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Film Festival

Ok, this is a bit off topic. (I do have lots of on-topic stuff I’m working on, including some amazing new footage and some amazing old footage that I haven’t released yet… But I have some personal stuff taking precedence so it will be a tad bit longer.)

I just heard that an animated short I did awhile back, called “Eat”, is going to be in a film festival in Portland in January. It’s even on the schedule – how official. Yay! This is the International Fest of Cinema and Technology.

So here is the animation… You can read more about it on my personal website.

Children: Cure for Angst?

Anyone who knows me knows that I tend to be moody and anxious. I have random bouts of obsessive worrying over some issue or another. Some are small, others are bigger. Some are things from the past, others – concerns about the future. Some are things we can control, others are entirely out of our hands. But in the moment of worry and obsession, I react to all of them the same way – I feel a strong physical reaction, intense discomfort at the thoughts, and whatever it is seems to be the end of the world, seems to consume me and keep me from being at peace. And somehow, there is always a reason – no, an excuse really – why THIS time it really is a big deal, and not my mind doing its usual overdrive thing.

As my friends tell me – “You think too much!” – but in the moment it’s hard to cut myself some slack and let it go. Sometimes I can, others, not so much. I pick at these things like scabs. When something is on my mind, everything reminds me of that thing. And when it dies down, or even while it’s happening, I often think that the choice of topic to fret about is a bit random – that sometimes, from my hormones or whatnot, I feel very anxious and my mind just looks for something to attach the feeling to and dwell on. And I think many of us sometimes have strange feelings of discomfort, blah, self-doubt and not being very sure of our own identities. This in turn can lead either to broad philosophical thoughts (who am I? what is my place in the universe?) and/or specific obsessions (should I take that job? is my loved one in trouble? is strapless a good idea on me?).

I don’t know when or how I got this way, how to solve it, or whether there really is anything to solve – maybe it’s just how I am and the key is to accept myself and not worry ABOUT the worrying. To put this in perspective, it’s not all the time that I am like this. Most of the time I’m not, and overall I definitely consider myself a happy person.

Now recently, while visiting with my mother, I was rather moody and we got into some of those uncomfortable deep conversations. Somehow it got into feeling comfortable with yourself and your identity (or not), as well as various other topics de jour, and my mother said – while not trying to preach to me or anything, she felt that when you have kids, these sorts of musings tend to fade away. She said you are filled with so much “joi de vivre” that you don’t HAVE this problem.

I do think her statement rang true to some extent – I’ve always thought it would be wonderful to have kids, and would give me a sense of purpose in life, and help put things in perspective. It’s only as I got older that I started to wonder if this was really true, or a good reason to have kids. It seems like I’d be having them with the idea that they would solve my issues, the things about myself that I don’t like (my anxiety and overthinking). It doesn’t seem fair to expect that of them.

Plus I wonder if parenting would make it that much worse. It was hard enough to make decisions or put worries to rest when I had only myself to consider. Then, when I found love and my husband and I started living our lives together, it introduced all these new things – how much do we influence each other? Are we eroding each other’s identities? Are we limiting our own development by being together? (For the record, I feel like we actually help each other develop, but it’s true that we all give up certain freedoms and make certain compromises when we commit to a partner/spouse.) But at the very least, I can remind myself that we are both adults, and neither of us is entirely responsible for the other – we are each responsible for ourselves. The same would not be true of children. So it could be so much harder not to freak out about things when on top of everything else there is the guilt and sense of responsibility that this other human being depends on me and my choices entirely.

I’ve also heard claims that when you have kids, you’re so busy just throwing yourself into parenting and figuring it out as you go that you don’t have time for all this angst. That could be true. But obviously I’m not going to have a kid just to keep myself busy or distracted. And if being busy were enough, then people with busy jobs (including myself during some of my busiest times) would never have this problem of angst or distracting worries, even feelings of depression sometimes. And yet, we do.

I tend to think that still, if I do reach a point where I feel ready to dive into parenthood, it will work out and overall be a positive influence. But it’s an interesting question.

And here’s the kicker – this really big question in my life, of having kids or not, does not in fact give me those anxious/obsessive feelings. I thought about it a lot of quite some time. And after starting work on my movie, and then this blog, I don’t really think about it as much, I just have ideas and if I think they might interest you readers, I write about them in my long rambling way… But they don’t give me the icky tingles in the back of my neck or the bad feelings in the pit of my stomach that other random stuff can. And when something reminds me of this issue, it doesn’t bring on a freak-out, I just think it’s interesting and perhaps address it in the movie or on the blog. It doesn’t make me uncomfortable at all, even though it is the biggest unresolved issue in my life that I can think of. I wonder what that means.

Guest Post on The F Word

Rachel of “The F Word” was kind enough to let me guest post. Check it out, along with the rest of her awesome blog.

Something Universal


(Trouble playing the video? Please click here for the YouTube version.)

Here is another webisode – still a work in progress, I will be updating it with little fixes, but I just couldn’t wait to share it.

My great friend Vardit is an amazing mother, career woman and friend, and I am so grateful for her honesty and help with this project. I have a lot of excellent material from her and will post more of her in the future.

Stand My Ground


(Trouble playing the video? Please click here for the YouTube version.)

So here is my first webisode. My amazing friend talks about the pressure to have kids “before its too late”. (I don’t know if she wants to be named so until I know for sure, I’m not mentioning it.)

I get that kind of pressure all the time just from random questions and comments from strangers, friends and family alike. Especially when I visit Israel. But shouldn’t our doctors be less judgmental, and not put so much pressure on us? I mean, if I’m not asking my doctor about this, I don’t expect a lecture. And if I ask, or if for some reason the doctor is concerned, perhaps there is a place for gently asking your patient how she feels about things, what her reasons are and her plans, and maybe ask her if she’d like some information or something like that, instead of just volunteering all this pressure. And if they think it’s “irresponsible” to wait, well, irresponsible toward whom? And isn’t the alternative the truly irresponsible thing, if you don’t feel you’re ready? I don’t have all the answers, I just think these are interesting questions, and I appreciate my friend’s openness in discussing this.

Note: More webisodes will come, starring this same friend. She’s awesome and allowed me to film her many times, and share all this intimate stuff with the whole world. I hope you find it interesting to get to know her and see her story unfold, and see things progress and change over time.

And to the point of thisĀ  particular webisode, I wonder – does anyone else think it’s rude and scary for a doctor to react this way? Has anyone else experienced such things, either from doctors or from other people in your life?

Webisodes!

So, my wonderful advisers have recommended that I start to put out some of the material I have. I’m going to start posting webisodes, little bits and pieces of what I’ve been working on. I hope you enjoy them, and give me some responses too! I will be attempting to use Vimeo for this, so please let me know ASAP if you have any technical problems viewing it.

I suppose the trailer is really the first webisode, so I’m posting that here. Soon I will add more, featuring never-before-seen footage.

Thanks for viewing and stay tuned!

Well, here I am, finally with some free time on my hands again. Watching the ladies of the View with Aisha Tyler as a guest, I was interested in what she said about children – she likes being married and she doesn’t feel like changing the dynamic of the family. She says she doesn’t feel like anybody’s missing at her house. When people say she is selfish, she makes the excellent point that “it’s not like there’s a baby in the closet that I’m sliding bologna slices to”. There is no baby, so where exactly is the selfishness here?

You can see the whole interview here – she’s very funny in general, and the part about the children is right about in the middle.

I identify a lot with what she says, though I sometimes wonder how long I will feel this way, and do have moments of thinking it would be nice to have a child someday – hence my dilemma and the whole reason for making my film.

Meanwhile, I will be 32 soon… Which brings me closer to 35. Which is my “scary age” for when I need to put up or shut up. I wonder if all of you out there have different “scary ages” for this? Or maybe we keep pushing it back as we age… And if you feel like someone is missing from the household, or felt like that before having children for those of you that do have children?

We’re still finalists!!

We’ve made it through another round – Motherhood Shmotherhood is still a finalist for the Roy W. Dean Video Grant!!! There has been another round of narrowing down the applicants, and a smaller group are still finalists, and that includes us!

Check out Carole Lee Dean’s book and From the Heart Productions to find out more about fundraising for filmmakers, and I will keep you posted how it all goes of course. Just to have made it this far is an honor and very encouraging.

New Trailer

Okay, so I’ve posted the latest trailer. Still rough – I’m always so busy shooting more stuff, working on the proposal, and trying to make some money to boot, that I always end up with something really rough, but I still hope you guys enjoy it! There’s also a little clip there if you scroll down this page.

I’ve attempted to incorporate the beautiful vintage style of Yesenia Gonzalez’ illustrations with the animations I already had going. Who knows how this will evolve in the future, after all, it’s all about the story and the content. The style is just there to serve those things. Speaking of which, the process of applying for funding has been great because it has pushed me to really work out the structure of the story. I’m not posting the treatment online because it will give away the whole thing :) plus it is sure to change and evolve as I go. But trust me, it’s really helpful and important to write a good treatment and think about the dramatic structure of the film, even though it’s a documentary. I mean, yes we are bound by reality and what actually happens, but we still have control over how we tell it, in what order we reveal things to the audience, and which parts we choose to include. It’s a challenge to do all that and still maintain the truthfulness and integrity of the stories being told, but one definitely worth tackling.

So, I’m back from Israel, the holy land, where my family lives. The taxi driver who drove me from the airport there to my parents’ house asked me if I have kids yet, and said as soon as I get back to NY my husband and I should start trying. Would’ve been PERFECT for the movie. The stupid camera was in the trunk. And then that same evening I went to the supermarket to get some vegetarian schnitzels and the checkout lady asked me if I have kids and what on earth I’m waiting for. Well, after she asked me if the underwear they had on sale there for 3.5 shekels would fit her daughter, who usually wears a large, but these are a size small, but seem large to her. I’m too nice to people, so they just keep talking to me. And the camera was at home. I couldn’t believe it, even though it’s SO not the first time. I wish I’d caught it on camera dammit!!! Though people would probably think it was staged. Of course, since this happens so much, I can always try to get it next time, just carry the camera everywhere. (I hope people wouldn’t just clam up if I had a camera. Or talk about other things, like why the hell I’m filming them. I have to think about how to capture natural things. Maybe if I don’t tell people what the movie is about, at least at first, so we could see that it really does come up even if I don’t specifically bring it up.)

Woman with Baby Carriage

Illustration by Yesenia Gonzalez

Anyway, it was an interesting visit. I shot a lot of footage. I have a great new trailer which I’ll be posting soon. In the meantime, on my trailer page is just a little teaser, one rough scene. And check out the cool illustrations there, by Yesenia Gonzalez. Speaking of which, I’m going towards a sort of 1950s retro style with some of the animation stuff. I will try to update this site with that a little bit… Have just been so crazy busy with the film. I just finished my application for ITVS (wish me luck everyone!) and now I have to go to SIGGRAPH. But hopefully soon I will post more here about my trip, the movie, my thoughts on life, whatever.

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