The Old World
Another busy day went by. I am still house sitting Lucy’s place in the city and will be here until the end of the month (thank you Lucy!).
This afternoon I wanted to scout a location for a shoot on Thursday in Harlem but received a call from Michele at Obliqsound to meet him and John Shannon in his office at 3 PM. I was already on my way to the location but turned around and made way down to Chinatown.
The last few weeks since I came back from San Francisco have been very intense. Most of my time I spent editing. I could not have done without my friend and editor Keith Strand. Thank you Keith for all your help and support and all the countless extra hours you put into the project.
The problem was that at the beginning I had no idea what to do with the edit. I found the solution in a post I wrote a few days ago about “Nature”. I read my own post and knew that this was the answer. I sat down wrote down how I wanted the video to look like, met with Keith the next day and within four hours had a version that I really liked. There was only one problem, Michele was not happy with it.
I had a meeting with him yesterday and he suggested re-cutting the first half of the video. I have to say that I greatly respect Michele’s view. He has a strong vision and he knows what is good. But it was a shock to my system since I put all the energy I had into this project and strongly believed that the version I had worked. There was another problem. I was not able to show him the last version that Keith and I did over the weekend.
I made a bold move on Saturday. The video will have a split screen. I converted one side into a sepia tone that matches John’s album cover and put a filter on it to make it look old. I had no idea if it would work but did it anyway. I felt that it would either make myself look like a fool or it will turn out great.
When I had this meeting today with Michele and John they loved the black and white feel. It looks like I can keep most of my edit and the video will be black and white. Perfect!
After the meeting I left with John. We walked up Broadway and talked for a little bit. He is such a great guy, I feel very fortunate to work on his video and hope it will help him to have the success he deserves. Then something magical happened.
I saw an old friend of mine Sandra. Sandra and I go back quite a few years. I do not think we were really ever friends because to be friends you need to be equal. She never felt equal, she was always on the top and I was on the bottom. There were many ups and downs in our relationship but it finally ended when she told me last March that she is not at all interested in a friendship with me any more. Today was the first time I saw her since then.
Sandra is very beautiful and has been a model for many years. She was floating down Broadway and looked stunning. When I saw her my mind stopped, everything was very quiet. I watched what I was doing but had no mental control over it. I said, “Hey Sandra!” but she did not her me because she was listening to her i-pod. She had already passed me “Sandra” she turned around and stopped, we smiled at each other. She said, “Hey Carsten” and made a step towards me. I can honestly say that even though I had some really bad experiences with her there was not the tiniest little bit of malice towards her. There was actually only love. I looked her in the eyes again, smiled again, waved and kept on walking.
Sandra is part of my old world. The world of inequality, entitlement, low self-esteem and ego. I have nothing in common with that world any more and I have no desire to ever go back to it.
"The Old World" News Building/Manhattan/New York City/ 42nd Street 06-03-08 at 10:21 PM
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