Davina Lee Films

"The Game"

2010-08-03T08:27:00.000-07:00

I just finished watching re-runs of a dating show with many girls and one guy. The most bitchy of the lot is the one who had all his attention. I was certain he would choose her out of the bunch...and guess what he did. So predictable...

I was told once by a guy I was dating that the reason we didn't work out was because I liked him. I was told by another that I responded too "quickly" to his text messages and guys don't like that...

A male friend broke it down for me one day and said that I need to know how to "play" the game. To have a successful relationship are "games" really necessary? YES he said to me and used his favourite line: "We only pursue that which retreats us". So does that me that if I find a great guy who I am very attracted to must I pretend that he repulses me? YES apparently.

I will never understand men. I watched an acquaintance of mine verbally abuse, ignore and demand whatever she wanted from a man and he kept coming back for more (dumbass).

light bulb moment: So I have been doing it wrong all these years! Being open, honest, sweet, understanding and loving doesn't cut it if I want to find a great guy. I need to become a conniving, pretentious, cold hearted bitch. Point taken :)

My morning, this morning

2010-04-01T06:28:00.000-07:00

Relieved at the fact that I now have an extra week to plan a video shoot, Word Alive planning is over and no class lessons to prepare I decided to curl up with my new book White Egrets by Derek Walcott. Unlike my failed attempts at completing Omeros, I have nearly completed White Egrets in one sitting, well it is a slim book so I guess no pat on the back for me here. Growing up I always thought Derek Walcott was somewhat out of my range and never attempted to open one book and knew nothing of his work except a City's Death by Fire which seemed mandatory at all school recitals. Such a shame, being a daughter of a well read man and poet. Last year I was given a gift of Derek Walcott's Selected Poems by my father who probably felt it was about time I got my Walcott on, as well as a copy of Omeros, which won him the Nobel Prize. Reading Walcott's selected poems was some what shocking for me because I never expected that I would be able to relate, understand and enjoy. I was expecting big words that would send me to the dictionary, instead I found words that were unpretentious and very Saint Lucian.

I am falling in love with this man, reading White Egrets, maybe because its so personal and open and a little scary because i'm seeing death everywhere in the pages. One poem is standing out for me. It has no name just a number like most of the other poems in the book.

32.
Be happy now at Cap, for the simplest joys--
for a line of white egrets prompting the last word,
for the sea's recitation re-entering my head
with questions it erases, cancelling the demonic voice
by which I have recently been possessed; unheard,
it whispers the way the fiend does to a madman
who gibbers to his bloody hands that he was seized
the way the sea swivels in the conch's ear, like the roar
of applause that precedes the actor with increased
doubt to the pitch of paralysed horror
that his prime is past. If it is true
that my gift has withered, that there's little left of it,
if this man is right then there's nothing else to do
but abandon poetry like a woman because you love it
and would not see her hurt, least of all by me;
so walk to the cliff's edge and soar above it,
the jealousy, the spite, the nastiness, with the grace
of a frigate over Barrel of Beef, its rock;
be grateful that you wrote well in this place,
let the torn poems sail from you like a flock
of white egrets in a long last sigh of release.

Derek Walcott, White Egrets

why didnt I bottle it?

2010-03-01T15:29:00.000-08:00

I left Barbados bound for Saint Lucia and was pleasantly surprised that the flight was on time, ahead of time actually...wow. I got to home, got through immigration with none of the stupid questions then on to baggage claim. It felt like I was standing there for an eternity...this LIAT worker comes up to me with a guilty look..."um ur bag doh come yet?" I looked around "not yet, its the pink one with the hearts". He goes "um that was all the bags ee" and I went: "STEUPS!!!!"

Then I started thinking, u know, the flight was on time that should be appreciated, its all give and take. Yes I didnt get my bag but at least I reach home sooner rather than later...

Then my mind wondered back to where I had just come from...I should have really bottled it up...sighhh withdrawals

daydreamer

2009-12-16T17:45:00.000-08:00

She’s such a daydreamer! She’s a good child but such a daydreamer!

I remember those words so clearly at every PTA meeting, she-is-such-a-daydreamer-. Back then at the age of 12 I associated day dream with all the things I shouldn’t do, that I did anyway.

During double period Maths, I lived in those little worlds I created; sometimes it would be me, KITT (car from the tv show Knight Rider), the mansion by the sea and my cute boy of the moment (Slater from Saved by the Bell, or Tevin Campbell maybe). In that world I didn’t hate those too full lips, these dimples (a.k.a holes in my face) my horrible acne was non existent, my breast were not too big for my age/body and my hair was long and flowing not in those 2 plaits with red and white ribbons.

I could have what I wanted when I wanted it and the best thing was after I got called back into reality (to my great embarrassment) to answer some problem on Integers, Venn Diagrams or some bullshit I would never use in real life, all I had to do was stare out of that window again and I could pick up right where I left off, walking my French poodle near the Eiffel tower.

In there I was safe and satisfied. It was warm and fuzzy and had this special glow. Reality was so cold, and had this blue haze, so different from my warm fuzzy glowy place. If only real life could be like this.

I used to wonder what it would be like to live with both feet in there, not on guard, with one out, ready to jump back into the blue haze. I finally realized: What’s the worst that could happen? Being called crazy?

just shut up! like seriously

2009-11-02T08:35:00.001-08:00

are you not tired of those people, you know those that just talk talk talk and can't or don't back it up. They speak with the most flowerly language, have the biggest plans but unfortunately get the biggest audience as well. These people sicken me, especially when I have to deal with them (not by choice).
Here's an idea, SHUT UP, until you can do something about it.
THE END
choops
D.

P.S: if the cap fit you, then by all means, wear it

Doh come an look for me

2009-10-28T11:12:00.000-07:00

There is a story that has stuck with me from childhood. I always called it Henny Penny and the loaf of bread but its really 'The little red hen'. Well the story goes like this: The little red hen finds a grain of wheat , and asks for help from the other farm yard animals to plant it. However, no animal is willing to volunteer to help her.

At each further stage (harvest, threshing, milling the wheat into flour, and baking the flour into bread), the hen again asks for help from the other animals, but again she gets no assistance.
Finally, the hen has completed her task, and asks who will help her eat the bread. This time, all the previous non-participants eagerly volunteer. However, she declines their help and eats it with her chicks, leaving none for anyone else.

The moral of the story is that those who show no will to contribute to an end product do not deserve to enjoy the end product.

The Government has $1million dollars to support the arts (according to the last budget) in Saint Lucia but show it to me, I cyah see it. When will it be more than just talk? and when will they learn to respect artists in Saint Lucia by at least acknowledgement of simple correspondence.

Well when I win my Oscar doh come an ask me to give no speech, doh come an call me daughter of the soil, doh come an ask me to use my contacts to do yoll favors cause if you doh support me now, doh come an look for me later, bon...oh yeah...and doh come an look for my vote.

peace out

gestures

2009-10-24T06:15:00.000-07:00

In film school you are taught how to direct actors. You learn how to bring across a message on screen with subtle gestures. A simple look, a flick of the hair a bite on the lower lip can all say various things in various situation.

Having that in mind, you learn to read gestures in real life.

Just as filmmakers make good cooks (a proven fact), we also make good human lie detectors.

end of note

concentration

2009-10-22T10:48:00.001-07:00

trying to focus on the work at hand but I am totally distracted by facebook, TV and random thoughts popping in and out of my head. 4 music video treatments about to be due, my screenplay rewrite (very important), 3 commercials and a behind the scenes video. My days seem to be full of skype conference calls (5 this week) and meetings that I can't keep track of, I am definately not complaining and there is no point really to this post... I wouldn't be happy doing anything else so...but just needed to vent a little to ease up on the frustration or because I couldn't concentrate anyway and decided to make a blog entry.

On a wonderfully happy note, I cast a great actor last night for my CEM-award winning film 'The Coming of Org'! more info on this great actor will be posted soon.

I have lost count of the cups of coffee drank, I guess thats why I sleep 3 hours per night. But I love coffee, think i'll have a cup now.

laterz

3 verses of Haiku

2009-10-19T06:34:00.000-07:00

My father introduced me to Haiku. Haiku is a traditional Japanese form of poetry. The most common form for Haiku is three short lines. The first line usually contains five (5) syllables, the second line seven (7) syllables, and the third line contains five (5) syllables. Haiku doesn't rhyme. A Haiku must "paint" a mental image in the reader's mind.

Last night I suddenly had the urge, woke up and wrote 3 verses of Haiku, here goes.

End of Season

with, finality
as the rain poured, down on us
the season ended.

Loudly, engines roar
he escapes down the tarmac
it is now over.

The thrill is gone, now
a natural death it died
well, at least for him.

by Davina Lee 1:54am, 19/10/09

To hate is easy but loving is torture

2009-10-17T10:23:00.000-07:00

When I hate something or someone its quite easy to admit, I don't need a reason, I hate you, end of story. To Love on the other hand, you cannot admit, you fight it and search for the reasons why you should love, but after you find that reason, you are consumed.

To be an artist you must love...thats where the torture starts. It hurts you, you walk away but you come back...to your craft, the thing you love the thing that calls you imperfect, the thing that makes you doubt the thing that keeps you up at night wondering if you're good enough the thing that impresses others but behind closed doors calls you stupid but you love it and you cannot do without it and you will walk to the ends of the earth to find the thing that will make you good enough for it. You pick at it like a scab and it keeps saying leave me alone! but you know just a little more, you ask for another chance, you tell it: in my hands I can make you perfect, lets be perfect...

the pursuit of happiness and the fear of success

2009-10-16T11:03:00.000-07:00

***WARNING this is just me in a moment of fear writing***

there are quite a few things that scare me; bugs, the dark...being alone, being left alone, driving at night alone. But recently something scared me more than usual...I was lost in a fantasy: I had become this Oscar winning film director/ producer, was on everyone's top ten list, was making loads and loads of money...then my breath stopped and I started hyperventilating.

I was suddenly aware of my mortality and every possible health condition I have, had and could have came into my mind to destroy me. I started thinking... what if I had all this success but couldn't enjoy it, what if after I made my first few millions I suddenly couldn't walk or see or speak? What if i died?

Then I noticed, its happening again as it always happens when something huge is possibly about to happen in my life, man it was even happening in my fantasy life. FEAR of not being able to enjoy success, so then whats the point of it in the first place? To be happy right? But how can you be happy with it when you're dead or crippled? and usually its at this point I pray harder than usual, Lord please let me not die or get sick before I can enjoy this moment, please please please Lord.

Its sad when When disappointment is quickly followed by relief (yes! i'll live to see another day).

***THAT WAS JUST ME IN A MOMENT OF WEAKNESS*** disregard after reading

In the strangest places I tell ya

2009-10-15T07:00:00.000-07:00

walking through Castries is normally not a very plesant experience, loud...smelly...and hot are the words that come to mind. But this morning for some reason before it got too hot I found myself being fascinated with the city, wow it had character, I hadn't cared to notice before. Walking along Jeramie street near the Castries Market, where normally I would speed walk through, I found myself strolling and taking in the sites and sounds and even the smell.

There was something special in seeing this dirty man in tattered clothes, baseball cap flattened on his head, original colour unrecognizable, pushing his wooden trolly through the street oblivious to the cars that were honking and swerving to avoid him. His hands strong, pushing without a care in the world, time seemed to be moving in slow motion as I curiously stared until the trance was broken by him stopping to curse out a fat mango vendor seated on the side walk behind her tray, apparently he knew alot about her mother. I quickly walked on avoiding the mango that was aimed at his head but landed in the street yellow juice flying in all directions, causing a bank worker in high heels to lose all the dignity required for her job and let vendor know exactly what she thought of her mother in the rawest kweyol you ever heard.

Walking further along I noticed, hanging in one of the shops located below the CDC (Government Built Apartments in the City Center), a huge black bubble jacket with fur in the hood meant for a much colder climate. I chuckled to myself yet I wasn't surprised that this attire would be on sale since I had been spotting them everywhere. In the Club (where the AC wasn't functioning all that well), In the cinema (I guess it was a little chilly in there), Gros-Islet street party?

I continued strolling till I got to the William Peter Boulevard and was accosted by a one legged, toothless man, leaning on a home-made crutch with one hand and holding up a sheet of paper in the other asking me to sponsor him...I stared at him curiously then smiled...wow he and the city had just given me the inspiration for my next screenplay.

I get inspired by the strangest things I tell ya.

D.

Giving up...well its the easiest thing to do

2009-10-14T10:30:00.000-07:00

I learnt an important lesson a long time ago, back when I didn't realize that I was actually learning a lesson and setting the course for the rest of my life.

I was 16 and my sister Esther was 14 at the time, we were bored out of our minds and needed some form of stimulation. Flipping through limited TV channels didn't do much...I don't remember who said it, whether it was me or Esther..."there is seriously nothing on TV, we should have our own TV show and we could star in it!"

A wave of excitement suddenly took over and we approached it like all our other experiments:
trying to make a new perfume using my mother's Chanel No.5 mixed with water and pencil shavings (when we were about 4 & 6years old) until she caught us in the act or trying to make a new brand of cereal (our version of rice crispies) which with tons and tons of naive enthusiasm we called: OILY RICE! which my mother advised after coming into her smoke filled kitchen: that people might be turned off by the name...and the rubbery taste of the rice fried in vegetable oil...it wasnt so bad however when you had it with milk...receipe needed work...

so there we were filled with all the passion in the world, pulled out our note pads and went to the patio to have a serious meeting about the TV show we would make and star in. Our plan: go to the tv stations tell them we're bored and we have an idea, they were sure to just fall head over heels in love with the idea that we would give them and they would shoot it and put us on tv! like duh...

well...not duh...
the tv station was not interested in shooting anything for the two of us unless there was money involved..Money??? first time we had even thought about money!

TV STATION: great idea, here's what we will do for you, give you a 10% discount on the airtime we will sell to you!
US: huh?

We went back home to hold another board meeting on our patio, we had to produce our show get it shot and find advertisers who would pay for our airtime, oh yeah we had to pay someone to shoot it too! So those advertisers will have to pay for them too. That should be easy, I mean its a great idea a show aimed at bored teens all over Saint Lucia those advertisers will just fall head over heels in love with it DUH!

duh? duh? not duh at all

Conversation with potential advertiser:

Advertisers: little girls show us something, what are we spending our money on? what is this show about???
US: but here is the proposal..duh
Advertisers: no no no we need to see a pilot
US: (looking at each other as if to ask: who needs to fly a plane?)
Advertisers: A pilot...a first episode of the show so we know what its about
US: ohhhh

Back to the boadroom/patio:
Who is going to shoot our pilot that we can show to the advertisers that are going to pay us to promote them in our show so we can by airtime on the tv station that will play our show so we can be on TV? breath...

Thank God for family: ring ring hey Fimbar we have a TV Show blah blah blah
Fimbar: hey sounds good lets do it

to make a potentially long story short: we filmed the pilot a bunch of girls and guys talking about what they liked and disliked in the opposite sex, us staring, music playing what could be better, they must love it well the first advertiser was not impressed and neither was the next

BUT....4 years later after walking up and down then driving up and down (since I turned of age to have a drivers liscense in that period) to advertiser after advertiser without being fazed and never believing that it wasnt going to happen, finally someone said yes!

DUH we knew they would love it and we were finally on tv, 10 episodes of 'Vibe Central' moved on to a documentary on child prostitution then I was like, man I like this! its time for film school!

But what I learnt when I looked back on that situation was that being young we never brough what IFs into anything it was always DUH!!! but as an adult you think rationally and while that maybe good in some situations when it comes to your dreams you need to keep the passion and optimism of your childhood days!
Like duh...

D.

I wanna make a feature film...using my laptop to shoot it!

2009-10-14T05:10:00.000-07:00

I am currently in the process of raising the funds for my first film: The Coming of Org. But in the meantime i was thinking....why not make another experimental Feature using the webcam on my laptop!!!

I have been experimenting with my webcam and making shorts, check them out here http://www.youtube.com/davinafilms

With so much technology available to us its becoming easier to tell stories on a limited or no budget.

Its just important that you dont try to make a hollywood flick on a laptop budget...so I was thinking along the lines of Blair Witch project perhaps. Maybe i'll do my feature on boloms (short evil thing from Saint Lucian folklore) and soucouyants (vampire-like creature) hmmm, I think so, would be a way to bring Saint Lucian folk stories to the screen at the same time experimenting with a new medium of filming.

I was recently given an Award/ Technical Grant for my film (The Coming of Org) from UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development Organization). As part of the award I had a chance to meet with the 6 other winners from around the region as well as International Film Practitioners.

One of the people who left a huge impression was Khavn De La Cruz, hailed as the most active filmmaker in the Philippines. He has made twenty-three features and more than seventy short films, most of which have received prizes, given retrospectives, and presented in international film festivals. He has served as a jury member in the Clermont-Ferrand (France), Copenhagen (Denmark), Jeonju (Korea), Jihlava (Czech Republic), & Berlinale (Germany) film festivals. He is the president of the independent film company Filmless Films and the festival director of .MOV, the first digital film festival in the Philippines.

What I learnt from him is use what is available to you. So during a conversation with him late one night and buzzed on red wine I decided: hey lets make a movie using one of my dad's (John Robert Lee) poems...and my Laptop! So here it is: http://www.youtube.com/user/davinafilms#p/u/3/ini_8V6e3eQ

In less than 30 minutes it was shot and edited, that was quick I thought...I could do this often...if i'm bored: make a movie, if i'm excited: make a movie, in a bad mood: make a movie!

A film doesnt always have to be a story told in the normal way using the usual tools. You can pick up your laptop and film the traffic going by, its the added elements e.g music, voice over, text that will help make it interesting or maybe not, maybe its just the traffic thats needed to tell the story with its own ambient sound!

Who's the authority on what a film is supposed to be anyway! Go on do your thing, make a piece of art...thats what I say