived in Melbourne, Spike Jonze turned with Lance Accord the book “Where the wild Things are” in to a movie. I found out, that it is an American book and that most of my Polish, Romanian, Russian or Czech friends did never  hear of it. It made me aware of the very enclosed western world nutshell I have been living in half of my life. The movie was talk of the town and I saw the most amazing stills from the “Wild things” set, that many of my friends worked on.

And like I disappeared from Melbourne, the movie disappeared from the face of the earth. Popping up his head here and there, rumours, two or three stills spilled like water on the street in wide stretched spatters.
…but I must admit, I am the worst person to chase news on the net and follow movie-gossip…

So for me, it did feel a bit like a totally surprising present under the Christmas tree, when I clicked my self through the lovely blog My Favorite Worst Nightmare. Nadsat Orange, who runs this blogset up like a journal full of dreamy pictures and flittering thoughts fluttering, wrote a while ago about my agent The Bakery and posted my film “1, 2, 3″ – so people could watch it on her blog. Since than, I am buzzing by here and than…click some links…and found:

“Where the  Wild Things are”
The Trailer!

It will start in the US the coming weekend and in Germany December 17th.

Risk a look behind the Six Doors.

The 6 rooms featuring 6 women and their 6 stories are ready. Come, step in the 7th chamber and listen.

Than come closer, touch the wood  and peek behind the Six Doors.

See what’s there. See what’s looming behind there in the dark.

I am very curious…please tell me what you think and leave your comment!

The project has been realized with a 180° Sigma Fish-Eye lens kindly sponsored by the company and the full frame options of the Canon 5D mkII.

…a bit of tech-talk about the project will follow at some later stage…

A Campari commercial not by Dylan Thomas.

I am not sure, what makes me think of Dylan Thomas when posting this…

Maybe the alcohol? Maybe the fact, that I shot this one year ago and never got around to post this here or do anything with it? Or maybe the view out of the tiny roof window in the small closet, I am living in, that today offers a drab gloomy autumn sky looking as Welsh as I can imagine a sky to be?

The spot directed by Gil Levanon after an idea by producer Markus Brandmair can not be my Thomas-reminder, that’s  for sure. Even though I know, the Welsh man and his wonderful language have been used and abused by commercials quite a bit…

Well not by us.

Maybe it is just, that I must post soon something actually connected to Dylan Thomas…

German release of “The Band”

It is hard to keep up the with the speed in which Anna Brownfield’s world-sales agent chucks the international releases on the market…but: we are still with you!

Here the German DVD cover for “The Band” … and further down the post some entertaining Facebook conversation regarding German title and possible dubbing of the piece … as well as some German lessons for those, who would like to enjoy “The Band”in the language of Schiller and Goethe…

FB user 1:  “shouldn’t it be “Das Bund” ???”

FB user 2: “”Das Bund” does not exist…but:
Der Bund (using “der” but your suggested noun) would be “the bond”, or a short slang word for the German army…
Das Band (using your suggested article and the closest matching noun in German) would be “ribbon”, “strip” or “strap” … which might guide us back to issues featured in the film…”

Other people are discussing the spelling of Geschlechtsverkehr – German for Sex – regarding the Punk-Rock “Sex, Drugs and Rock’n Roll” character of “The Band”  and its German versions.

Some came up with Geschichts-Verkehr…which is the most beautiful creation and comes close to  “History Traffic” or “History Intercourse”… which sounds a bit like sex-with-the-ex to me…but what a great word creation, no? We have  a own term for made up words: Wortschöpfung, in which we managed to squeeze one of our beautiful Umlauts…

The Wortschöpfung reminds me my friend and director David Pawsey and his word creations the other day.

David mailed me some birthday Leder-Hosen note, but made Lieder-Hosen from it, after cruising briefly past the Leider-Hose. Last not least, David has been adding a link about Lieder-Shirts for my birthday. Thanks David!

For all those, who have not been treated with German at school or even studied in Germany, such as the lovely photo-blogger Pat Coakley – and for those, who simply forgot every single word after nine years of German studies, such as my friend and fellow DOP Alexey Kuchinsky, here some German lesson for beginners:

Leder-Hose: Leather pants.  Traditional clothing worn in Bavaria during festivities.

Lieder-Hose: Song pants. They play music. I have not seen any of those yet.

Leider-Hose: Leider comes down to regrettably, sadly…  not sure about those kind of pants…

last not least:

the

Liederlich-Hose:

…which leads as back to the German release of “The Band” as well as expanding our language skills…

To translate liederlich, I have been making use of Leo, may favourite online dictionary. And Leo comes up with this for liederlich:

“cockish, debauched, dissolute, licentious, loose, negligent, raffish, ribald, slatternly, sloppy, slovenly, sluttish, slutty, wanton”

You can imagine those pants…

And we are back with the Punk-Rock movies…

Release of “The Band” in the US and Canada

The feature “The Band”, another prank by the beautiful Misses Brownfield, on which I had the pleasure to add some pictures to the script, found a distributor for the US and Canada and will be released November, the 17th.

… they are pro’s there, in the movies, on the other side of the ocean…and they do mean business. So first thing they did, was make a new poster… if you compare it with the old – it does look nice, no?

Canon 5D MarkII

I bought some gear. You can find a list of it in the Equipment section, just look above.

Home.

For a day or two.

Than back to the set of Andererseits, the film I am currently shooting in Germany.

Summer in Europe is treating me so well…

My head is in a bif fluffy cloud,  …  so … for now I will leave you to it and only post a link to a few stills here.

Summer Exhibition with my Cinematography Work

Less than a year back, I was helping out in a funny last minute action Friedrich-Wilhelm Backhaus to create a video-art piece to be screened in the veranda-patio type area in front of his studio.

This year, helped by his kind suggestion,  I am invited as a guest artist to show some of my work in the studio complex Alte Wiedefabrik in Munich during their summer exhibition running from the 2nd till the 5th of July 2009 .

The Wiedefabrik built in 1928  to produce Acetylen gives currently working space to over well established 25 artists. They open their doors twice a year to show their recent work.

Old beautifully renovated buildings with climbers creeping all over those walls are huddled around winding pepplestone paths, flowering fruit trees and not to forget a cafe with regional specialities and more.

The exhibition is open daily from early afternoon till night, live music Friday/Saturday.

Rodicas’

Almost a week ago I got back from shooting with Alice Gruia the “Rodicas’ “.

Alice. My Director.

A documentary about two 87 and 82 year old ladies living for the last 30 years in Australia, having passed both several countries before that.

Rodica Odette and Rodica Ramira, both descendants of Jewish families, left Romania after the war, having to start over again in their early twenties in new countries, learning new languages.

One Rodica lived with her German husband in Uruguay for years. Her kids are were born and bread there. she still speaks Spanish to them. Sometimes strange and antique sounding German words like “Sitzfleisch” flood in to the conversation at her family table and flock around the English Romanian Spanish mix. She is the younger one of the two friends. Bubbly, bustling, lively. She never drinks water. Believes in Tarrot reading and future telling. She’s still working. For the last years only part time, she apologizes.

The other Rodica rings her friend every morning. She went to Germany, following her son. Worked as a teacher and struggled for almost two years, to get her papers in post war Germany, with still to many antisemitic people around in the 50ies.  She is a true lady. Stylish from tip to toe. Sport every day. Composed, reasonable, considered, perfect. She does get emotional about politics. Loves Obama, watches the news every day. With her friend she discusses only “things necessary and important” she claims.

They met playing bridge. And have been friends ever since. 30 years and on.

Together they are like humming flinging swinging teenage girls. Gossip, laugh, dance, drink. Age seems to be a unnoticed unimportant little fluff they easily brush off their tone in tone girlie dream world they are living in.

The true 16 is 86… approximately.

“I have never been so happy as int he last twenty years of my life” Rodica says.

“You give me all this Gin Tonic to drink. Can you hear what stupid things it makes me say?” she adds and laughs.

The Rodicas'.

They probably had fun.

We certainly had fun.