Class Assignment

Some clips and pics of a class assignment...

The assignment was to shoot a student  working at a desk and suddenly his / her pen falls and lands at someone's feet. The beginning of a chance encounter...

A couple of weeks ago we shot our second film. The story, script and blocking were all created by Phoumixay.  It’s a comedy about six kathoey who wait impatiently for the first one to get off a public phone. It has no dialogue and is more like a mime with lots of hysterical actions and gestures. We start the editing next week. Phoumixay (below) plays one of the characters.

We asked the Centre de Langue Francaise if we could use their theatre/screening room and they were extremely obliging and helpful. More pics of our shoot.

In the school bus on the way to the Centre… (and , yes, there are no seats, those who want a seat have to bring their own)

the students… Oupeka all the way to the left is holding the box that contains the camera we won at the festival. Jervang, third from left is the creative force behind HOT COFFEE

the ‘girls’ before performance…

and during.

Setting up the cameras. We did a 2 camera shoot (the other camera is mine). On the left is Ajan (teacher) Sai, he is one of the painting teachers at the Institute.

Post shoot pic. Once the movie is edited we will bring it to you on this blog.

I’ve been teaching a video class at the Vientiane Institute of Fine Arts since Feb.2009 . On this blog we will post pics of our adventures, screen some of our films and inform you of updates and happenings.

We will start with the first film we made together: HOT COFFEE. We shot it in 3 hours and entered it in the first ever Vientiane Film festival at: www.vientianale.org  .

We won the special prize: a 3 chip DV camera. This camera will help the students at VNIA to continue making films. The prize was a donation from Gally Film GbR, a German filmmaking duo who make documentary films. ( www.gally-film.de ).  Thank You!!!

One thing you have to understand to “get” HOT COFFEE is that in Laos, at a coffee/tea place, they always ask if you want your coffee hot or cold. And hot coffee IS more expensive than cold coffee. Enjoy!

This is us at the Vientianale. We managed to pack 18 students in a TUK TUK

Souphalak and Chandaline at the festival. Souphalak(on the left) is the class translator- her English is excellent- when Ajan (teacher) Sai is not around. Ajan Sai is one of the painting instructors at the school who is also taking my class and is the official translator- out of  20 students only 2 speak English and that’s them above. He missed the festival because he was up in Luang Prabang doing a watercolor workshop. Oh, they are sitting outside because at the Festival they had 2 projection spaces: one, a small room inside and thwo, a big projection screen outdoors. (I was the projectionist for the outdoor screenings)