Looking for flat places in Graz.

Today is our last day before we meet the local participants for our Episode 9 shoot in Graz.  Pavol and I have for the last several days been preparing for the filming by roller skating all through Graz (and very carefully over the cobble stones and tram tracks and the horse chestnuts! which — roller skates do not like horse chestnuts!) looking for locations.  I think I fell not so much as I could have.  Only a few bruises.  And I think I may have sprained my wrist again.  We are doing OK.

Beware the dreaded and potentially deadly horse chestnut.

There’s nothing like a camera to make you appreciate the beauty of hotel rooms.  It’s in these temporary living quarters that we’ve made most of our short films over the years, and it’s where we’ve been filming many of the scenes for Episode 9.

Ilan in a stop motion animation (hotel in Lisbon, 2012)

Dan in a stop motion animation (hotel in Antwerp 2012)

Granted, the Romantik Parkhotel is more romantic and high class than most of the places we inhabit.  There’s the bonus pool, for one.  It’s like catnip for most people in the company, and this camera we brought is waterproof, so it’s the perfect playground.

Ilan and Kristin in the Romantik Pool.

Not every hotel has a pool.  (Though it’s really too bad for many of the guests here, who have nothing to do with steirischer herbst and who perhaps wish we would not be shooting a rap video in their particular body of water…)

I realize that in doing this work on tour over the years, I’ve become a connoisseur of patterned wallpaper and curtains.  Of headboards and phones… anonymous doorways.  If we occupy these places only temporarily, at least we occupy them fully.  Put our own invented stories on top of the hundreds of real ones which, no doubt, already came before.

Rob on the floor with phone in Graz

Ilan in the doorway, Graz

Kristin on the hotel phone in Graz

Kelly skates through the lobby at MUMUTH

In Sunday we arrived in Graz.  We learned that will be performing at MUMUTH - the Haus für Musik und Musiktheater.  This is a really beautiful building with a grand lobby which has the best surfaces for roller skating.  And so far no one is stopping us…