Monday, March 12, 2007

Life in February 2007

Hello everyone,

How are you doing? Very well I hope. Month has passed again I notice. Not great changes, but still it has been an unique month.

Mostly it has been about school. We had the critique-session for Fiktio-1, first fiction-movies made by our group that is. Fiktio-2 means the second fiction movies made by our group and so on. These are short-films of course, not full-length movies. We don't get to do full length feature-films in this school. You gotta wait till you are pro I quess.

The short-film Tahdon, the one I directed, got both positive feedback and critique. On the whole the feedback was constructive I thought. I felt better after this session than I had felt in the previous critique-sessions we've had. Maybe I am getting used to this.

Some hightlights for this month: One weekend in Jyväskylä...Seeing and hearing Profeetta at Lutakko. ( Check out Profeetta's myspace profile.) There was also a great norwegian DJ who threw us a good party. Electro-stuff. My friend Soila left to Italy. We had a party at her parents place. Afterwards we went to a nightclub. That was a very good evening too. I hope Soila enjoys Italy.

Olavi and Emma won Emma-awards ( Finnish music-awards). Olavi for best jazz-release.. Oddarrang: Music Illustrated ( Check out Oddarrang's myspace-site). And Emma for female-singer/artist of the year. Olavi and Emma rules ok.

Nice party at our school too. The Studio-party, Last wednesday. Band called Silvio played there. I knew the guys in Silvio. We played football in same club when I was still living in Helsinki. I bought their album Amass all you can. Original stuff.

I've been trying to look up some summer-work. So far, no luck. I need to make a proper CV and spend more time with this.
I hope I will get to do something that is meaningful for me.

Best movies I saw in February: Lady Vengeance and Tristram Shandy. Also Ingmar Bergman's Saraband was good one.

Last weekend I went to Tampere film festival. I saw some brilliant documents there. French, Polish, American and documents made by Sami people from Lapland. Sami's are the indigenous people of Lappland. They are the only indigenous people in European Union. There are about 100.000 Sami people. They live mostly in northern Finland, Norway, Sweden and Russia. I liked the Sami-documentaries. They had warmth and presence in them. Some very lovely people were interviewed.

Last month I told you about this Home With God book. Here are few quotes from the book:

"YOu are always immersed in the Divine. You are immersed in it right now. Indeed, you are it. YOu are divinity, immersed in Divinity, expressing Itself as the Individuated Aspect of Divinity know as YOu." p.35

" There is nowhere to go, nothing you have to do, and nothing you have to be, except exactly what you are being right now., in order to experience the bliss of the Divine. YOu ARE the bliss of the Divine, and you simply do not know it." p.185

And here is one poem I wrote awhile ago....
it is called
256 lives.

After 3 lives I had gained some consciousness

After 9 lives I had learned something about cause and effect

After 15 lives I knew something about lust and affection

After 30 lives I knew something about hate

After 33 lives I knew about revenge

After 40 lives I knew about betrayal

After 49 lives I knew much more about pain and depression

After 57 lives I knew more about sickness

After 64 lives I knew something about compassion

After 71 lives I knew something about Holiness

After 79 lives I knew something about humbleness

After 85 lives I knew more about friendship

After 89 lives I knew about disappointment

After 94 lives I knew much more about perseverance and determination

After 102 lives I knew about power

After 107 lives I knew about sex

After 111 lives I knew about passion

After 119 lives I knew about art

( I will finish this poem in my next mail. Something for you guys to keep you coming back, eh? )

Have an enjoyable month. Let us try to remain joyfull and count all the good things in our lives.

Much love to you , Lauri Anssi Write to me. I love to hear from you.

ps. If you have not seen it watch Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth. Everyone on this planet should see that movie.
Peace.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Winter-days. Reflections from Jan.07

Dear friends,

Long time no post. But Life does not stop. New year started, holidays ended, school started. During my holiday time I finished one school project. It was titled " Significant event" -Merkittävä kokemus. One had to choose one experience from one's life and make a 1-min film about it. My topic was a religious crisis. So, I played myself being 17-years old and very confused and looking for clarity. I still have confusion in my life I quess but perhaps not that much and not in that exact form.

Next project was fiction film made with a crew of 10 people, largest group I have worked with so far in film-projects. I was directing this project. I think it went well considering it was my first time in this kind of situation. Almost half of the movie was shot outside. And it was quite cold there. Our group took it pretty well I think.
The story in this little film was about a young couple and their relationship. The woman has been paralyzed from the waist down, so she's in a wheelchair. And the guy has hard time with this situation too. I won't say more now in case I'll show it to you one day. It took us three days to shoot this project.

The school started full-on in early January and it hasn't really slowed down. I am trying to keep up. And I ought to start looking for summer-jobs too. That's how this wheel spins in my life.

What else? I don't really know. It seems that school takes most of my time. In the evenings I am in the internet... surfing, chatting with friends or then I watch a movie. I don't really have hobbies, except occasional meditation-classes at zen-center.

It was really cold few weeks back. Well over -20 C. First it felt crazy, this weather, but somehow the body adjusted. Now it has warmed up a bit.
Talking about weather... the energy-debate is very much on here in Finland now when the parliamentary-elections are approaching. And there was also this big EU-conference where they agreed to reduce 20% emissions in EU by year 2035. ( I quote from my memory. Figures might be wrong. ) That is the goal anyhow.

I also read interesting articles about how our brain works. I had been convinced for a long time that our mind can actually alter our physical brain-structure, but I had not seen many articles, scientific articles abou this. Well, now there was many articles devoted to this stuff in Time-magazine.
" In its place ( the old dogmas about brain being very much fixed in form and hard-wired. ) has come the realization that the adult brain retains impressive powers of neuroplasticity- the ability to change its structure and function in response to experience." ( from an article How the brain rewires itself by Sharon Begley ) The mind can change the brain seems to be the conclusion from some recent studies in brain-science. Thinking can change patterns in the brain... patterns that are related to depression for example. Richard Davidson, neuroscientist, has also studied Buddhist monks with FMRI scans to find out if positive states of mind such as compassion and happiness are something that could be developed by systematic mental training. The results are strongly suggesting the affirmative.

I also finished reading Neale Donald Walsch's book Home With God. It is the latest and possibly the last from Conversations With God series. These books have had a great impact on me. They have been changing the way I think and live my life. I was especially moved by these book when I was in college and in Snellman-school few years ago. These books are so positive.. but not in a make-believe "oh the world is just pink flowers and butterflies" kind of way. It addresses the biggest problems too. I really recommend these books. Books can't change your life by themselves but they can remind us of the important things we might have forgotten. They can be pointers to truth and beauty within ourselves.

I also saw Joona Toivanen trio playing in Kypärämäki last weekend. That made my day! Many friends were there. My parents came to see the concert too. The atmosphere was warm and peaceful. I had my video-camera with me there. oh yeah, I did not tell you about that earlier. I got a way cool video-camera from my parents for christmas-present! They brought it from Malaysia. It was lot cheaper there. Camera uses mini-dv's. It is very handy. I love it.

Best movies in January: Samaritan Girl ( Kim Ki-DUk) Stalker ( Tarkovsky) , Pan's Labyrinth ( Del Toro ?) and Ordinary People ( Robert Redford). These four movies are really good, so if you find them watch them. Highly recommended. More movie ratings from my flixster-site. I do not know if you can browse my ratings without signing in? Not sure.

One semi-secret hobby that I've had lately has been O.C- the first season. OC works for me. Yeah sure, it is not perfect but it is entertaining and at times it has some well-working serious drama too. I like it. I am gonna finish the whole season soon.

I wish you very magical and beautiful and enjoyable month.
At your service,
Lauri Anssi

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Movie-ratings!

Hello dear friends,
Check out my almost new flixster-site. I have rated hundreds of movies. So now if you are in doubt which movie to watch this weekend you can just go to this site and choose from my selection. Just kidding. Each to his/her own taste, right?

Anyways, this is the address:

http://anssi7.flixster.com
Consider joining yourself, because I'd love to see what are your favourite movies. No, this is not an add for flixster, I just love talking about movies.
Have a great day,
Blessed Be,
Lauri Anssi

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Greetings my friends! November&December revisited.

Dear Friends,

It will be again two posts in one here. Right now I am on holiday. Yes! I am very much enjoying it. It has just snowed here in Jyväskylä. It was not very white christmas this year. Maybe five centimetres on snow at christmas eve. I am staying at my parent's house for this holiday. Taking care of Napoleon. We are doing two walks a day, and I am feeding him well. My parents are in Malaysia. In Kuala Lumpur at the moment. They are enjoying the place. It is very warm there.

The critique for my 3min-film was pretty good. Some said that it was hard to understand what it was about. I don't mind that. It is good to have room for many interpretations. Especially if it is an experimental film. The name of that work was 'Suuri Kohtaaminen' - the great encounter. A man is visited by another man who is about the same age but claims to be his father. That's how it starts.

The next larger project was the first fiction-film we were doing as a group. My role was to be an actor. In general, I like acting. So I was looking forward to this project. I think it went pretty well. This movie was about a dysfunctional couple, who lives in small apartment. The guy is treating the woman badly. The woman is resentful. Then the man wins in lottery. A big sum. Now woman sees that her chance to avenge has come. That's the basic plotline for this film, as I saw it. The genre would be comedy.

We also did a drama-project with no pictures involved. A recording, from a script that our main-teacher Erkki had written. The script was divided in three parts. Each director was given one part to direct, one third from the whole script approximately. Director could choose the genre or perspective of his segment. This was a hard project. I wanted my part to have somekind of hook in it, so that it would be interesting. But because the part was quite short, only two pages or so, and one could use only sound...it was not easy to make it very original. Well, I did my best. We still have the post-production work to do with Toivo, the sound-engineer for this project.

The cristmas-party for our movie-department was good fun. We had made a little comedy video for it. 'Kuusi-video'. In this little sketch I am the leader of the bunch and I order them to get me a christmas-tree. The group does its best, but they start to fight with each other. So, in the end nobody really gets credit for the tree-operation. Boss gets his tree though.
I was little nervous in the party before they showed our 3min-films for the older students. But it went very well. Older students were supportive. Laughed in the appropriate parts and said right kind of compliments afterwards..hehee!

There was also quite big christmas-party for the whole school. There was a good band and a good dj there. People were in cheery mood. Everyone was ready to go to holidays. We had almost finished our recordings and I had moved into a new flat. It was a good night to have a party. I like it that they have these parties in out school and not in some bar in the city.

I did not leave to Jyväskylä right away. I had to clean my old flat first. And I decided to visit my godfather and godmother in Hartola, which is not that far away from Lahti. Pretty much halfway between jyväskylä and Hartola. That was a good trip.

It took some days before I really started to relax. It is different kind of mentality that I strive to have in holiday-time. I want to do "pointless" things, not worry about getting things done. Holidays are being-time, not doing-time. I love doing things and creating things, but I am not able to appreciate 'doing' if I don't take time to just 'be'. It is so easy to turn even your 'freetime' into somekind of chore, somekind of have-to-do thing. Like, ' I gotta read this book during this holiday. I gotta see these and these people before my holiday ends.' This kind of thinking creates unnecessary stress.

The christmas went fine. We visited our grandmother in Palokka. She lives in this old people's home. They have their own apartments in that building though. Later I ate delicious christmas dinner at my friend's house. They were very kind to invite me there.
I have also spent plenty of time with Napoleon. Walking in the neighbourhood, throwing the ball, stuff like that.
I received nice christmas-gifts: movies, music, money, a book by DalaiLama ( my brother gave me that. I am very pleased. )
for example.

And of course I have watched many good movies during these two months. One very good one was Emir Kusturica's Underground.

I hope you all had good Christmas. And I also hope you are having a peacefull and joyfull holidaytime. Much love to you.

Lauri Anssi

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Greetings from September and October!

Dear friends,

It's been a long time since I've updated my blog. So, now I try to cover up more things than usually.
How are you doing? I am doing rather well. I am in the new school. Learning about movies, making movies. New city, new flat, new place to live.
What have I done here so far?
Well, like I told in my last mail there was this little problem I encountered here: The school had taken already three directors to our group. They thought that that was enough. So they asked if I could consider doing more camerawork and editing. That was not cool with me because I had applied into that school with director/screenwriter role in my mind. In the exam I had done tasks that were tailored for students who are to specialize in directing/scriptwriting.
Well, Then we talked about it. And we talked a little bit more about it. Finally we, meaning teachers, myself and our group, came into a conclusion that I would be the fourth director in our group. I was happy about this. I hope I can fill these boots well.

Many things are different here compared to my life in Jyväskylä ( being in University and Steiner-school ) earlier. I don't have much old friends here. There is more work to be done for the school. There is more group-work here. The tasks we are doing are more artistic and creative by nature. I quess, all in all, I enjoy doing this type of work more than doing academic work, though academic work can be fulfilling too.

What kind of work have we been doing here? We have done scripts, story outlines. They look like comics. We did lot of those during the first few weeks. Then there is design/art classes- they resemble the classes I did back in art-college. Visual art.
Then there is camerawork, editing, movie-analysis and art-history.

I have done three short-films now. First assignment we got was to make a 1-minute documentary about this city-Lahti. No dialogue. I shot lot of material for that assignment. It was hard to decide which shots I should include. For me the first task was mostly about just learning how to use camera and editing-program.
Second assignment was to do a 1-minute film about some person I knew. No dialogue. I chose Asla, a five-year old boy, who is my friend Sanna's son. I enjoyed that task. I gathered lots of material for this film also. Again it was hard to edit it to one minute. I was quite pleased with the result though. The last project was a "free" one. Three minutes max. One could use music and dialogue. And this could be experimental too. I liked this project a lot. I went Jyväskylä to do it. Few of my friends helped me with it. I am thankful for them about this. I think the end result was pretty good, considering that none of us did not have much experience in doing movies. Tomorrow we have a critique for these 3-minute films. I am a little bit nervous about it.

The critique-sessions we have after the projects are finished are interesting ...and challenging. One hears the opinion of one's fellow students and Erkki's opinion. Erkki is our "head-teacher", the main-teacher sorta. Both he and other students are often honest and tough with their comments. This has been sometimes challenging for me. Maybe because I am myself very aware of all the areas I not so good at, and rather than getting that pointed out I would need encouragement and tips of how to do it better. The standards are the same for everyone regardless of our background. But some of us have more experience of doing movies than others. But I am not saying that this is necessarily bad.. how we are doing things here. I am just reflecting on how I've experienced it. And of course we also get "positive" feedback too here. It's not only about what does not work.

I've been watching plenty of movies here. In this school we also watch films in schooltime. We study them. Some good films I watched in September... Road to Guantanamo, Godfather 2, Innocence, Koyaanisqatsi, Battleship Potemkin and Citizen Kane.
Some good films I watched in October: Born in 4th of July, Heat, The Time of the Wolf, Clockers, Powaqqatsi, Devil wears prada.
These are not all good in same way of course. Some are more entertaining, some are more intense emotionally.

In October I had my 25th birthday. I had a party both in Jyväskylä and in Helsinki. It was so good to see all these friends together! Thank you everyone for coming. Now I have been here for one quarter of a century! I plan to stay here for quite a long time still. Lots has happened but even more is yet to happen in the future!

In October Mother Amma visited Finland again. I went to see her and hug her. She is known as the hugging saint. This was a very good weekend. It was very uplifting to be in that atmosphere.

That's going to be all for now, for I need to be awake tomorrow in the critique. However, I might loosen up a bit with my blog and write short updates and thoughts whenever I feel like it. Okay, we will see how it goes.
I hope you have had a good Autumn/Spring! Have a great day today! Lots of love and blessings to you my friend,

peace Lauri Anssi

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Greetings, August06!

Dear Friends,

How are you? Very well I hope. It has been quite a month for me.

The big news first: About three weeks ago I got an unexpected phonecall. The call was from this movie-school I had applied to last spring. They said that they would have a place for me in the school. The schoil would start in early September, which meant that I had about two and half weeks to find myself a flat in a new city, quit my job and basically rearrange my plans for near-future big time. But since I thought that this was my big break I said yes almost right away. I had been trying to get into this school for three times.
I thought that I did not have any chance to get in this year, because they had not picked me in the first place- I had a chance to get in only if someone ( who got chose right away ) would not take the place. They take only ten people in, so not many people decline the offer. There are lots of people applying to the school.
But so it happened that I got this call and I got the place. I was happy.
I was worried, though, about the situation at my workplace ( Jyväskylä Steiner School). We had made a verbal deal that I would be there at least half a year. I did not want to let them down. But neither did I want to miss this chance. I asked my "boss" nicely if she could try to find someone to replace me quickly, so I could start my studies in Lahti. She was very understanding and said yes. I agreed to work at the school untill they find someone to replace me...or untill my school starts.

I think I did not tell much about my job at Steiner-school earlier. Well, I was helping one student specifically but also acted as a helping-teacher in the class. In the breaktime I was outdoors seeing that "my student" and the other kids were behaving nicely there. I got to teach couple of lessons by myself to the class plus in the music-lessons I got to teach them 'Waltzing Matilda'(the Australian version).

I enjoyed that job. It was demanding, but it was nice to teach my student and the class, see them learning things. It would've been interesting year if I would've stayed there. Maybe one day I return to that school. The kids had drawn me comics as a farewell-gift. Actually, they were not just comics, but ideas for movies that they would like to see being done. A great gift.

So, I've been very busy with this shift. I managed to find myself a decent flat in Lahti quite quickly. Lahti is a bit larger city compared to Jyväskylä. There is about 100,000 people here. The city is located about 100km north from Helsinki. They just built a new train-connection between Lahti and Helsinki. Now you can get to Helsinki in about 50 minutes. That is good news. I've got many friends in Helsinki, and there are often interesting events taking place there.

One interesting event took place yesterday. Me and Olavi went to see Finland play against Portugal ( a football-match that is). Finland has played very well now. They beat Poland abroad 3-1 and had a 1-1 draw with Portugal yesterday. The stadium was sold-out. If they keep playing this well, there will be football-fever here soon.

I like my new school. Our student-group seems to be a good bunch of people. Our teachers seem to be good people too. We have good equipment here, good setting to make interesting projects.
There is one problem that has arised since I started here at this school, but since I cannot formulate it well enough yet, I will not attempt to do so now. I will tell more about it in my next mail. I am sure I will be wiser then.

My mind is still dizzy about these changes. I try not to do too many things in the evenings. I try to take time just to relax and contemplate. The rhytm in the school is not very fast yet. We just started on monday. It is exciting to be here. Wish me good luck/blessings with this new school and with my adaption-process to new city.
I wish you a happy month and send you lots of love and light!

Take care my friends, Lauri Anssi

( ps. I have started to use mainly my first name Lauri here at the school. It is not a new idea. I have been thinking about using my full name or the first one for a long time. However, if you are used to Anssi only, you can also call me Anssi. I like both of my names. But I figured that since my first name is Lauri in my birth-certificate, I want to try and see if it fits me. )

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Greetings, July06!

Dear Friends,

Hope things are well with you. For me, this month too has been mostly peaceful and relaxed. It has been a long and sunny summer and it's still on. I heard this is the dryest summer in about 50 years or something here in Finland.

Apart from enjoying the good weather and going swimming I did few roadie-gigs. Gun's 'n Roses and Eric Clapton. Both projects went well. It was fun to see Gun's n Roses live, for I was a fan of them in Primary School. My first cd was a G'n'R album.
Clapton's gig was different. More older folk. Everyone was seated. More blues-orientated material. They had a big band, maybe eleven or twelve people on stage. Back-up singers, horn-section, three guitarists.

I also saw few really good concerts in Ruisrock this month, which is a rock-festival, obviously. My favourite there was definitely Tool. Great music and great visuals projected to big screens. The band played very well, and the singer Maynard Keenan was extraordinary. Morrissey also pulled a good concert at this festival. He predicted that Italy would win the world-cup that night, as they did. He actually said that he already knew the result because the match is being fixed, then he added quickly that he's just joking. One's who have been following the European football-scene lately know what this joke refers to.
The Tool-concert was a wonderful experience, it was like a big meditation. I knew the songs and people around me were as excited as I was. I did not expect it to be this good. It had been almost 10 years since last time I went to a rock-festival.

I spent couple of days helping my dad in the forest this month. He has this big chopping machine now, with which we are able to make quick progress. It is nice to do occasional physical work like that, especially in that setting...beautiful forest at summertime. Even the bugs and insects have left us in peace so far. I haven't seen any bears yet, but I've heard there are bears in that area.

We have started a study-circle with few friends. We have met once a week or once every two weeks. First one person speaks a little about some topic ( usually they are about spiritual philosophy ) and then we have a discussion. There have been good discussions. Topics have included: Non-dualistic philosophy, Gnostic philosophy, Rudolf Steiner and his lifework and finnish writer Pekka Ervast's ideas.

What else? I've been playing football twice a week. It feels that my touch is getting better than what it was in early summer. This feels good. We have a good group there. My brother Tomi is playing there too.

I also went to Keitel-jazz happening to hear Olavi do a solo-gig there. This was the second one of this kind of gigs for him. It was different than the first one, but equally enjoyable.

I've been also watching lots of movies. Not surprising, eh? Some good ones this month: Mar Adentro ( Meri Sisälläni ) ..spanish movie about euthanasia...movie about Life and Death...very touching. Very recommended. Good Night and Good Luck, political film by George Clooney. A black and white-movie. Deals with communist " witch-hunt" in the 50's.
Interesting movie. I like political movies that have courage as a major theme in them. This is one of those.
My brother had a birthday this month, we went to see Pirates of the Caribbean 2, good entertainment, few good laughs. A bit too long in my opinion. Recommended if you want some easy-going entertainment with well-done special effects.

One great comic-book, or maybe a graphic novel would be a better term, I read this month: Neil Gaiman's Endless Nights. Part of the Sandman-series. This is one good example of how 'comic-books' can well be art.

Tomorrow I start my work at Steiner-school again. My work is going to be different from what I did last spring. I am assistant for the main teacher in the class. Then I will be special assistant for one student. I am a bit nervous right now, but also looking forward to it. I am going to work in this class and with this student untill christmass-holiday at least. Wish me luck and send me loving thoughts.

Situation in Middle-East has not been good. Let's hope that the cease-fire that is due to start tomorrow will be as long as possible. Let us send prayers and love there. And if there is a chance to do something more for peace, let's do it.

It is almost midnight now and I am starting early so it is time for me to hit the sack. Better start adjusting my summer sleeping rhytm now.
Keep writing to me. We stay connected!

Much love to you,
Anssi M