An Owl and A Murder Of Crows
I have been thinking about this project for many years. I had written the essay Between Two Worlds during my freshman year. I am in the process of turning this essay into a screenplay. This is experimental autobiography, using mixed media. I plan on using DV and a tube VHS formats and perhaps it can be shot in 35mm later, that is my dream. This will be 10-minute short for film festivals.
The context of the work will be my own experiences: Cross Culture (Native American/ White), Sexual Orientation, Child Prostitution, Addiction and Family Violence. My struggle to find a place in my family, culture, and as a gay man in a very straight world has been a powerful position to learn. Two spirit people (gay and lesbian) can walk between two worlds, drawing wisdom and power from both, and I would like to explore this place and my own memories, through the use of sound and moving image. I will also explore the role and strengths of woman within my family, using pop icons, sound, and arch-typical images. This is about the medicine of walking between two places and the power of that walk. This film is for my mother. I have connected with other outside help, and have thought a good deal about what I want to achieve as goals, and how to get it all done.
Most important now is the writing of the screenplay. This whole project relies heavily on my NOT speaking for any tribe, or group of people, NOT being self indulgent or a victim, NOT embellishing the truth, or self-editing myself in order to hide or mask that which has been ugly or dark about me, or my past. I want this to be a work about hope, with no boundaries, that can reach people of every background, age, sexuality, or color.
The symbolism is archetypical and universal in its implication. It is an old story that always distills down to our love for each-other, the earth, all life forms, and ourselves. The owl is me, I use to have an Great Horned Owl when I was a young boy, it is my medicine, and the crows are my the memories that I have had to face as they harass me, tax me and almost kill me, when finally I pull them from my body where they live, everywhere, brooding like a murder of crows...
PRELIMINARY PERSONAL SCHEDULE
I will be working on my screenplay to get it finished by the end of week six, and this will absorb a good deal of my free time aside from in-class work and homework assignments.
I have found websites, blogs, and other helpful sources already that will help with all aspects of production and I will share these with the class. I will work with my interest group, and collaborate with them. I will build upon our workshops with DP5 sound production and use it in my work. I have both a class working journal, and a project working-journal that I keep notes in. I have been, and will continue to use research via the web, books, and professionals in the field, to explore different equipment and different mediums for this and future projects.
I have looked hard at cameras and have narrowed it down to two: The Panasonic AG –HVX 100 or the Cannon XL1, both cameras are within my price range. I will begin shooting DV next quarter, and will be (hopefully) purchasing my own camera.
I will probably be traveling as well, and am working on budgets, and finding actors. I hope to include Chief Arval Looking Horse, who is the 19th generation carrier of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe Bundle. I had the honor of joining him and a few others in a sweat and smoked the pipe with him when he came to Squaxin Island a few years ago. I was so impressed with him and his life that is so much more then his position; he is truly a man of peace. His speaking of healing/protecting the sacred sites are so important, and those are all the parts of the body of the earth. That same concept will be inter-woven into my own story, and healing. It brings my own spirit to a place of peace with the natural world that has always been my main source of strength, especially the sea. My reconnection with nature will be the major thrust of the story...no more living in fear.
Sound will be as important as image and I will drum and sing myself and will invite other native brothers to join me. I intend to work on getting as much of the props designed and constructed this quarter as well, one of the props will be a human size Operation Game, as the story will be framed around the pulling of memories from my body, like the game pieces and I will be my own surgeon. I have two people to assist me with that so far. I will keep notes of my progress in my journal, and update this blog weekly.