Week 10 and Week 11

This week’s main focus for the entire class was completing our movies. My group spent the majority of the week editing and piecing together the final segments of our movie. I realized that my movie could use a better ending that would express the main theme of my movie while allowing viewers to add their own interpretations to the theme of my film. My film originally ended with a shot of the sigasol (spelling?) and a pan to the bottom of it where a bas relief shows two soldiers embracing each other while they are framed in the shot with bullet holes that remain from World War 2. This shot held a lot of meaning for me in that there are two figures that are embracing even through the turbulent times that surround them. I was proud of this shot but it just did not fit at the end of my segment. I ventured out this last week in desperation to see if I could find another ending shot that would tie the movie off better. I found a construction site that was surrounded by fences and used a power plant’s smock stack in the background to link this shot into the rest of my movie. The shot pans down the smock stack and into a construction site. The construction site is only visible through a fence that is out of focus. The tractor in the construction site moves out of frame slowly to leave the viewer with an empty construction site that is can only be viewed through a fence, or as my segment refers to it, through memory. I was very pleased with this final shot and edited it into my movie and completed my film. Finally I made an audio track that I believe really helps with my part of the film to drive the viewer’s emotions.

After I completed my segment of the movie I was able to help others with their segments. Every one in our group pitched in and helped with each others movies, this made our team work very well and I am glad we all pulled through and finished a fantastic movie. To continue helping my group I accompanied Ed while he got his tattoo. I have always wanted to see the tattoo process and was very excited to film the tattoo and use my own artistic vision through the lens of the camera to show off Ed’s art. I ended up standing in a small room with Ed for about 2 hours while he got his ink done. I am glad that is over because I could use a break from the drill noises for a while. With all of our completed footage we were able to finish everyone’s segments and combine them into one movie through transitions and a conclusion scene that we shot.

The movie we watched this week was Goodbye, Lenin! I really enjoyed this film and am think that it was a great way to finish our quarter. The movie centers on the post wall era and how a son tries to hide what he believes to be too harsh of news, from his pro-communist mother. This movie was the perfect way to end our film class because after 3 months of viewing films and more importantly exploring the city the class has matured to the point in which we are capable of viewing this film and really being able to understand all the underlining meanings of the film. Topics of East vs. West Germans, perspectives and propaganda could be fully analyzed and discussed within our class with a pretty decent knowledge of the subject. This movie encompasses the course because it deals with how the subject deals with memory in Berlin. Memory becomes distorted in this case, which is something we have learned to look for in Berlin’s memorials.

The reading for this week was from Sean Allan entitled “Ostalgie, Fantasy and Normalization.” This reading referred to the film and the interpretation of memory from Goodbye, Lenin! Memory was used in previous films that dealt with the GDR by using satire to critic cultural identities of East and West Germans. The movie Goodbye, Lenin! strays from previous methods of dealing with memory through introducing the complexities that are involved with addressing memory. The article established the movie as a means to unify two separate cultures. The two separate cultures are drawn together through the finding the “middle way between the two extremes represented.” The extremes are “a total rejection of the GDR past” and the “idealization of a past that never existed.” A median is found in the film through the fictionalization of the GDR past in which there is not a total dismissal or idealization of the past that never exited.

We ran into trouble the day of the movie screening. After creating a title page, we tried burning both our films onto one DVD. We made 4 copies and were ready to go to the screening. After receiving our copies we realized that the audio did not sync up to the film. This was really frustrating because we finished our movie before everyone in order to create a nice DVD with a title page. Not being able to sync the audio to the movie because of software issues that were out of our hands was the worst thing that could have happened. We ended up bringing our external hard drive which was not the best back up plan because it made the movie skip. When we finalize our DVD software issues, the movie will be much better because it won’t show skipping.

We viewed our films last night and I was really looking forward to this night for a long time. This class is rare in which everyone in the class can enjoy each other’s fruits of labor. With a term paper the class cannot enjoy their peer’s hard work. Watching our films put the exclamation mark on this program. I was thoroughly impressed with everyone’s movie and cannot wait to get a DVD copy of all the films to watch for the future.

This entire movie making process was fantastic experience. I am so glad that I have had the opportunity to complete a film with a team of individuals that put as much effort into the picture as I did. I have learned so much about film, editing and organization of a huge project. This has been the best quarter of my college career and cannot express how much I truly am grateful for everything this program has offered me. Thank you.