Into The Gap

If you don't know this site...you should.  It's a great collection of conversations with people who create. Enlightening. Informative. And entertaining.  

Just went up to PDX to shoot a little more as Yelizaveta settles into her new job teaching art at PNCA to the masses. In a stroke of symbiosis she is teaching a class required for incoming students to the program that teaches them how to navigate art school and being an artist. I am also teaching a required class at UTA that is for all incoming BFA-intended students that teaches them how to navigate art school and being an artist. Fall was definitely trying to push its way onto the continent. Shooting in the Pacific Northwest is a tough job and someone has to do it.

That's how I first met Yelizaveta.  Too much was taking too much space in my being and I needed balance. So I found this lovely woman, person, sensei, healer. In a room full of breathing, resonating, calming sound.  That's one reason why I'm doing this documentary about her.  It's also a self-motivated project.  When I shoot, edit, or think about it - I find that balance and am reminded how important it is to keep breathing.   

Utah into Idaho.  A great drive as we got to know each other really, really well.  When you spend 22 hours in a Smart Car on the way to Denver - you have time to break the ice.  Spend another 12 hours on the way to Idaho and it opens a whole new chapter.  Documentarian Fredrick Wiseman said shooting is the research.  I love research.  

Utah. We hooked through the North East corner slipping through Salt Lake City on our way to Idaho.  Talking all the way.  It was great to be on a road trip.  

Digital Realm: Film studio on wheels.  So when we stopped for gas - about every 300 miles - this was the drill: Hook up the Smart Car for a tank. Yelizaveta would take Maya and Poncho for a stretch and a break.  I monitored gas while hooking up my drive and reader to the laptop to download audio and picture. There wasn't enough room when we were driving to do this so it was tucked away under Maya and Poncho's perch - seen under my film studio.  Once the download was complete so were my traveling companions and off we went.  

Local color close to the Wyoming/Utah border.  Stop for gas, DIT download, postcards and a dog walk.  Got more than we bargained for as you can see.  

Wyoming.  What a beautiful drive out of Denver it was.  The snow that blanketed Colorado dumped on Wyoming.  It was somewhat cloudy as we headed out of Denver and I thought - "I don't really need my sunglasses" - so they were in the back of the Smart car under Maya & Ponchos' berth. Silly me as we hit miles and miles of deep, fresh, fluffy snow - essentially creating a landscape as bright as a whiteout.  Wyoming proved to be a transitory phase of the trip as we made our way to Idaho...

Traveling companion Maya assessing the snow in Colorado.  May 2014

The only constant is change.  Russians know how to eat.

I don't use the past tense lightly in the previous sentence.  Unfortunately the shot no longer exists because it fell prey to the corrupted travel drive (damn you Iomega and your lousy drives!) situation I mentioned in an earlier post.  I was able to salvage most of the footage on our DFW to Denver leg - but not that one, precious clip we'd put so much effort into.