Week 2

This weekend was great and I really got a feel of the famous Berlin nightlife. I am trying to become familiar with many parts of the Berliner lifestyle because I feel it will help me with my decision of what and where to film. The first group meeting took place this weekend was very successful. I am very excited about this group because we immediately hit it off with some great ideas and it seems like we have great chemistry as a team. I could barely keep up with taking notes as the ideas for the movie kept fluttering out. We decided to take 4 individual stories of the city, each member doing their own, and somehow intertwining the individual accounts together to create an overlapping display of stories throughout Berlin.
This idea was mutually created and agreed upon. We sat around a table and came up with many creative ways to weave our stories together by using the geographic properties of the many sites of Berlin. One idea that our group came up with was to use the U-Bahn as a device for switching between stories. As one story ended, that character would enter the train and another character would exit the train and the camera would follow their story.
This week's class has been very interesting because Professor Wagner's class was held in the Jewish Museum. Being able to sit in class and realize that we are discussing topics of memory inside of a Museum that is world renowned for its display of memory was a delight. The reading in Brian Ladd is further connecting the dots of Berlin for me. Utilizing the bus tour and readings from class has helped me gain a concrete grounding for the city that I now live in. I walked around the city for 4 hours before class Tuesday and picked out many of the sites that were mentioned in the readings. One of the most fascinating was the Nikolai section that was built by the East Germans. In this area the streets began to narrow and I found myself traveling back to a classic European city. This rebuilt area has a Disneyland feel to its authenticity. The Nikolai Church did retain a classic European feel that I have encountered throughout Europe. The most incredible experience was walking out of this area and into modern day Berlin where cranes hoisting steel are the modern equivalent to an ancient church containing a holy relic.
In my movie I hope to incorporate the old and new sides of Berlin. I also want to integrate old and new memory of Berlin’s history that is visible throughout the city. I look forward to exploring the city with a more in depth approach in the following weeks to try and find buildings, landmarks and monuments that will help me with my movie.