Letter To Home

Hej Beloved Family!

I am here at my friend Elliott's house in Copenhagen. It is our "homegoing week" and we are not allowed to stay on campus, so a a lot of the foreign students are staying in Copenhagen with various families of our fellow Danish students. Elliott's family is really nice. He is half-American - his dad is a Danish actor (was in Lars von Trier's "The Idiots") and his mom is from Cincinnati, Ohio. I will be staying here for the week and meeting up with various events that this guy Anton planned for EFC students to do together. And there is also the Copenhagen Dox festival going on now, so I want to find a documentary I'd be interested in seeing this week.

I am being taken care of very well here, so not to worry. I am being well-fed and Elliott is a great guy. On Friday, Elliott met me at the Osterport train station in Copenhagen and brought me across the street to play indoor soccer with some of his friends. Yesterday, Elliott gave me a bike tour around his area of Copenhagen (the bike paths are less scary and usually wider than the ones in Amsterdam) and then I went to a birthday party at the Copenhagen University pub for two friends of his. His friends were very nice, especially the ones I had played soccer with, and I even got to show off some of my skills at the foosball table (;D). Today we're going to take it easy (we got home around 5:30 last night) and watch Elliott's soccer team play on TV, then later meet up with some of the Greek students who are here for the weekend before they head off to Amsterdam with some others. But I'm mainly going to take this week off to take it easy and relax.

NB: I was able to fund my bus ticket to Copenhagen with the combo of a student discount and picking up empty beer/pop bottles and beer cases after parties and from friends' rooms. It's a way that students can make some extra money - I'm planning on using it to help fund my Europe-tripping next spring/summer.

As for why I have not been responding much lately, these past couple of weeks have been very busy. I don't think I have ever worked as consistently hard as I have in the last 2 weeks, even when I was doing plays and school at the same time. Two weekends ago, I filmed my personal short film project I wrote and directed, which my roommate Jacob will be editing when we return from holiday. The week leading up to that was very busy because I had to prepare storyboards, do character work with 2 actors, get some pre-production stuff ready (because my Production Manager kind of slacked off in that department), and also work on my Sound course assignments. On the Friday of that weekend, we were filming in an apartment room from 5:30-11:30, on the Saturday, filming at a lake/forest from 9am-9:30pm, and then on Sunday for a few hours more.

After that was done, we began pre-production on our music video assignment. Luckily, I was the editor and actor, so I did not have to do a lot of pre-production stuff, although they still needed me to help out in setting things up so I did some of that. For the actual filming, we spent last Friday filming and setup from 9-6 for outdoor scenes, then took a break until 10:30 when we setup and filmed until 7:15am and finished cleaning up by 8. Then I left for filming at 11am to act in another music video, which finished filming at 4am (and luckily had some nap breaks in between). There is a great video the Production Manager of that crew made of me and this guy Martin wrapped up in a blanket sleeping in a forest during break while eating an entire cracker-cookie solely with our mouths (because our arms were curled up in our delightfully warm blankets). And then this past week, I spent an average of about 8 hours per day in my editing suite from Monday to Wednesday, and then a few more hours on Thursday, to make sure I had everything done juuuuuust right. :)

For our music video project, there were 14 groups doing videos for 4 or 5 songs by this up-and-coming Danish singer RebekkaMaria (who sings in English). She even came and acted in half of the videos. If she and her "image team" particularly likes a video, she will use it as her official music video. We did not get to have her in our music video, so instead I played a guy who walks around with a life-size cardboard cutout of her, thinking she's my girlfriend. We had scenes of me walking down the street with her under my arm, of us walking in the park, sitting on a bench holding hands, and having a delightful dinner together. And then halfway through the song, I get frustrated with her lack of response to my affection, so I start making creepy sexual advances on her. I also start arguing with her over things like not eating my food, not showing me any love, and being suspicious of her checking out other guys. In one argument I go overboard and knock her head off. The song ends with me freaking out and burying her in a field, crying. I intercut the story with scenes of me dancing in front of a wall while being showered with balloons. It was a comedy, and I think it works quite well.

So that's what I've been up to. So far, I have had Editing and Sound as my two courses, and after the break I will be taking the Directing course (with my roommate, too!, who is probably my best friend here at the film college). I am especially enjoying editing film, so it is something I would like to look into when I return to Canada. Editing is a more solid job than director, writer, or actor, and in Denmark it pays more than director (because studios get rid of directors after production, so they can save money). And there's still a lot of fun and creativity involved in that job.

Well I think that about catches you up. I'm going to take off now, do some reading, and maybe some writing later too. Hope all's well and glad to hear you enjoyed your own vacation adventure, Mom'n'Dad! Keep up the good work at Humber, bro! :)

Jeg elsker dig, (I love you,)

:Dan