Yellow Blue

Chapter 1- The Last Supper

To be a cinematographer means being an engineer, an artist, a photographer, a storyteller, and a translator. We often credit directors for being able to communicate a story through a lens but by doing so, we are being highly ignorant of the talent of the real storyteller - the cinematographer. The director is the one with an image in mind, the DP (director of photography) aka the cinematographer is the one to communicate such an image to an audience. The cinematographer is also the translator. I understand images to be words and images that are said by the director, but he is speaking a different language. The DP is there to translate to us what he is saying in subtle ways. That is how we relate and have empathy for the characters, that is how we feel the emotions that are being displayed upon us on the screen. When an audience leaves wanting more, still thinking of the images and the story that was unraveled to them, that is how you've done your job as a cinematographer.

Now, I am nowhere near that, I make my little short films on my YouTube channel, and sure, I have managed to gain a little cult following audience of four thousand subscribers in two years that likes them, (most of them), and keep commenting ideas of what I should talk about or do in my next video, but they're not exactly blockbusters. At first, they were just embarrassing videos that I would practice lighting techniques on, but then they progressed into chats or sketches or just commentary on film and film-making.

Last fall I signed up on a student foreign exchange program known as Flix. It's an international program that could take you literally to any spot on earth all for the sake of education and as unlikely as it was, I got through, and now before the first semester of 11th grade, I am going to go to high school... In Ukraine. Ukraine. Ukraine. Images of Chernobyl, the USSR, and Maidan flashed before me. Chernobyl was a city in which the biggest radioactive catastrophe occurred during the reign of the USSR. The USSR, of course, is well known to me as Lithuania was part of it for a few years. Don't ask me how many because I am not a historian, remembering my sisters' birthdays is as historical as I go. Maidan is just the main square in Kyiv's city center but the Maidan that we are familiar with is the wave of protests that took place on Maidan square. Why did they happen? I would have to digress because I still don't understand. I watched three documentaries, okay, not three, but one and two that I listened to while falling asleep, and yet somehow I still don't understand why they happened and what happened after. So yeah, that is how far my historical knowledge of Ukraine goes. To be honest, I was secretly disappointed when I found out that I was going to Ukraine. For the past two years most Lithuanian students that have been sent abroad, have been sent to the states, and I was hoping to be sent there, specifically New York. Gosh, if I would have been able to go to New York I would have been over the moon. I try to reassure myself that it's okay and I'm not disappointed, Kyiv has its marvels that I'll enjoy, and next year I'll get into NYU, I'm almost certain of that. This summer I've been working as an intern for my mom's TV studio, slowly building up my application. Also, one of the conditions for me to go to Ukraine was to make video blogs about my time in Ukraine which I'd have to send to Flix and they'd use for their own marketing I suppose, so that would look good on my application too, I just need to work on my channel a little and create a short film that I will send with my application by the start of April. My mum, an older version of my younger sister Jordana, says I should apply to a different film school just in case, which I will, I'm sure, but apply to what? All I want is to go to NYU, it's like the Rolls-Royce of film schools, it's all I know.

Tonight is my last night in my home city Vilnius. I leave for Kyiv tomorrow from Vilnius airport. I can't believe it, all summer I had been waiting to leave, talking about it in my videos, practicing my Russian and some Ukrainian. So far I can say, "Hi, my name is Ilona, I like films, where is the toilet?" Hey, people make progress at their own pace. I've had Russian for 4 years, so I can communicate enough, not enough to make jokes or speak about politics, but enough to make my way around. I heard that in Ukraine you have to say that you're a foreigner before speaking in Russian or else they'll speak to you in Ukrainian. I'll test that theory and capture it, I mean, would they just ignore a Russian person because they're... Russian? So far, not impressed. My mother is sitting at the end of the table, biting rabbit-sized mouthfuls and telling me that I should be respectful in Ukraine, and wash my hands before each meal and, "elbows behind the table, Ilona". My face scrunches up like paper and I rip off a piece of bread with my mouth. What else, mum? Are there rules to wiping my bum after I poo?

"And don't roll your eyes, you won't find a brain in there," she adds while eyeing me with her sharply raised eyebrows.

I love mother and she loves me. We even have pet names for each other: she calls me Steven Spielberg With No Talent and I call her The Wicked Witch Of The West. Family Love. I am grateful for her, she did get me an internship in her studio, she's a morning TV show host, and she did agree to let me go to Ukraine, even though she was concerned about the war but sometimes I just wish she was there, just cared about my dream seriously and not even that, cared about me. When I was little I thought it might be because my DNA completely forgot that I have two parents not one. I look nothing like her. She has a squared face and a pointy-witch chin and long, dyed black hair, while mine barely reaches the top of my ears and is natural. She's poised and always well collected, always ready for the camera, I prefer being behind the camera and I'm not so well-dressed or perfectly shaped. My eldest sister Andrea says in distance I look like an alive pear dressed in Kurt Cobain clothes. I'm still trying to understand if that's a compliment.

After dinner, dad's still not home, even though he agreed he would be home for dinner, so I sit there in my almost empty room that once was my sanctuary. All that's left is the fairy lights, the bed, and Jordana's side of the room as well as the shelves upon shelves of films. I have everything there: Spielberg, Tarantino, Nolan, Tarkovsky, Balabanov, Cappola, and my personal favorite- Stanley Kubrick. Unfortunately, my mum didn't think it was appropriate if I packed all of my films and a pair of clean underwear with socks, so I've decided to take only three films: A space odyssey, Masculin Feminin and, of course, the film that started my obsession with film- Marie Antoinette.

Jordana, who is the size of one of my thighs, flops down next to me on the bed and throws one arm over my neck and sets her head against mine, and says,

"Well sister, you're finally going tomorrow, how does it feel?"