Nixon visited China. Club of Rome published „Limits of growth“. The Interrail programme was introduced, which I didn't know at the time, but will be explained next summer.
And then there was a blonde girl from the first grade, whom I actually asked... so my stage fright is on its way out. It was an interesting day or two - on the first day she wanted to buy flowers for her mom's birthday, and was collecting money, bit here bit there, but never asked me. So I sulked a bit but didn't volunteer. Felt bad about it, and then told her so the next day after school, on the korzo. She was there with two friends, also cute girls but of no interest to me, I stuck to this one. And they were looking around the štrafta for some frajer whom they wanted to get for her... And then there was a guy thief ("when will you return what you took from my pocket?" "never") and a guy sapling ("he's obviously grown roots there, he never moves from the spot")... and so I asked her. Needs time to think it over. Okay, walk a round and I'll wait here. Oh, I need longer than that. So what, I need to wait in line after a thief and a sapling? I jump the queue whenever I can, getting tickets etc. Well you may have to wait here.
She's from a near village, perhaps less than an hour by bicycle... still, not much chance that we'd be spending evenings together. Whatever, I've broken one of my own barriers, and she looked quite sweet. And I completely forgot about this episode, only by writing the above paragraph I remembered her face (not the name... didn't write it down then). Well yes, sweet she was. And makes me think about my strange attraction to blondes (note: neither D.M. nor Višnja are).
Made the last shots for "Can not" - the building site of D-2 (later called 25. maj by the bordering street), a guy directing the crane's motions from the ground. They were just finishing the last building. Had a nice chat with the guards and workers. In the afternoon I shot more scenes downtown, the smiling cop on a pretend intersection - we did move a few meters away, and I shot him from below, which is the oldest trick in the book, at least 50 years old if not more. First, one doesn't see the exact background, so him standing on a sidewalk and pretending to direct traffic with his baton doesn't look ridiculous, the sidewalk isn't in the scene. The second is, of course, that from below he looks bigger - which he wasn't. I'm not a giant, but he wasn't taller than me. I was just lucky to get him when the light was perfect - winter, but sunny, which isn't that rare this mild winter - and I had the camera and it was just the day when this scene was in my schedule (which I didn't write down, it was actually quite simple). There was a famous traffic cop, Jovan Bulj, in Belgrade, who was so elegant that he became some kind of media star, they paraded him even all the way to London. And, believe it or not, the traffic cops then had a summer uniform which was all white, with a safari helmet - probably for tourism's sake, but it looked really well. So we had this one local cop here who sort of imitated the guy and at least tried to bring some beauty into what he was doing, and I managed to sweet talk him into posing for a dozen seconds. It worked just as I barely dared imagine it would.
That was a great day; the next day this blonde was in far less of a mood and, well, she's still thinking it over. Stalling... and I see my chances vanish.
On 3rd, the wee crack in the floor between Tejka and me has grown. Probably done by the folks from the 2nd gimnazija. It's now a real hole.
The blonde is pretending not to know me anymore. Okay.
Dragana seems to be overtly interested in me. She noticed when I washed my hair and ruffled it up to look larger (which then settles down by tuesday so the history guy doesn't notice how long it got). Came during the break to feel it, now whether it's because she likes it (i.e. me), or is it another pretend show, with her one never knows. At times it's one hand in my hair, another on the face, caressing. Ouch... but then, one never knows. Or I sit on the desk and talk with Zova and she comes and snuggles under my jacket, and his face is all flabberghasted, his eyes about to fall out. While this lasted, Slavka snuck behind us and replaced my good chair with her faulty one - backrest missing. The next second Dragana unglued from me. Well okay, I suspected something was amiss, and I can use the rear wall as the backrest. This was still all well, there was a case these days when Baki threw his bad chair at Staša and just shouted "catch!". He did catch it - and, mind you, these were chairs made of 8mm steel frames, quite heavy - and then needed a few seconds to regain his balance and slowly lower the chair... during which his good chair made it to Baki's place.
And now it's not only her that's got something about my hair, it's now also Višnja - she said it's looking really well and asked me to avoid haircuts for a while. Promised her two weeks. Well, if it was up to me, haircut would be annual... But then my dad had a different opinion, seeing how after three or now four years I haven't changed my mind, so we had yet another long talk. This time I had more philosophical arguments on my side, and still we got nowhere. At least I was honing my debating skills.
Ah, that seminar was on two weekends - so we had a whole week to shoot that usual spool of 2x8, the theme was "Down the streets of my city" (actually a title of a song by Dubrovački Trubaduri, qv.)
First the old witch got me to the board to answer about near east*, in political sense, and the latest developments around Taiwan. She imagines me as Jovo Šćekić, who was the MC in the main political chat shows at the time, and said so publicly. She just loves to hear me spill the wisdom, which I largely pick up by reading NIN, and, to a lesser extent, Politika. She prophecied my bright future as a political commentator. Yeah, right, my place is behind the camera, not in front of it. But this is fine, as long as I don't have to really learn any of those numbers, natural resources etc per country, good.
In the afternoon had a long chat with Mika Putnik, the doyen of amateur movies, about DC-99 and what we're doing, he was a keen listener and loved how we developed. And liked how we arranged the space (well the many photos which covered the wall paneling nobody noticed the shitty green walls above). In the evening, lab arranged in the basement of Zmaj, the OTO workshop. There were Dimče with his wife, Morava, Živa, and a couple of others from the club. We had the capacity to do five spools at once (well, staggered by ten minutes or so, so we could pour the chemicals, when a phase was finished, from the first into the second etc). That was twenty spools altogether, finished 1:30 after midnight. At some point someone asks for time, and Morava looks at his watch, then counts on his fingers, then says "two and a half until twenty to eleven".
The next morning we gathered at 9:30 and heard more of the editing lecture, then sat down to actually do it. Don't know if we had so many splicers, maybe the guest team brought some. More scenes shot while that went on, Pop was at the lights. The lecturer praised my work, said I had an unusual talent for direction, symbolics, composition, and some unusual drives (like sideways under the bridge or among the cars). Skule also made a very good one, lots of interesting shots. Dimče goaded the crowd into an applause. And then they gave out funny prizes, as they did the last time.
So we're on the move. Now on to the american embassy and disco club. (I have no clue what this meant then, really)
Ah there were some projections in Dom and Dimče announced the prizes won (me, Skule, one OTO teacher - cute blonde, eh - and yet another member of DC-99), not saying that the competition were the first timers, who never held a camera. Nevertheless, I got a kiss from Tejka and congratulations from Dragana.
On a break next day, I told all of this to Višnja and D.M. and said "now I'm aiming for a stipend from television", to which Višnja said "Right so, use whatever you can grab!", to which I said "Come here...". That went well. As a joke, though.
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*what we call near east is the middle east in anglophone countries, though I never got a precise definition of near east then - what is it, us?
1-VIII-2022 - 15-V-2026