Rooney Mara

Last year around this time, just before my return to Istanbul, I was having my last days in Helsinki. It was around mid-December. Most of my friends were already gone to celebrate the Christmas so I was pretty much left alone and I was discovering Helsinki for the last time. I was visiting my favorite spot, Orion to watch black and white movies from the mid-fifties and I was having a cup of coffee in the bar next to the film theater. Helsinki was in a way a perfect place to discover myself. I could walk by myself in the afternoon when the city was almost in the dark but you could still spot the blues in the sky as well as warm colors coming from restaurants and bars.. which was a perfect mixture to describe being alone and not feeling bad about yourself.

Then The Social Network (2010) came around and I went to see it just before I came back. Besides the fact that I was inspired by the film, there was one thing that attracted me more than the film itself. And that was Rooney Mara who played the ex-girlfriend of the main character.

Rooney Mara was born in 1985 and this makes it my peer. I really don't know much about her except she is a very talented actress but I also believe that, deep inside, she is a very beautiful girl..

Today I had a chance to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) with my father and realized that the film was shot in Sweden. Suddenly I felt at home since I realized the filmmaker had benefited from this dark blues and warm colors that surrounds Scandinavian cities. I realized I missed being there. And Mara was there to produce this film. This connection made me happy.

11 Years

"The Matrix" was released 11 years ago in 1999. I was 14. I saw the film for the first time in a movie theater in Izmir "Karaca" and the minute I got our of the movie theater I knew I wanted to be a filmmaker.
Morpheus believes in Neo. He thinks he is the One and will be their savior. The whole story is based on the idea if he is really the One. The Oracle says that he isn't but maybe in another life. She says someone will die and that Neo has to make a choice. Neo sacrifices himself for Morpheus because he believes he is not the One and Morpheus is more important than him. He saves Morpheus and then is killed by the Agents.
But somehow, he is resurrected. He gets up and stops the bullets. He becomes the "One". If he wasn't killed, he wouldn't be the "One".
Sometimes, all it takes to understand our mission in our lives is a change. A change that will makes us aware what we want and what we desire. Neo had to die to become the "One" without that he was just a normal person.
Sometimes we do mistakes. What I learn from my mistake is actually myself. It reminds me what I love and who I care.

Missing the Reality

Last Friday, I found out that two close friends of mine are getting engaged. I was very surprised by that and of course very happy. The reason why I was very surprised by that is because it is not something that occurs very often in my life. Or because I am just getting older and older (though I am only 24), that kind of event will occur more often that usual because all my friends and I are getting in a period where we can officially work, have a career, get married and have kids.
Actually, that wasn't the only factor that I was affected by this event. That we are getting adults. But I started questioning myself. What am I doing for god's sake. Sometimes you lose yourself in trying to make long terms plans for your life and for your career and you lose the reality and what is happening around you. You forget to be happy. You forget that you can actually love someone, meet someone or even have a conversation with someone. As an individual who always had issues on having intimate relationships with the opposite sex, it gave me a chance to question myself. And I am happy for that.
When I think about my past relationships, I can't stop thinking about the notion space and time. Thought I was always close to my girlfriends in case of in the same city or even sometimes in the same house, the idea of making progress in life, achieving something always destroyed my relationships. And I wasn't always the guilty one. The objectives and our passions in our lives made us so different that our relationship became a conflict for them and it was something that we had to abandon. It always led us to loneliness.
Now, I am scared of having a relationship. One reason for that is because I cannot really trust anybody. You say "Relationship? What for?" You know that it is going to end with a failure again. Does it worth it? I don't know.

Missing the Camera

It has been quite a long time since I didn't shot anything. I am dying to shoot something. Anything. Short film, documentary, music videos whatever I can get. The reason why I haven't shot anything for a long time is because recently I have decided to take part in big projects that I could only work as an assistant director or assistant editor. But now, I have the confidence to take full responsibility as a cinematographer or director to realize projects. The other reason why I stopped working as a cameraman is my thesis project that I have mentioned before. After my thesis project, I felt like I lost my ability and I didn't have what was required for this profession. But I was wrong. I am not going to listen any criticize and I will not be afraid of making mistakes. And I will not apologize because I am using the latest camera, sorry middle age old fashioned cinematographers located in Istanbul but this is the future and you are already too behind.

...

From now on, I will write all my dreams on my blog. I always thought about writing my dreams somewhere because I usually forget them even the ones that really affects me.
I think I had this dream in 2008 but I am not really sure. But I know it has been more than one year. I am from Izmir but my parents are from Akhisar, Manisa. I lived all my life in Izmir. My grandmother still lives in Akhisar and she lived in the same house I think for more than 30 years. So I only saw the house that she is living now and didn't see the previous ones.
When I was younger or when I was kid, we used to go there every holiday to see my grandparents. It is one of these usual grandparent's houses where every children may feel annoyed when he is there because there is really nothing special about it and there isn't really a decent television.
In the dream, I am at the same age as I am now and I am alone in my grandmother's house which I think never happened before. I have never stayed there by myself, there was always other people, my parents or my grandmother. A knock in the door and I go to check the door. Two middle age men which from their appearances, you can understand that they are local, they may be farmer or something, they enter in the house without asking me anything. I don't understand and I feel stressed about it but they don't tell me anything except pushing me. They go to the living room and I am trying to understand what is going on. One of them sits by the table where there is a laptop. (I have never seen a laptop in this house before because I never took mine there, and of course because my grandmother doesn't have one.) The other one starts to push me by the window. I can remember harsh light coming in from the window, It is in the middle of daytime and I am trying to get these people out of the house. The other one turns on the laptop and he starts to surf on the Internet. The one who was pushing me goes next to him to see what is on the laptop. They are now not talking and watching the screen. I am going close to them to understand what they are watching and I see that they are watching a porn film on the Internet.
That was a very tense dream which I am thinking about it for a very long time to understand why have I dream something like that. Needless to say, for me, it was a nightmare.

Sweet Smell of Success

I always think about successful people because in a way I don't want to be a loser in life. I want to be appreciated. I want my grandmother to tell her friends that she is proud of me and that in a way I made all the clever choices in life and I always worked hard and I made something out of my life. When I got in a film program in 2004, she didn't tell her friends that I was going to study film. But what is success really? 2008 was the worst year in my life. I mean it was really bad. I was working for my thesis project which was a short film that I wanted to do but I really got unlucky during the production process. Okay, I have to admit, I had a very weak script and I just couldn't make it better. I felt like the main character in Barton Fink, I mean whatever I did just didn't work for that script. My intention was to make a film about characters because that would enable me to really work closely with actors and acting and I was thinking that could sharpen my skills of directing. I think I was right in that way if there is one thing I don't regret, this is it. But the script? It was a nightmare! The other problem was that I just couldn't find a decent professor who would go with me with all the process of scriptwriting. When it came to casting, it just got worst. I mean let tell you something about the young generation actors situated in Istanbul. Of course there may be exceptions but they are really running away from the hard work. I visited all the universities which had theatre program. I mean what are you waiting for? I am an aspiring film student and you want to be an actor, what are you waiting for? Are you waiting an invitation from Spielberg? This is a chance for you to show yourself, to experiment, to know yourself and even if you don't want that, it is an opportunity to know people. I mean what more can I say. Most of the actors in Istanbul, they live in Cihangir, they usually go to tv serial shooting (which I think is a nightmare) for two or three days a week and the rest of the time, they drink tea in the middle of Cihangir doing nothing! They sit there with there huge ego talking about how big they will become as an actor in the future. Let me tell you something. You are not going anywhere and you are not going to leave Cihangir for the rest of your life! But I am sure the second one is what you expect from life. Like I said before, there are some exceptions. For example, the actress which I could find in the last moment was really great and she really wanted to be a part of it. I was very luck to have her.
The day when I was going to show my film to the professors in my university, I was stressed. There were about 40 or 50 people in the screening room and I always feel weird when I watch my work with the audience. After the screening, when I got up in front of everybody, there was an uncomfortable silence for about a minute. Than people started to yell about how bad the film was. I just coulnd't say anything. And I worked hard not to cry there.
I was feeling very bad but I just had to find a way to get over it. After 3 days of screening, I was going to start to work in a feature film as an assistant director which I was waiting eagerly, I was invited there by my professor which I had a great relationship in the school, I wasn't going to get paid but I really liked the director and I was looking forward to it. At the same time, I got an e-mail from the film school that I applied two months before saying that they were interested in my portfolio but wanted to know more about me and I made a schedule with them on the day of my birthday, 2nd of july, for the interview. I had 2 weeks before that day.
People I started to work with on the feature were really mean to me. I think this is something that I will never understand for the rest of my life because I don't know why they acted this way. My professor too, was very hard on me and I just didn't know what to do. I was trying to be positive all the time but everything I said or did was wrong for them. I was already feeling very bad because of my graduation film and this was very hard for me. Every time, I thought about quitting, I said to myself not to give up and every time I wanted to speak to my professor, he never had time for me and everytime I wanted to ask him about something, he would yell at me for no reason. I mean why?
The day before the interview, I told them that I was going to have an interview tomorrow, we had to go to Beykoz for the production, than at some point, I would go back to my house to get online on skype. Tomorrow morning, when I was at Beykoz, my brother who was staying with me called me that there were calling me on skype from the school. I couldn't believe it. I always thought it was going to be in the afternoon but not in the morning. I was working so hard that I just couldn't realize it was going to be in the morning. I called the school, they gave me 15 minutes!! From Beykoz to Sisli?! I arrived home in 45 minutes but it was already too late. I missed the interview with Brian Tufano and I missed my chance. And it was my birthday. And for a very long time, I really felt like a loser. I still do.