An Update...

Hey guys,
haven't been updating my blog in a while now. Just to let you know, I had a job at a film shoot in the south of Munich from mid-September until about a week ago and therefore there hasn't been much time for me to write into the blog.

I handed in my first outline for my story, had my first tutorial on it, managed to work on it despite the very stressful film shoot with - again - 12-13 hour shooting days and then handed in a first treatment. I also had the tutorial on the treatment about two weeks ago and now I am sitting at home at my desk struggling with and writing the first proper draft of my screenplay.

I will let you know how things go, so stay tuned...

Best, Phil

PS: Here's a documentary I found online on some people having extraordinary jobs in the Hamburg red light district. Even though it is in German, you might get an idea of what the Herbertstrasse and other places look like where I did my observational research:

An article I found...

This is an image that I found on the web showing the agonies a man and a whore have to suffer in punishment for a life of sin. The picture is called Last Judgement. The website I found it on is actually one about the Middle Ages, which my story is not gonna be set in, nonetheless there are some interesting notes here on the topic of 'Sexuality in the Middle Ages'.

The article tells us more about the two-foldedness of sexuality in the middle ages that on one hand it was forbidden to even think about anything concerning sex due to the huge and powerful influence of the church, on the other hand, however, people lived out their sexual pleasures in every vulgar way imaginable.

Writing this down now, this somehow also reminds me again of the 'historc whore tour' that I did on the Reeperbahn, basically a tour for tourists in which you get to know more about the oldest profession in the world and how it developed in Hamburg. A lot of couples did that tour as well and they were always laughing about certain facts - indicating to me, that this is a world completely unknown to them or which they are at least not familiar with. On the other hand, however, the woman leader of the tour told us some statistics about how many men actually visit prostitutes still nowadays. I can't remember the exact number of it, but it actually meant that every third or fourth man in this group of mostly couples, statistically speaking, must have been a regular customer of prostitutes...

Basically, what I want to say here, is that to a certain extent - not as strict as in the middle ages, of course - but still to a certain extent, this two-foldedness in our society might still be intact. There are these certain areas, which are frowned upon and that hardly anyone is ever talking about. At least, this is what I think. What's your opinion?

Someone's first sexual experiences...

Don't worry, I'm not gonna right down my first sexual experiences down in this post ;) so it is still safe for you to read on...

Thinking about my character, my basic story that I have so far, I thought it would be interesting to just quickly right about this and how interesting, to me, it actually is that with everyone of us their first sexual experience stays with them all their life. And I'm not necessarily talking about the first time somebody had sexual intercourse with a girlfriend or a one night stand or which ever way it happened...maybe some of us might also have this weird memory of something that happened in their childhood, which out of some reason comes to mind in this context and they actually can't explain why...

If I think about it, for example, I remember a friend of my family, who always said that she was gonna marry me one day, but always saying it in a funny way and thus making everybody laugh, including myself...

Maybe, there is some experience deep down in the realm of your memories, too, of which you are thinking at the moment, which somehow rang a bell while you were reading this. I thought this might also be somehow fitting for my character; to give him an experience like this as a child, a little more intense, though, than the harmless one that I just wrote about out of my past...

(To illustrate my point a bit more, in case you're interested, there is a dream sequence in John Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy, in which we always see images of the main character Joe Buck's (Jon Voight) first sexual experiences, which are intercut with images of his grandmother who had raised him when he was little. If you haven't seen the film yet, check it out, it is well worth seeing.)

Another Realization a.k.a. 'What happens there stays there'

Another realization that I once again had about my area of research is the fact that in an obvious sort of way it resembles Las Vegas with all its lights at night etc. Of course, it is a lot smaller than Vegas and has an official red light district and in Vegas prostitution is strictly forbidden (not in the rest of the state of Nevada, though). One thing, however, they surely have in common is the saying 'What happens in ..., stays in ...'. Most of us will probably know the saying 'What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas' or at least have heard of it. Of course, it is often mentioned in the context of gambling and people going crazy and party there and all that; if we go down the 'go crazy'-part a bit further, this is what it also means really. People do meet there having affairs, one night stands, meet up with hookers etc.

This actually reminds me of my first visit to the US, in which I completed an internship for a company and some employees of that company went on a business trip to Vegas. One night while drinking one of the women came on to one of the guys and tried to get him into bed using the exact same saying. 'Come on', she said. 'What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, right?' He politely declined the offer, though.

But coming up to what I actually wanted to say in this blog. I actually intended to interview one of the prostitutes and asked her in a very blunt way, but of course she was really secretive about she did and didn't really reveal anything. But her answer also told me a great deal about this area. If you're not living and working here, I believe it is so difficult to actually get and understand the codes and mannerisms and unwritten laws of the area. This is also the imoression that I had one night when I was strolling over the Albers Platz and the Reeperbahn. What you get to see is the face everybody puts on for all the tourists and other visitors of the area in order to get them leave their money here. Similar to Vegas, it's almost all show...and to get underneath this, to get down to what the area is really like, what people are really like, I guess this is just possible if you have either have at least one person that connects you to the inside of it or otherwise you are a part of it yourself.

This will also be one of the difficulties that my main character in my story encounters along the way...

A realization...

Looking at the desktop of my laptop yesterday, I realized that I've been unconsciously doing a lot of research into psychological thrillers lately. What I found there where the downloaded screenplays of films such as Secret Window and Shutter Island, of which I also read the book. My latest posts on the blog with clips from Lynch's Lost Highway & Blue Velvet might also confirm this. I guess this might also be why my ideas have gone a lot into the inner life (fears, feelings and nightmares) of my main character and the basic story I've come up with so far also goes in that direction. More to follow on this...

Amazing clip from Secret Window here that greatly shows the divided and schizophrenic nature of the Johnny Depp character Morton Rainey in the film. For those of you who haven't seen it yet, I'd rather recommend watching the whole film (Huge Spoiler Warning here!!!) Enjoy:

A rollin' stone, all alone and lost...

Sorry, I haven't written for a while, guys...just have been really busy with the Unit 2 assignment that I need to finish this week as well before my next film job starts this Sunday.

Here's a song that I found that reminded me of a lot of the 'characters' that I saw during my observational research in Hamburg:



I'm a rolling stone, all alone and lost
For a life of sin, I have paid the cost.
When I pass by, all the people say
"Just another guy on the lost highway."

Just a deck of cards and a jug of wine
And a woman's lies make a life like mine.
Oh, the day we met, I went astray,
I started rollin' down that lost highway.

I was just a lad, nearly twenty-two,
Neither good nor bad, just a kid like you,
And now I'm lost, too late to pray,
Lord, I've paid the cost on the lost highway.

Now, boys, don't start your ramblin' round,
On this road of sin or you're sorrow bound.
Take my advice or you'll curse the day
You started rollin' down that lost highway

The feeling that is conveyed here will definitely be something that the main character of my story will have gone through as well...

Pigeons eating shattered glass...

An image that has stuck with me somehow since day 3 of my research. I arrived at the Albers Platz in the evening shortly before eight o'clock. Basically, the first thing that I saw on this day was a dead pigeon lying on the ground right next to the place where I usually liked to sit down. I carried on and took a seat on one of the beer benches near Hans Albers Klause then and started my observation there. The thing with the pigeon went a bit further, though. When the prostitutes started their day at 8, one of them saw the pigeon as well. It was lying in the spot were she usually stood all night and tried to catch some fish. So, she took a stick and shoved it along a couple of yards towards the tree - a lot to the amusement and disgust of her colleagues. Then, they all went about their usual daily business.

It kept me thinking, though, to how the pigeon might have died and an image occurred. What if the pigeon was searching for food and accidentally caught a piece of shattered glass? Of which there were lying around millions in this place from all the partying! Or what if it had been a young and stupid pigeon and had deliberately eaten one, even though her parents had told it not to? Just like the 'hand on the hot plate'-allegory that my parents used to tell me when I was little: What if I told you this plate was hot? The dumb decision would be to go ahead and touch it anyway, to find out the hard way for yourself. Of course then, the wise decision being to listen to your parents and thus not touching it!

But this rings a bell somewhere, doesn't it? From somewhere like this:

The Forbidden Fruit! In the end, don't we all have to find out for ourselves!?

So far, 'pigeons eating shattered glass' sounds cool for a title to me. I just don't know really what to make of it yet or if this image has legs for a story, but the 'forbidden fruit' idea seem quite enticing, doesn't it?