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.

The Interview Project: An Interesting Direction in Interactive Documentary

Perusing the net recently, I stumbled upon an upcoming documentary series by none other than David Lynch. I'm not sure that I would've ever thought Lynch would be involved in a documentary project, but the news nonetheless excited me. Basically, the interview project is a series of interviews from all across the country. In fact, 121 interviews segments have been put together, and one will be released every three days for a year, starting this June. 

I can't vouch for the quality of the interviews, or whether or not anything interesting will come of them. What I do find fascinating is the concept: filming a bunch of material, editing it, and releasing it periodically. More so what I'm fascinated by is the rapidity of the releases. Typically, webisodes are released on a weekly, or sometimes monthly basis. With the interview project, episodes will be released so frequently as to hold an audience's attention for a longer period of time, granted the material is good. You never know what you're going to get when you venture into the world of David Lynch, so I'm not going to make any predictions.

So many of the docs this semester could be turned into awesome webisode series. However, I've always found daunting the task of coming up with a new episode each week. What I find inspiring about the Interview Projects is the notion that all the episodes, footage, etc. can be shot and put together before the series even begins. This model certainly allows for more breathing room and fine tuning, something I'm sure we all need at this point. Anyways, I hope y'all found this post interesting. To check out the trailer for the interview project, visit interviewproject.davidlynch.com!

Too Much Talking Head? Not For These Crazy Lovers!

The talking head, to me, is probably one of the most over-used devices in documentary film today. Just to be clear, I've used talking heads as well, and I'd be a huge hypocrite if I said otherwise. They're convenient and explanatory, but often times they leave me desiring more. On occasion, a documentary will shoot a talking head to make it more visually appealing. Still, I'd rather see more of life unfolding as it happens. Then again, when the life you're documenting has already unfolded, you're either going to have to get mighty creative or embrace the talking head. The following film review fits into the latter category, and it succeeds based solely on its incredible story.

The film I speak of is Crazy Love. At 92 minutes, the film is almost entirely talking head interviews, and these talking heads are very traditional. Thank goodness for the story, which is so incredibly strange that I had a hard time believing it true till I confirmed everything on the internet. Basically, the story follows an obsessive man, as he stops at nothing to win the love of a girl that's quickly slipping away. To make a long story short, he throws acid in her face. Yeah . . . not your typical sign of affection. This isn't anywhere near the strangest aspect of the story, which contains more twists and turns that an M. Night Shyamalan film.

The film proves (at least for me) that all you need to make an engaging doc is a great story. There's absolutely nothing special visually about Crazy Love, but I only realized this much later. In the meantime, I was so engaged in the complexities of the narrative that I had a hard time turning my head from the screen (even though I wouldn't have missed anything, visually). Films like these provide me much comfort, as they reassure me that I don't need the latest and greatest technology, just a storyteller's vision. In fact, some of my favorites docs have been lacking on the visual side (ie Ghengis Blues) but far made up for this with character. We shouldn't be thinking red, red, red; we should be thinking story, story, story. That's just my opinion. I'm sure other's would frown upon my advice. Nonetheless, do yourself a favor and check out Crazy Love (and don't read a word about on the internet)!