In an earlier post I mentioned one of my favorite scenes from my last film, The South Lost The Civil War. This was shot in the Mississippi Delta in March of 2008. The themes presented in the film offer a glimpse of life in an almost forgotten region of the country, a place I had not known, yet had so much history with my family.
This location took place in an old schoolhouse now used for community events such as weekend concerts like this.
I've been told time and time again, go HD. If I want to be taken seriously as a shooter in this industry I need to step it up from my old 3chip Sony VX-2000. Here is where the new Sony EX1 comes in. This camera has 1/2 inch chips compared to prosumer 1/3 inch chips and is completely tapeless, recording directly to memory cards. With the two slots available in the camera up to 70 minutes of shooting is possible. My main concern for this is the way documentaries are shot, with higher shooting ratios and often distant, dangerous and remote locations where having a computer on hand to dump footage into would not be practical. What I like about this dilemma is that the 70 minutes is in the highest quality 1080 resolution. This camera allows lower resolutions of 480 and 720 resolutions and records with a Variable Bit Rate or VBR which allows for more definition in the areas needed, thus saving space on the memory cards. The workflow excites me, dumping footage into Final Cut without having to deal with log and capture and the real time it takes to capture the footage shot.
I came across this on Vimeo, its one of my favorite examples of the quality of image this camera produces.
I awoke to an email concerning my last post, less than 24 hours after posting, regarding my idea and treatment for the subway musician documentary. Her name is the "Saw Lady" who plays the saw in the subway platforms of NYC. She has apparently gotten some notoriety playing Madison Square Garden and currently on tour in Poland. She came across my blog and is interested in the project. This project even in the very first stages of development is shaping up to be a good one.
She even has a website. I'm currently researching cameras and think I have one pinned down. More on that in the future.
Untitled New York Doc. Treatment Draft One |August 6, 2008|
Focus
New York City, the busiest place in America. Many eyes witness and observe the immense buildings, people living vertical lifestyles. A city underground with subway tracks and platforms, musical performers beat drums made of buckets, strum their guitars in hopes for spare change. To the eye of a long time New York City resident, this is no such attraction. But to the tourist or recent transplant to the city, the street performer is a wonder all in its own.
This documentary will focus on the observations and timid eye of a recent transplant and focus mainly on the subway street performers who seemingly live down in the city below the city. What does this city look like? Feel like? An honest answer cannot be given by merely visiting and documenting what is seen. This film will give a point of view from a new comer, trying to understand and interpret a new culture.
The time has come for me to post my freshly cut 2008 demo reel. The footage is comprised of many documentary projects, some I have directed and some not. Being in New York now has given me some ideas on my next short form documentary, following the mood, tempo and observational style of my previous film The South Lost The Civil War. A new camera is coming soon as well, I plan on shooting the new project in HD, something that is new to me.
I have found how hard it is to break through the industry in this city and in keeping my mind sane will be making this film on my own, with sights set at festivals (although I have seemed to not enter my previous film in a single festival). I hope to expand on my voice I think I have found in making The South. Look out next week for a posting of one of my favorite scenes in the film.
Today I received an email from the National Film Board of Canada. It seems they have started a new socially conscious content website.
"We are compiling media about cycling issues and social change - in a dossier called Critical Mass: Wheels of Change. I saw your short doc on Youtube (Put the Fun Between Your Legs: Women Who Ride) and loved it!! I immediately thought that this video would make a great addition to our Critical Mass: Wheels of Change dossier."
This is very exciting because this is first hand the future of filmmaking and relaying ideas to the mass public, best of all it is completely participatory.
The most integral aspect of documentary filmmaking is getting to know your subject(s), really getting to know them. Spending time together, without cameras, gaining trust, forming relationships. Roman Safiullin did this when he shot his film, Outside Orlando. The story goes back two years ago. We had shared an intro to production class at the University of Central Florida. He saw my attention to detail in my editing and it stuck with him when a year later he asked me to edit his Documentary Workshop film about the homeless of east Orange County, FL.
Roman began volunteering with a group of young people whom I and my friends started called East Orlando Food Not Bombs, a horizontally structured anti-war, anti-racist, anti-sexist and anti-capitalist organization dedicated to the redistribution of food with the mantra "Food is a right, not a privilege" This is where Roman met his subjects and spent time with in their camps in the woods surrounding suburban east Orlando.Completed in the Spring of 2007, the run time is 7 minutes as screened at the UCF end of the year film screenings.
