the old navy episodes - neon nights part 3

it was day seven of the shoot.

it was night, we shot from dusk til two a.m.

richard placed every piece of neon. we wet the streets. we ran film (and marilia) over and over.




paul, counting down the last few hours:



the grafitti we had to negotiate for,
placed on the back wall of the monastery.
their only comment?
"too much blue"
wha?



kira, taking on the red camera for a few passes:


my girls,
my enablers,
and i don't wanna go to rehab:



hidden in the neon,
messages. "sarah". the year we were founded:



the wind down, at the end, we projected the film from all seven days on the wall,
watched, and remembered the intensity:


although obvious,
this is something i will never forget.

the old navy episodes - neon nights part 2

making the band:

1) find a great talent on myspace. light Lights.

2) use her music to guide the stories of each episode.

3) fly her down to buenos aires and set her up to perform in the final episode.

4) use connie bang and michael manacop as the "backup band". just so you can slag makeup all over them.

there. that wasn't so hard:




(i'm not saying connie used these. i'm just saying look at the "after effect")

the old navy episodes - neon nights part 1

the last spot of the series,
from morning, to night.

deep in the bowels of "bahrain",
THE nightclub in buenos aires,
we filmed the club scenes all day, edging into evening . . .

marilia barocco, our lead, was amazing.
her first spot, in fact,
her first modeling job even,
she was a young jennifer garner, natural, emotive, amazing:



rita made sure i was clear,
in spanish, portuguese, and english:


sam, paul, karim, and sebastian:



and yamila, marilia, nina and sarah:


then the lights went on,
and the cast took off:


ok, we all took off.

my friends are all posers -

no, wait.

it's just connie. connie bang's a big old poser.

and damn. she GOOD at it . . .

put the camera down, ellen -

so my grandmother, ellen,
always had a camera on hand.

always.

it seemed like every time you turned around, there she was, snapping away with the flashbulbs that took forever to recharge (you learned quickly how to HOLD a smile), with bags full of kodak ektachrome film, with polaroids. she was always documenting our every breath, even down to telling us to breathe heavier in the cold because the smoke looked pretty coming out of our mouths.

and my grandfather, bob, he was always saying: "PUT THE CAMERA DOWN, ELLEN!"

he just wanted her to sit next to him for a bit.

and we all groaned about it and made faces and begrudgingly gave in,
but in the end, she always had the satisfaction of that stack of pictures,
that stack of pictures that everyone HAD to have a copy of, HAD to see, HAD to look through.

nana knew.

i started taking pictures like she did years ago, obsessed with documenting what i could of our life, of getting it all down. part of it was just to have artistic shots of my young life, but it turned into (with the advent of digital and online sites) a form of ongoing narrative, a montage or a flipbook of events major and minor in my life, then tim's and my life.

hence, every time there is a mirror and good light:


or a shoulder turn and a sightline through the flashes:


or a pensive, and handsome, look to see what has just been captured:


i'm THERE, camera up:


now i'm not on the level of my friend, benjamin.

he's make nana proud.


but i try. and i'm lucky.

because tim never tells me to put the camera down.