Favorite

I don't believe in picking favorites, but I'll blog anything that will credit me with two blog posts. It's so efficient.

I was glad I got to meet and speak with every one of the guests who came in to class. Each talk was informative in different ways, and each was inspiring. The thing I took away from them, collectively, was that you really have to hustle to make it happen.

Peter Esmonde, cynical as he may have been, stands out for his dedication to the artistry that is part of our craft. John Fiege was super sharp, and it's nice to know he's applying his considerable powers to the types of projects he seems to be motivated by. Michael Scott had quite a story for us, which is espescially inspiring to hear from such a recent graduate. But it was Bradley Beasley who captured my attention more than any of them, if I must pick one.

"Little Boy Blue," that still cracks me up. I appreciate those who don't mind breaking the rules, because screw the rules. I also appreciate those who do what they have to do, even if it is reality TV. Beaseley certainly seems to be hustling, and I was impressed with his plan to use his short documentary as nothing more than a promotional piece. That's not exactly what I see myself doing, mind you, but I like the ingenuity of it. He's still selling noodling t-shirts. Come on. He's got keen eyes: one of them is a cinematographer's and the other is a business man's.

Fiege Films

I really enjoyed having guest speakers come in this semester. Especially since many (or all) of them were recent RTF graduates, it's helpful to get an idea of how they proceeded following graduation. The most helpful/inspirational speaker for me was John Fiege.

I found his explanation of how they went about El Ranchito the most intriguing. A lot of what I've done in the past (and hopefully will continue to work on in the future) rests on rethinking the entire approach to telling stories in a new light. His persistence in taking the route he thought was best despite instructions and wishes against it is something I definitely need to develop.

His unique approach to music for the piece was also interesting. Again it was cool to see how he tried to appease the requests to include a super cheesy song while not having it ruin the effect of the overall piece.

Overall it seems like he has an understanding of how to work with clients while also preserving his artistic inclinations to make a beautiful piece. He knew that using the El Ranchito theme song as the primary music for the piece wouldn't work but at the same time, completely ignoring the request wouldn't make his client very satisfied either.

Journeys with an Artist: What I've learned This Semester

Wow, It's been quite the semester. Going into advance doc, I wasn't sure how much I was going to learn, but I knew I wanted to make another documentary. Naively, I thought I'd learned almost everything there is to know about doc production in the intro class. Was I ever wrong. This semester has been a lot of fun, but also has been quite challenging as well. When starting on the Benini Doc, I had all these preconceived notions about how the film would look and what it would include. Of course, nothing ever turns out as one expects. I, of all people, should've known this, as one of my doc projects from the previous semester has taken a similar course. I guess part of learning is relearning.

When I realized that Benini wouldn't let us film him painting, I was at a loss for words. An artist documentary without the visual process of creating art - how would this be possible? I knew we were going to have to get creative to pull off any semblance of a documentary. Limitations always force one to be creative. Nonetheless, I enjoyed figuring out how we were going to piece things together. Structure was definitely the most difficult part of the process. Because we had limited footage (Benini wasn't what you'd call the most available subject), we had to use certain shots that weren't ideal. Yet by manipulating parts of the footage, we were able to mask certain flaws and bring out hidden strengths.

While I don't think I'll be doing another artist documentary any time soon, I am truly grateful for the experiences I've had in making this one. The briefness of a semester can always make it difficult to pull off a documentary, even when the subject matter is less abstract/more solidified. Regardless, I'm quite happy with the piece we've put together. Now we just have to wait and see what Benini thinks. Showing a film to one's subjects can be a nerve-racking process, but so far, I've never had a bad experience. Will there be a meeting of the minds? We'll keep y'all posted.  In the mean time, congrats to everyone this semester for some great work!

Errol Morris First Person "Stairway to Heaven"

I've been meaning to blog on this series but somehow have put it off until now..my apologies.

I've really had a documentary focus this semester, being a part of this class and also working on a long doc editing project in intermediate editing. Errol Morris definitely has a very unique way to of telling the story. The First Person series is a great collection of many short docs of very interesting characters. I highly recemmend watching some of them.

"Stairway to Heaven" is a lovely piece about Temple Grandin, a very interesting autistic woman. I will just jump into why his editing really works for me. Rather than just exploring her story by cutting together a sequence of her interviews and using appropriate b-roll, Morris really tries to get us as the view INTO her world and her mind. One particular sequence that really got me was the part where Temple explains the process of how she uses a sqeezing machine to make her feel relaxed (that's another story). But she basically explains that farmers would use "sqeezing machines" on cows to make them relaxed. She tried the idea on herself and it worked well for her. Just as she ended her line explaining how it brought her into another world, the audio track fades to nothing and an interesting ambience comes in. A picture of her walking admist a crowd of cows fades in, slightly blurry, bringing us into a simulation of what she is experiencing. It really tells her story in a way that a straight up interview really couldn't have communicated.

Having said that, I do also think that he makes good use of different camera angles to make the talking head more interesting. He also tends to film at an angle and has an out of focus, undistinguishable background. His timing in his use of b-roll and illustrations also really helps him tell the story.

Travel Blogs

So here is another idea especially for the summer if you will be doing some traveling. Why not shoot while you're there? I actually did this when I studied abroad in Vietnam and it kept my shooting and editing skills up. A more amateur site for travel videos would be http://www.travelistic.com/place . You can kind of look at what is most watched and again, see what people like in the videos. Also this is just really helpful if you want to travel and see what there is to do and what the place is like. When I blogged for my trip to Vietnam, I actually used Blip.tv which I would recommend because they have a really nice interface on their player and its relatively easy to embed it into your own site.

So how will you get paid while you do this? Well there are some sites which I've looked at in the past where you can make a little extra cash while traveling and shooting. You have to have someone to speak and know the location as in whats good to eat, what places to stay or entertainments but that's what makes the trip more fun. You will be extremely immersed in culture. One example of this would be:

http://www.tripfilms.com/

You would go up to the tab Jobs and they will give a listing of places they need videos for and show what accommodations they will make for you. There are other sites that are similar to this one as well. Some are more international based while others are actually within the United States. Well hope this helps and happy traveling guys!

Video Blogging

So we've already spoke in class a bit about how video is really evolving and how feature documentary film may not be here in the future so I thought it would be a good post to mention a bit about video blogging. Understandably the problem with video blogging is that you have to know how to make money off of it if you want to make a living. I've looked at the top video blogs in the past and tried to follow their steps in making my own blog. I decided to look at the ones for last year. Although some are more news based, others are more creative. All in all, you can really take from it a gist of what people want to watch and what you can do yourself.

http://2008.weblogawards.org/polls/best-video-blog/

Another site I went to is the Forbes site for video blogs:

http://www.forbes.com/bow/b2c/category.jhtml?id=316

This one has a variety of of video blogs that come with a review and then their sites. It ranges from home videos of people about parenting to actual design/arts based sites on random topics. I feel that keeping up with a video blog site would really improve your skills in shooting and editing. It gives you a deadline of when you need to have a video up and how much time you have to edit. You also get a lot of feedback from people about how you are doing and if you can put a story together that is relatively short. Just an idea while schools out for the summer!

Dark Days

I hate to put the gloom on after that last cheery post but I wanted to write a bit about this documentary I recently saw, "Dark Days."  It is the story of a group of homeless people who find shelter in an abandoned railroad tunnel in New York city.  You meet several characters who have built their own huts out of scraps of wood and whatever else they can find and you learn about how they survive.  They steal electricity from Amtrak lines and so they have a few lights plugged in here and there and they can cook on stove tops.  At one point one of the characters reveals that probably 90% of the inhabitants are addicted to crack.  They battle the rats that they share the tunnel with and they scavenge for food in trash cans.  This is a tough world.  But it seems even tougher when authorities come in to tell these people, some of which have been living there for 20 years, they must vacate the tunnel.  Could these days get any darker?  I won't spoil the ending.

This film is extraordinary because it exposes these extremely poor living conditions and how humanity still hangs on.  There is still a sense of community in this place.  It is shot on film, which is also amazing, because it is literally so dark down there that it seems it would be very difficult to get a proper exposure.  The director, Mark Singer, spent two years in out of these tunnels to make this documentary and so you really immersed in this world.  There is no narration which I think is beneficial for the feeling of actually being there instead of just looking in.  I highly recommend it so check it out.  You can watch instantly on netflix.  

Six Pitchers

Fun time w/ Ellen.

Doc

Soooo, like an idiot I budgeted the wrong time for class on Wednesday and showed up too early and threw everything off. Like I need more stress...anyway, I apologize for not being able to comment on your docs today and also get feedback from you. I like the online feeback style, so here is the latest cut of my doc. Congrats to everyone this semester on some awesome work. I wish everyone luck who is entering into the contest and if you put your documentaries online please post them up on the blog too (I recommend using Vimeo).

Drift Doc from chixwithtrix on Vimeo.

Austin Reggae Fest

One of the key things I learned this semester is that stories and characters are all around us. They can unfold anywhere and at any time. I was kicking myself for not having my camera when I went to see Turk Pipkin's "One Peace At A Time", and after walked out to find the SWAT situation at the Apple Bar. So after recently acquiring my new camera I made the conscience decision to bring it to events that I had not planned on filming..because you never know what might unfold. It's hard to turn off the filmmaker frame of mind, and most of the time one cannot capture a certain moment because they don't have a camera. Well now I have the opportunity to film whenever I want, and i took advantage of that during the recent Austin Reggae Festival. I wish i had some interviews...but most people did not want to be on camera..so it was definitely run and gun filming.