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Transcript of Live Chat
with Steven Bernstein, ASC

Jan. 15, 2004

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:14:20 AM)
Welcome. I'm Steve Bernstein. I look forward to you questions.

Lisa (Aug 27, 2005 10:14:27 AM)
It sounds like you were mostly self taught as far as your film education goes. Would you talk about the value of a more formal education in film versus the more organic process you went through?

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:15:31 AM)
You know, I think that the ideal training lies someplace in between the two methodologies. The great advantage of the theoretical is that you can examine ideas in the abstract and you have a pure appreciation of the process of filmmaking

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:15:52 AM)
Sadly, when you try to apply theory to practice, if you don't fail in the undertaking, others will make sure you do.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:16:17 AM)
So you acquire skills in the field that allow you to realize the part of your vision that you conceptualize in the examination of the original theory.

F-stop (Aug 27, 2005 10:16:24 AM)
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webster (Aug 27, 2005 10:16:50 AM)
Like Water for Chocolate and One Night with the King were both shot in non-English speaking countries -- what are the challenges you found working on them?

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:19:04 AM)
Cinematography, and this is not to self-engrandize, is a complex undertaking and it's also collaborative, so you have to work with a great many other people. When there is then a language barrier, it then compounds the problems. But interestingly, I've had my greatest success working in non-English speaking countries in part because the galvanizing idea that connects my collaborators with myself becomes the image rather than the word and that, after all is the intention.

Mel (Aug 27, 2005 10:19:22 AM)
How much was the look of Monster affected by your childhood in a gray, industrial part of England?

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:21:04 AM)
I think that with Monster my own background had little to do with the look of the film. Although the trick the unconscious mind plays on us are so subtle, that I'm probably the person least qualified to comment on my own influences. I would say rather that the influence came from the director and from the principle actors who helped me come to an understanding of the film's own internal ethos.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:21:38 AM)
From that, it was natural for me to create the visual objective correlatives.

Sappy (Aug 27, 2005 10:22:01 AM)
You mentioned in your interview wanting to be a poet and studying literature and philosophy. How did that early interest in litarture affect your visual vocabulary?

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:24:32 AM)
I think that poetry and cinematography are near relatives. As pretentious as that may sound. Ezra Pound said that the less we say in poetry the more we mean. And in saying that he's suggesting that language when not specific involves the reader in the process of understanding. In cinematography, the encoding of the ideas is both specific, in that we are photographing objects, but also non-specific in that through the use of light and color and camera movement we create a visceral response in the audience as poetry when well-written might also.

Gino (Aug 27, 2005 10:24:46 AM)
How hard was it for a poet to learn the technical aspects of cinematography? How long a process was it for you?

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:25:56 AM)
I'm still learning. The thing about any art in practice, be it poetry or cinematography is that you are constantly evolving. My writing style changes regularly and so also does my photographic style change. I'm influenced by those who I work with, paintings that I see and other movies that I watch.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:26:18 AM)
So profound are these alterations, that I lose interest in my own work sometimes only a month or two after completing it.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:26:21 AM)
It's done.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:26:33 AM)
I understand it, I've moved on and it no longer holds any compelling interest.

Sally (Aug 27, 2005 10:26:45 AM)
Monster had a very flat, grimy look to it. How did you achieve that affect?

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:28:26 AM)
The first thing I do in working with the director is look closely at the locations. And then work with the production designer on the selection of a palette. In Monster, Patty Jenkins, the director, felt that central Florida was one of the characters in the film. Florida has a eccentric pallette, in that one is certain that all the colors there were at one time saturated and now are not.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:29:18 AM)
The sun and the humidity has given them a patina that has desaturated and suggests to the audience the experience that is akin to the experience of the character, deterioration, decay and loss.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:30:23 AM)
The second process for me, is working with light. And again, the environment was my guide. The intense sun in Florida creates heavy shadows and high contrasts. The nights are garrish. The third thing for me is the selection of the film stock. On Monster we used a high-speed film, which we underexposed and printed up.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:31:28 AM)
By underexposing the film, it further reduced the color saturation and increased the grain. Now grain is particularly interesting in the response it illicits in an audience. All film language is the encoding of ideas and grain suggests to an audience, documentary and versimiltude.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:32:07 AM)
And those things combined, created the look of Monster.

Stevie G. (Aug 27, 2005 10:32:25 AM)
You mentioned doing documentaries. Were those with the BBC? Do you still work on documentaries and how does the preparation and shooting process differ from dramatic pics? Does one inform the other?

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:33:52 AM)
My first important documentaries were for ITV not BBC. The process of making documentaries is not uniform. There are as many types of documentaries as there are dramatic narrative.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:35:24 AM)
In Britain, the long-form documentary was normally narrated, might have a host or a commentator and is what we've come to know as traditional documentary method. However, I also did a great many documentaries at the time that were based on what is called cinema verite, where we would simply place the camera, or the camera and camera crew in an environment where we could observe events as they unfolded.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:37:18 AM)
Michael Apted and others were working at the same time in Britain and were creating cutting-edge documentaries, which have created the historical antecedents for subsequent filmmakers. If you think about it, much of reality TV is based on these early documentary experiments. And what's fascinating about them now as it was then is that the audience understands that they are seeing something that is not from the imagination of the filmmaker and feel somehow that they have a priviliged view of another life as it is lived.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:38:49 AM)
Of course, the paradox of this is that reality TV is the ultimate fiction in that what we believe we are seeing to be real is modified by the presence of the camera, the subject's awareness of the camera and the subsequent editing of the material by a unifying creative intelligence, ergo, the director. My interest in documentary remains however profound.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:39:41 AM)
In that I have lost faith in the ability of narrative filmmaking to alter its audience. In part, this could be my own fault. As much as I enjoyed working on White Chicks, I don't know if we can consider it an important polemic.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:40:01 AM)
Though I still believe it hugely entertaining and serves an important function in our collective lives.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:40:27 AM)
I, however, have not gotten to the stage in my life where I feel some small obligation to do something that does alter the world as I understand it.

F-stop (Aug 27, 2005 10:40:40 AM)
Two cinematographers working on one film is always tricky. How did you handle taking over for another cinematographer on Like Water for Chocolate?

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:41:14 AM)
It is difficult.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:41:45 AM)
And I, in this particular circumstance handled it badly. I was in the United Kingdom when I received a call from a Mexican friend asking me to finish a movie, which I was to understand was near completion.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:43:10 AM)
In fact, on arriving in Mexico, the film was a very long way from completion and I spent many months shooting it. Without getting into the specifics of the politics, I was not given access to the previous cinematographer and had instead to try to match the vision that he originally had created through the examination of his dailies alone. In retrospect, I would never have undertaken the job and nor will I ever again undertake a job where I am obliged to finish someone else's work without first having the opportunity to speak to them at great length about the look that they wish for the movie.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:44:35 AM)
Ironically, or justly, I have had two circumstances since then where I myself have had to leave a movie early and had another cinematographer take over. Most recently when I shot a television pilot that was picked up by the network who praised its look and fetted and celebrated me. However, as I don't do television series, when the other cinematographer took over I never received any phone calls, correspondence or was given the opportunity to pass on my many and detailed notes about the look that I'd worked so hard to create.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:45:02 AM)
The lesson here for all cinematographers is that as artists we have an obligation to one another to protect our individual creative visions by working collectively for the protection of those special rights.

Film Gir; (Aug 27, 2005 10:45:14 AM)
A Half Baked question - what is it like having worked on a film that has become a cult hit?

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:46:43 AM)
I think Half Baked is a very special circumstance. On nervously dropping off my only beloved child at university I met his new roommate who had arrived several hours before my son. Already in the room was the faint whiff of a once familiar drug, herb better still. The roommate seemed phlagmatic.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:47:44 AM)
But his interest was peaked to a level of enthusiasm bordering on obsessive adulation when he discovered that I was partially responsible for the creation of Half Baked. In fact, it's been great fun. Dave Chapelle has remained a friend, as have most of the cast and crew who I worked with on that project.

Candi (Aug 27, 2005 10:48:05 AM)
What was it like working with Ernest Dickerson, a director who had been a cinematographer?

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:49:44 AM)
I was greatly flattered when Ernest asked me to work with him, not once, but twice and in fact approached me a third time on a job for which I was not available. All of us have a small insecurity about just how good we are at our craft. It's really only through the respect and admiration of our peers do we begin to feel that we might have achieved some measure of understanding of what we do.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:50:24 AM)
Ernest is a great cinest and has seen more films than anyone I know. He has a great understanding of the process of filmmaking and of cinematography. For him to interview me, look at the body of my work and decide to hire me was validating.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:50:47 AM)
To work with him was delightful because all cinematographers rely on a certain visual shorthand with the directors with whom they work.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:51:15 AM)
With Ernest, he could make reference to a particular sequence in a particular film and I would quickly understand both the look and the style that he sought.

Stephanie (Aug 27, 2005 10:51:24 AM)
How do you think experimenting you did with music videos early in your career influenced you later on narrative films?

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:53:28 AM)
Music videos are a hugely valuable format in which cinematographers can work. There are no parameters. There are really no mistakes that are ostensible to the client. I used to say no mistakes, only motifs. It is an environment in which everyone can experiment. One can test the limits of the technology and the technique. It is what art ultimately is meant to be in that one can take risk and succeed or fail but ultimately discover something new.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:54:57 AM)
The videos themselves, are often in fact usually banal but the process is invaluable for the participants. In my own case the fluid camera style I sometimes employ, the radical angles in which I sometimes place my key lights, the heavy use of colors for backgrounds, for smoke, even for skin tones, I all discovered in shooting music videos and had I only shot narratives, my methodology would have been more conservative.

Lisa (Aug 27, 2005 10:55:28 AM)
Your story about the film cooperative you organized in England is really interesting. I was wondering if you think it was possible to do anything like that today? What would it take to make it happen?

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:56:40 AM)
With the evolution of SSRIs and other antidepressives, a film cooperative might have a real chance for success today. However, the creation of such a thing is based on an optimism and idealism, which has no real basis in any perceivable experience of ordinary human behavior.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:56:55 AM)
You may sense that I am slightly bitter. I would say that all cynics are disappointed idealists.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:57:22 AM)
I believe very much in the notion of a collective but like all the best Buddhist principles it requires the surrendering of the self to a greater collective good.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:58:02 AM)
And this is a hugely difficult thing for mere mortals to achieve. Inevitably, individual ambition and ego supersedes the idea of the whole being greater than the sum of the individual parts.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:58:31 AM)
It still is a hugely important part of my life, an important experiment for everyone to undertake to come to a better understanding of others, themselves, but also the political world in which we live.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 10:59:20 AM)
Politics aside, children brought up in the pervasive culture of consumerism and the celebration of the individual are not inclined to be able to surrender that sense of self that would allow a collective a co-op or a commune to survive and prosper now.

Lisa (Aug 27, 2005 10:59:37 AM)
Do you think your success in comedy films has given you more freedom or has it encouraged studios to typecast you, so to speak, as a comedy cinematographer?

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:00:57 AM)
It is absolutely true that in studio filmmaking all technicians are in a sense typecast. That is to say, working in a studio is a nervous business for any executive. It is a climate of fear. They are more likely to be punished for error than rewarded for risk.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:01:18 AM)
They are therefore, very careful in their hiring in that they want to hire people who have had past success making a similar if not identical movie.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:01:46 AM)
In this way, if the film fails they will not themselves be culpable. After all, they made the choice that any other producer would have made based on the track record of the hired technician.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:02:24 AM)
Fortunately for me, I have done films like Monster, One Night with the King, Murder at 1600, that suggest I can perform in a variety of circumstances and working in a variety of films.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:02:52 AM)
But yes, I have become a safe choice for any comedy and whereas I enjoy variety, I greatly enjoy working on comedies.

Stevie G. (Aug 27, 2005 11:03:14 AM)
What were the circumstances that led you to write your book?

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:05:34 AM)
I've always been interested in teaching. In fact, of all the things that I've done in my life, it gives me the greatest pleasure. The process is both valuable for the student and for the teacher because as I attempt to explain complex notions to the neophyte, I myself come to a better understanding of the ideas.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:06:18 AM)
I in fact had a very hard time at the beginning of my career coming to an understanding of the complex technology that is involved in filmmaking and really didn't come to an understanding of how the individual technologies integrate with one another until I began teaching it to others.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:06:44 AM)
It was then a natural process to take the ideas that allowed me to make complex ideas assessible to those who had no experience with them to writing a book on the same subject.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:07:04 AM)
My greatest pride in that particular undertaking is that I believe it is assessible. And this is purpose to my mind of all education.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:07:34 AM)
Not difficult, not arcane, not obscure, not enclosed in myth and meta-language, but assessible to all.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:07:46 AM)
In a sense, the democratization of technology.

SDMickler (Aug 27, 2005 11:08:24 AM)
When is One Night with the King coming out?

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:09:59 AM)
It was originally scheduled for later this year, but it has had a surprisingly good response in its test screenings and they have decided to make it into 2 films, each of three hours. As a result of this, their post-production has expanded considerably and their marketing scheme has become more ambitious. As it has a somewhat religious theme in that the story is taken from the old testament, the plan is now to release it for Easter and purim next year.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:10:38 AM)
That's part one. And the second part coming out later summer of next year.

SDMickler (Aug 27, 2005 11:10:42 AM)
It seems like you were working on the edge in India - using thousands of torches and underexposing the film by up to four stops. What was happening with the film? Where was it being processed? How did the dailies work?

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:11:17 AM)
That is a question that all of us were asking for the first several months of filmmaking in India.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:12:32 AM)
I know that one set of dailies went from Jophura to Mumbai to London back to Mumbai, back to London, back to Mumbai, back to London and 2 months later were eventually received into my hands after paying 2 bribes and having to sneak into the local airport late at night to receive an unlabeled package, which were in a characteristic shape and weight as to indicate they were either my dailies or a cylinder or coconut oil.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:12:40 AM)
Fortunately they were the former.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:13:27 AM)
The great risk that we undertook in underexposing the film when we were not seeing dailies for typically 3 weeks after the fact was a harrowing one, but also an emboldening one.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:14:54 AM)
Most DPs fear losing their jobs when making some catastrophic error. The good news for me was, however profound my error, I knew that I had job security for at least another 3 weeks. The slower the delivery of the dailies, the more bold my decision-making became. Imagine our surprising delight on having underexposed a fort using thousands of extras, thousands of torches with all hand-made costumes that the material looked as beautiful as anything I have ever had the opportunity to shoot.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:15:57 AM)
Ultimately, it goes to how important courage and our inclination to take risks are in the creative process. As we grow older, we grow fearful and we grow more conservative. As we acquire things we fear losing them. It is only when we free ourselves from either our clinging to those things or our fear that we do our best work as artists.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:16:35 AM)
To answer your question specifically, dailies were shipped from India first to London for the first few months of shooting. Because of the great problems we had in the return of those dailies, we then decided that California would actually be the better option.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:17:07 AM)
And that's where the material was shipped and then sent back to us, sadly only in DVD form as it was no longer practicable to ship the film principally because we could find no screening facility that could project anything but anamorphic.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:18:07 AM)
As remarkable as this sounds, although India has the biggest film industry in the world, they have specific orthodoxies about the way they shoot. It is virtually impossible to find a sync camera anywhere in the Indian subcontinent. It is also virtually impossible to find any camera that is not anamorphic and therefore any projection facility that is not anamorphic.

Film Gir; (Aug 27, 2005 11:19:23 AM)
Do you have any stories about working with Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif?

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:20:38 AM)
Peter O'Toole was the great validating experience of my career. It is peculiar in that all of our life paradigms, the models on which we measure our own experience are rooted in our observation of fiction.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:21:21 AM)
I mean by this, we meet more people in television and in movies and have a greater insight into their individual conditions than we do through our experience of ordinary people. So, strangely, the real world seems surreal and only those things in fiction seem real.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:21:59 AM)
So in meeting Peter O'Toole and getting his approval, both of my work and of me as a person, only then did I feel somehow validated. As if the deities I know which come from film stepped down and annointed me.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:22:26 AM)
I don't think I would have felt as good had some favored uncle approved of my work, or even a colleague, but to have Lawrence of Arabia say to me, "Well done,

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:22:42 AM)
made me feel for the first time after 26 years as if I was really working in the film business.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:23:13 AM)
Omar Sharif had much the same aura that Peter O'Toole did.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:25:35 AM)
With both of them you sensed all that passed before. There is a great essay by John Ruskin about the Cathedral of Chartes, in which he suggests that its iconograful significance is that in examining its walls you can see the chisel marks of all the anonymous stone masons. In a sense, going back to what I was talking about earlier, truly here is an example of the whole being greater than the sum of its individual and anonymous parts, but also Ruskin suggests there is a profound melancoly because as one touches the wall, one can sense that here once was a life that focused on this particular stone and then vanished into the ether.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:26:42 AM)
As you looked at the face, or in my case more specifically, photographed the faces of either Peter O'Toole or Omar Sharif, you could look there as you could at the wall in Chartes and sense all the life that had passed before. Though the individual events that had created each line and contour would be for the most part always secret to us, though it would move us in ways that we could not understand.

Filmer (Aug 27, 2005 11:26:48 AM)
What is the work you're most proud of?

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:27:47 AM)
My son.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:28:32 AM)
But in terms of cinematography, I am both proud and anashamed of it all. Proud in that each job offered particuarl challenges to me -- directors with individual visions, producers with individual agendas, actors with both skills and sometimes complexities.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:28:57 AM)
To navigate this world and to achieve what it was both agreed that we had to achieve and we discovered what else that we might achieve is hugely satisfying.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:29:44 AM)
I am genuinely as proud of Half Baked and White Chicks as I am of Monster and Water for Chocolate. When one measures one's life, it's not the accolades or approval of what one has produced by which one measures ones self, but rather what we know in our hearts we had to achieve.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:29:56 AM)
At the same time, we also know in our hearts that which we endeavored to do and where we failed.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:30:10 AM)
So all achievements and all my work has for me an equal amount of pride and shame.

Film Gir; (Aug 27, 2005 11:30:14 AM)
Is there a solution to movie critics not understanding cinematography?

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:30:35 AM)
Great question.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:31:45 AM)
Critics, or more significantly reviewers, shape the collective sensibility. There is an important book called the Prison House of Language by Frederick Jameson in which he has us understand that ideas are determined by the language that is available to the culture.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:32:14 AM)
Reviewers in a sense create the language that equips the audience to a greater, or in this case, lesser degree to understand the process by which the ideas in film are encoded.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:33:20 AM)
If they teach us that everything is about script and performance, then we have no other language by which to analyze or understand film. If they do not themselves make use or have access to the vocabulary for the description of composition, lighting, camera movement, then it's not possible their readers can have that understanding either and therefore can never really fully understand how film works.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:33:26 AM)
This will always be the case.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:33:59 AM)
Because film is driven by commercial interests and although in an altruistic sense it would be great if other people, not least my confused mother, had a better understanding of what we do, it will never be the case.

Candi (Aug 27, 2005 11:34:04 AM)
Have you ever wanted to direct?

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:37:03 AM)
You know, I think that for a long time I did very much want to direct but if you look at the body of many of the questions that we've examined here, I've reached a time in my life where I take satisfaction and find something of value in virtually everything I do. I no longer require the approval and celebration of huge bodies of people to believe myself important or of value.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:37:43 AM)
Certainly there is a great creative satisfaction in being able to see a project through from beginning to end, but so also, again in that Buddhist sense do I take great satisfaction in realizing the vision of others.

Film Gir; (Aug 27, 2005 11:37:51 AM)
What's happening on the DI? Where is it being done? Do you supervise it?

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:39:28 AM)
The DI was scheduled to be done at Technicolor but as the film has expanded and therefore the costs have considerably expanded, the producers inevitably are considering smaller houses who are anxious to build their reputation and therefore are slashing their costs to attract a film of this cost. The advantage of this for cinematographers is that it is no longer prohibitively expensive to do DIs. Competition is driving prices down.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:41:14 AM)
The disadvantage, however, is that producers don't seem to understand, as yet, that the creation of the image is a creative process. And merely having the technology does not mean that you're skilled at its operation. Jill Bagdonovich, a timer at Technicolor is the best I have seen and I hope that the producers will allow me the opportunity to collaborate with her on this project. It may be less expensive elsewhere, but in the creation of a movie, ultimately the better the film, the better the visual elements even if the audience doesn't necessarily understand this, the more successful the film.

Filmer (Aug 27, 2005 11:42:18 AM)
I read that you grew up in Liverpool. Which team do you support -- Liverpool FC or Everton?

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:42:37 AM)
Please forgive me, as

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:44:51 AM)
I hope my neighbors will forgive me, as I hope my father will forgive me, as I hope my tutors at school will forgive me, as I hope Kenny Dagliesh will forgive me, but I have always supported the Tottenham Hotspur, who are currently undefeated...I have just been told some very sad news. Apparently Spurs lost to Chelsea. It is a sad day for all of us.

Steven Bernstein (Aug 27, 2005 11:45:32 AM)
Thanks very much. I'm sure none of this was very interesting. But I did my best. Best of luck to all of you.