A Letter to Andrea Kreuzhage

a spread I did in journal #646, from the 1000 Journals site.

I had the opportunity over the weekend to go see the 1000 Journals Film in NYC. What a bizarre experience. I just wrote a letter to Andrea, the director about my thoughts on the film. I thought it would be cool to cc: the letter here:

Impressions of the 1000 Journals Film by Julie Sadler
wow.
WOW!!
I was so glad to get the chance to go down to NY and finally get to see your little baby...the 1000 Journals film!

Daughter Rose and her friend Shane met me down at Grand Central and we ended up getting to the SONY building with just minutes to spare before the film started. The building was just what you would have expected from a Manhattan SONY building, crazy TVs everywhere indented in the walls and myriad colored walls and excitement everywhere. We were escorted via glass elevator up to the screening room. It was a small rather intimate theater with very plush seats and super sleek ambience. The lights dimmed and my heart pumped inside my chest like a bomb threat!!

The beginning frames of the opening were terrific. I loved the graphic designerly and journally feel that these scenes had. The hand drawn effect worked really well and I caught myself trying to get a glimpse of every single journal as they kept pasting one on top of another...

As the movie got underway I was impressed by the international flavor. The movement from one country to another, rather sporadically and in no specific order was really a small reminder of the way the journals floated from city to country to town to the sea and beyond...Nice metaphor Andrea!

You probably don't know this, but I am really not fond of my own presence in photos. I hate getting pix taken, and even worse I usually hate the pix afterwards when I see them! I don't like to hear my own voice to the extent where I will have other office people use the pager for me. I am almost phobic about it sometimes. And here I am in NYC about to watch myself on a bigass HDTV screen, larger than my own living room. To say I was anxious is an understatement!

The first thing I saw that related to me was a small flash of one of my journal pages. I am such a kid at heart, I coudn't resist the urge to point up at the scream and squeal a little inside as I watched it go by. Of course, my daughter was not as amused with my silliness, but I was so amazed, almost gawking at the screen like a 5 year old. And then my art was full screen, not once, not twice, but I think 3 times. BIG GULP, I knew this was going to be my segment. There I am at the 9/11 site. That made me have just a second of reflection about the gravity of that visit and how much that affected me afterwards....and there I was walking around the streets of NYC picking stickers...that was so funny. I loved it when you had a closeup of that little notebook as I put the stickers in it. I also chuckled as I remembered the weight of Ralphs camera as I had it around my neck. It kept bouncing against me and turning on tee hee...

But then I started talking in the film. And I freaked out in my seat and put my hand over my eyes. AAAA! I can't watch this, I cant stand to hear myself, I wanted to escape. But the inner voice said "Julie! You came all this way to NOT watch this???? Open those eyes girl!" and I did. You managed to capture me saying something relevant to the project thank goodness, I was worried that I said nothing worthy of being used. Funny how your imagination can eat you alive. I have never seen myself in moving pictures before and this was a very amazing revelatory experience. I never knew how off the wall I come across...I never realized how animated I am. I am hoping some of it is a product of being nervous about being filmed, but I know I am dramatic and boy did that come over on film. I was quite taken back by that even, and I find myself trying to talk slower, and just mellow a bit now that I am home... (good luck on that...) Another weird thing was that I never knew my eyes were so blue. Good grief, that was crazy, they were like blue light specials....Maybe it was just the way the film picked them up, I don't know but it stood out to me.

There was about 10 minutes left of the film and all of a sudden the screen goes black, and you just hear sound. WTF>!?? Turned out there was some kind of hardware issues with SONY and we had quite a few minutes of intermission while they fixed the problem. During the pause, I was able to meet up with Linda Zacks, with whom I had featured in our little online zine a few years ago. It was cool to meet up with a net friend! What an opportunity....so unplanned I loved that.

The film came back up finally, after a few false starts (boo hiss on SONY for bad hardware. However we did appreciate the intermission gab fest!) At the end of the movie, I knew there was that sequence of each person telling you to return the journals to someguy....I kinda of was waiting to see my comment at the end, and there I was ....giving "the Look"!! Everyone in the theater cracked up with laughter and it made my day to see my goofy face with the blue headlights make everyone in the room bust out and laugh even without saying a word. YAY!


I was a bit weirded out by the whole fat cow lady story and most people I spoke with afterwards were also affected by this particular scene. It was a weird coincidence I think....too bad that happened to her. She was very emotional, and I think maybe she was a bit too serious about it all, but then I am not in her shoes. And then there was that guy who was peeved over his Robert Frost poem getting covered up. Those Aussie girls giggling in the park having a great time covering up things and moshing it all up in general...and then him writing What you don't like Robert Frost?? in the middle of the crease--that just cracked me up so bad!!! Some good stuff in there. Showed nicely how these small things like journals affect everything else...

I am so very glad to have had this experience. My absolute fave part was seeing myself as an artist on the big screen, with a paint brush in my hand ---working on collage art. That's what I will hold onto for the rest of my life.
Thanks so much for including me so gracefully in your film. I was happy to help make your dreams come true. And indeed, in some ways I think some of mine came true too.


Peace, love and groove to you forever my friend,

Julie


This film is playing in several spots over the next months. Go here to find out where you can see this near you. There's going to be a huge show at SF MOMA next month, with real actual journal pages on display. Maybe you want to check that out!