Week 5

Ahh, the ideas just keep flowing! I got a couple more for some pretty entertaining movie scenes. We finally are on track and we are going out and about to see what the world provides. Last night my cohorts and I went out to find a night of cultic like pong action, preferably in an underground bar, and to our surprise we wound up with a bust. A night gone to waste wile chasing the never ending game of a ping pong documentary. I know there’s something out there, but where is it??? You can not always trust the internet; they can be faulty on their research! Once we find out who goes where, we’ll be in good shape. I am suspecting that Berlin ping pong is just underground. We need to go there and find it. Some new ideas popped into my head recently, with the intro, some interviews, and just some random things that happen. Here, I can not keep spilling out my ideas; if so than we wont have anything for our movie. So I’ll just talk about the hardship we’ve faced.

Cold weather!!! This is our worst nightmare when were looking to shoot outdoor ping pong tables. Though there are some troopers that rough out the cold, the majority of tables are like ghost towns. So far, our internets sources for indoor clubs are flawed, and outdoor pong is very scarce. I am interested to see how much time will go into transportation to check out as many venues and club playing spaces as we can. I think the hardest part will be getting the time to run back and fourth across Berlin to look for available play settings. Another one of our downfalls is that we are not good enough to get into the finals. Haha…or to even stay in a tournament. It looks like Dr. Pong’s is going to be our home for the next few weeks.

Last week I was stuck in an elevator with 5 of my friends for about 45 minutes, which game me time to contemplate about the movie and Berlin in general. This inspired my new theory. Some people in the group say we need iconic photo shots to signify Berlin, but, Berlin is more than those iconic scenes. Berlin is the place where elevators break down. Berlin is the place where Ping pong is played on Saturday night. Berlin, is the place where alternative teens are looking for new ways to spend their time. Perhaps its good to have iconic shots of monuments, but then again isn’t that pretty cliché? Berlin in space is also a part of time. Its like in the movie with Wolfgang Kohlhaase and how important is it to portray space. We understand that he gave the characters parts which expressed the space of divided Berlin. It’s obvious that the movie is about how Berlin is split. There was not one monument shown to let the viewer know that its Berlin, and you still know it’s Berlin. We have to represent Berlin in our film, but are space is not through characters, or not through iconic images, it is through the overall lifestyle and culture and the underground sport of ping pong. Our mission is to express Berlin, through a movie, not through slides. With that, I have a feeling it will turn out very well, with or without the slides, and when we start getting into it, it will inspire us all to take up a small ball sport.