October 30, 2006, cinematographer Wolfgang Held and I landed in Phoenix and drove north to Cordes Junction, where we’d spend the next three days shooting Arcosanti, Cosanti, Dome House, and interview Paolo Soleri. November 3, 2006 we left Cordes Junction and drove to Santa Fe to shoot the Paolo Soleri Amphitheater. November 5th, 2006 we were back in NYC. It seems both like a long time ago and not so long ago.
I had flown out to AZ in August of that year to meet with Soleri and discuss the possibility of his participation in the film (see, From Concept to First Day of Shooting), and Wolfgang and I had shot a lecture Soleri gave at the New School in NYC earlier in October, but for me, this was beginning of the shoot. I suppose that’s because this was the first of the interviews.
Before I started writing this post, I had an idea it would be about how we perceive the passing of time, but it seems this entry wants to be about the semantic differences of “begin” and “start,” so that’s what I’m going with. It occurs to me that the film had a beginning sometime, though when exactly I can’t say, and throughout the process of making it there have been many starts—for example, the start of production, and within that when we started filming each of the subjects, and within those when we started shooting in Cordes Junction and Cave Creek, or Chicago and Waco, or Copemish and Roys Redwood Preserve, or Mountainview and Hat Creek. And within those when we pressed the Record button. And now, the start of post-production.
I suppose there are many finishes, too, and maybe only one end?
Next post: a clip of the first things we shot at Arcosanti and some ruminations on the art of easing in to things.
Photo by Niall David. Niall contributed a wonderful post that contains a slideshow of his great photos of Arcosanti. Make sure to give it a looksee.