Prague Stories

Our program is coming to an end. We turned in our final documentary projects and we prepared for our class screening. It was a long awaited event and feeling of completeness. We had the screening at a famous Prague outdoor beer garden by the TV tower (the one with babies crawling all over it). Unfortunately, the weather was very cold and windy, so we didn’t have a big beer garden audience. None the less, our show went on for a great audience (my classmates and program affiliates).
The class documentaries are a great compilation for a screening program. The documentaries are very diverse and cover a range of emotions and settings. We have the very serious to the very light and fun. I love it! My classmates did a wonderful and unbelievable job. I can’t believe that we pulled this off in three weeks. Its crazy to look back and reflect on how much work everything required. I am happy for the way my documentary turned out. I wanted to present my information in an objective point of view and I was told that it did just that. YES! Score!
Our class work needs to be shown in Texas. Our documentaries are made from Texas soul and they need to be screened in our “home” base. We need to get Texas feedback and receive TEXAS size support. I believe that this needs to get done, so I am heading up a committee to plan the Texas screening. I am very excited about this!
Watch your calendars!

Break Time

Editing

Suggestions. Suggestions. Suggestions. Dangerous if you do not know how to take them. During our class rough-cut critique on Thursday, I received many suggestions about how I can make my documentary better, what was not working and what would work in its place. I don’t want my documentary to suck, so I felt that I should do every suggestion that I was given. But some suggestions were not my style and I wondered, how can integrate their suggestions into my documentary, if they do not fit into my artistic vision? I felt that if I used every suggestion, then my documentary would no longer be MY documentary and would never be a documentary that I could be proud of editing. I pondered all day Friday and woke up on Saturday to a conclusion. All those comments were simply suggestions. I do not need to incorporate them into my documentary if they don’t work for me and some didn’t. On Saturday, I edited my short documentary according to my artistic desires and with some helpful “suggestions” and I felt fulfilled.
In my efforts to make a great documentary, I lost purpose. I became enthralled with suggestions that I felt obligated to do. Sometimes it is hard to know when to take a suggestion and when to leave it. It is a fine line between your work being communicated well to an audience and not being communicated at all. And in time, I think I will get better at communicating my vision through editing. But for now, even though, I am by no means done with my documentary (it is still a revising project) I was able to find a healthy balance for suggestions, incorporation and my own work.

Classroom

Accordion

I always knew, but today at the Post office I was reminded, yet again, to try and give a little effort. And I think that I can apply this lesson to everything that I do.
Today I went to the post office in the city center to buy stamps for postcards to send to my family and boyfriend. The place confused me because the post office space did not look like a post office. It looked like a bank with a row of tellers. I realized that the clerks behind the windows were for Western Union transactions and that the post office tellers must be somewhere in the building. I searched and found a couple of post office teller windows on the right side of the building in dim lighting.
After a week in Prague I felt comfortable to speak to the teller in English. However, the teller was not having it. When she replied, “Nea, Nea,” I freaked out and pointed to the other tellers, as if she could understand that I was asking, “how about her or her?” I had no choice but to look up the word stamp. It seemed like the process of taking out my Czech dictionary and finding the word “stamp” took eons. I began to sweat.
My heart was pounding and I felt like a huge jackass. Finally, “Známky? U.S.A.?” (slow breaths slow breaths) I assumed she asked how many and I held up ten fingers. She asked for the money for the stamps, “Sto Deset (110 kc).” I began to sweat. I didn’t have 110 kc, I only had 50. A lousy 50 kc?! I handed her the lousy 50 kc and hoped she would just give me the number of stamps that cost 50 kz. No way, she was not having it. She said the amount again, “Sto Deset,” and even wrote it out with a frustrated hand. In the moment of desperation, I gave her my credit card. She said, “Nea, ATM (points to the right.” She repeats, “Nea, ATM.”
I went to where she pointed and I found an ATM and quickly took out the money. I went back to her window and she actually looked happy to see me. As if she was not expecting me to return. She smiled and gave me the stamps and I smiled and gave her the money.
She said, “Dêkuji, Dobry den.”
(relief, relief) “Dêkuji, Dobry den!”
And I realized that all I had to do was try and show the woman some respect and give her some effort.