Schlagwort: LA

The Ambassadors Of Coincidence In LA

Hooray!

Paolo and me we were the first two to play the game in Los Angeles!

[For those who want to know more, go to my other website www.ambassadorsofcoincidence.com, you’ll find tons of information and pictures and some films.]

It’s all about exploring your city. You can play it, too. Zigzag through your city, find paths and spots with the help of coincidence and philosophying over things, trash, objects, marks, graffiti – whatever – to get to the next spot. A street and a block or house number.

We started in the Echo Park, rolled the dice and, by narrowing down the LA street index (a sweet old book from the eighties) from pages to one page to columns to lines until we finally found our starting point: Harrington Avenue 3000!

We went there (by car of course) – a tiny street with only a few houses – and immediately stumbled upon a neat little house, embedded in roses with a striking golden statue, quite small, Buddha? A man appeared and told us that he found it in the back yard when he bought the house and it was him who painted it golden and set it up in the front. It was rather a Mary than a Buddha.

And on and on and on …. this spot led us to … Marygold Avenue! Another very short street in Harbor City. Deserted, hot, a giant beige building, a sand colored van and another one labeled „Southwind“ … three men lingering around, partly teethless … but friendly when we started to explain that we were playing a scavenger-like game. They told us about a beautiful park nearby with a lake where one good old day a crocodile was found.

And on and on and on … the whole game presented us 4 stations, we ended up in Electric Street in Silver Lake and immediately spotted a shimmering balloon tied to the electric cable above saying „hero“ …

Whow.

If you want to watch and listen to the whole story, check my website in about 1 month, it’s all been recorded and filmed … the whole trip, the whole day. Lots of footage. Going to edit a little film when I’m back in Berlin!!

This mural displaying elements … wind, water, sun, earth … plus the pipe next to it led us to „electricity“.

A beautiful park with a lake in Harbor City … and no crocodiles around!

And finally … coooool Hefeweizen and a cigarette in a beergarden in Silver Lake!!!

¡Roberto Y Salvador, Un Burrito Pollo Por Favor!

… that’s almost all I can say in Spanish! Con algo hay que empezar … that was the name of my Spanish lesson book 100 years ago if I remember correctly!

That taco stand „Taco Salsa“ is located in front of the Vons parking lot during the day. The two guys are sympatico and the burrito is gigantic!

At night it miraculously changes its name and is then called „Tacozone“. Or maybe it’s another one …

704

I’m in love with the 704 bus (the faster version of the 4) that goes all the way from Downtown over Alvarado (my access) to Santa Monica Beach. It takes a little more than 1 hour to get to the beach. You pass interesting quite different parts of LA and so are the people that get in and out. A new short film was born today … dedicated to the bus drivers, a hundred times friendlier than their brothers and sisters in Berlin.

 

The Fruit Man on Alvarado Street

I love those fruit stands on street corners. They sell you a plastic bag for 3 or 4 or 5 $ filled with very yummy very fresh fruit like pineapple, mango, coconut, melon and orange. And then spice it with chilipowder and salt! And add fresh lime juice! Mmmh!

I just went down there to buy my daily lunch bag and I asked if I could film … of course I could, said the friendly Mexican man. Watch out for my fresh new film called „The Fruit Man on Alvarado Street“ 🙂

PS: Das Zeug schmeckt erst so richtig geil, wenn es einen Tag ordentlich durchgesuppt ist!!!!
Deborah, can you please translate it for me????

Mountain Feast

We call it BERGFEST in Germany meaning MOUNTAIN FEAST – the first half is done. Mountain up. Then there’s the peak and then it’s going down. Not literally. It can be more up than ever.

We celebrated harvest today. Thanksgiving!! We watched our freshly processed super 8 film rolls today. One black+white we shot in the very beginning in the Echo Park — The Making Of … (awesome! We filmed each other, names and motion, beautiful timing and just the right clicks!, and 2 color animation rolls (Duck Race and Fruit Salad) and some more … We were all quite tired and laidback and enjoyed the quiet mood of just watching and letting the images rattle on the little ELMO projector.

I tried to transport the super 8 spirit to my students. The so called Wabi Sabi. Meaning (stolen from Japanese aesthetics describing beauty in imperfect, impermanent, incomplete things and existences.)
I showed them (world premiere!) my 32 minutes long ODE TO JUNE that I made in the month of June trying to capture the June-freshness and the banality and beauty of every day occurences — diary-like — like making coffee, riding bike, sitting on the balcony, talking to cats, … to be continued … and I thank Carla for saying (hope that I get my words right) like — I thought I should be more worried about having a plan to film my film over the weekend but now I see I can be relaxed and see what comes … hope I get you right Carla … and Jorge saying that he would love to film parts of LA that he sees now that he’s kind of grown up and gets around more and often felt like saying to his friends (car riding): stop now! I gotta take this image now! Stop talking! Let me film! Now!
If I inspired you with my June stuff I’m satisfied. Good night! xxxxx to be continued xxxx

Paolo, me, and Matt celebrating Mountain Feast in the Film Center.

Super 8 Workshop Day 2

Whow!
Today was Animation Day!
(sorry for the out of focus picture above … my cellphone camera got too hot I guess 😉 /// we transformed the filmcenter into an animation center: 2 tables covered with moving things like fruit, lighting ducks, burning candles, bread, words written on paper … my students did a crazy good job animating, bringing objects to life! I’m proud of them.