Wednesday, February 21, 2007
I easily ate the worst ketchup of my life this past week. Now I have never met a non-Heinz ketchup person, but I know that they're out there. Otherwise how would Hunt's stay in business. But I would have given anything for Hunt’s; in fact I probably would have enjoyed the opportunity for a taste test. This shit wasn't even the Finnish version of Hunt's, Felix, at least that would have been something I've tasted before - there are non-Heinz people all over the world, I have no idea why, but there are.
No, the proprietors of Harjulan Piha in Hammaslahti, North Karelia, Finland (a.k.a. the absolute middle of nowhere) enjoy another kind of ketchup all together, and I decided, since we'll be keeping weird hours during the movie shoot, I should have a steady supply of turkey, with which to make a turkey with ketchup sandwich whenever the time called, and you would be surprised how often time called for turkey. And each time it was that damn ketchup. My god it was bad.
I just got back from the coldest place on earth and we spent hours and hours outside every day in temperatures ranging from 20 F to - 10 F in flat, open and windy areas. I just got back and went to the grocery store. It's about 5 F out tonight and I thought it was warm. I think I thought so because I was able to take deep breaths and feel my toes at the same time. I was generally worried for my feet this past week.
I thought, since I had lived in the area for a two winters that I knew how to deal with seriously cold temperatures. I think it's possible that I did learn, but only how to deal with those temperatures for short amounts of time, like an hour, at the most. This was 10 - 12 hours and well into the night. We always had a bus or a van or a cottage to escape the cold. I was with the actors and the actors got it good on the set. Not like the other 20 or so people who are working their asses off in this stuff the whole time.
We sat around until it was time to film and whenever they were speaking, I was there. Sometimes the set up would last a couple of hours, sometimes 30 minutes, depending. But when it went into multiple hours, at night, it was awful. The last night was the coldest, - 10 F. I had on 5 pairs of socks, 2 wool, 3 thick cotton and this was inside of wool lined boots and still my toes went below ice cold and took hours to thaw, or at least until we got back to the ketchup crazy hotel and sat in the sauna for 30 minutes or so at a toasty 190 F.
It was a real fun time hanging around though, except when it was boring. Even the cold is bearable, for example my toes didn't fall off, but the boredom is the killer. I've always thought that doing nothing is the hardest thing to do and, just like my ketchup preference, I'm right. It's true that the boredom is usually broken up by laughter, but until it happens it's horrible, and it's especially horrible if the break is forced and doesn't do its job correctly. And to top it all off, after we dropped the actors off at the airport for their 1 hr plane ride back to Helsinki, I got into the train and prepared for a 5 hour train ride and I had just finished my book the day before. AND because we finished shooting so late last night and there was very little booze left in the hotel, I got a good night's sleep, so I wasn't even tired. I came home and did laundry, went to the grocery store, and cleaned the kitchen.
No, the proprietors of Harjulan Piha in Hammaslahti, North Karelia, Finland (a.k.a. the absolute middle of nowhere) enjoy another kind of ketchup all together, and I decided, since we'll be keeping weird hours during the movie shoot, I should have a steady supply of turkey, with which to make a turkey with ketchup sandwich whenever the time called, and you would be surprised how often time called for turkey. And each time it was that damn ketchup. My god it was bad.
I just got back from the coldest place on earth and we spent hours and hours outside every day in temperatures ranging from 20 F to - 10 F in flat, open and windy areas. I just got back and went to the grocery store. It's about 5 F out tonight and I thought it was warm. I think I thought so because I was able to take deep breaths and feel my toes at the same time. I was generally worried for my feet this past week.
I thought, since I had lived in the area for a two winters that I knew how to deal with seriously cold temperatures. I think it's possible that I did learn, but only how to deal with those temperatures for short amounts of time, like an hour, at the most. This was 10 - 12 hours and well into the night. We always had a bus or a van or a cottage to escape the cold. I was with the actors and the actors got it good on the set. Not like the other 20 or so people who are working their asses off in this stuff the whole time.
We sat around until it was time to film and whenever they were speaking, I was there. Sometimes the set up would last a couple of hours, sometimes 30 minutes, depending. But when it went into multiple hours, at night, it was awful. The last night was the coldest, - 10 F. I had on 5 pairs of socks, 2 wool, 3 thick cotton and this was inside of wool lined boots and still my toes went below ice cold and took hours to thaw, or at least until we got back to the ketchup crazy hotel and sat in the sauna for 30 minutes or so at a toasty 190 F.
It was a real fun time hanging around though, except when it was boring. Even the cold is bearable, for example my toes didn't fall off, but the boredom is the killer. I've always thought that doing nothing is the hardest thing to do and, just like my ketchup preference, I'm right. It's true that the boredom is usually broken up by laughter, but until it happens it's horrible, and it's especially horrible if the break is forced and doesn't do its job correctly. And to top it all off, after we dropped the actors off at the airport for their 1 hr plane ride back to Helsinki, I got into the train and prepared for a 5 hour train ride and I had just finished my book the day before. AND because we finished shooting so late last night and there was very little booze left in the hotel, I got a good night's sleep, so I wasn't even tired. I came home and did laundry, went to the grocery store, and cleaned the kitchen.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
I'm off to J-town for a week's worth of winter exterior shots for Lieksa! Here's hoping it'll only be in the teens and twenty's.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
From here on out, let 2007 be known as a year of firsts, whether they be big or small. I'm working on the big ones, but the small ones just keep on coming. Take last Saturday for example. Last Saturday I went with Anneli to see the Apassionata Horse Extravaganza. Now neither one of us is what you would call an equine lover. Sure I like horses, I've ridden a few and always seemed to have the same conversation with every horse I ever rode, "Bite me and I'll bite you." Don't know why I would have that kind of a conversation with a horse, but the weird thing is that I have had that same conversation with a few dogs as well. I guess I like to get things out in the open as soon as possible. Let them know where I stand and go on from there.
But anyway, Anneli had received a couple of free tickets and asked me to join her. Free tickets? Horse Show? Why the hell not? So we went to the Hartwall Arena, which was totally packed with young girls and other folks you would expect to see at a horse show. Many thousands of them. And then the show began! Horses! With people on them! In costumes! Doing tricks! To music! And then more horses, and people, in different costumes doing different tricks! Sometimes the horses would lay down, sometimes they would prance around in circles, sometimes they would run and drag their back legs as brakes looking all goofy-like.
So we left at intermission. After all the tickets were free. We were just getting a little taste. I didn't need to wait around for 30 minutes to get the second course. I bet it would taste a whole helluva lot like the first course. I admit that the animals were beautiful and training wonderfully well, and seemed generally happy with what was happening - although I wouldn't vouch for it or anything. And that was a first for me.
Next up is Tuesday night. An actor friend of mine from the film shoot over the summer was back in town - or at least I thought he was back (they live in LA when not working in Finland) - and his wife had a gig. And so I went. He had described her show as a good time and a sight to see. She plays the saw, like a violin and sings a lot of fun and rather soultry songs. Okay this story is nowhere near as fun or interesting to tell as the horse story. So in a nutshell, the show was fun, my friend was not there and I left after the performance.
Oh! But on the way back, I missed the last tram of the night by just enough so that I didn't know that I missed it. It was early. The last time on the schedule was for 11:14 and I arrived there at 11:12 and I thought I made it. And so I waited. At 11:20 I looked around and realized that this train had already come and gone and I was waiting for nothing. Waiting for nothing in the brutal cold. Seriously brutal cold. Like -10 Fahrenheit.
But I was relatively far from home and the last train left and the metro was closed and the buses were running on the night schedule so they were rare. And so I started to walk. I think I must have been shouting every step of the way. Shouting things like, "F-ck it's cold! Holy sh-t, it is so f-cking cold! Mother f-cker, I cannot believe how f-cking cold it is! Jesus F-cking Christ!" And so on. Finally I caught a bus and made my way home.
Which brings me to tonight and the most recent first thing. Tonight I saw a jackrabbit run across the frozen Baltic Sea. I was going for a walk, attempting to figure out that damn Chekhov reminder I gave myself the other day for whatever reason. I had picked a path that took me through the big park that borders the harbor. I walked through the park and out onto the harbor. In the wintertime, because there is no boat traffic near the land, there is a bridge to a nearby island (in the summertime there is a ferry). I started to walk across the bridge when all of a sudden this rabbit jumped out from nowhere and began to run across the snowy surface of the frozen sea. Just kept on running.
My first thought was, "I guess the sea is frozen then." Quickly followed by, "Never use a rabbit as the determining factor for a frozen sea, lest ye walk to your frozen death." No I did not think that lest ye part, but it's always fun to figure out a way to put lest ye into something. But the rabbit kept on running, and since it's white and fluffy and all it quickly disappeared. But it was another first.
More to come when they come.
But anyway, Anneli had received a couple of free tickets and asked me to join her. Free tickets? Horse Show? Why the hell not? So we went to the Hartwall Arena, which was totally packed with young girls and other folks you would expect to see at a horse show. Many thousands of them. And then the show began! Horses! With people on them! In costumes! Doing tricks! To music! And then more horses, and people, in different costumes doing different tricks! Sometimes the horses would lay down, sometimes they would prance around in circles, sometimes they would run and drag their back legs as brakes looking all goofy-like.
So we left at intermission. After all the tickets were free. We were just getting a little taste. I didn't need to wait around for 30 minutes to get the second course. I bet it would taste a whole helluva lot like the first course. I admit that the animals were beautiful and training wonderfully well, and seemed generally happy with what was happening - although I wouldn't vouch for it or anything. And that was a first for me.
Next up is Tuesday night. An actor friend of mine from the film shoot over the summer was back in town - or at least I thought he was back (they live in LA when not working in Finland) - and his wife had a gig. And so I went. He had described her show as a good time and a sight to see. She plays the saw, like a violin and sings a lot of fun and rather soultry songs. Okay this story is nowhere near as fun or interesting to tell as the horse story. So in a nutshell, the show was fun, my friend was not there and I left after the performance.
Oh! But on the way back, I missed the last tram of the night by just enough so that I didn't know that I missed it. It was early. The last time on the schedule was for 11:14 and I arrived there at 11:12 and I thought I made it. And so I waited. At 11:20 I looked around and realized that this train had already come and gone and I was waiting for nothing. Waiting for nothing in the brutal cold. Seriously brutal cold. Like -10 Fahrenheit.
But I was relatively far from home and the last train left and the metro was closed and the buses were running on the night schedule so they were rare. And so I started to walk. I think I must have been shouting every step of the way. Shouting things like, "F-ck it's cold! Holy sh-t, it is so f-cking cold! Mother f-cker, I cannot believe how f-cking cold it is! Jesus F-cking Christ!" And so on. Finally I caught a bus and made my way home.
Which brings me to tonight and the most recent first thing. Tonight I saw a jackrabbit run across the frozen Baltic Sea. I was going for a walk, attempting to figure out that damn Chekhov reminder I gave myself the other day for whatever reason. I had picked a path that took me through the big park that borders the harbor. I walked through the park and out onto the harbor. In the wintertime, because there is no boat traffic near the land, there is a bridge to a nearby island (in the summertime there is a ferry). I started to walk across the bridge when all of a sudden this rabbit jumped out from nowhere and began to run across the snowy surface of the frozen sea. Just kept on running.
My first thought was, "I guess the sea is frozen then." Quickly followed by, "Never use a rabbit as the determining factor for a frozen sea, lest ye walk to your frozen death." No I did not think that lest ye part, but it's always fun to figure out a way to put lest ye into something. But the rabbit kept on running, and since it's white and fluffy and all it quickly disappeared. But it was another first.
More to come when they come.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Boat to Tallinn – Chekhov-like
This was a note I just made to myself. I'm in the middle of finishing the Devil in Helsinki story, in a short story format that will eventually become the script. It's the method I've used thus far, with every page of short story equal to between 2-8 pages of script. At the moment I'm at page 47 of the script and page 5 of the short story of the middle and ending. I think I will probably end up with another 7-12 pages of short story and another 60 or so script pages.
And I just got to a point where the two main characters will be taking a slow, winter boat from Helsinki to Tallinn, Estonia (about a 4 hour journey through the ice) and I made the note, Chekhov-like to myself to remind me of the trip that we took to Estonia through the ice with Kelly and Frank. It was a surreal situation. It very much reminded us of a boat ride to limbo.
Kelly was enthusiastic about the potential staging of "Three Sisters" on board the boat. And so I wrote the note to myself so that I would remember the atmosphere of that boat ride and apply it to the boat ride in the story. But then it dawned on me, I have no idea what Chekhov-like is like. I don't think I have ever read anything by the man.
So what the hell did I make that note for? That's what I'm getting at here. I make a note for myself to use a particular Chekhov esthetic with the boat ride, but I know I don't know what that really is. All I know is that if Kelly would stage "Three Sisters" there, it must be pretty damned Chekhov-like. And since I was on the boat, and I remember what it was like, I am therefore assuming through a very weak osmosis, I now know what Chekhov-like is like. But don't make me take a test or anything. I would fail miserably.
This was a note I just made to myself. I'm in the middle of finishing the Devil in Helsinki story, in a short story format that will eventually become the script. It's the method I've used thus far, with every page of short story equal to between 2-8 pages of script. At the moment I'm at page 47 of the script and page 5 of the short story of the middle and ending. I think I will probably end up with another 7-12 pages of short story and another 60 or so script pages.
And I just got to a point where the two main characters will be taking a slow, winter boat from Helsinki to Tallinn, Estonia (about a 4 hour journey through the ice) and I made the note, Chekhov-like to myself to remind me of the trip that we took to Estonia through the ice with Kelly and Frank. It was a surreal situation. It very much reminded us of a boat ride to limbo.
Kelly was enthusiastic about the potential staging of "Three Sisters" on board the boat. And so I wrote the note to myself so that I would remember the atmosphere of that boat ride and apply it to the boat ride in the story. But then it dawned on me, I have no idea what Chekhov-like is like. I don't think I have ever read anything by the man.
So what the hell did I make that note for? That's what I'm getting at here. I make a note for myself to use a particular Chekhov esthetic with the boat ride, but I know I don't know what that really is. All I know is that if Kelly would stage "Three Sisters" there, it must be pretty damned Chekhov-like. And since I was on the boat, and I remember what it was like, I am therefore assuming through a very weak osmosis, I now know what Chekhov-like is like. But don't make me take a test or anything. I would fail miserably.
