Mood: Cautiously optimistic
Drinking: Coke of the diet variety
I woke up to a deluge Saturday morning. Grey sky. Grey streets. Grey raindrops falling down. Rather, they were racing down. Pouring, streaming, cascading down. The wet streets were the color of steel and there were miniature rivers running in the gutters.
And I thought, “Of course. Of course we’d be having yet another day of torrential downpours today.” I tried to wait it out. And I did. But it would only stop for a breather and then start pouring again. At one point, there was even hail involved, tick, tick, ticking against the window glass. C and I sat there and watched in amazement. Then we called M.
“So,” I said when she picked up the line, “what do you think?” We stared out our respective windows at the rain-drenched streets and she said, “Well, we said we were gonna do it today. I’m up for it if you are. We’ll just need an umbrella for the camera.”
And so that’s how I came to be wearing a white dress, sitting in the rain amid the mud and rocks on top of Golden Gate Heights, wind whipping my hair into tangled bits as I lip-synched to my own voice coming from a boombox. M did the camera thing and C stood bravely by with an umbrella and Project Cinepoetry has begun!
You may remember the pre-Christmas episode of recording poetry in a closet. Yes? Well, this is part 2 of that project. We have the vocal track done and now the video is about halfway done and IT LOOKS SO COOL!
We wanted muted colors and lots of grays and blues and although lugging a camera, tripod, boombox and raingear about in the midst of a rainstorm may not be the most fun thing you could think of, it definitely produces some amazing images.
And in spite of the wetness and the ranger who tried to kick us out and the constant running to the corner junkmart for new boombox batteries (we went through 3 boomboxes before we found one that would actually spin the CD), in spite of all that, we had fun.
At the end of the shoot, driving back to my house in the Jeep with the wind blowing us all around, C said, “Well, I actually feel like I did something productive with my day.” And I have to agree. There’s nothing quite as satisfying as making progress on a creative project. Especially when you conquer the elements and make them work for you. It was exhilarating.
And I’d love to show you a teaser, but it’s better when you have to wait for it.
-Lo, who will admit that she did kinda feel like a rockstar, out there lipsynching in the rain. Cue soundtrack.
LaDonnaWitmer 