An hour to spend.

you'll have to pardon any typos, I'm writing this on my cell phone.

I'm sitting outside the pizza parlour next to the theatre where the film festival is into it's third day a cold styrofoam cup of root beer and a warm cheese pizza as my company. i'm sitting next to a couple, a mother and son I assume, and the son is a filmmaker whose work just screened. I don't wish to intrude on their conversation, but sitting alone under an umbrella on such a beautiful day as this, it's hard to not overhear.

I don't do this very often, if at all; sit outside to eat lunch while the world whizzes past on various errands. I'm usually whizzing with them, concerned only with what I have to do that day or the next moment as if all life would end if I didn't get to work on time. truth is, we might actually be happier if we did this more often...sit alone with our thoughts, outside, eating pizza, in the hour before work.

I'm up and about so early and outside of my usual pattern because I wanted to participate in a workshop sponsored by Kodak, and free to the public, that taught about film...and let you shoot a scene using film. my group got to shoot on an Arriflex SR1, a camera that's only four years older than I am (that's 29 for those of you keeping track at home. I'm 29, not the camera.)



though it wasn't quite long enough, it was an amazing experience to use and run the Arri. A lot of what I learned today can be put to use with my digital video camera because of the features it has (Panasonic AVX100B - I love this camera.)

my boss was just outside, yelling in his half-joking snide way, that I should be upstairs. I think I'll sit out here a little longer, enjoying the time outside away from the dungeon of the booth. I have no where to be for the hour I have left to spend...