What This Week Might Suppose

I begin this week having not really enjoyed an ending to last week. In some ways Mondays are my transition days - simultaneously taking a break and getting things going for the coming week. My Sundays are consumed with my family and with writing and recording music for Dangerous Writing. I'm enjoying making music, but it is work. Though it's that wonderful sort of work where you push and explore and do and redo and struggle to communicate essential but unformed ideas for hour after hour until you realize you've been fully engaged for five hours. It's time to wrap up for the day but I want to keep going. I often feel the same way when writing or directing.
I'm really happy with the music so far. It's both as I imagined it and taking unexpected turns. I'm excited to explore some themes of the film in the music both thematically and through counterpoint. We've recorded some songs using obscure synthesizers from the 60s which produce analog yet very inorganic sounds. This speaks to Ezra's mental dissociation as represented by his struggle to reconcile the modes of recording his writing. He feels compelled to hide the fact that he now writes on a computer. He ascribes the typewriter with his lost talent, fearing the physical object (and the supposed incumbent loss of his talent) at the same time.
I also wrote and recorded some "lyrics" for the most dissociative song in the score. My hope is that they subtly refer to the ambiguities of the levels of fiction in the film. I play with the question of what it would be like for an author to meet one of his characters.
I hesitate to write about this as I might rather keep this a secret. I am getting more comfortable with talking openly about the film's intended mysteries.
I'm recording ADR with two of the main characters in the next couple of days. I'm excited to be at this point and also very excited to share the film with them.
We're trying to really practice gratitude as an action at home this week. (and beyond hopefully) I realize that I'm caught between desperately wanting convention and rejecting it when it comes to the holiday. It's really easy to say you want either side of that coin, walking the walk is another story. Standing confused between the two is yet another.
I hear from Sundance and leave for another trip to New Orleans next week. But we're not there yet. We have school conferences this week. And most importantly, our daughter's are celebrating brithdays 6 and 3.


Grazie,
Signore Direttore