Moose Productions Blog

Went down to the basement to see Paulie. He was in the tool shed.

Right away- he was high.

A hot day and Paulie- inexplicably- had a sweatshirt on. Sitting in the broken office chair with wheels, his huge frame spilling over the edges. He kept tinkering with a small black fan. The cage was open, the blades exposed. I remember he held a paintbrush with dry red paint on it. I guess he was trying to sweep dust off the fan blades, but I’m not sure.

His head dropped, chin slowly to the chest. He’d doze off for a few seconds. I stood there, filming him. I don’t think he knew I was there.

He rolled the office chair over to a white wood work table. He plopped his elbows down and put his head into his hands. Moaning and complaining of a terrible head ache but he couldn’t remember the word for head ache. Shadow’s calendar was blowing in the breeze created by a loud, a painfully loud fan mounted above the door. It was on the month July, which was the right month. There were sunglasses on the table. Paulie started singing “Why’d you have to be so good?…the way that you hold me….the way that you scold me” his voice was wavering, and low, but in tune. He seemed lost in thought over some memory, some past lover perhaps. He’d fall asleep for a few seconds and then start to sing again “…the way that you hold me”

After a time, he decided to put on the sunglasses. He unfolded the glasses and slowly held them open with both hands. He moved his head toward his hands very slowly, trying to fit the glasses onto his head. It was a slow, slow process.

Jason, his best buddy, said Paulie’s got a problem with a few drugs. The problem is sometimes you get hooked on the drugs you need to get you off of the first drug. It’s a vicious cycle. Paulie’s trapped.

When he finally got the sunglasses on, Paulie started to comb his hair. A black fine tooth comb. His thick black hair is always greased back and he combed it back in place, only to have the fan blow it out of place again. This continued until he used the comb to scratch his back, but I don’t think he ever reached the spot that itched. James came in and talked with Paulie briefly. Paulie didn’t say anything that made sense. He called James, by the name Charlie, and said he never wanted to get dirty. Realizing Paulie was high, James smoked a usually prohibited cigarette with Paulie and then left work early, not completing any of the necessary repairs to the cubicle upstairs.

After a while, Paulie’s high wore off. He took his shirt off and shaved in the sinks in the basement. He told me he no longer lived at the White House. Meyer had told him he could have his cubicle or his job but not both. Paulie kept his job and moved into a shelter on 125th St in Harlem.

He was so down, so rejected. He had looked upon Meyer as his savior, but now his savior had decided he had to go. Paulie was a broken man, at the lowest point I’d seen him.

He walked out of the blue doors of the lobby and stood on the Bowery smoking a cigarette before he left. A bunch of young women walked by in tube tops and Paulie and I decided to people watch. That seemed to lift his spirits. He walked off down the Bowery. I wanted to follow him and film him where he lived but I didn’t have any tape left, or any energy either.

The summer heat was thick, to stand outside meant to feel sweat bead up on your skin. It was mid-July and I had just returned from a trip to China, my whole understanding of the world shaken. The White House lobby was kind of cool, the working fans spinning at full speed, the others going as fast as they could. It felt good to be in familiar surroundings. Over the past years, the lobby has always had a slow welcoming feel to it; the plants hanging from the ceiling, the orange and white cat weaving between the chairs to greet the old timers. Some days it feels like the lobby itself is an old man, a place that’s already seen its most ambitious and dangerous times, and now sits back, full of stories, waiting in relative peace for the days to pass on.

Since I’d been out of the loop awhile, I needed to get the camera rolling again, get caught up on the happenings of the White House. At Matt’s suggestion, I followed a new employee of the hotel, a skinny young Scotsman named James. 20 years old and loaded with optimism, he told the camera of his plans to improve the White House– to “get it in its prime again.” James had been assigned a new job, the seemingly simple task of making minor repairs to an empty cubicle on the first floor. Confidence in his stride, James dragged wood out from the basement.

First, he set out to repair the chickenwire ceiling. This meant he had to cut some long thin wood slats. (Part of the ceiling had been torn off, almost certainly evidence of someone climbing in from above to steal valuables) Using four steel chair frames, James set up a simple workbench and then selected a hand saw from the tool shed. After measuring, he attempted to saw but his slender arms were not capable of generating the power to move the saw through the wood. He soon took a lengthy smoke break. Upon his return, we found Paulie in the tool shed. It was Paulie’s day off but he had stopped by to check in, he said. When James explained what he was attempting to do, Paulie realized the futility of James approach and took over, intending to educate James on how to use the power saw. As Paulie changed into a work shirt, I noticed massive scars on his chest. Paulie said that he’d had a number of heart attacks which required bypass surgery, and he’d also had a stroke. He mentioned this without any desire to be pitied for his poor health or commended for his knack for survival. It was very matter-of-fact, the same way he’d talk about what he’d had for lunch.

The power saw out, Paulie began to cut the wood, producing a harsh high-pitched screaming sound. Particles of the plywood filled the air like snowfall. It was hard for me to breathe from a distance of ten feet. Paulie, whose face was inches from the saw, didn’t wear a facemask or even safety goggles. Every minute or so he would have to stop sawing and shake his head, causing all the wood bits to fall off his face. Every time he did this I would chuckle a little bit, thinking that he looked remarkably like a giant dog shaking water off his body. I climbed an old fire escape to breathe easier and get an aerial shot, the late afternoon light adding a soft beauty to the moment. The two men worked outside on the small concrete patio, surrounded by old brick walls. Paulie scolded James when he realized James’ measurements made him cut more wood then was needed. This prompted James to leave quickly with the wood, not even thanking Paulie for his help. I followed James inside and upstairs to the first floor cubicle where he made a brief attempt to repair the ceiling, giving up after a few minutes to leave for a long lunch break. I decided to head back down and catch up with Paulie.

Sing with me! We’ve got PICTURE LOCK!

After a bit more than 2 years of work, The White House Hotel is finished.

Of course, there is still more work to be done (sound editing, color correction, and final music from our maestro, Dan Zimmerman), but as for the edit, the Feature Length Film is Finito.

Now comes the next great unknown - finding a venue for the film. For the last four months we have been sending out rough cuts of the film to various film festivals. We are still waiting for some responses. Every day we check our mail, our email, our pulse, waiting to hear if we have made it into any festivals.

Either way, we look forward to screening for an audience and we hope you will join us when the time comes.

Felicidades & Happy New Year

Hello there, apparently this blog has about 11 reads. And I’m sure that I’ve looked at it a couple of times…so this is quite unacceptable. So, now, instead of reading the synopsis of the film over and over you will get to read my rants while simultaneously learning about Moose lifestyle. i am one of three interns here, and aside from being slightly awkward, I’m a pretty decent human being. Although I can’t say I am charitable and saintly, rest assured I do not go out of my way to hurt anyone. That counts…

My name is Prerna by the way. If you say it out loud, you will probably pronounce it wrong, but it’s ok, because I’ll know you’re talking to me anyways.

A usual work day at Moose begins around 11am for me. I come in on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I don’t much mind boss, because the environment is congenial. Which brings up an interesting point, congenial and genial are synonyms. Onwards…

A usual work day at Moose begins around 11am for me. Right now I’m in the process of gathering archival footage for the beginning of the film. This is surprisingly more difficult and expensive than one might think. Here is a hint why. Eldred v Ashcroft. A Supreme Court case in 2003 that extended copyright law, both prospectively and retroactively, meaning it affects films from the past and ones currently being made. This is terrible for the public domain realm because it reduces the material available for use.. Just really quickly, public domain is basically what the public has access to with no strings attached. An example would be the film “Eyes on the Prize”–an award winning documentary about the civil rights movement. The movie is a compilation of clips and footage shot by a variety of people, but to use this footage you need to obtain the rights from the person who shot the film etc.. But the copyrights the makers of Eyes bought have since expired and thus, the film cannot be reproduced anymore etc.. This is awful since the movie is culturally significant and an excellent educational tool and it is now much harder to get and screen the film.

We would want to use public domain footage because it’s free…it’s for the public. This pool is shrinking, evaporating, disappearing rapidly because of extended copyright law. So, I turned to a variety of agencies owning the rights to films, in hopes of buying clips from them. Indeed this is a pricey venture. When footage sells for 20-50 dollars per second, it’s not hard to imagine that you’ll be set back at least $1000.

Anyhoo, despite these hurdles, there is an important lesson to be had. Public domain is important, and when the Supreme Court is limiting it, it’s having a huge effect on schools, culture, and people…it may not be apparent immediately to us, unless you are a filmmaker or doing some sort of project, but imagine never meeting Kunta Kinte in fifth grade. These things are important!!! And imagine how the films you watch and books you read and have access to are affected…Consider your first amendment rights and how that space is getting more and more encroached upon.

Although internet media has a hand in combatting this as it can be a lawless rampant playground…and this is soley my opinion…getting around it in this way can’t be effective for long…and it’s nice to have your rights solidly intact. here are some articles to read if you feel inclined to do so:

http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,66410,00.html
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,48726-0.html
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,57237,00.html

…yeah i’m a fan of wired. this is it for now…albeit a little incoherent, it’s no threnody of bloghood. I’ll get better at this soon!

Intern ..3,
Prerna

Albert Beckmann, demi-king of the 3rd international Video Journalism Award, just sent notice that our submission to the festival is available for viewing online. Go here to watch.

Go to Germany & be the first to see part of the White House Hotel…

Not long ago, we submitted an excerpt of our first feature length film to the 3rd International Video Journalism Awards.

The scene, which is a kind of deleted selection from the film, follows an odd relationship that develops between Paulie, the plumber, and James, a young Scotsman. James arrives at the WHH hoping to find himself in New York. He ends up working at the hotel as an assistant maintenance man. At first all is smooth, but James quickly discovers that working with Paulie is difficult. The collision of old and young, combined with Paulie’s erratic temperament, force James to quit his position and eventually leave the White House. In short, this selection illustrates the bizarre juxtaposition that the WHH fosters in its old corridors.

The 3rd International Video Journalism Awards will be held from October 27-29 at the Kino Babylon Cinema, in Berlin. If you’d like to learn more about the festival, listen to an interview from last year’s festival with Videomission’s Sabine Streich and Moose’s Matt Rivera. (The interview is mostly in German.)

We have finally succumbed to the mania. Social Networking. Web 2.0. Big phrases from web theorists, but for us, it just means we have a MySpace page, at last.

We hope ot have some more clips up there soon and will use the site for announcements and updates. Check it out and sign up to be our friend. We need more friends. After all, is cyberspace such a lonely place.

Sometimes, when it seems all is lost, we find a bit of luck.

Tom was getting down to his last dollars, the $28,000 he had been living off for the past three years- done.

But then he got a phone call from an old friend, Sam. They had made a lot of money together in the past, and Sam was looking for someone he knew he could count on to produce. Tom had the job before he answered the phone.

I knocked on Tom’s door, Rm. #252 at 7am in the morning. He was asleep, but he woke up to my knocking. His shirt was off, and his skin drooped a bit, the green ink of navy tattoos giving him the look of a tough man who’d had a tough life. He lit a cigarette and slid flip-flops onto his feet. He was running late, so he didn’t have time for a shower. I followed him with a camera down the dark morning hall, the only sound his flip-flops as they hit the concrete floor.

Tom called it a bird bath, or a “European shower” as he took a bar of soap and lathered up his face and underarms using the sink water. Both of the faucets were at full blast and the steam rose up into the mirror in front of him. At one point, he took a long stare with out turning away. It was the look of a man who didn’t really believe where life had taken him .

Back in his room, Tom pulled on a black v neck sweater and then combed his hair and sprayed gel. He cleaned up nice, and I could now imagine what he’d looked like as a successful commodities broker in the 1980s.

He bought a coffee next door and drank it over a crossword in the lobby of the White House. He was energetic, full of hope. The job was selling vending machines to people who are looking for a second income. He knew all these numbers about the industry and he regurgitated with confidence and ease. I said as much and he responded that he’d always had “the gift of gab”. The more he talked, the more it became clear that Tom believed he could get out of the White House, that this job was going to be the springboard that turned his luck around.

Tile falls from the wall to the bathroom floor. The head of the hammer hits the handle of the pick with a steady rhythym. An even space is needed to hang the new sink. More tile falls, breaking as it hits the floor.

During the 1980’s, Paulie was the head plumber at the Waldorf Astoria, a hotel that is one of the great symbols of affluence and elegance in NYC. He had more than 100 people working for him in the plumbing department, and was even the personal plumber for the legendary singer Frank Sinatra, who lived at the hotel for a stint.

Today, Paulie is unclogging the toilets at a slightly less reputable NYC establishment, The White House Hotel.

There is dried blood on Paulie’s hand and wrist. Either he doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. After some time, all of the tiles have been chiseled off the wall. Flipping a white plastic bucket over, Paulie sits down to take a break. He wipes the sweat from his forehead. He looks ragged and is breathing hard. For a moment, he seems to leave the world, his head in his hands, his eyes closed. He is not asleep but comatose. Tourists walking in the hallway awake him and he shifts back into work.

Paulie is a massive man. His forearms are as thick as some people’s thighs, and there is a distinct thumping sound as he walks, 350 lbs hitting the floor one foot after the next. He has a goofy comical way about him, his size making him seem out of place, a giant stuck in a society built for smaller people. On a good day, he is very friendly, greeting each person with a genuine warmth and charm.

Bending his enormous frame, Paulie lifts the gleaming white porcelain sink and presses it into the wall. After some fidgeting and remaneuvering, it finally fits. He pulls the power drill from its case and puts the final touches on the installation.

He lives on the first floor of the hotel in a double cubicle suite. The privacy here is much better than the homeless shelter he used to stay at across the street. Paulie sleeps on his side facing the wall because if he sleeps any other way he will fall off the bed.

Mike pulls out a sheet of paper, a ruler and a pencil. He has just finished washing the dishes from his new year meal. To ensure that his writing is even, Mike draws lines in pencil across the page. It is cramped in the cubicle, two relatively large men crammed in with all of Mike’s things. I am in a constant state of awkwardness, trying as best I can not to get in the way of the light which is coming from one bare bulb on the wall. Mike is focused completely on the the lines. His face inches from the paper as he draws.

Occasionally, I step out of the room to shoot a wide angle shot. It is now night, the hall of the third floor completely dark except for an exit sign that has the fading red light of a decade old bulb. Every thirty seconds or so a piercing high pitched beep goes off, indicating that some kind of alarm is still functioning properly. At first it is truly annoying, but after time it becomes about as tolerable as the occassional honk from The Bowery.

After drawing the lines, Mike sketches out the letter in pencil. He writes so lightly, that I cannot make out what he is writing. A Japanese film starring a young woman and a young man is playing on Mike’s TV. Occassionally, Mike looks up. For most of the film there is a solo piano playing in the background. The music is sad, almost depserate. As it plays, Mike’s massive frame is hunched completely over, concentrating on the letter. By the time he has finished tracing the letter in pencil, well over an hour has passed.

The next stage of the letter is ink. Mike has all the tools of a master writer. (He doesn’t consider himself a calligraphist, because that is a Western term. Mike considers himself a master writer, so that is what I will call him.) The ink in a small glass vial, Mike wets the metal spade shaped tip of his pen. His writing is breathtaking, a flawless distribution of ink over the page. The letters are in cursive, large confindent loops that demonstrate years of painstaking concentration. As he slowly, moves down the page and toward the end of the letter, I begin to read what is written. It is addressed to the Chan Meditation Center, somewhere in Queens. He thanks them two or three times, adding that he is their humble servant should they ever need him.

Two hours after Mike started to write the one page letter, he is finally beginning to near the end of the process. Each word painfully perfect, so much concentration in each letter. The final couple of sentences surprise me. Mike has written that above all other things, he wishes to have a wife. He writes that because he has committed himself to scholarly pursuits, he is now humbled by poverty and age and is unlikely to attract a woman. It is a very sad letter, what seems to be a desperate plea for love. I begin to wonder what the Chan Meditation Center is, if it is a place where one can be arranged with a wife, or if Mike is simply hoping that the recipient of the letter will pass it along to a woman who is available.

When the letter is done, Mike pulls out a rubber stamp and seals it shut with a red goo. The insignia on the stamp shows up in the goo. This is how letters were sealed hundreds of years ago, I thought. My tape ran out and Mike told me he’d had enough of the camera. I said goodnight and happy new year, and headed for the train.