I've been asked several times what I was doing in Japan when I was living there. 'Studying... theoretically...' was my common answer. I did go there to study and I had classes every day from nine to... four, I guess? I did learn Japanese... But technically I went there to study social sciences and international communication. Problem was, I wasn't fluent enough in Japanese so I could only attend classes held in English. Most of those, however, were meant for Japanese students trying to learn English so they were pretty simple and basic for me. I did have some interesting classes where we discussed social and political issues but a lot of the time I attended conversational classes where I was trying my hardest to communicate with shy Japanese students... and failing at it. I mean, I understand: I don't really speak Russian, which is why I don't try to hold a conversation in that language... but when the assignment is to exchange ideas and get a discussion going... it's a bit frustrating when you're faced with awkward silences and blushing.
But that's not what I wanted to talk about here. No, I had two other classes that were all in English and that were quite different. Media English A and B... How to describe those two classes...? Well, the setup was kind of the same as others: the class was mostly Japanese students with around 2-5 exchange students, it was being held in English and it was about Harry Potter. Yes, you read right. Harry Potter. Okay, Media English A focused on different English accents and regional dialects... using examples from Harry Potter. And Media English B was a cinematography class where we learned how to set up different scenes and how the mood and feel of a scene could be changed with different angles and color schemes... using examples from the Harry Potter movies. The professor was the same in both classes. Big surprise, right? He was a real Harry Potter fanboy, which is why all of his classes had the same sort of theme.
So, Media English B... Me and Mary took it in the Fall and we were the only two foreigners in the whole class. Granted, the class wasn't too big anyway: about maybe 20-23 people in total. To be honest, it was quite interesting, especially in the beginning. We learned how framing certain shots could change the way we perceive certain events and how to use lighting, angles, colors and background music to change the effect the scene has. We had to watch certain famous scenes from different movies (mostly the Harry Potter series) and analyze them. It was honestly quite exciting... until we found out our final assignment: we had to re-enact and film a scene from the Harry Potter series...
I hate performing in any way, shape or form. I can't stand to hear a recording of my voice or see myself on film. Just one of the many quirks I have. When we were separated into groups and told that some of us had to work on the screenplay and the others had to be actors, I wanted to be on the writing team. The professor wasn't having any of it. I was fluent in English, which meant I had to be an actor. Not only in my group's movie but also in a second movie because we were low on volunteer actors. Whaaat? Nobody wanted to act? What a surprise!
So, my group decided to re-enact Dobby's death scene from the last movie. The roles offered to me were the following: Dobby (of course), Harry, Ron, Hermione, Luna and Bellatrix's head. Because, you know, we needed to briefly show the silhouette of the killer... I don't remember exactly how it happened but I got stuck being Dobby. Did I want to be Dobby? Hell no! But the role was kind of forced on me and I decided to play ball. 'It can't be that bad' I thought, 'I only have a few lines and then I die. Doesn't sound too difficult. Better than being Harry, I guess'. I was so incredibly naive...
I hope I don't offend anyone by saying this but... our movie was one of the worst pieces of rubbish in the history of cinematography. Okay, maybe it wasn't that horrible but it was pretty bad. I know for a fact that my acting was terrible but that's only half of it. We were filming in a park behind the school and the ground was littered with dried leaves. Half of the time you couldn't even hear what the characters were saying because of the rustling of leaves as the cameraman/director was moving around. The soundtrack was god awful! The guy in charge of it just put together a 15 second sound clip and played it on a loop... even when it didn't match the mood of the scene at all. And there was a 1-2 second pause every time it ended so it just sounded... wrong. I don't know what was going on with the color scheme but everything looked sepia brown... I mean, kudos to everybody on the team - I know everyone worked hard and did their best but... Any objective observer could tell that our little movie was just an abomination that should never have existed.
It was hilariously bad. Really, beside the the rustling leaves, the looping music and the messed up color scheme there was also me wearing Mary's woolen hat and a rag around myself screaming 'I'm a free elf!' into the camera. One of the most cringe-worthy moments of my life... caught on film. Then there was my famous death scene where I'm trying to be all emotional while feebly rasping out my dying words: 'Must... protect... Harry... Potter...' Then I die... and the camera just keeps on rolling... for an absurdly long time... while Mary tries her best to look sad and act like she's sobbing. And the camera just doesn't stop rolling so there's a moment in the movie where I finally crack and start laughing a bit. Then there's the part where Mary (or Harry, rather) is burying Dobby's body, which is actually a backpack wrapped in a rag - somehow 'Dobby' collapsed in on himself after death and became little more than a pile of rags, apparently. Then there's the grave: a pile of leaves and the woolen hat on top of it. Then there's the funeral with Ron, Hermione (played by a dude in a wig), Luna and Harry saying their goodbyes (which you can barely hear due to the wind, rustling leaves and just our inability to do anything correctly). And in the end you see the hilariously misshapen 'gravestone' with the epitaph: 'Here lies Dobby: a free elf' written in sparkly pink letters.
You might say we created a blasphemous abomination of a movie with this project... and you'd be right... but it was hilarious as hell. The kind of hilarious where you feel bad for everyone involved and you just feel bad for laughing but you can't help it. Like a cat waddling around on four wooden legs. So wrong but so, so funny. To be honest, the other groups didn't do much better. One group did (SPOILER ALERT in case you've been living under a rock for the past decade) Dumbledore's death scene and the other group re-enacted the Dark Forest scene from the first movie and they were both hilarious. When we finally saw the finished works in class I had a hard time trying not to choke of laughter. And the worst part: we weren't supposed to laugh. Those were not supposed to be parodies but real film projects! But with the broken English, erratic editing and just overall insanity of the scenes, it was impossible not to find it funny. Sometimes, when I'm in need of a good laugh I re-watch those movies and laugh until my stomach cramps up and there are tears streaming down my face. But I never watch the Dobby one. It is just too painful. I might have been a free elf for a brief moment but I felt like an enslaved actor the whole time. Out of all the embarrassing stuff I did in Japan, this is in the top ten. And I did it all while being sober. Proof that you don't need alcohol to make a fool of yourself.
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