It's been some time...

I am back from Iceland now. Unfortunately, towards the end of our trip the internet had become so slow that I couldn't even load tumblr. My project is still on it's way to completion. It's about 60% finished not including the sound design.

A lot of strange and unexpected obstacles arose during my time on Hrisey; but ultimately I learned a lot and sorted myself out a bit. It was a much needed break from New York. Iceland really is full of magic (and lots of very unhealthy foods)

So that said, I will be moving back over to my regular tumblr.

I will update that regularly with things related to my film, my job, and other art i have in the works.

I will also be uploading my full set of photos to flickr as I sort through them.

Thanks for looking!

One of my awesome housemates last month made me a part of his ongoing tattoo dictionary project!

a great saturday night. this was incredible.

Circumstances required that I take a brief hiatus from my time on Hrisey. I was back in the US for a few weeks dealing with my freakishly deformed, asymmetrical body and attending a lovely wedding in Arizona. Now, I am back on the island and Andrew has finally made it here with me. In the time I was away the landscape has transformed into a bleak bumpy snowfield, and the season of eternal twilight has begun.

I've crossed the arctic circle.

I flew to Grimsey early last week, and spent the night. The weather wasn't fantastic, but good enough to walk around a bit. There's about 85 people living on the island, and it's quite an eerie place. 

I was expecting the landscape to be a bit like Hrisey, with lots of plantlife, but since the island was formed from volcanic rock nothing much grows on it but grass. I was surprised to find  lots of sheep, and even some horses there. There are thousands of seabirds (including puffins) but the majority go to sea for the winter, and only come to land to nest in the summer months. 

A somewhat grim adventure.

Gulls in Grimsey

I was just in the shop having a coffee and reading the recent issue of Icelandic Times. There's a few pages devoted to Hrisey.  

Here's one on the birdlife.

The ptarmigans are really funny. I haven't gotten a good photo yet, but they waddle around all over the place making weird pig noises and look like they're wearing bell-bottoms. 

A couple weekends ago a team of bird scientists were on the island with giant fishing nets and poles trying to catch the birds to monitor their activity. It looked pretty silly seeing a team of 20 or so old Icelandic men running through people's gardens to chase after these birds...with fishing poles. 

I only saw them catch one, an astonishing feat!

Here are some of my storyboards. Kinda wishing I'd brought my lightbox so I could do the animation on paper, but I'll make it work.

Now I'm working on roughing out animation in flash.

I'm excited for Andrew to get here and work his magic with lighting/textures/camera moves and all that fancy computer stuff.

If Hrisey is known around Iceland for anything, it is that the animal quarantining station is located here. The shop owner/ residency supervisor Julli takes care of the animals. So maybe I could have brought my cat after all.

(they did wind up finding Nuk today)

Though I am turning into an unkempt mountain person who eats nothing but dried fish, coffee, and skyr; and I'm growing more and more frightened of elves in the night, some progress is finally being made. Now I'm just hoping there's enough time.

Somewhere along the East Fjords we decided to get out of the car and climb the rocks.

On the road between Skaftafell and the East Fjords

Glaciers!

From the the jokulsarlon glacial lagoon, and vatnajokull.

It started raining, very innocently at first, but the sky was packed tight with cloud and gradually the drops grew bigger and heavier, until it was autumn's dismal rain that was falling -- rain that seemed to fill the entire world with its leaden beat, rain suggestive in its dreariness of everlasting waterfalls between the planets, rain that thatched the heavens with drabness and brooded oppressively over the whole countryside, like a disease, strong in the power of its flat, unvarying monotony, its smothering heaviness, its cold, unrelenting cruelty. Smoothly, smoothly it fell, over the whole shire, over the fallen marsh grass, over the troubled lake, the iron-grey gravel flats, the sombre mountain above the croft, smudging out every prospect. And the heavy, hopeless, interminable beat wormed its way into every crevice in the house, lay like a pad of cotton wool over the ears, and embraced everything, both near and far, in its compass, like an unromantic story from life itself that has no rhythm and no crescendo, no climax, but which is nevertheless overwhelming in its scope, terrifying in its significance. And at the bottom of this unfathomed ocean of teeming rain sat the little house and its one neurotic woman.

Halldór Laxness from "Independent People" opening of chapter 'September Rain'

Today's been a very rainy Sunday

a volatile situation

So it's been just under two weeks since I've been in Hrisey. I haven't left the island at all, because honestly, it's a bit of a hassle and rather expensive, but there's plenty here to keep me occupied- like mainly the animated film that I'd come here with the intention of making. When we applied to Gamli Skoli we had to apply with a specific project in mind (this was just over a year ago) which we developed based on ideas that interested us at that time and through assumptions of how Iceland might creatively inspire us. Now that I'm actually here and the cultural vibrations are sinking in, of course, my feelings are very different than what I'd anticipated; and the film that we thought of a year ago seems like it was only a means to get us here. In other words, I don't care much for the idea anymore, and I don't have the desire to expend the effort in making it 'work' as a piece of art. At the same time, I've been having real difficulty abandoning it completely because it feels fickle and temperamental- like I'm admitting defeat. I also wanted to maximize my time here by delving right into work and not having to spend so much time conceptualizing- which is the most exciting and intellectually stimulating part of making a film, but also the most challenging. 

So time keeps passing and I keep thinking.Other ideas completely unrelated to the ones I came with are tugging at my heartstrings, yet still everyday I walk around trying to rework my original idea in some way that I find exciting enough to spend my time on. I feel antsy to just start working and see what happens, but I'm finding I'm more of a big picture person. I'd really like to know where I'm going before I start the car.

In any case, I will probably not be making a film about a parasite growing inside of a little boy and exploding out of his head. Sorry :(