Dawn Xiana Moon: Melodic folk pop infused with passion and honesty. From Chicago.

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Tuesday, May 25, 2004

The Making of a Music Video

It's been one crazy week. Ryan (whose claim to fame is working as a production assistant on a Spike Lee film) and I have spent most of our spare--or not-so-spare--time shooting a music video for "Self-Destructive," which I used to think of as a rather depressing song, a song without hope. But I've been told by many people that hope does permeate the song, despite how futile everything seemed when I was writing it. Ryan says I can't help it, I'm just a hopeful person.

With any luck, the video will be done before she--yes, Ryan is a girl--leaves for a dance festival in North Carolina and we'll be able to post it on the site shortly thereafter. It'll be in black and white and was shot in six locations around Ann Arbor: Gallup Park, the Nichols Arboretum, Ryan's apartment, the University of Michigan Law Quad, Campus Chapel, and First Congregational Church. Most of the narrative revolves around a guy-girl relationship intercut with scenes of piano playing in the dark, walking through a cathedral, and traversing the outdoors (an old wooden bridge, a river, forest paths). The footage looks incredible.

Throughout filming, I kept seeing things that would make for a great bloopers video (which will probably never be made). We needed a dark space with a sliver of light, but the walls in Ryan's apartment were white. My solution? Creating a backdrop from a burgandy bedsheet. However, we didn't have any push pins, so I used an entire roll of masking tape to attach the sheet to the wall--and it would periodically fall anyway. Between takes I would furiously re-attach the tape to wherever it was supposed to be. Ryan was having problems trying to make the light more defined, and we stumbled upon an elegant solution: a long mirror with its bottom wedged between slots on the back of a chair. At the end of that night, my face and upper body were covered with pollen from the flower she had me dancing with. I looked like I had jaundice. And bedsheets made another appearance in the skirt that I wore for the nature scenes. You'd never know looking at it; Emily Kahn did a wonderful job sewing it, and Ryan and I did an equally wonderful job ripping it up. If you could see the dolly, you'd notice how we were holding it in place with books, usually hymnals, and how they kept falling off with startling thuds. And then there were the many times I pretended to be a monster eating the camera at the end of takes.... This is definitely independent filmmaking at its best.

Theme music throughout filming: "Ohio" and "Suitcase" by Over the Rhine.

Random sidenote: Meander over to The Adventures of Herman to meet our new mascot. I'll be updating that section of the site regularly as well.

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Tuesday, May 18, 2004

Language Falters

There are times when phrases refuse to form themselves into cohesive paragraphs, when thoughts that seem vitally important cannot manifest themselves on the page, when even a wordsmith finds himself inarticulate. Such a time is now, and such a smith am I. As I try to coalesce my faltering language to write even this short post, I am frustrated by my brain's refusal to condense my scattered musings on suburban sprawl into an intelligible piece. This is crucial: this is an issue of community, of beauty, of stewardship, not merely preference or style. We allowed suburbia to exist because we allowed standards and values to erode, because we lost the ability to define beauty. We have allowed the mediocre to reign supreme on our radios, in our books, on our screens, in our communities. And its continued reign comes at a spiritual price.

I daresay many Americans don't care what their own houses or their neighbors' houses look like. We chalk this off to good old American pragmatism, or patriotic individualism, but the consequences are rather serious: a world outside the confining walls of the home that nobody cares about, a country made up of places that are not worth caring about, and a nation that is not worth defending.
--James Howard Kunstler, Home from Nowhere

^ Top | 6:46 PM | | |

Sunday, May 16, 2004

Chicago and Functional Cities

In my last post, I alluded to the prominence that the issue of suburban sprawl has had lately in my thoughts. I guess that's what I get when one of my closest friends is an architect.

Last week Patrick and I took a spontaneous road trip to Chicago, which was a needed break from being in Ann Arbor--I'd been rather stir-crazy for the last couple of weeks, and he wanted to get out of town since a planned camping trip had fallen through. On the way there, I started reading James Howard Kunstler's Home from Nowhere, which I'll be blogging about soon, a book that talks about the consequences of the suburban sprawl that we as a nation have grown so heavily attached to. Anyone, when they actually think about it, would rather have a leafy street of townhouses than a strip mall, but there are significant barriers to building such areas nowadays, primarily being administrative rather than purely economic. But with such ideas of beauty in mind, Pat and I sought out neighborhood cafes and restaurants, discovering a couple of gems: the Bourgeois Pig (what a great name), one of the best coffeeshops I've been in--incidentally our barista had graduated from the University of Michigan and was in Chicago for the year before going to Michigan State this fall for her masters--and Panes Bread Cafe, which had incredible (you guessed it) bread and sandwiches. We also spent a good amount of time on the campus of Wheaton College, a half hour from the city, where our friend Andrew was living, and explored the art building in depth. Wheaton itself is a small town, but unfortunately Andrew says that most of the students don't venture downtown much although it's a mere five-minute walk: they consider it far away and would rather drive if they go there at all. What a shame. I suppose living in Ann Arbor, a functional mid-sized city, has affected my sense of proportion--and I've come to appreciate the privilege of being able to walk to coffee, food, friends, etc. The rest of the country has much to learn from city planning done before 1940.

^ Top | 10:30 PM | | |

Monday, May 10, 2004

Small ____

Saturday night's concert at Cup-a-Cino was great fun. The audience was small but fantastic, the café and staff were wonderful, and the other musicians were friendly and talented. As anyone who knows the area can attest, Grosse Pointe is impressive (read: expensive), but I hadn't realized that they have what looks like two downtown areas complete with locally-owned shops and coffeehouses. And for all the suburban sprawl one might expect, a cursory glance revealed that the houses were actually well-constructed, rather than just large, and many were walking distance from downtown, though I'm sure that few people do. Apparently it's an older suburb, less dysfunctional than most of the newer ones (not to say there isn't much that could be changed even there).

Anna and I got plenty of compliments, and there's talk of teaching swing dancing lessons at the café (random, I know). And what were the chances of this?--of the four singer-songwriters on the schedule, both of us women were Asian-American. And Christian. To make things even more interesting, Rachanee goes to a church out in Lansing that's the sister church of New Life in Ann Arbor, and through those connections she knows Ben Rickert, who provides background vocals, djembe, and some acoustic guitar on my CD. Cliché though it may sound, it really is a small world.

^ Top | 6:41 PM | | |

Wednesday, May 05, 2004

A list found in an old stack of papers--the author is anonymous.

Sixteen Things Children Learn from Art Experiences

1. Develops creative thinking.
2. Provides means of communication and self-expression.
3. Serves as an emotional release.
4. Strengthens self-concept and confidence.
5. Increases self-understanding.
6. Heightens aesthetic awareness and sensitivity.
7. Enhances the ability to visualize.
8. Provides problem-solving/decision-making opportunities.
9. Develops appreciation for the individuality of others.
10. Leads to the integration of the individual.
11. Serves as a balance to classroom activities.
12. Aids physical coordination.
13. Develops work habits and a sense of reponsibility.
14. Aids the adult in understanding and helping the child.
15. Generates joy.
16. Allows the child to know that all cultures from all times have made art.

My own thoughts should follow shortly....

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