everything's cozier in the snow...

yup. snow. Someone told us it NEVER snows here in Ireland. But today we got our first snow of the season. I feel much more at home in the city now that it's white. It's like a little taste of Vermont while I'm away. My bedroom is cozier, hot chocolate tastes better, and a good run burns more on the lungs.

I'm spoiled with the Vermont weather and don't get too excited about a couple inches anymore, but everyone here seems to be pretty excited by even just a dusting. Snowball fights seem to be all too common, much like at home. However, while my buddies and I can have a good brawl at school, I don't remember ever waiting on the streets as a kid and asking passersby, "are you American?" and then wailing them with snowballs if the answer wasn't "yes." Irish are more keen on this kind of fun. I don't really know what I was expecting when I answered "no I'm not Irish" to a line of young Irish boys grasping fresh snowballs in each hand. I immediately knew my mistake as the fatal words slipped from my mouth. For a second I thought they were gonna let me go, but sure enough, three icy pieces of ammo came rapid fire to the back of my bed. I've learned by now that if in contact with a group of kids in matching track suits, just keep walking. It was funny until I kept walking and turned to see one of the boys running after me with a new hunk of snow, which he launched over the suburban brick wall barricade, crashing into me again. Another thing I've learned - sometimes people just need a little taste of their own medicine. When he came at me a third time ready to unload, I came right back at him with a good, "fuck off."
Game over.

Okay so you're imagining these cute little boys playing on their snowday, trying to have a little fun with strangers on the street, and I'm that bitch who's waltzing through like Scrooge on Christmas. Think again. These "little" kids really aren't so little, and the last group like this to come at me threw a lit match in my hair and laughed like it was the greatest trick they ever played.

Don't worry mom - I'm safe.

Alterosa

My band!

With 87 submissions from the HotPress contest, we took a long time to create short lists, and shorter lists, our top three songs, and then battled it out for the final selections. You would think with only seven directors and 87 songs to choose from, we wouldn't have a hard time finding different interests. But of course almost all of us overlapped for our top three choices.

When it came down to making our final decisions, I had to battle it out to get the band I wanted. Our teacher didn't want anything to do with it, and stuck us in a classroom to figure it out. Luckily everyone was great about discussing and everyone ended up happy with who they got. I was lucky enough to get my top choice.

My band's called Alterosa. They're actually from Cork, which is about three hours from Dublin. So I took the train to meet them a few weeks back, and they're fantastic. I didn't get to meet the drummer, and he unfortunately is unable to be in the video shoot, but the other three members took me for dinner and a drink and we talked over my weird idea for the video. They are totally willing to do whatever I envision (excluding nudity) which is fantastic as an artist. We've heard some horror stories of previous students who really couldn't shoot what they wanted to, because their band had a bit of a diva attitude, or managers got in the way.

Jenny is the lead vocalist, Cormac plays guitar and sings, and Kieran plays bass. In addition to their musical talents, Jenny is studying for her PHD at Cambridge, and Cormac is in Law School while simultaneously training for marathons. Needless to say, Poppa Epstein is pretty impressed with the artists I've landed, without even hearing their music.

Their description of their music: Alterosa's unique style reflects diverse influences, ranging from Portishead and Interpol to Nine Inch Nails. Dark organ sounds, driven guitars and arresting rhythms combine with understated vocals to create an intense mood that commands attention.

The track will remain a surprise. I'm trying not to give away anything about the video. Hopefully I can keep my mouth shut until it's done.

production week

This week is 'production week' for our music video class. This means all classes are cancelled, and we have the week open to shoot our official videos. Some have scheduled shoots on these days, and the rest of us are available to crew and do pre or post production work on our own videos. While some people are already in the editing lab working on their cuts, I won't actually be shooting my video until December 4th and 5th. It's not ideal to then only have about 5 days for editing,but it's allowed me a lot of prep time which was very much needed. Prep work includes selecting crew, securing locations, props, insurance, equipment, scheduling, test shoots, signing contracts... all that great, tedious, logistical, stuff.

In the mean time, along with my own prepping, I've been crewing for my classmates. For each video, the directors select their crew and assign each crew member a position. Some crews have been the whole class (all seven of us), and other crews have only one member in addition to the director. I've gotten to have the experience of working alone with the director and also being one of seven. It's amazing to see how different shoots run, due to crew numbers, locations, the production style, and the artists we're working with. But however different, every shoot so far has been a blast and so satisfying to wrap. Some productions have been as long as three, 13 hour days in a row. I'm a total sap and cheese ball like my dad, but I have to say... each time the director calls "that's a wrap!" and everyone cheers, I'm reminded of why I came here to do this program. And it feels great.

Since there are only seven of us, we all help out with bits and pieces of everything, in addition to having a more specific crew label. I've been assigned 'DP'and'AC' for the shoots I've been on. Working as Director of Photography is my favorite position, as I get to actually work the camera and shoot the video. Videos I DP'd for were I Phoenix, Codes, and BriBry.

SNEAK PEAK
Production 1: "On Your Radar" by I Phoenix. Directed by Anna Milshteyn


Production 2: "Home" by John Bleck & the Rats. Directed by Chris Daker


Production 3: "This Is Goodbye" by Codes. Directed by Paulo Testolini


Production 4: "A Poem I'll Sing Outloud" by BriBry. Directed by Erica Hart

Music Video Midterm

Unlike my previous assignments for music video, our midterm project had a number of constraints and requirements:
-song must have been on a top 10 list in the past three years
-2:30 minutes in length
-at least one minute of lip sync
-include musical instrument (whoops)
-at least one minute of editing with no shot longer than 3 seconds
-must use artificial light
-must have 3 different locations or "vignettes"

Our teacher gave us this long list to help guide us in putting together everything we've learned so far, and to prepare us for the final videos we'll be doing for our Irish bands.

Something went wrong with the export when it went onto vimeo - it doesn't lag in the real cut. For now, enjoy as is!

Special thanks to my classmates, Kathleen and Chris, for putting up with my wacky idea and singing in the shower...

midterm rough cut from Hannah Epstein on Vimeo.

two months later

So my friend just informed me that "my blog sucks." It's hard to believe I've been here long enough to say I've essentially missed two months of blogging.
Since I've been gone from online updates - I've made some videos, welcomed my family to the Emerald Isle, traveled through Europe, shot some gigs, and began production on official music videos for a handful of Irish bands.

Having my family here was a blast. Although I'm a bit jealous... they saw more of Ireland in one week than I've seen all semester. I've enjoyed seeing pictures of the countryside from their golfing adventures. But while they were in Dublin, it was great to show them around all my favorite places in the city. Thanks for coming Ma, Faj, & Brother, Sharon & Scott! (Arel... you were seriously missed)


I also ditched the fam for a day to shoot the HotPress Music show. Our class was asked to cover the show, which was kind of like a big trade show for music equipment, workshops with artists, and concerts going on throughout the day. It was a new experience to shoot a live event, and of course we all felt pretty kick ass with our Crew passes, shooting the performances from the press section up front. Some of the bands performing were those who submitted to the music video competition, so it was cool to be able to hear them live while we were still in the decision process.


Midterm break was awesome. I got to travel to Copenhagen to visit with Tess for a weekend. Nothing beats seeing the world with a best girlfriend.


KøBENHAVEN: Newhaven, Armeilinborg, Christiansborg, Fredericks Kirke, Christiania, Church of our Savior, Stroget street.

I also got to celebrate my Middlebury teammate's birthday! Steph and I took a photo for coach. Missy - look how strong we are!


Next I hit Rome with one of my NYU buddies, Erica.


ROMA: Colosseum, Forum, run along the Fiume Tevere, Vatican & St. Peters, Piazza Navona, Campo de Fiori, San Maria Maggiore, Spanish Steps, Pizza del Popolo, Borgehese, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, Piazza Venezia, lots of pasta and pizza.

From there, I reconvened with Tess in Amsterdam before heading back to Dublin.


AMSTERDAM: Rijksmuseum, Anne Frank House, Van Gogh museum, Red Light District, Heineken Experience


Copenhagen - loved.
Rome - Amazing. Colossal. so much art history. I dragged Erica to all the biggies!
Amsterdam - eh. My postcard to mom said "No need to come here." Although Van Gogh was cool. And Anne Frank. A number of people have referred to Amsterdam as "charming," but apparently you have to travel a bit outside the city center to see that part. We didn't make it that far.

Artificial Light

The prompt for our third video assignment was "artificial light." Beyond that, it could be anything. But our teacher is pushing us to create videos that have a sense of spectacle - images that stand alone, that are worthy of being seen as single images without context or a linear story. For my project, I tried to use an artificial lighting set up that would blow out my subject's faces and skin, creating the look that was influenced by Vogue in music videos of the 80's. Erica, Anna, and I created a studio set-up in our classroom, and I shot a kind of portrait... different from my previous portrait.

This edit is not finished... but will remain as is until I find time to continue cutting. My teacher has recommended I use this project as an opportunity to try cutting a sequence about ten different times... Some changes will mean completely eliminating certain shots, while some changes might be so slight they would only be noticeable to me, but will make a difference to the cleanliness of the final product.

My classmates from the screenwriting class, Mike and Joe, were my subjects.
Enjoy!

Artificial Light - rough cut from Hannah Epstein on Vimeo.

Arthur's Day & Culture Night

Last year, Arthur's Day was celebrated in Dublin to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Guinness. This year, the city decided to celebrate again, just because it was so much fun the first time. At 17:59 pints of Guinness were raised across the country to toast the 251st anniversary of Guinness. For the celebrations, bands played in pubs and venues, everywhere. Unfortunately we didn't really figure out what was going on until shows were all sold out. It was a real bummer because many of the bands who have submitted to have music videos made by our program. The way it works is this: Tisch collaborates with HotPress Magazine, which is the big music magazine of Ireland. Like their Rolling Stone. HotPress puts out a competition for bands to have their music videos made by the Tisch students - the bands submit a song, a photo, and a blurb about why they deserve to have their video made by us. As of now, we have 87 submissions, which we've been sorting through, attempting to narrow the selection down to a few favorites.

Check out this short article to read more about Arthur's Day:
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/entertainment/music/news/arthurs-day-snow-patrol-biffy-clyro-and-westlife-help-guinness-celebrate-14957749.html


Friday night was Culture Night, so again there were events all around the city, and country. I made my way to the Museum of Modern Art with some of the other Tisch kids for the evening. Parts of the museum were open until 10pm, and outside there was free beer and live music. Everything was set up under a beautiful tent with bohemian styled tables and benches. After a late start and a few wrong turns, we only made it for the last hour, but the jazz band we caught was fantastic. After the official event, we made our own fun playing in the museum's courtyard. A beautiful space.


It's great being in film school... everyone takes direction so well for photographs.

Portrait

Our second assignment for my video class was a "portrait."
The focus was to be on the face - to explore how even the most subtle facial expressions, if shot and used correctly, can really effect the viewer. Our professor is hoping for us to learn how to create "story" without prescribing a closed narrative to our pieces, as music video is not like narrative film making.

While watching our videos in class today, we discussed Walter Murch's advice from "In The Blink Of An Eye" about finding the "Decisive Moment" in every shot. The decisive moment is hard to describe.... it's the moment in which something happens, that makes the shot effective. It might cause you to feel an emotion that you can't always come up with a name for. It's a moment that, if placed just a frame too early or too late, will no longer have that same effect. Henri Cartier Bresson showed us many examples of this in his still photography, when he did a series of photographs all capturing decisive moments - if he snapped the shutter just a fraction of a second earlier or later, the man jumping into the puddle would not have the same effect on us.

I did my portrait on my suite mate, Erica, who happens to be an exceptional hip hop dancer. I took her down to a location I found on one of my runs, and after a few hours of shooting and good time spent in the editing lab, this is what I came up with. Unfortunately there seems to be some glitches in the upload, but enjoy!

Portrait HD from Hannah Epstein on Vimeo.

tardy

This morning I woke up at 9:57.
My class starts at 9:45.
The walk to class is 25 minutes, if I hustle.
So I flagged down my first cab.

Our professor tends to start late, so I really only missed about five minutes. It's just amazing to me, that in two years at Middlebury, I think I've slept through one class. Just two weeks in Ireland and I'm already oversleeping. I wouldn't have believed that my alarm even ever went off, had I not found my phone under my pillow, rather than on my bed stand.

Things to note:
-everything seems to be kept luke warm. No one seems to get the extremes of hot and cold like we do in the U.S.
-you should buy spices to put in your burger meat.
-grocery shopping is stressful when you have to bag things yourself with a line of Irish behind you, tapping their feet.
-Look more than once before crossing the street, to make sure you've looked the right way for oncoming traffic.

groceries... or lack there of

My cabinet currently consists of:
-salt
-an orange
-peanut butter
-frosted flakes
-can of tomato soup
-and tea bags

My space in the fridge currently shelves:
-one egg
-orange juice
-balsamic vinegar
-mustard

Needless to say, I miss Midd's unlimited meal plan. Going food shopping is a different experience without a car and grocery bags. And then you have to remember that you can only buy what will fit in one cabinet and one shelf in the mini fridge. It just never seems like a great opportunity to walk thirty minutes in the rain to shop for food. But I guess I'll have to. The convenience stores have been okay so far, but I guess after two weeks I can no longer use the excuse of having just arrived.
Don't worry Ma, all is not lost... I HAVE made some good meals. Take a gander!

inanimate

We've had lots of fun traveling on the weekends and exploring the city after class, but we've also spent a good amount of time in the classroom, behind the camera and in the lab.

For our first exercise, we were told to create a video using an inanimate object and a one minute clip of music. When our professor said this to us last week, we asked if we had to shoot ONLY the inanimate object. He danced around the question and said he was letting us make that decision. In my liberal arts state of mind, I thought, okay, he wants us to think outside the box and come up with something more, he's just not gonna spell it out for us.

WRONG.

He meant literally, an inanimate object, and nothing else. But I wasn't the only one who misunderstood the instructions. In fact, the entire class did. We all ended up incorporating a person in our videos in some way or another, to more or less, make our objects "come alive." Paul (professor) was astounded by our unanimous misunderstanding, but took it well and let us all laugh it off. Apparently we are the only class to ever come in with every single video having something animate. Of course now it makes total sense that we were supposed to use only the object. The whole challenge was supposed to be to make our objects "come alive" through creative camera work, lighting, editing, etc. We still got lots of feedback on our rough cuts, which was great since we're just learning the basic elements and characteristics of music videos. But of course, after the critique, Paul assigned us each tasks to do for our final cuts, namely finding ways to recreate the exercise and eliminate any people, whether it be through different shot selections in editing, or going back and reshooting. I went back and shot more of my chosen object, my camera. Here's what I came up with...
(let it load fully, and turn up the volume! the intro is quiet but essential)

inanimate from Hannah Epstein on Vimeo.

sunglasses and grass

This weekend a group of us hopped on the train and spent the day in Wicklow.
If I have my facts right, we were standing on the eastern most point of the Irish coast.


We all had our fingers crossed that we wouldn't need to take our rain coats out of our bags, which is a pretty big thing to wish for over here, but we ended up with an absolutely gorgeous day. There were some scattered showers through the afternoon, but nothing that lasted more than ten minutes, and they ended up giving us an amazing rainbow. I had never before seen an entire rainbow....


On the train ride in we could see huge stretches of green along the ocean, and we all quickly decided that was where we wanted to be. We made our way through town, grabbed a quick lunch, and as soon as I didn't have food in my mouth I asked someone plainly, which way to the water??
Dublin is great, but I do miss the mountains and the grass and the cows. Oh Vermont. I felt like a dog let off her leash when we got into Wicklow, and we all ran across the fields and played on castle ruins and then made our way down to the water.


We established a rule as a group the second day we were here: if we see stairs, we must take them. The stairs in Wicklow led us down to the little beach where we hung out for a bit and took in the view. The rocks here seem to be especially perfect for skipping. All round and smooth. I got tired of skipping rocks and decided to go for a dip. No one wanted to come with me, so I swam out alone and prayed there are no sharks in the Irish Sea. It was pretty chilly, but I just reminded myself of all the kids "polar bearing" up at Midd in February...


The golf course there is beautiful... Harrison and Dad - you might want to think about playing there! Ma, you'll be happy in the grass with a book next to the ocean.

Later we made our way out onto this long cement pier to see the light house, and I went for another dip. This time I got to JUMP. I got my friend Mike to join me, and we ran off repeatedly. After my second swim I was out of dry clothes, so the evening was a bit damp... but well worth it.

80's music videos...

are wacky.
I've just spent the last hour trying to find one that I genuinely like. We were given the simple assignment of finding an 80's music video that we like, to share with the class in our next meeting. You'd think that would be easy enough with YouTube and google. Go ahead and search 80's music videos. See if there are any you really, genuinely like. And could then talk about to a class explaining WHY you like it, regarding concept, treatment, performance, and style... As we've put it in class, 80's videos are, "shiny." I landed on Paula Abdul's, "Straight Up," from 1988. Check it out.

Anyway. This is a filler post since I meant to write about our trip yesterday to Wicklow. It was gorgeous. Here's a photo to hold up the blog until the full report tomorrow...

"be as ambitious as possible, within reason"

Today marked the beginning of our academic journey. We all almost forgot that we were actually coming to take classes and not just to wander around Ireland....

Yesterday, once we all rose from our jet lagged slumber, we decided to walk into center city and catch the Dart (subway equivalent) to Howth. Howth is a fishing village on Ireland's east coast, just a twenty-five minute ride out of Dublin city. Its cliffs look out to the Irish Sea, or more specifically, Balscadden Bay. I grabbed my National Geographic Traveler book before we headed out (thanks, mom) and on the Dart we discovered that we had step-by-step directions from the Dart station. I played tour guide.

pg. 82: "Where the road bends to the left (by a phone booth), keep walking straight up the path...Turn right at the top. A ramp next to house No. 53 leads to a grassy slope; climb it to go through trees and on up a steep bank and then a golf course..."

We still got lost.

Anyway, it was disappointing to show up in such crappy weather... we could only see about twenty percent of what the picture in my book showed because of the fog and rain, but we still found plenty to explore. We found where W.B. Yeats lived, (our screen writers were very excited), cool cemeteries, the Cock Tavern, a great view of the harbor, and some cliffs to slip down... all the while hoping we didn't fall and smash our cameras. We didn't. Or at least no cameras were smashed.


Today we all had our first classes. The walk from our residence hall to class is about thirty-five minutes. In the rain. My rain boots are happy to be making an appearance on the streets, although my jeans probably wish they had been kept on the shelf. Arriving to class we were all a little damp, but our raincoats for the most part kept us dry. Thighs were only spotted with raindrops. After class, however, post lunch and grocery shopping, (shampoo and four cans of tomato soup - there was a sale), we all looked like we had showered in our jeans. And felt like we had gained eight pounds due to the extra water weight we were drudging back with us. Even my pal, Gortex, is having a rough time in this weather...

Our music video professor seems very cool, but no one here is trying to sugarcoat what we've signed up for. In his own words, "I just want to make sure you all fancy what you're about to embark on," (now say it outloud in a great Irish accent). We've been told countless times since we arrived, that us music video students will be very busy once things pick up. Working all the time. It was a bit intimidating, especially when he showed us some of the spectacular videos that have been created in previous years. But needless to say that is also very exciting. It's still early enough in the game that we can all hope our own videos should turn out so well. Our first assignment due monday is to pick a thirty second clip of music and an inanimate object, and create a video. He'll be using this not only as an exercise for our learning purposes, but to get an initial feel for our individual strengths and weaknesses. There are only 7 of us in music video, and everyone is great. Working together should be a blast. And hopefully judgment day next monday goes well.


thank god, there are people as weird as me.

nice try, earl

Despite his efforts, Earl had no success trying to keep me from Ireland. While I could see a wall of clouds hanging between the Newark runway and New York's skyline, I was still on board and off the ground sixteen minutes early. The flight was easy... I even had an empty seat next to me, so I took full advantage and sprawled out for a good nap.

I was one of the first few to customs. "And how long will you be staying for?" "Just a week." I watched the woman in front of me have her passport stamped and sail through, then looked back at the line behind me. I realized they would quickly come to hate me because I would answer, "Until December 18th." And then pull out a folder of paperwork and have a nice chat with the clerk about what I'd be studying and where. When he asked me to step in front of the camera to have my picture taken, he was happy to see me smile, as he said he has to remind most people that smiling is actually okay.

My bag was easy enough to spot on the carousel since I had put about 8 disposable luggage tags on the handle. And it's huge. My cab driver took me right where I needed to go, but honestly I expected more out of him in the way of chatter. Past Ireland-goers had told me how friendly cab drivers are and that they'll always have a story for you. I think the most I got from mine was, "jesus christ," when he lifted my bag into the trunk.

My fear that I had over packed was quickly overcome when I met up with a girl at the gate to our residence, and she was dragging twice what I had. Our rooms are quickly becoming our own with beds finally made, and pictures stuck on the walls, and we now have minimal food in our cupboards.

After we got into our rooms, we were lead across the city to the Tisch building. Our day was spent doing a brief orientation, then lunch at a cute little café. We got our Irish cell phones, keys to the building, and then went off to explore the city a little on our own and bought hangers and thumb tacks.

Yes. We toasted the beginning of the semester with our first round of Guinness pints.
There are 18 kids in the program, split between screen writing and music video, (although our companion courses allow us to overlap in study), and everyone seems like a blast! It feels like we’ve been together for a week already…


Things to know:
1 - Continental will not accept single pieces of luggage over 70 pounds. Especially not 76 pounds.
2 - Cab drivers ask you to wear your seat belt (culture shock?!)
3 -The same exact cab ride can cost one person 21 euros, and someone else 36.
4 - "Chips" are fries. "Crisps" are chips.
5 - Frosted flakes are simply, "Frosties."
6 - "crack" is fun. means "fun."
7 - Grocery stores do not only encourage bringing your own reusable bags, but will actually not give you a disposable bag for your groceries. And if you ask for one because you forgot they will remind you that you'll just throw it away when you get home and it's a waste.
8 - many college students do not know how to grocery shop for themselves.