Week of Hell!

First off, for my Performance Artistique class, I had my court métrage due – that’s basically a short film. I had had to write the script, find people to act it out, film it, and edit it all together for a final movie. Note that I do not have a camcorder here at all, and did not have access to one even through my friends. As I did not have the money to go and buy a camcorder (although I had considered buying one used and then selling it back to the pawn shop afterwards but in the end didn’t want to take the risk of them not buying it back), I had to use the video mode on my digital camera.

Originally, I had written my script up months ago and was pleased with it – till Charlie told me after I had it written mind you, that it would be almost impossible to film because it took place in clubs and they don’t let you film in clubs or bars here. This ticked me off because I told her of the idea before I even wrote the script and she hadn’t mentioned that tiny but very significant detail – one of the many reasons I’ll be glad when I never see her again! So I then wrote another script which worked out fine and I went with that. I got some friends to play the parts and had planned to film this during my week break back in Lille between my trip to London and my trip to Paris. Well when I had gotten back from London, I talked to my friends and asked when they were available to film it – and they told me that the only day they were free before I left for Paris was the Tuesday, the day before! So, I wasn’t too happy about that but I figured that as long as we started early there shouldn’t be any reason we couldn’t get it all filmed and then I could edit it some in Paris and when I got back. …. That didn’t happen at all!

It was Monday night and I hadn’t heard from my actors for a few days and really was flipping out because I had no idea if they were going to show up or not! And if they didn’t show up, then I really was screwed because I left for Paris on Wednesday and didn’t get back till Sunday and there wouldn’t be enough time to even get some of my other friends together to film it. I even thought of doing it in English and adding French subtitles but I just wouldn’t have had the time! So … Monday night, I sat down and completely thought of a new script that I would be able to film myself, starring me as that was really the only option I could do. Then, on Tuesday I woke up and set out to buy a tripod or get stuff to make a cheap one so I could film my movie. After finally getting a small tripod and then three long sticks to make it taller, I came back to my room and set about planning things out.

The new film concept I thought up of was actually rather cool. It starts out with me in bed sleeping and having a dream… there was going to be some sounds you hear over it but that just proved to be hard as I needed someone else to do it… But then it skipped to me the next day as I’m sitting on a bench reading the paper… and the camera shows a view as if someone is creeping up behind me… but when I turn around there is no one there and I start to get worried. Skip a couple hours later, and I’m in my room working on my laptop when someone knocks on my door. So I get up to answer it, but again – there’s no one there and I really get freaked out. Then that night, I’m going to take my shower and walking down the hall… and after I got through the swinging fire doors, I hear them make a sound again as if someone went through them after me – Again I don’t see anyone nor did I pass anyone so I run into the shower…. After my shower, I peer out the door to make sure there’s no one there… and head back to my room… though that is when I hear footsteps following me. But since I don’t see anyone behind me, I run to my room and after fumbling with the keys I open it up and go inside – but the footsteps don’t stop! So I then run to my bed and hide under the covers… as I hear my door open and the footsteps come closer to me – then the covers are ripped off and I am able to see who was following me…. and am shocked because it’s me! My conscious/evil alter-ego was chasing me down and ends up strangling me to death and then after a cynical laugh… walks out of the room. Basically the whole thing was my guilt over something that happened in my past came back haunting me and ended up killing me because of it. So, a really good plot.

Only, filming the thing was tough because I had to play the main role and film it… so I used the tripod for most of it, and some shots where done in my point of view… but I got really creative for other ones – like holding two legs of the tripod at my hips with the camera behind me angled up to give the effect that the camera was following me…. and I had to film this at night in a dark hallway with no really good way of lighting it to keep it looking like night. But I ended up getting most of it filmed before I left for Paris.

However, when I got back from Paris, I had to film the day scenes and even got a friend of mine to help me with the only shot I couldn’t do myself. Then, that night I finished filming the night scenes so I was then able to sit down and put it all together – and that led to hell! My laptop is a PC and the only video editing software on here is Windows Movie Maker which is incredibly slow to use. I ended up moving almost all of my things on my computer to my external hard drive so I’d have the space I needed and ran it on the lowest settings I could and it still took forever! The film was due on Tuesday so I had a day or so to finish the editing… but I had other things I had to do as well!

Like, I had a test on Monday in my History of France class to not only study for but actually go and take. Then I had a 10 or so page research paper due on Monday for the other two classes I had – which I had to go to as well. So that took time out from me editing my film and I actually didn’t get much more than an hour or so of sleep Sunday night. Then, the History test was hell because I had studied all the obvious things that it could be one – i.e. the stuff we talked about the most in class. Well, when the professor wrote the questions on the board… all of us kinda were confused because it was such a vague question and we really weren’t sure how to answer it! So I did the best I could and can only hope for the best. I figured out that in order for me to have the class transfer back to Clarion, I had to get 7.5 out of 20 – so I can only hope I got at least that if not higher!

Then there was the paper which took time to research and write…. And I had to use the internet a lot for it. I got to that class late because I had to go and print the paper out at the shop across from La Catho…. And I’m normally late to that class because the History class overlaps with it. So I get to class, and during the break between the two classes, I went up to the professor and to give her the paper. I had originally figured that I would ask for an extension and turn it in a week late so I’d actually have time to put into it – but then Charlie told me that I couldn’t get one because the paper was like a D.S. exam only in paper format…. Stupid Charlie…. So that’s why I took the time to do it then. So when I went to hand it in, the professor asked me if I had enough time to do it (with the whole language issue and everything) and offered me to take more time on it! I was half tempted to take more time and do a better job – but then I realized that with all the other work I had to do, I probably wouldn’t do anything more to it. So I just handed it in and can only hope for the best grade on it.

So Monday after classes, I came back to my room and went back to work on putting my movie together – which took most of the whole night. I had to convert all the files to another format in order for them to even work with Windows Movie Maker and that took a few hours to do – so I called and talked to my Mom for a long while which was nice in itself – though as I was using Skype and calling through the internet, we lost the call a few times as my internet sucks. But we talked about a lot of things… like my trip in Paris and London, the fact I have to come home soon, the reasons I wanted to come home as well as the reasons I don’t (perhaps I’ll talk about that in another blog!) But anyways, by the time we were done talking, the files were almost done converting – so I starting to import them and work with them… when I realized that they were condensed when they were converted. That made my computer work even slower and after the program froze 5 times just in working on three files… I deleted all the ones I had converted and sat down to reconvert them again though this time I made sure they were uncompressed.

While that went on for a good two hours, I put on a movie and tried studying for my Dramaturgie test on Tuesday morning. I normally had my Modern Lit class on Tuesday mornings as well, but because I had the movie to finish – I didn’t go. Technically for my Modern Lit class, I had a 12-15 page research paper on one of Marguerite Duras’ books due that day as well – though I had pretty much realized and decided before I went to Paris that there would be no way I could get that paper written in French to turn in. And as that class is a master’s class and our only grade is based on that paper – I’m pretty sure I will be dropping the class unless the professor will grant me an extension but even then I doubt I’d be willing to write that long of a paper for a class that I don’t really have to have in the first place.

So my files finally were converted and I started putting it all together, when I had to go take the Dramaturgie test. That was interesting in itself as well because I had made notes on the couple things he said might be on the test – and studied those. As I had missed two classes including the last one, I had to borrow a friend’s notes and worked from those as well. For the class we were supposed to have read about 6 plays in French and one of the three test questions were going to be on the plays – so since I had only read about 2 of the plays I was really studying the notes for the other two questions. So I get in there… and first off I wasn’t sure which question was the one on the plays! For international students, we only had to answer two of the three questions – which was nice. But like with the History test, I just looked at the questions figuring out…. What the hell are they asking and how do I answer them! So I just started jotting notes down that I could recall that I could possibly use to answer the questions and went from there. I just hope I get a passing grade on it!

After that class, which we took more notes after the test… I came back to my room to finish my movie. Because I hadn’t finished it by the time Geography class came around – I skipped that as well because this movie was a third of my final grade in the class … ergo more important than taking notes in a class. Soon though, I had to go to Ecriture and deal with that class. Our scenario script was due today and that was hell to deal with as well. Charlie had finished writing the scenario before break when we had to have the rough draft done… and sent it to me so I could look over it and make comments, etc. Well, I got a very friendly message from here when I got back from Paris about how I hadn’t done that yet and she didn’t want to do the whole thing herself but if I didn’t do something, then she wouldn’t let me get credit… blah blah blah… So I basically flipped out on her, told her I’ll get it to her by Sunday night and she can fix it… So I had to go and work on that on Sunday as well.

Then, after I had sent it back to here, I messaged here a few hours later to see how she was doing and if she had questions about what I had made notes on. To which she snapped back at me that I should get a dictionary and look things up, about how I said to change things that were already like I suggested in the first place, etc. When I asked her where that was the case, thinking that perhaps it was just a misunderstanding – she snapped back at me saying she was too high on weed to think about it… and had already gone and fixed and deleted that bit. That didn’t help me nerves at all – she’s high on drugs and finishing our script! But anyways, on Tuesday I got a message from her about an hour before class. She said she wasn’t going to have time to stop and print the script out, so she asked me to print it out and get it bound so it looked nice. So on top of all I had to do, I had to allow time to print the script out as well! So I had to leave even earlier for class cause I had to do the printing at the copy shop across the street – which cost me a good 8 euros in total… which she hasn’t paid me a cent for it either. But anyways, I get to class… turn the thing in and pull out my comp to add the last two clips to my movie before saving it to one file. While I’m working, my battery dies… before I could save it to one file – and because I didn’t think I would need my computer cord, I didn’t bring it with me. Thankfully, we only watched half of the clips in class and didn’t get to mine. So since there was an exhibition of our court métrages as well as ones from other classes on Thursday, I had time to finish mine.

Though the hell was far from over… I got back to my room after class – and the file wouldn’t open! So I had to start over from scratch putting my movie together. Though since I hadn’t slept more than 5 hours in the past two to three days, I said I’d have enough time to do it… and crashed. I ended up sleeping through my morning class and some of the afternoon class but since I already had the notes for the one, it wasn’t such a huge issue. I ended up going to my last class since we were getting out DS backs – which I did really well on! That made my day brighter. But then I came back and sat down to piece together my film again. Only this time my computer was being even slower and more of a pain, so I broke it down into sections and saved those as one file and then pieced the larger sections together… which took more time to do but I was able to actually work on it that way. So after another night of very little sleep, Thursday came around and I kept on working on my project. By the time I had to go to my French class at 4 pm, I had all but the last section saved as a single file, so I took my computer to class and kept on working. Things were looking good, I had gotten my test back for my French class and didn’t do too bad on it. My final grade for that class is a 12/20 which will transfer back as a B (I think I mentioned before how the grading scale for transferring back is really in favor of international students!).

Meanwhile, during class I kept texting Charlie to find out when and where we were supposed to be to present our court métrages that evening and she finally got back to me telling me when and where. So I headed up there and had about an hour before the evening started to finish putting everything together. So while we’re watching the first couple ones of the other classes… I was finishing mine up and saving it to one file. I finally got that done, and had to use my iPod to transfer it over to Charlie’s computer so she could burn it to a disk so we could watch it. The other court métrages were incredible and so much better than all the others in my class – and I was even really ticked because another group basically used my same idea! But by the time we got to our classes, it was a good two hours later and most of the other students had already left – some support we had!

Meanwhile, I thought things were good now as mine was done and good… then I figured I’d watch it to make sure… and quickly realized that not only did I leave out part of the movie, but the entire ending got screwed up somehow! So I’m sitting there trying to fix it and save it to a small enough format to put on my zip drive… while time is running out! I finally said screw it… if we watch it, then I’ll explain that I had some issues and might get more time to finish or something. So, we go to watch mine before Charlie’s… and it doesn’t want to play! So she tried saving it to the computer we were using to project them onto the screen… and watched hers in the meantime. But mine was taking forever to copy for some reason, and because there was only three other people left who weren’t in our class – our professor said we would just watch mine in class the next week! So something is working in favor of me because I now have the time to go and finish the film and make sure it’s done right so we can watch it in class this coming Tuesday.

Since everything was done and the hell had passed, I was able to relax a bit. I still have to write a short paper for another class that is late but I emailed the professor and explained what was going on so he knows why it’s going to be late – as well as I have to answer a couple questions for Ecriture that are due on Tuesday. Though as the teacher talks really fast, the couple of questions I tried to jot down were not complete enough for me to understand and answer them. So I had asked Charlie a while ago to send me the questions – and she scanned them and sent them to me but I cannot find them and am thinking that she never sent them to me in the first place! So I’ve asked her to resend me the questions – but she’s currently visiting her mother in Georgia and told me that she doesn’t have them with her… which I’m thinking is a lie because she either would have them done already (which I highly doubt!), or she’s going to do them the night before when she gets back to France. I also doubt that she would’ve left and not taken her laptop with her… so I’m going to try and email the professor and explain what is going on and see if I can get the questions off of her and possibly and extension on the deadline as well because Charlie is basically being a bitch to me and I think attempting to ruin my grade for that class because of it. So I’ll just have to see what happens with that.

I did have class on Friday with Travail de Spectateur which was fun, though I was kind of dreading because we had our DS the week before break and I thought I had done horrible on it and would have to drop the class because of it. So the professor talked about the DS and some of what he was looking for in our replies. He then handed back our papers and made comments about how each of us did – though he told me that he’d talk to me about mine during the break… so I thought I did horrible! Just to recap, the DS was to analyze the first few scenes of Tartuffe by Molière done by the Comédie Français, which I have never read at all and we weren’t given the text for it either – mainly why I thought I did horrible on it because I had to figure out what was going on just by listening to it and that didn’t work out so well! During the break in class, he came and talked to me about mine – and I actually did most of what he was looking for! A lot of others talked mainly about the text and analyzed it that way, but he wanted more an analyzation of the director’s choices for this certain production. Since I didn’t know the text or understand what was going on, I talked about the sets, the lights, the costumes and the symbolism involved with each of those. This was exactly what he was looking for! My only issue was that I didn’t follow his format, or perhaps it’s the French format, for analyzing a scene in which you take a stance on something and then support it with details. I had just talked randomly about the details. But he told me I had no need to worry about my grade in the class as I was doing fine, which really helped ease the tension of the past week.

So now, it’s Sunday evening and aside from the few things I have to do for classes this week, I have been relaxing all weekend. I was able to get all my blogs from Paris up online and will start tonight on getting my pictures online as well. I ended up spending the money to buy more space on Picassa so I don’t have to delete any albums. I have gone through and deleted some pictures and cleaned them up – though that’s mainly if there were duplicate pictures, or ones that I really didn’t have to have up there. So hopefully by the end of this week I will have those all up online. Classes end on Wednesday for me, so I am greatly looking forward to that!

Through Couchsurfing there is a 4 day even going on this week that essentially travels along the Opal Coast of France from Dunkurque to Calais, and down to Bologne-sur-Mer which I think I’m going to go on as long as I can find a couch for each night. I emailed the guy who had planned it to see if it was still possible and he said it was as he had room in his car for me for the whole time. It leaves on Wednesday and goes through Sat or Sunday so I’m hoping it all works out as it will give me something to do over this break instead of staying here doing nothing.

It’s hard to think that I have less than a month left here… time flew by really fast! After this week, the only thing I have left is my exams which don’t start until May 13 and finish on Monday the 19^th. Then I fly back home on May 22… so it is really coming to an end. But I need to go get some food and do other things, so till the next blog! And I’ll post links to the new albums from Paris once I get them uploaded!