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(Note: I started writing this last Thursday, September 6, but I didn't get a chance to finish it until today. So I'm a little behind on my posts. I'll post another one about this weekend soon. And, boy, do I have more to tell. Stay tuned.)
It's hard to believe, but it's been two months since I arrived in Australia. We are half-way through the semester now, so it won't be long until summer break. And that's when the real adventure is going to start...
As I type this now, I am full to the brim with pizza and gelati (that's the plural of gelato). This is the first pizza I've had since we went to New York Pizza on my last day of work. That seems ages ago. And now that makes me think how much I miss everyone. My life now is so very different. I haven't really thought much about it because I've been so busy. But now that I do stop to think, I realize how much things have changed. I went from a big house full of people to a tiny studio apartment by myself. And while I miss my family, I have managed to partially fill that void in my life with a variety (and I do mean a variety) of new, interesting people, with whom I hope to remain good friends. I used to rely so much on my car. Now, I rely on my legs most of the time; I only take the bus or train when I have to. I went from a primarily technical life with art on the side to a primarily artistic life with the technical on the side. This is the first time I can fully dedicate myself to making movies. Until now, it's just been something on the side. Something I could do when I had a spare minute here and there. Something I did when I wasn't working or in class. But now, I can divert my full attention to my movie projects. I don't have to wait to get my other stuff done first. I hope with this newfound dedication, my projects will exhibit some great improvement. One thing is sure, though. There is no doubt that this is what I want to do the rest of my life.
Sorry about the tangent there. I'm just writing stuff as it comes to mind. Back to the pizza. This was the "real" stuff as the Italians like to call it. I suppose I should rewind to a week ago, when my life became a bit more interesting...
Thursday, August 30:Up to this point, I have just had a vague idea of what my documentary project was going to be about. I knew it had something to do with Italian food, particularly gelato, an Italian frozen dessert likened to ice cream. It had taken me weeks to finally narrow my idea to this point. Maybe this wasn't the best place to start. Let's rewind a few more weeks.
A Few Weeks before Thursday, August 30 (exact date unknown):My original intention for my doco was that I would find a family-owned Italian eatery in the area, and I would make a movie on the family who ran it. But my teacher had concerns. Is it feasible? Where will you find a family? Good point. So I changed the focus of my project to the food itself. That would certainly make things easier. But what food in particular? Hmmm.... gelato seems interesting. I had never heard of it before I moved here. And there are gelato shops all over Leichhardt. Surely one of them will let me film there. I walked all over Leichhardt turning this idea over in my mind. And then I passed a store I had walked by countless times. I slowly backed up and took a second look. The windows were covered in newspaper, so I couldn't really see inside. There was a sign on the door that said they would be back open on August 27th. I looked at the giant sign hanging above: Gelateria De Luca. Another sign indicated that they had been in business since 1937. "This is the one," I thought. I'm sure they'll have plenty to say about gelato. I went home and looked them up on the internet. I found an email address, so I sent them a message asking if they were interested in participating in my project. I didn't have time to wait for their shop to open, so I would have to rely on email. I got a response a few days later saying that they would be happy to help me. They instructed me to give them a call on the 23rd of August. The day came, and I called the number. During the conversation, I arranged a time to meet with him on August 30th.
So that brings me back to the 30th. I had arranged to meet with the owner a few hours after my class. Patrick, my friend from Taiwan, wanted to go see the Bourne Ultimatum that night, so he decided to go with me to meet with the owner. That way, we could go straight to the movie afterward. I figured it would be a good idea since I was planning to use him as my sound guy. My plan was to conduct formal interviews with the owner using professional lighting and a full crew, the whole nine yards.
We went to the shop a little early to look around and to taste some of their artisan gelati, made from scratch on premises. I tried a scoop of banana and a scoop of citrus. We ate our gelati as we waited for Luigi to meet with us. His daughter, Virginia, didn't seem to know where he had gone. I started reading a poster on the wall, just as I took the last bite of my waffle cone. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone enter the room. I was trying my best to read the entire poster on the wall, which was an enlarged magazine article about Luigi. I figured it would be good to know a little about the place before I spoke with the owner. As I skimmed through the article, I faintly heard a voice. And then it was louder, "Excuse me?" I looked over, and there was Luigi, trying to get my attention. He shook my hand, and then looked over at his daughter and said something in Italian. As the two exchanged words, their voices grew louder. Then his daughter looked over at me and asked who had told me to come there at that time. It caught me a little off guard. "Uh-oh," I thought, "Did I call the wrong place?" I stammered for a moment as I tried to explain over their voices that Luigi had told me to come at 5:00. At least I thought I had spoken with Luigi. There seemed to be some kind of misunderstanding. (Turns out, he thought I was coming on another day). After a moment, he stopped, clearly a bit peeved, and ushered me into the next room, a cosy lounge area filled with all sorts of interesting items. He sat me down on the couch and asked what I wanted. I explained that I wanted to make a documentary about his shop. He thought for a moment, and then an American woman, who was typing on a laptop in the corner, chimed in. I can't, for the life of me, remember what she said; it was all a little overwhelming. I was focused on Luigi. (The American woman is from Pennsylvania, and she runs an Italian website here. She is close to the De Luca family).
He finally told us that he was putting together a book to celebrate their family business's 70th anniversary, and that I could come film that. He wanted me to come the next day and start filming. It was a brief meeting, and we were soon on our way.
As we found ourselves back on the street, my mind was racing. I began to realize how great of an opportunity this was going to be. I had found my Italian family. There was certainly a strong family dynamic. I could return to my original idea, the more interesting one. But now there was a twist that I couldn't have even imagined. They were compiling a book, essentially about their family history. So the movie would be about this family now and then. I would get to capture the family dynamic while simultaneously obtaining a glimpse of their past as they compiled this memoir of family tradition. I was so excited about this movie (I'm still excited). Patrick chimed in as we walked down the street. He couldn't make it the next day to help film.
So it would just be me and my camera. No time to organize a crew. Probably better that way, I thought. Just me and my camera. All my plans had flown out the window. I had a flashback of Albert Maysles with his camera (same as mine) with the microphone mounted on top, quietly walking behind his subjects. That's how I would be tomorrow, I thought. Looks like this was going to be cinema verite. Then it hit me. I could do my presentation in class on Maysles Brothers films.
We are supposed to do a presentation in class on films that have some relevance to our projects. I had no idea what I was going to do before then. The Maysles brothers would be perfect. And I could add a bit of personal account to the presentation since I had been a PA on that Albert Maysles shoot in Birmingham. I'll have to dig out the old photos. It's funny how things work out.
When I got home after the movies, I received an email with details about the shop's 70th birthday celebration. And what a surprise I found: Its birthday is on my birthday! And it's the last day I will be in Sydney before I go to Canberra for the Fulbright enrichment seminar. If that's not a sign, I don't know what is.
And so I showed up at the shop the next day to begin filming. I filmed a bit of Luigi and Virginia poring over the book's layout. And then we went to meet with the publisher. And then to pick out a new computer. I showed up the next day to film Luigi teaching a cooking class. He was demonstrating the technique of making arancini (that's plural of arancino), which I had never heard of before. It's basically a ball of rice filled with various food, depending on the type, that is then battered and deep fried. They made three kinds: traditional, seafood, and chocolate. The traditional is filled with a tomato sauce and ground beef. The seafood had some seafood mix in a white sauce; I'm not exactly sure what was in it. I somehow missed that part. And the chocolate, which he let me try during the class, is filled with chocolate custard and is then rolled in caster sugar after it is fried. It was like nothing I have ever tried. It was fantastic; it was a wonderful mix of sweet and salty. I returned later that night to film a bit of the shop. Saturday night is their busiest time, so they had a fresh batch of all kinds of gelati. They display 18 flavors at any one time, and they rotate the flavors weekly. After I filmed all the flavors and watched them serving for a while, Luigi invited me to sit in the lounge again. He had just cooked a batch of arancini for dinner. He offered me some, and I tried the traditional and the seafood. They were great. I then sat on the couch with he and his wife, and we chatted a bit. He had warmed up to me considerably. He explained that he can be a little distrustful of people at first. He laughed and said, "I doubt you will ever forget the first time you talked with me." He's quite right. After we chatted for a while, Luigi fixed me a great big bowl of gelati. He gave me five scoops (small scoops, mind you), all different flavors. I tried pistachio, coffee, mango, tiramisu, and English truffle. I can't decide which I like best; it's all so good. I guess it just depends on your mood.
They are quite pleasant people. I've only known them a week, and yet it's as if I've known them for considerably longer. They are wonderful subjects for documentary film. They seem very natural in front of the camera. And they're very interesting; never a dull moment (well, almost never). It's going to be tough editing this movie. I've already accumulated 7 hours worth of footage, and that's just the beginning. And it doesn't help that I don't know Italian, since they speak it half the time.
Tonight, I filmed for 2 hours as they worked on the book and dug through old family photos and videos. They invited me to stay for dinner, and they bought a few pizzas. They ordered three different types. Though it sounds a bit odd, my favorite pizza was the feta cheese and eggplant. The second pizza had pepperoni and tomato slices, while the third had ham, mushrooms, and olives. It was all good, but the eggplant was definitely the best. I then had two scoops of gelati on a cone. I tried a scoop of hazelnut and a scoop of rose petals. The rose petals is flavored with rosewater and it tastes like turkish delight; very interesting, indeed.
And that brings me back to this point, where I sit in front of my computer, full of pizza and gelati. And just in case you're wondering, I haven't gained any weight from all this food. I've been eating well the rest of the time, so there's room for me to go crazy every now and then.
On Sunday (Sept. 2) I ate at the house of one of the Filipino families. They invited quite a few people from church over for lunch, so I got to sample all kinds of Filipino food. They also served one Korean dish, which was very spicy. It was all good. I spent the day at their house, and we watched a couple of movies until the evening service. I'm slowly, but surely, learning everyone's names. I'm still trying to figure out who belongs to which family. And with a congregation of nearly 200 people, that's going to take a while...
I was surprised this week to hear that it had been a year since Steve Irwin died. Time passes by quickly. I remember hearing the news of his death. I was working on my Fulbright application, wondering what the point was, when Kevin read the headline aloud from the web page he was viewing. It was a shock and a disappointment for me when I heard the news. There I was, completing my application to travel to Australia, and I hear that Australia's most prominent personality has been killed by a stingray. A stingray? I always figured he'd be done in by a croc. A stingray? It was at this point that I began to wonder if I was making the right choice. "What am I doing? Should I really be applying for this scholarship? What if I actually make it? Ha. Like I have a chance."
One of my plans if I made it to Australia was to see Steve Irwin in person at the Crocoseum. On November 15, they're having Steve Irwin Day, in which everyone who participates will sport khaki shorts. I will certainly have mine on. They just won't be quite as short as Steve Irwin's were.
By the way: it's needless to say, but I definitely made the right choice. To apply for a Fulbright, that is.
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