Miranda July's Blog, page 6

6 21 11

Answers #2

I try again, this time responding to questions that were sent to thefuturethefuture.com.

Answers #2 from Miranda July on Vimeo.

6 21 11

Answers #1

Wherein I try to answer all your questions from facebook but manage to answer almost none of them.

Answers #1 from Miranda July on Vimeo.

6 17 11

QUESTIONS! Yours.

And so begins the first of a series of questions that you write for me and I respond to, in video, to the best of my abilities.

If your question is why is my face so dirty, the answer is because I fell asleep on a magazine, specifically, Time magazine, which I ordered from a limited selection of magazines offered as part of a fundraiser for my nephew's school. He's in first grade. The article on my face is about Jason Segel's Muppet Movie.

If that was your only question, then my work is done. If you have any others, please send them as they occur to you. Feel free to go easy on the cleverness and heavy on the actual wondering. Do not follow my example in this post.

And even though I don't always mention it, let's not forget: The Future.

MJ

6 16 11

Introducing Costume Designer Christie Wittenborn!!

How did you meet me?

Gina Kwon called me and said she was producing a film called Me You and Everyone We Know and they were looking for a Costume Designer. I read 30 pages and called Gina back and said I'm in! When can I meet Miranda July? I met Miranda that afternoon and the rest is sweet history.

I think I will will forever have dreams about the magenta and purple diagonal striped shirt (with tiny belt!) that my character wore in Me and You. Does that shirt haunt you too?

That shirt does haunt me! I get random emails still about that shirt. I got an email not too long ago from a guy in Germany and he wanted to know where he could get that shirt from or if I could make that shirt for his girlfriend. Sadly it's an original and could not be replicated.

Please describe the process of creating the characters' looks for the movie. How does it begin? What are the steps between that and the final costumes in the movie?

After I read the script I sit with the characters and try to imagine the world in which they live in. I start by breaking down their economic and social status, afterwards move onto color, tone and look of their costumes. I get most of my color inspirations from my favorite painters. In the case for The Future I turned to Elizabeth Peyton for Sophie's color palette — rich jewel tones.

Then I move onto the look. I wanted Sophie's look to be eclectic, a mixture of pieces she's collected throughout the years and pieces that look like Sophie made it herself.

I also wanted to stay away from traditional dance attire. I used a lot of pieces that came from turn of the century swimwear and 1920′s undergarments. I was very interested in shape and flexibility in the fabric. Jason's costumes were based on some of the DC bands you and I loved as teenagers, Nation of Ulysses, Guy Picciotto from Fugazi. It was my way of paying homage to the original style makers.

After all the creative brain storming is done I have a meeting with Miranda and we continue the process even further. I remember in one of our meetings Miranda had mentioned she thought Sophie had altered or embellished her clothing in a strange way. This comment really stuck with me and the search began for interesting pieces we could use for embellishing. My fitting with Miranda was one of the best fittings i've ever had. We had a room full of the most eclectic clothing, bits & pieces and I knew we could spend hours organically putting together costumes. I think in the end Miranda and I were bummed we didn't have more changes for Sophie.

Show us 2 reference photos that were important for The Future, and explain what was useful about them.

I love this photo! This photo really helped shape Sophie's character for me.

I was really drawn to all the interesting details of this costume.

The scarf, the writing across the chest, the 2 little dots near the breast, and the heart on the thigh.

It looked like a outfit she could perform in or hangout in at a party.

This helped me to get away from the traditional dance attire for Sophie.

Nation of Ulysses.

I'm not sure I need to explain how badass this photo is and why it helped shape Jason's character for me.

Lastly, can you share your History with us? And by History I mean browser history.

6 10 11

Let The Right One In (Jetlag Video #3)

I'm gonna be honest with you, things have things have taken a turn for the paranoid over here.

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6 9 11

JET LAG VIDEO #2

STILL AWAKE!! IN THE HILTON! IN AUSTRALIA! HOW MANY THINGS CAN A PERSON DO IN A HOTEL ROOM?? LET'S FIND OUT OVER THE NEXT 62 HOURS!!

6 9 11

Jetlagged Australia Video #1

Wherein I am so tired that I'm not even tired.

6 6 11

Scrapbook #1

Every now and then we will turn to the scrapbook and relive moments from the The Future's past. The scrapbook is old with parchment pages and a torn velvet cover. No, actually it's iPhoto.

When you're making a movie, just like writing a book (or even maybe living a life) you are constantly scouring the world for details to steal — or even just evidence to support your theory. My character Sophie often has her head covered – by blankets, a shirt, or bowed in confession. This was one of the many pictures of covered people I gathered over the last few years. I managed to take it before the light changed. Just because you live in public doesn't mean you can't hide.

When we did the location scout of the animal shelter, there was a goat in the Animal Receiving area! Utterly distracting to me.

This is the production designer Elliot Hostetter and the costume designer Christie Wittenborn (and me) figuring out the color palette for the movie. We're using pens from Muji (the store) that Nikolai von Gravenitz suggested we both buy. He was in Berlin and we had to be creative about how to discuss color while apart. You'll notice all the cheerful pastels are together in the right hand corner — the discard pile. All those colors reminded me of my first movie. We loved the flesh colors, browns and pinks. Also there is a lump of gold in there, there was no gold pen, but we wanted gold in the palette.

Getting bad news on the phone while simultaneously doing a costume fitting with Christie and her assistant Mairi Chrisholm. The nice thing about being an actor/director is that no matter how big the director problems are (can I make this location work or is it going to ruin the whole movie?) you can always shift over to actor problems for a moment (how does this shirt make me feel?) Each one is a break from the other. The shirt did not ultimately make it into the movie.

Coming up: The report from Australia! Tomorrow I fly to to the Sydney International Film Festival.

6 2 11

History

In order to really understand The Future, i think it's important to look at History. By History I mean that word you click on at the top of your web browser that reveals everything you clicked on recently. History has meant all different things throughout time, and now it can mean this. I'm always curious about people's web histories, it's a little like looking at a list of the last 20 things they thought about. Sometimes you can see how one thought/website led to another, and sometimes it makes no sense at all. Frequently it's humilating, and a little endearing, like watching an animal bump around the forest. Often I click on Clear History as if this will also clear my conscience. If you are the kind of person who uses the word "herstory" in daily conversation, instead of history, then you probably think of it as your web herstory.

Over the next few months I will be inviting friends of the movie to share their History with us. I can't promise they won't click up a brand new, non-embarassing History, but if they don't, please reward them for their bravery by sending in your own honest History. Below is Hamish Linklater's History, followed by one of mine.

Hamish Linklater's History, April 22, 2011:

Miranda July's History, Saturday May 21:

The Awl: I was hoping there will be something as good at the Eileen Myles piece they ran a few months ago.

The Vulture: because I needed a picture of my own movie poster for my blog and it's just easiest to pull it off this website.

I Ask Of You:

On a Mac using Safari click on History, click on the day you want to share and take a screen shot (hold down these buttons all at the same time: command/shift/4 and then select what you want to take a picture of). On a PC press "print screen" and then crop the image. Upload the image to another website (like flickr or photobucket) and then include the link in your comment like this: imgsrc="http://urlofimage" inside of < >'s. Send it to us along with the date and a 1-2 sentence explanation of what was going on in real life that made you click on these things.

Respond here.

5 31 11

I Say Something Incredibly Helpful To Hamish and He Listens Attentively photo by Tim Barber

I would like introduce you to my co-star, Hamish Linklater, aka: your future imaginary boyfriend. Hilarious, whip smart, handsome, reads good books, etc. (Also completely married to an equally smart, beautiful, writer/director, which is what really sealed the deal for me. Nothing is more appealing than a man coupled with a for real woman that I would want to be friends with. It let me know that there was room in his reality for a complicated woman like me.) After a couple of sweaty auditions (I'm the one sweating, because I have to act with the actor, to see if I can), and a fateful walk, I knew he was the one.

The first thing we did together was go to a Clippers/Nets basketball game, he had tickets. Hamish would occasionally yell something really specific to a player and I was worried the player might hear and get distracted or get his feelings hurt, but Hamish said No, this is what you do, this is part of the game. At one point there was this thing called "Kiss Cam" – the live-cam would zero in on couples in the bleachers; when they saw themselves on the screen they had to kiss. Hamish and I sat through this totally silently, shaking with fear that the Kiss-Cam would land on us and we would have to kiss like the real couple we were professionally committed to becoming, but weren't yet. But it didn't land on us, and later we laughed very hard at our mutual terror.

For our next meeting I built a little cave in a closet in my house. I lined the floor with couch cushions and blankets and pillows and set up delicious food on plates. I asked him to bring his photo albums and favorite music and then I locked us in there and we told each other the stories of our lives and played each other songs, trying to explain why they meant so much to us. Looking back, I don't think this automatically created the four-year history that our characters have, which is what I hoped it would do. But it was a ritual that required us both to care a lot, to be vulnerable, to feel stupid, to cry. So that later, when we did all those things on the set, it wasn't for the first time.

The Cave

Hamish threw his whole self at this movie, and it shows. I can't wait for you to see him stop time with the sheer force of his will, and then start it again, with his arms and resignation.

As we prepared for and then shot the movie, we traded clues as to who who were, emailing each other snapshots (I think Jason would wear these shoes) and sudden revelations. In closing, I send you a picture that struck me when we were rehearsing – it's Rodin's sculpture, Orpheus and Eurydice. I really don't know anything about mythology, or Rodin, so it was just the picture itself I liked, and sent to Hamish. Below is his email back, typed with one finger on his phone.

MJ

I have a lot to say on this. (surprised?) here's the speech. I'm Orpheus right? You're eurydice right? U don't want to be looked at by me right? I'm heading out of hell to the ocean but I don't look back because I know you're not there, right?

I always thought Orpheus gets to her because of his artistry, but loses her because of being human. Like art is deathless but everything human, ie love or doubt, is mortal and once it dies it's dead.

The image itself is really good. Can we do that in the movie? The blind reverse spoon? Also how r u feeling about Jasons vinyl collection? h