in real life

Three thoughts:

How high can anyone love someone?

I’m going to marry the most wonderful girl in the whole world.

Making gold is not as hard as it seems.

I just saw James Cameron’s new masterpiece. AVATAR is a perfect blend of science fiction, adventure, a love story and how we shape our own path. It’s almost like Pocahontas in space. Although I prefer the nickname “dances with smurfs” better… There is no reason whatsoever to not go and see this film. Now. And in 3D please.  And for once, I hope they don’t make a sequel. There is nothing else that needs saying. In 20 years, we will look back and think of AVATAR the same way as we look at Star Wars today; it changed cinema forever. And that is the true art of it, not just the subtle nuances in really really photorealistic CGI, not the well developed world and mythologies, not the near perfect storyline and certainly not the cheesy ballad at the end. No, the true art of AVATAR is what it does to you. Me. Us. The moviegoer. It hits you right in the face and sticks to your brain like Corellian snugsnails. This is a film you will remember, and keep watching. 

This changes everything.

Who knows what the future will be like? I dont’t. And neither do you. In fact, no one does, because the future isn’t yet. No one can know what doesn’t exist.

…Yet, do you ever have this feeling, this feeling that we’re meant for something else? Destined for something bigger? Do you ever lay in bed, wishing you could reach for the stars and actually touch them? Do you ever walk the street, watching other people go about their daily lifes, pondering what your mission in all of this is? Do you ever wake up early in the morning, before the sun has risen, and think to yourself – today I can take on the world? Do you ever have the feeling that our purpose is to change the world?

If you do – you are like us. We call ourselves the BrookfieldLodge society. Would you like to join us?

So, I have switched to the long awaited Windows 7 on my laptop. (HP Pavilion tx2020 now running Windows 7 Ultimate.) And what are my first thoughts on this new os?

1. It seems inherently more stable thant Vista was, at lest when multitasking and running more than 2 programs at once.
2. However, I have lost fingertip-touch functionality. My touchscreen still works with the sylus, but not with my fingers. My guess is that there is an updated driver from HP releasing soon that will fix this.
3. My graphics driver is having issues with 7. This was mercilesly fixed by switching to custom Omega drivers. Mind you, they are not made for Windows 7, but they seem to work better than the vendor supplied ones.
4. The upgrade process from Vista Business to 7 Ultimate took forever. No, really. Forever!
5. It has some clever new things of organizing, virtual folders and tags for example. Perfect for controlfreaks like me.
6. It comes with a shiny new taskbar that actually has some real improvements to it: when docking a program icon to the taskbar, it doesn’t require more space when you launchthe program, it simply let’s you know by highlighting the icon that it’s being used. Also, autogrouping and onmouseover previews are handy things.
7. It gives you more detailed control of the securtiy settings than Vista. Which used to be a pain.

All in all. I like it. Will install this on my girlfriends laptop as well, and when I get a new machine, this shall also be with 7. However, if you have an older pc, like my old laptop, then don’t bother. Stick with XP. If you’re stuck in Vista mode however, it’s worth a switch. Although the switch itself will take forever.

So, both computers are back up and running. I had to completely re-install one of them, the other was saved using some pretty sneaky ways of editing the registry. Well, updates:

Have you seen the new sheenakelly.com? If not, then head on to www.sheenakelly.com and check it out!

I keep saying I will make a gallery, but it doesn’t seem like I will ever manage to do it. I’ve put some pictures up on a one page site for the time being, and when I get around to finishing the other projects I have, maybe then I can build a gallery.

Progress is definetly the word when it comes to the masterfade.com page. Although far from finished yet, we have reached some sort of design form now. As for our new supersecret project? We’re not telling you yet.

Somehow, both my laptops decided to crash today. One required complete re-install of Windows to function again. The other was saved with a bit of “forced removal” as well as creative editing of the registry. Sometimes, I think I should go into gardening or something that doesn’t rely on computers as heavily as we do.

The end of this adventure is here. Tomorrow, I set point my nose to Europe and home. The last days have been spent mostly in the theatre, working on our performance. We did two shows, one on Saturday and one on Sunday. Both went very well, and with a 90% audience attendance of maximum cpacity, I think we are all happy with the result. I would also like to commend Arkadi Zaidi for his piece, that complemented ours very well, and made for a nice and diverse evening.

Today, my new Israeli friends and myself went walking in the old town. A beautiful, but not so well tendered, example of old and ancient Chinese architecture. – Almost the cliche we think of when we think about Chinese houses. Some of the places are quite commercialized, with lots of markets for tourists and shops that sells classic Chinese souvenirs I guess. We went of the beaten track and wandered into the slum area of Shanghai, a completely different feel, much more lively in a way, food and animals everywhere. Shops that sells fake brands all over, and lots of people trying to lure westerners like us into their shop. We found a back alley with a small restaurant, and we managed somehow to order some food, and it was really good. It was a simple soup with homemade noodles (we saw the lady in the back making them) and coriander. Tasty and plentiful. Just the way it should be.

I was quite happy today, as I didn’t wander Shanghai alone – I spent the day with my new Israeli friends (the choreographer, dancer and manager of the Israeli company that shared our stage) and we really had a good time together. Making friends is not always easy in strange countries, but we found some common ground and interests, and I am sure we shall at least stay in touch. The blessings of modern technology is sometimes invaluable.

Tomorrow I get up early for the flight to Paris Charles de Gaulle airport, before I transfer to my plane back home to Oslo. It has been a wonderful trip, with sights and experiences worth every hour and penny spent on it. However, it is always nice to come home again. Hopefully, Shanghai is a city I will come back to at some point, and see how the development of this megapolis is changing the life here, and where it will go in the next years.

See you wherever you are.

Hans out.

First day of practical work. The culture-collision is a fact. Not that it went horribly wrong or that it is not working or that the result will be crap. It’s just that after working together with some middle aged Chinese men for a day that pretend to be lighting technicians (I have to give them some credit, they know how to hang, gel and cable conventional fixtures.), it’s just that if they know anything more than that they are not showing.  There is also a slight difference in aesthetic sense when it comes to practical stuff, timekeeping and schedules as well as proper job management and planning. Nothing that crashes the production, but it is tiresome to try and do a lot of things that you ordinarily wouldn’t have to do.

Second, my NO SUBSTITUTIONS PLEASE plan when it comes to lighting equipment seems to have crashed and burned phenomenally. The intention was to make the lighting plan so specific and make it clear that only the specified fixtures would do. Then we went to the venue yesterday, and the fixtures in the grid looked like the right ones. Today, it turns out that even though it looks exactly like it, and it even has mechanical engineering to match it, it was not an ETC S4. (Sorry all you non lighting folks..) They copied it so precisely, it even says ETC on the sticker. However, it does not match the light output and optical accuracy of the real S4. This in turn creates some problems when you get to focusing and gobos. And those of you who know me and my tape measure, it makes focusing annoying. Almost outright frightening.

In the end, we got through it all, sadly, with a less than top result. Which is the essence of today I think; I am not completely happy with how the performance is shaping up. It’s not really bad, but it’s not great either. I guess we will see how tomorrow turns out, we have another 3 hrs. of additional tech, plotting and tweaking, so maybe we can pull it together then. I shall let you know in due time.

On the food side, I have now had my first encounter which is probably the best picture on overall food quality; a public university canteen. Mass produced everything (I needed help to order) in a variety of shapes and sizes. It tastes OK, but it is not great either. Same level as any institution based kitchen anyplace in the world can come up with I guess. Tried deep fried fish – it was whole, with intestines and everything, and just deep fried. Tasted OK. Tasted fish.

Didn’t really get to do anything else today, as work was from 9 til 9. Show tomorrow evening. Wish me luck!

Curious fact of the day: China must have the best electricians in the world. They have to, no one else could possibly make any sense of any electrical setup I have seen so far. Cables everywhere in every direction. No standard whatsoever on plugs; in my hotel room alone there is European 2 pin, American 3 pin flat, Australian 2 pin round, Swiss 3 pin and British 2 pin. And most places it’s 220V, but check, some places still have 110V! In the theater, there is 20amp stage pin for some lights, 16amp shucko for some, and on the back of the dimmers? British 16amp 3pin round!

H out.

Day two in Shanghai is over. I am about to sleep. This city however, is not. It doesn’t sleep, ever. When the shops and the supermarkets close at 10 or so, the pubs, clubs and cafes take over. The night time life in this city is probably one of the best in China, and for us “westerners”, it will seem right at home too. In no other place is the western  ideal of lifestyle and culture more evident than in the industry that is primarily targeted at those who want it the most: youth and kids. All the most popular nightclubs and “partyplaces” in Shanghai are all done in western style – music, interior design, dress codes and menus. This is perhaps the essence of this extremely odd clash of cultures. China is one of the last successful communist states in the world, and yet, everything they do is about money and securing money for their kid(s). And it isn’t discouraged by the government either, as this industry provides thousands of thousands of people with jobs and a steady income. One that lightens the burden of the socialist republics welfare system, and one that generates billions in tax income each year.

I went to see the venue and to inspect the equipment today. The venue itself is old, and looks like something that would make perfect sense in a Clark Gable film. It is well equipped, again, somewhat old, but old lighting equipment has the brilliant (pun intended) advantage of not necessarily being better than new lighting equipment. Tomorrow is the big get-in and rigging day, so we shall see what my technical director and his crew of non-English speaking people will manage to come up with. I am actually surprised, but so far, all the equipment are original “western” brands and none of the famed Chinese copies. More on this tomorrow I guess.

The exploration into Shanghai went further today as I took the subway and crossed the river to the brand new part of Pudong. Now, there are skyscrapers and tall buildings all over Shanghai, with multinational corporations and living quarters next to each other all over. Pudong however, is another world. All business. All modern. And almost all western. This part has sprung up over the past 10 years, and features shiny glass and concrete structures in the 400m mark, extensive parks and leisure areas, state of the art transportation and infrastructure, and lots of people everywhere. I ventured up into the 350m high Oriental Pearl Radio and TV tower to get a better view and take some photographs over the city. It’s not until you see Shanghai from above that you really appreciate the size and expanse of this city. Now, 17 million is a lot of people, so obviously you imagine it’s gonna be big – but wow! It is enormous, it stretches further out than the eye can see… this is mainly because the air is so bad with pollution that you really can’t see very far… but still.

And last but not least, Chinese food continues to impress. Alan (the choreographer and dancer I am working with) picked the local restaurant today. The menu was scribbled on with pen to make it readable for non mandarin speakers, and it didn’t really make sense. But the staff was happy to help and suggested some things based on our preferences. In the end, we had the best sweet ‘n sour chicken, chow mein beef and tofu with seafood anyone of us has ever had. I will say it again: you have not had Chinese food until you have been to China.

Today’s observation: you know these pictures of people with way too much stuff on small bikes or mopeds that pops up on the internet or in your mailbox every now and then? They must all be true. I think that if a major touring band ever comes to China, they will simply drive all the equipment around the country on lots of scooters and mopeds. It is really crazy.

H out.

Using Google maps I am mapping some of the places I go to in Shanghai. If you want to take a look you can find it here: Shanghai usefulls mk. II (this link will open in new window)

*Edit: If the link above doesn’t work, go to my Google profile page and find my maps there, then click on Shanghai usefulls mk II. It is difficult to know what is working or not, since the great firewall of China is making the rendering of certain pages difficult.