Monday, December 7, 2009

Final Paper - Cinematography Styles

My final paper will have to be on my favorite part of film making - Cinematography. I have loved movies from the time I was a child and it wasn't really ever about the story or music. It was always how the movie was framed, pieced together, the lighting, the angles, etc. I was enthralled in the art of movie making. Tonight as I was looking for information regarding the different styles of cinematography, I discovered a documentary called, "Cinematoghrapers Style." It seems very compelling and I plan to watch it for fun and to help with my paper. The clip that I watched already talked about lighting and how it is the artists brushstrokes in the film. That light can create movement appear different, depth and also emotion or mood. All of those are creations caused by light... one of the scenes in the movie was a man holding a light bulb in his hand in complete darkness (except for the light emitted by the light bulb) and he was talking about this light and how important and wonderful it is for movies. It is something I cannot put into words but it really made me appreciate and want to master the beast of lighting. It seems as though lighting can be your friend if you learn how to tame it and manipulate it, or it can be your enemy if you ignore its abilities or function in telling the story. In just one scene I grew to understand the purpose of light at a personal, internal level.

Overall, I am excited to write this paper and to see what I learn in the process of writing it.

Ciao! Raini

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Not sure.....But here it goes.....

Not sure if im doing this right, not too tech savy.
I guess this is my first entry on this site, but i've already got two on my own, i guess. Anywho, Today Sarah started separating the footage that we have done so far. She started to piece together a shot of her pitching, so far looks likes its gonna be a good shot. I also gave her all of the pictures that i shot when we were at her games. She has some other pictures that she showed to me and told me some of her ideas for film that would include the still shots, so far I think this project is going to produce a really good film. That's my piece, see all you kiddies next time in the next episode of AS THE WORLD TURNS,er....... never mind, hahahaha, Later.

Filming in Modesto... dun dun dunnnn

When I woke in Modesto, Wednesday morning before Thanksgiving I looked outside and saw all the lovely fall colors I had missed due to arriving in town late Tuesday night. I was very eager and ready to film. The colors and scenery and lighting was beautiful. I scouted around for some areas to do the interview and was thoroughly disappointed, due to the sound. The sound outside was really terrible and we did not have access to any indoor areas that would be conducive to a good interview on film. When I put on the headphones I realized what a noisy neighborhood Dave's family lives in.

All together I spent about 3 days trying to get something good outside but because of cars and wind, rain on one day and Dave, the interviewee leaving to Boston the next day, I couldn't get anything. It was extremely frustrating to say the least.

There was about a 3 hour block of time on Wednesday though when I shot some cutaway scenes. To my dismay, I ended up with about 1 1/2 minutes of film. My in-laws were shocked that I practically ended up with nothing by the time I stopped.

The next go around will hopefully involve either the wind cover for the shotgun mic or the soundproof room that Chase might be able to get for our second interview with Dave. We will also hopefully do the interview with Kyle, Dave's brother on December 12th when he comes down to visit us.

Monday, November 30, 2009

End of Season

Last weekend was the end of the season for Bandits baseball…We will begin our next season in February. This will give us plenty of time to get all of the interviews taken care of and piece together the remaining parts. Due to the rain and muddy fields in San Diego over the thanksgiving holiday I was unable to get as much filming done as I would have liked however I started to draw up story boards and got an idea how I want to include certain parts. (pictures, interviews, etc.) In addition, the girl from the local high school team agreed to participate in the film and has tryouts coming up next weekend for the boys varsity team which I am still waiting to hear whether or not I will be allowed to film at..hopefully it works out!

Sunday, November 29, 2009

The first filming day of the women's baseball team was an education to me of how much of a novice I am in the world of film. I arrived at the field where Sarah was playing. She had brought the equipment for me behind the duggout when I arrived. I began setting up immediately but didn't know where the headphones were so I couldn't hear the sound. I asked Sarah when her team was up to bat where the best place to set up the tripod was. She told me for safety reasons I should stay behind the fence next to the duggout. The problem with this was that the fence was quite high and in order to avoid having a thick yellow bar at the bottom of the screen, I had to set the tripod up high and basically stand on my tip-toes the entire time.

Anything for the sake of the film!

Well, it worked okay, but when trying pan the camera to follow someone running from home to first I lost my balance the first time and totally screwed up the shot. This was the first of many not so stellar attempts to catch the action.

J.C. arrived about an hour after I did so he let me take a break and took over filming. By then, Sarah had her dad run out to the car to get the headphones and things were working a little better for us. We knew we should get different angles, but were a little weary of moving the camera to potentially dangerous areas so most of the filming (with the exception of the staged shots Sarah took before the game) was taken from the same position. We experimented with zooming and panning and as close-up as we could get but there wasn't much we could do from one spot. It was also really difficult because it was impossible to tell when something exciting was going to happen so we never really knew what exactly we should be filming.

At one point, the pitcher came back to where we were, frustrated with the way the game was going. He was shooting off all kinds of F bombs and curses. I had just put the camera aside for awhile because it was running out of film and I was kicking myself that the camera wasn't set up and ready to go. He said something about how he knew they were girls but they're "hardcore" and that they pee on the sidelines without using toilet paper. I asked him if I could film him saying all that stuff again and he said maybe after the next inning. It never happened, though.

We wrapped when the game ended and decided that Sarah would write a list of all the things she wanted to have filmed the following week.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Interview

Despite all the challenges of the interview assignment, I had a lot of fun with it. Since Sarah lives on campus, it was really easy for us to find a first year student that we didn't know just by Sarah putting the word out through people she did know.

That was the end of the easy.

Finding a location on campus to film was somewhat difficult. We wanted it to look pleasing but also be relatively quiet. Once we agreed on a location, we had to figure out which angle was the best to provide depth in the background as well as the best quality of light on our subject. It was tricky to find the right place where she wouldn't be blinded by the sunlight and squinty and didn't have a bunch of tree branch shadows all over her face. When we found this angle, setting up the camera and the shot was a lot of fun. I recall saying, "wow, this is really a lot of fun!"

Our interviewee was positioned in as perfect of light as we were going to get, the shot was set up, the sound was ready to go, we were ready to start filming and--THESE DANG PLANES KEPT FLYING OVER US CONSTANTLY!!! seriously, every time one would pass, we'd hear another one in the distance approaching. During the quietest moments of that, someone would walk by on a bunch of leaves or a car would drive by or a group of people would stop and linger on in conversation. We finally began our first take and about halfway through, this group of people off in the distance began laughing super hard to the point where it caused our interviewee to start laughing so we had to do the take all over again. Again, we had to wait a long time before we found a quiet enough moment. (I believe this was where I recall saying, "okay, this isn't fun anymore!"

We finally, got through the interview as a plane was beginning to fly over again. We considered that as much of a success as we were probably going to get short of leaving town and shut the production down. I feel like our subject was an all right choice but I felt a little lacking in the depth of the interview. We didn't ask her any really profound questions or anything but I kept wishing that she would be more detailed in her responses. I found myself trying to get more out of her but she just wouldn't give it to me. Next time, I think I will tell my interviewee to please be as detailed as possible on all questions before we start rolling the camera, though it may be more of an age issue. I also didn't like my voice being in the shot. If I could avoid that in some way, I would prefer it.

First Bit of Filming/ New Developments

This past weekend both Stacey and J.C came down to San Diego and we made our first attempt at gathering some film. With both of them there to man the camera, I was able to focus primarily on the game. After the game was over we decided to try out some of the staged shots I had in mind. Although I felt the footage looked good, I realized after the fact that there is a significant amount of background noise from the stands which could be a problem. In addition, although we felt that we had gather a significant amount of footage during the game, after I reviewed the tape, I came to the conclusion that all of the shots will have to be staged because everything is to far away to really get the detail and convey the emotion that I was hoping for.

As far as progression in other aspects of the film, I handed out my preliminary questionnaires/ interview topics to the players/coaches I intend to interview and I was also able to lock in all the other interviews I was hoping to get. In addition, I took some photos that I plan to use in the introduction of the film and was able to gather a significant number of pictures of other women from around the world. As a positive side note, I found out via facebook about a woman who is a seasoned veteran of baseball and was given the opportunity to try out for the Detroit Tigers minor league team. I contacted her, informed her about my film, and asked if she would like to contribute in some way. She said yes!! I think this will be an exciting new addition to the film!!

Monday, November 16, 2009

Next film session

For the moment, Chase and I have decided to just focus on the topic of my film... since Chase needs a baby to be born to make his film. So, our next film session is going to be shooting some of the cut-away shots. One of the shots will be based on the family tree. To reflect this, I plan to start from the base or trunk of the tree and pan up from a low angle off the ground. This shot will show the tree from it's roots or the beginning of a family tree, to the leafs or the offspring of the parents. I would also like to implement wind and how that scatters leafs... just as Dave and Kyle were scattered away from each other by their father.

The shot I am most eager to do because it may be a challenge is filming all of Dave and Kyle's pictures falling to the ground. This will be the scene leading up to the title of my film; I still haven't discovered what the title will be. The pictures I will use are of Dave and Kyle throughout the years. I plan to tape pennies to the back four corners of the pictures and just drop them... we'll see if this will work. I am hoping so.

I am eager to do our next film session. I just hope the pictures in my mind translate well on film.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

first shot

First attempt at gathering some footage..not sure how well it turned out. Due to scheduling conflicts, my other film crew members were unable to join me this weekend. I have a friend down in San Diego who is a film student who had volunteered to help me out this weekend but he got called into work so I had to have my little brother/dad holding the camera for me since I was playing in the game. Honestly I haven't even had the chance to go over what footage they took so it could be amazing but most likely we will aim for getting some better footage next weekend.

First Shoot

Raini and I shot her first section of interview with Dave on Sunday. All and all it seemed to go pretty smoothly. There were some sound issues with C-17 flyovers, motorcycles, and a short stint of vacuming but otherwise I think it went well. Raini was creative with the lighting and I can't wait to see some of the video up on the monitor. We got a whopping 55 minutes or so of interview, although there are segments of just waiting for outside noise to pass by.
I have managed to get a recording room set aside for us on our next shoot so that we won't have to deal with sound problems. The issue will then be finding a nice background because the room is set up for good acoustics, not good looks. I guess we'll just have to be creative.
I am contemplating dropping my project to go full force on Raini's so that we can have a finished project if this class gets cancelled, and am anxiously awaiting the decision by the school.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

photos...

For this assignment I set out to the baseball diamond in search of photo opportunities. My team had a double header over the weekend so I figured it would be a good opportunity to test out what some of my interview subjects would look like when photographed as well as to get some action shots. It was an interesting experience trying to be a photographer as well as participant in the games. I tried to get a range of different types of photographs and messed around with some different black and white shots. In the end, I came away with way more photographs than
I expected and had quite a task of sorting through all of them.

The photos I selected are of women in action playing baseball. I plan to use the photos I took in the film, however I feel that they may be more constructive in eliciting commentary from individuals who are not familiar with the idea that women do play baseball.

Friday, October 30, 2009

Bring the past forward...

For our assignment with photo elicitation, I hope to use photographs that will bring feelings from the past to the surface. For example, my subjects are two people that never grew up with a father in their life - therefore, I plan to take a picture of a Dad holding his sons hand or playing with his son. In essence, an aspect of life that neither one of my subjects ever experienced. Another idea would be photos of the things that Dad's normally teach their kids - ride a bike, throw a baseball around, work on a car, or tie a tie. With these photos, I hope that Dave and Kyle will be able to free the emotions they have suppressed when I ask questions regarding what they feel missed out on. And it may be possible that they don't feel like they missed out on anything... they may feel like it was better without a father figure.

Another aspect of the film is the connection of lost brothers. The photos used for this aspect of the film will show what Dave and Kyle did growing up separately. To see what your brother did growing up when you had no idea he was around, would make anyone feel something. I believe if this "something" emotion will make the viewer feel what the interviewee is feeling as they speak.

I also would like to use photos of Dave's mom with their father and the same for Kyle. To see the person who raised you with the person who you never knew (who also helped bring you into this world) is very evoking. There are feelings of loss, of anger, of confusion and one feels as though their identity is missing a link. It's a very compelling emotion that can bring memories to the surface which tell a story better than our everyday, conscious knowledge.

This assignment will be something I plan to use in my actual film making process. I'd like to use this method to help open my interviewees up about their story. I believe it will be beneficial to all involved - me as the film maker, the subjects of the film and the audience who views it.

Raini S.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

This is One Noisy Campus

Well I thought the interview process went pretty good after we were able to find a "quieter" location on campus. It's amazing how much noise you actually block out during your day to day, but when you've got headphones hooked up to the mic you hear everything. We ran into generator noise, construction noise, air conditioners and of course the almost ever present planes. As Raini said, once we got set up and ready to roll we realized that we were in the midst of hurricane conditions and needed to seek shelter at once. Eventually we were able to set up with buildings protecting us from the wind but there wasn't anything we could do about the planes or the killer squirrel. All in all I think the interview was good and I am now certain that my film interviews will be entirely indoors.
Chase

Monday, October 26, 2009

Noise!

Ok so this assignment was more difficult than I expected it to be for exactly the reason Raini described, the noise!!! Let me tell you about our adventure…To start off, Stacey and I walked around campus in search of what we thought would be a good place to set up as well as a good place to encounter freshman. Having several friends who are freshman that live in the dorms we wandered in that direction in hopes that one of my friends would introduce us to another freshman who might be willing to participate…It worked!! That was the easy part. Once we identified our subject for the interview we found what we thought would be a nice background outside the dorms and began the set up process. Mistake number one: The dorms- ridiculous amount of noise you can’t control…people laughing, doors slamming, cars driving by honking horns, people walking behind where you are shooting, crunching of leaves on the ground, kids screaming, parks nearby ,etc.

So after what seemed like forever of our interview subject sitting there waiting for us to be ready and having to explain to her that all the surrounding noise was overpowering when you have the headphones on, we were able to achieve what we considered as close to silence as we were going to get and finally got the interview underway. Yay smooth sailing from here right…no!

It seemed as if the very moment we got the camera rolling everyone decided to come out of their dorm, walk right behind where were we filming, laugh as loud as they could, smash all the leaves on the ground, and then to top it off, a never ending string of planes decided to fly over. Just as we thought the one plane was gone, although out of sight, another one could be heard far off in the distance. Frustrating to say the least.

In the end we finally got our interview completed…a bit shorter than we would have liked. I think our interviewee was tired of having to re-answer all of our questions several times. Anyway hope it works. See ya tomorrow.

Sarah

Oh the lovely CSULB airspace...

For our first assignment in the art of interviewing we were asked to find a freshman and interview outside at CSULB. For this task I thought the biggest challenge was going to be finding the person. However, this was not the challenge at all. Our interviewee was easy to find... all I did was ask a freshman I knew to get someone he knew to do it for us. Easy! So now onto the actual challenge of the interview... you ready for it, drum roll please... .... .... sound! Oh sound, what a painful process.

If you didn't know... which I know you do know, CSULB is right along the final descent of Long Beach airport and let me tell you, when you have the headphones on listening to the sound quality you can hear an airplane coming from a mile away. And the sound that you're hearing from a mile away shows up on your film. It's incredible but also very painful and tedious waiting and waiting and waiting for that dumb plane to disappear. Not to mention that on a campus people are walking around talking on cell phones, scuffing their feet, and tapping their hands. Mind you, we did the interview on a Sunday afternoon but there are still plenty of disturbances around; i.e. squirrels attacking our young freshman... it was intense but we all survived.

The other more controllable challenge with sound was the wind. When everything was set up for our interview and we were ready to say, "Action"... we put on the headphones and noticed that a hurricane was occurring in our ears. The wind quadruples in force when the microphone picks it up and records it. Insanity... but even still, all we did was move to a more secluded location. Within the more secluded location the lighting wasn't as beautiful, the background was less appealing but at least we could hear our interviewee speaking without El Nino blaring in the background.

Overall, once the location was found and the questions were being asked the interview was a success... minus the moments of pausing while we stared into the sky watching the metal bird fly overhead, praying it would pick up speed and get the heck outta of the air quick!

Ciao for now!
Raini S.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

What a Shell of a Guy and a Shell of a Time!

It's been long, but it's been good... at least from my side of the screen.
This class has been an enjoyable and educational experience. I'm very glad that I had a chance to experiment with cinematography. I would love to explore my artistic side more in this way. Like others mentioned in class today, I may consider taking a cinematography or editing class at a junior college in the future to learn some more of the fundamentals. Somehow I would like to incorporate cinematography into my future work... whatever that might be :)

As for the film festival, it was really fun! Everyone seemed to love our film. The consistent feedback was that it was really good. As others have mentioned, it was exciting to see our work up on the big screen. Personally, I was very proud when I saw the things I filmed on the big screen, as well as the things Donia filmed. But to be like "oh I filmed that!" made me happy. The way Jessica edited was like magic. She really is the strand the brought this all together :)

The other great part about this whole experience has been our wonderful "star" Louis Sheldon. He was so willing and patient as we filmed and interviewed him. I'm so glad that he likes the final product (not that we ever doubted that). He plans to show the film to the Pacific Choncological Society in November. Steven wants to attend that meeting and maybe I will too. I would be very interested to hear the reactions of the other shell club members.

Our whole group wants to enter our film into festivals and see where it might go. The first might be the Feel Good Film Festival this summer as well as some environmental film festivals. We'll see what happens. It has been a great learning experience for all of us! We are so very thankful for all the help we have received!

And remember... be kind to your shell covered friends... for they might be someone's mother...... or someone's dinner ;-)

(PS they actually taste pretty good :P)

Afterthoughts...two

Ok, well I just wrote a huge blog about my thoughts about the class and my thoughts about the festival, and it got erased. So, I'll keep it short.

It was a huge time consuming headache.

It was difficult going from no film, to a film we didn't like, to a film we were more or less happy with.

We got a lot of good feedback from the film, and even we asked to show the film in a Literature and Medicine class.

The class was tough and stressful, but it was a good experience. For a while I was considering not doing film after this, but after completing everything and having a finished product I think that I will continue and make more films.

I'll stop before this gets as long as the last one. Thanks to you all for your assistance, ideas, and critiques. It was a pleasure working with all of you!

Cheers,
r

Other anthropology departments must be GREEN with envy...

Okay so the above title is my one attempt at some sort of pun/title with word play. I apologize. But really, I think we all did an amazing jobs on our films! I know everyone put in a lot (A LOT) of hard work and effort and it all paid off because there was not a single unhappy person in the theater on Saturday. Everyone seemed pleased (surprised?) with the films we all produced. I know I can't speak for everyone, but it was amazing seeing the films on such a big screen. Like Steven had said, there really is nothing like it.

For me, the best part of the evening was really seeing the smiles on the faces of our participants, knowing that they not only approved of what we had created, but had enjoyed being a part of our film from start to finish. I know my group and I all really did have a lot of fun making this film, and like Steven said on the first day of class, that by the end of all of this our group would feel like a family. It's a little sad that we won't be making another Lauren, Mike, & Nikki Observational Production. Or will we?


Tuesday, May 5, 2009

The time has come...

We're at the finish line. Tin is making some final changes to the end of the film to show in class today, and I'll hopefully be in the lab learning how to use DVD Studio and making a menu. We're still trying to get the energy of the film to stay a little more upbeat and consistent post surgery. Tin wants to show me in class so I'll have fresh eyes. So, I'll be seeing it with you guys for the first time. Its kinda crazy that this whole project is coming to an end!! Now its just a lot of finishing touches and the project will be complete. Well, except for closed captioning, dvd case design, and other things that I can't think of but I know will have to be done.

See you all in the lab!!!

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Facebook Event Invite

I created an event invitation on Facebook for our screening. The post needs more photos and more guests invited. If you are on facebook use this link and add photos, videos, and "invite people to come" via facebook so we can get the word out.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=83461435613&ref=nf

Do a general "share" function to post the event to your profile so that all your stalkers will know where to find you that night. ;)

-Jessica

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Vimeo and the Picture Lock

Our group has been using the video sharing website "Vimeo" to post rough cuts of our film using password protection so that each of us can view our project and also get feedback from other hand selected people.

David Quon has begun writing and recording music for the film and we should be on track to send off a good draft to the AAA on Thursday.

We have continued to shorten our film. Right now, it's less than fourteen and a half minutes long. I don't even remember the three minutes I've cut out. This is a good thing, as I've heard that if you can cut something and you don't miss it, then it's a good thing it is gone.


The End is Nigh...

As I'm sure all of you are about your own films, we're getting excited about ours. As you've seen in class, its coming together nicely. But, this weekend I did something that I'm not looking forward to doing again. Subtitles. It was only a 25 minute interview, but it took FOREVER!! Our friend Barney took great care in translating the interview. I took it and put it to the timeline, then he came and helped me sync everything up just right. It took 12+ hours just to get it on the timeline. I have no idea how long it took Barney to translate it, but he was our saviour. The interview with Maria is vital to our film. You should be seeing it in class today. It was a good experience though. Between that, collecting some B-roll footage, and Tin's stellar editing...I think we had a pretty productive weekend.

See you all in class!!
r

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Another venue for us..

SCAAN
Anthropology in Action Film Festival
Saturday Evening May 23

Open to students, faculty, professionals and amateurs!

The event will take place at the home (garden) of Leanna Wolfe
in the hills overlooking Cal State LA.

If you have a film you would like to screen, please contact Leanna at LAWolfe@aol.com

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Collaborative Editing

Thank you to the class for your constant input on the various stages of our film. I am indebted to your fresh perspectives as you have been able to share your opinions and reactions to our film.



This week is exciting as we will be meeting with our film music composer. Our film will be strongly enhanced by it's score.

I hope to get a really good version done by next week for our last chance to get class feedback before we have our public screening.

Coming Along...

The film is coming along. Tin has been confining himself to his house and spending countless hours in the editing of our film (interrupted by the occasional bike ride of course). It appears to be taking shape, though it hasn't been easy. As Tin so eloquently put it, "Its like putting together a massive puzzle without a picture for reference." I've been working in FCP as well in the spare time that I have to try and gather footage for Tin's editing endeavor. Its looking like we're going to have something by May 9th after all.

In the mean time, here are a couple video clips for your enjoyment, or not.




Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Hmmm...interesting weekend editing?

Jessica and I were in the lab on Saturday from 10:30-1pm trying to get work done on two separate projects that we are doing together. My purpose for being in the lab on Saturday was not to necessarily work on our Louis film, although I was going to help Jessica with some story development for it. My main purpose for being in the lab was to work on the after-school-documentary-filmmaking project we are finishing up for our thesis project. I was trying to create the DVD menu for our youth's films they worked on for the past 9 months. Unfortunately, nothing really progressed with our Louis film or our thesis project as Jessica's attention quickly turned to the issues I was having. Needless to say, we had some major technical errors including such words like "PAL", "not compatable", and "NTSC" when trying to import our kids' films. I spent 45 gracious minutes talking with Steven, and then about an 1 and a half talking with Andy from the 1.800 Apple number I called for technical support. We figured out the issue just as Tin was arriving for 20 minutes of work before Jessica closed VAL.

Steven has been kind enough to help me learn how to work with DVD Studio Pro. He also let me borrow the tutorial so I could do some more study on my own. It's a fantastic program and by all accounts, should be fairly easy (not to mention, enjoyable) to work with. I am very much looking forward to getting our Louis film to the stage where I will be designing a menu, DVD face design, and even some DVD packaging for the film.

There's a lot of work that goes into making a film from start to finish. I'm trying not to get overwhelmed with how technical things are, and how many small mistakes you can make that eventually turn into something catastrophic. Thoughts?

Visuals, and story, a Movie...Oh my!!!

Things have taken a turn for the better in the last week!!! Tin has been working on some great visual sections of the film, and in turn, these sections have given us some guidance as to where the film will be headed. We have decided on a character to focus on, and how her story will put laid down (for the most part). All of our interviews have been logged and topics broken down into 24 topic-based chapters. Now it is these chapters that we'll be working to connect to create the rest of our story. Also, we've decided on the musical tone of our film. This decision has also given us guidance on how the film will be put together. At this point, it appears that music will be a vital part of our film. The musical dichotomy we have in mind should leave for interesting contrasts and compliments to the visual aspects of our film. We're going to be writing a good portion of the music ourselves, but also getting some duty-free music from online, and a friend of Tin's is doing an interesting arrangement of a well known Beethoven piece for us.

We're going in light-speed right now in hope that we'll have something great to show in the next three weeks! At this point, we are optimistic.

where do pirates get their veggies? gaaARRRRdens.

Now that Cesar Chavez day has come and gone, we think we have the meat of our veggie film. This last weekend we conducted a post-Cesar Chavez day interview with Bella and she gave us more intimate information about her life that we might be able to incorporate into the film, we'll see in the editing room.

One interesting update is that because of the Cesar Chavez day celebration the OC Register took an interest in the garden and put an article in the Local Section last week. The article focused on why the garden is there and how beneficial it is to the community, sort of like what our film will be about. It was just nice to see good acts getting praise and recognition.

So, after reviewing the rough cut thoroughly in class and alone, we have a good idea as to what it needs to tie it all together. The film has a direction, but it might not be as evident as it can be, so by creating clear chapter type segments either by narration or text we will be able to showcase each topic covered better. We are also in the process of getting the final pieces that were missing, footage-wise. We are filming this weekend and hopefully that will be our final shoot and then can devote all remaining time to editing.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Experiments in Transcription

Things are cruising along, perhaps not at the pace or direction we would like, but they are non the less. Well, actually things are moving along in a direction that may prove to be fruitful. Over the break I began the full transcription of out interviews. Lets just say that it takes roughly 8 hours to get through one tape. Multiply that by 17...no dice. Tin thus invented our new method and direction for the moment. In going over our tape logs, he pulled out roughly 17 recurring themes within the footage. Now, as we watch our footage on Final Cut, we're pulling out clips that correspond to these themes and putting them on separate time-lines. Hopefully this will reveal something to us, but if anything it will give us a very clear idea of what we have. We have ideas for some new interviews that could be interesting, but we've decided to hold off until we know what have so that we'll be able to expand on it and perhaps make something awesome! And from seeing what I've seen of the other films, there is already some awesomeness going on!!

Till next time race fans!!

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

My Experience as Cinematographer for Louis Sheldon

Spring Break! Woohoo! Party! Oh, wait... nevermind...




Most colleges have a time period known as “Spring Break.” Usually this break corresponds to some sort of Judeo-Christian holiday like Passover or Easter. I’m not really sure of the exact history of Spring Breaks throughout time, but I’m pretty sure they tend to serve three purposes: 1) give people time to spend with their families during religious holidays (not this year though, Spring Break came a little too soon); 2) give students a chance to blow off steam (method to be determined by student, I’ve never been to Cabo San Lucas, but I can only imagine); and 3) give students a chance to catch up on school work! Our group chose the later.

On Saturday, March 28th, our group filmed our first big Jerome Park Garden Event, the Cesar Chavez 9th Annual day of service. This was the most crowded we’ve ever seen the garden. Not only did we film the interactions occurring the garden, but also conducted several interviews with new and returning participants. Some of these new participants included a city councilperson and a state assemblyperson, both of which gave excellent interviews providing an outside authority on the importance of projects like The Grain Project. Other highlights of the day include an orange tree planting by the children of Cesar Chavez, other planting projects, and arts and crafts activities for the kids.

In addition to this marathon day of shooting, we also spent our spring break finishing up our rough cut and submitting our American Anthropological Association application. To be honest, this was a little bit exciting. This is our group’s first submission, and hopefully not out last.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Garden Party

This past Saturday, March 21st, was one of our group’s most productive filmings to date. Not only did we get some of those suggested wide shots establishing the garden’s space from Nick’s ladder (Nick’s VW van is a virtural Mary Poppin’s style carpet bag of items. You can find everything in there. Twenty watering cans? Done. How about a wooden-handled child’s size shovel? A full sized ladder? No problem.), but we also collected several valuable interviews. We re-interviewed Johanna, a Kidworks employee and garden participant; re-interviewed The Grain Project’s Co-founder Lara; conducted a dual language interview with a women from the apartments next to the garden; and interviewed Bella, a regular garden participant. Bella’s interview may be one of our best so far, as she was able to articulate, from a participant’s perspective much of what we’ve been thinking and feeling over the best few months.

In addition to our “fruitful” interview, we collected a solid amount of action footage. There were far more people in the garden on Saturday than what we are used to. Several new families from the near-by apartments came by, so we were able to talk to people about their first garden experience.

Overall, we are optimistic about filming this coming Saturday’s 9th Annual Cesar Chavez Day of Service/the Jerome Park Garden’s one-year anniversary (March 28th). We hope to conduct more interviews with garden participants and document the movement toward service, dignity, and community growth that this event represents.


“From the depth of need and despair, people can work together, can organize themselves to solve their own problems and fill their own needs with dignity and strength.” Cesar Chavez

Louis Sheldon Visits a Shell Shop

On Sunday, our group had the pleasure of filming at Ferguson's Marine Specialties in Wilmington, CA. Ferguson's has been in Wilmington for over 40 years and were featured on Huell Howser's "California Gold" a few years ago. Louis visits this shop all the time. The founder Ralph, has been a mentor to Louis. Ralph's daughter, who is now the owner, is also a friend of Louis so we were excited to see the interactions and meet more people passionate about shells.

When I walked into the display room at the shop, I saw a small room filled with shells.
There where shells in shelves, in display cases, in baskets, in boxes and in decorations. There were shells of every size, shape, color and design. Along with shells, there were other marine specialties such as starfish, sea horses, and preserved sea life.
Behind the display room, there were warehouses of shells waiting to be cleaned (which they also have facilities for) and resold. It was incredible!
I have lived next to the ocean my whole life (in 5 different locations) so sea shells and sea life were an important part of my childhood. I had a small shell collection and did a science fair project where I identified my shells when I was in elementary school. Along with this, our house has always had shells and other seascape decorations in multiple rooms. When I saw the shells in Ferguson's I was captivated by the beauty and variety. I wanted to share this treasure chest with every one I knew. (After we left the shop, I called my mom and told her about the shells and if she ever needed any decorations, I knew where to get them.)
After being impressed by the collection, my second thought was how are we ever going to set up a 3 person interview in here with all these shells?? Luckily we had the help of Ryan (from the beautification team) to give his insight and suggestions. He and Donia set up a good interview shot despite the challenges. We had Louis sit in a chair next to Ralph and Lupe leaned on a display case behind them. In the background there were shells, which made an excellent backdrop. Donia and I set up our camera on a tripod and kept it at a wide angle with all 3 interviewees the whole time. Ryan moved around with his camera taking close up shots of faces, and other shots that looked very creative, which I am excited to see :) (THANKS RYAN!!!!)

The next big decision we had to make was who to mic? Since Ryan was there with his camera, we were able to have two lav mics and one shot gun set up. We decided to mic Ralph since he had the quietest voice and Louis, since he is the star of our film and we wanted him to always have a clear recording. I think this ended up working out, because Lupe talked loudly and the shot gun mic (which was pointed at her) seemed to pick her up clearly. The only thing that might be problematic from this set-up is some of the background noise. Right next to the interviewers was a fish tank and I could hear the motor running faintly in the background. This might be bad since Lupe's track might pick up that noise and she said a lot of good things that we probably will want to include. There is a possibility that her voice was also picked up on Louis' or Ralph's mic so we might be able to use that sound instead.
The interview material ended up being outstanding! Through the story of Ralph and Lupe we were able to meet two people who were also passionate about shells, but in a completely different way. Lupe kept talking about how her passion of shells came from within and it was something not everyone had. She loved shells because of the beauty (not science like Louis) and made crafts with shells. Lupe talked about the importance of hobbies in people's lives, including her own and her children's lives and how the hobby of shell collecting has been passed on to each generation. Ralph was quieter, but still some great things from the mind of an old man who has been collecting shells his whole life. We were also able to ask Ralph and Lupe what they thought about Louis and see some friendly banter and interactions. We talked about the shell club, the dying hobby of shell collecting, why people are interested in shells and so much more. All in all it was a great interview and a great day! I think it will be an excellent addition to grow the storyline of our film.
Pictures were borrowed from Ferguson's Website - Thank you Ralph and Lupe!

Monday, March 23, 2009

The Film God's heard our plea's...

I'd like to start this blog with a big THANK YOU to Dr. Schindler and to Krystal Long. Without the gift of their time, Tin and I wouldn't have been able to capture ALL of our footage this last friday. 17 tapes in roughly 8 hours, with no major problems. This has given us great peace of mind and allows us to breathe a bit. But, we still have a long way to go. We haven't done anything in regards to developing the film this week, but we'll start editing on wednesday.

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I took part in a filming of the infamous Luis Sheldon (he's taller in person) this last sunday at Ferguson's Shell Shop in Wilmington. This place was cool, and challenging to shoot in!!! I enjoyed working with Donia and Rachel, and it was interesting to see how their interviewing style differed from our own. It was my first time doing extended hand-held work, and I will say that its difficult and extremely tiring. My right are was jello after the hour and a half shoot. It was overall a great experience, and I'm happy I was able to meet the one and only Luis, as well as the friendly owners of Ferguson's.


Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Louis talks about his life in Corona del Mar

(an apology: I had great visuals that I found online to post but for some reason blogger won't upload any of the photographs)

Rachel and I were able to set up an interview in Corona Del Mar with Louis this past Saturday. We have been doing our best to listen to Steven's criticisms concerning the storyline of our film and its lack of depth. Our time with Louis definitely got to a level of depth (or preciousness?) we were hoping for.

We listened to Louis as he defined success, shared his philosophy as an artist and how that translates to the rest of his life, how his artistic and scientific parts of his life clash or enhance one another, and he even shared his desire to find a special someone.

Louis discussed the part of his life when shell-collecting was an unhealthy addiction for him, his road to recovery, and all that he learned because of his obsession. Louis pinpointed isolation from relationships with friends and family as the most unhealthy part of his shell-collecting behavior. As Louis became self aware (and seems to continue to be self aware), he has transformed his hobby into something that invites people to be apart of his experience (i.e. shell club, Dad coming with him, not spending so many hours in his bedroom looking through a microscope).

Great words were spoken. I interviewed Louis while Rachel filmed and we haven't yet talked as a group about how that worked out for us. I am curious. We had about an hour worth of sound troubles as we were setting up the equipment. Eventually we got the levels on the camera in the right place and it sounded great in the headphones. We will be doing an interview at the Shell Shop this Sunday and will be doing another interview with Louis painting at the warehouse art studio he uses.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Praying to the movie gods.

We have an idea where we want to take this film. From what our previous interviews tell us, most people seem to be jaded toward the idea of beauty, and feel that the only reason that they do it is because they feel that they have to conform to society's collective ideas of beauty. But, there is another side. Those who actually enjoy it, feel better doing it, and appreciate it's ability to make one feel better. This is the angle we hope to get from the LGFB program. We think showing the contrast of the two and how it seems ok to regain what you lost, be it by surgery or makeup, but not ok to add to what you've already got. But really, is there a difference if it makes you feel better?

But, there is a rub. Tin is in full production mode for his UCLA film until next tuesday. This leaves nothing to do but capture footage for the next week, but my free time doesn't coincide with the lab times. So, we're not really sure how this is all going to work out. We have three interviews ready to go when we can get to them, and a Look Good, Feel Better event at UCLA next Thursday. This event (if we get full access that is) combined with the new interviews, will give us probably five more tapes to log, capture, and edit. How we're going to shoot, capture, log, and edit it all in seven days is a mystery to me. Perhaps we should hold a ritual sacrifice to the movie gods.

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Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Louis Sheldon: Storyline

So we need one. For some reason the documentaries King of Kong and to a lesser extent Grizzly Man stick out to me as models for this story. But in both of those there is such an obvious conflict they are able to capture.

Until we figure that out, as the editor, I am mostly pulling out interview stuff I like that he says, rather than any actual events/crises/activities he participates in. I need something to drive this. The biggest points of conflict I see in this story as it is, is when hobby turns to science and when passion turns to obsession. Also the dying nature of the hobby, I guess.

Some encyclopedic references to reflect on....

Encyclopedia Britannica: "Shell collecting as it is understood today, in the manner of coin, stamp, and china collecting, is of more recent origin, reaching its apex in England during the late 18th and early and middle 19th centuries. This was the period of the burgeoning Pacific and China trade; new islands were being discovered, and the shells found there were first imported as curiosities, later as specimens for the collectors among the newly rich merchant princes. This period reached its highest point in the 1850s and ’60s, when shell auctions became a common occurrence and relatively high prices were paid for particularly rare and perfect specimens. There followed a period of relative decline, probably because many formerly rare shells suddenly became common as their haunts were discovered and exploited. Nevertheless, shells are so strikingly interesting and beautiful in themselves that the hobby was rapidly revived.




Most collectors tend to specialize, since there are about 100,000 shell species known. Some collectors limit themselves to particular localities. Such specialists frequently contribute valuable scientific data on exact locality and life habits of many mollusks. Some collectors gather only specimens of the single species of a shell that typifies a particular genus. Such a collection is a valuable lesson in taxonomy and evolution and gives an insight into the entire field of conchology, the study of shells.

The equipment of the shell collector includes some sort of tool to scrape away the sand or leaves; a knife to detach rock-clinging mollusks from their perches; a hammer and chisel to remove rock borers from their nests; a sieve to strain out specimens from shallow water; a notebook to record locality and ecological data; and a library of books on shells to aid identification."

Garden of Eaten

Last Saturday afternoon was a beautiful sunny day, perfect for gardening. It seems the community agreed on the ideal weather conditions because the turn out at the Jerome Park Garden was higher than past Saturdays. We were able to practice hand-holding of the camera and we used the lav mics. We put our new skills to good work for interviews of the Grain Project founder, Lara, and one of the cutest five-year-olds on the planet, Malachi. The sound came in clean and crisp and we now have two layers of audio to choose from, so that went well.

We also reshot some of the shots that we realized had too fast of motion or the zoom was incorrect, or shaky camera work. We are compiling a lot of footage and are preparing for our big event at the garden (Cesar Chavez day). That day will have many more participants in the garden and will showcase the true good that the garden has to offer those who are interested. So, find out whats in the garden next week, same garden channel same garden time.

Look Good, Feel Better

In our quest to find some sort of angel that holds some sort of intrigue, on the recommendation of a friend, I have contacted the American Cancer Society regarding a program called "Look Good, Feel Better". This program, run by the ACS, works in concert with cosmetic companies, professional salons, and Hollywood makeup and wardrobe houses to teach those undergoing cancer treatment techniques that can be used to help themselves feel more comfortable with their appearance as it is drastically altered while they undergo treatment. In short, the program helps to teach cancer patients how to beautify themselves.
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This program functions on a base of volunteers and donations from cosmetic companies. Though the website appears to be solely focused on women, they do also help males, but only those under the age of 18 (which is interesting). I contacted the local ACS office and requested an interview, at first the woman I spoke with was into the idea. Then after emailing her, in which I made sure to mention that it was on camera, she declined and is now pushing my request on to the ACS public relations department in LA. Hopefully this will be fruitful and add much needed new life to our project. And to top it all off, LGFB is holding an event at the UCLA Medical Center on March 26th. Hopefully we'll be able to gain access and film this great event!!
PhotobucketThis last friday we had a shoot with a man named Jeff. Jeff loves nature. So, in our goal to stylize our shoots and to create environments that show our interviewees personality, we wanted to shoot in a 'natural' environment. Since it was extremely windy on this particular friday, we decided to shoot inside Tin's house. I'll just say that it was a challenge to simulate nature inside a living room. Two hours, a plant, a green-screen, four lights, and a lot of adjustments later, we began our interview. Photobucket This was the perfect example of how much work a team can put into an interview, and then walk away with a fruitless interview. Perhaps we're not asking the right questions. Perhaps something is eluding us. But we're not inspired in the slightest. Perhaps things will work out with the LGFB program and the film will take on new life.
We have a shoot at a barbershop in Long Beach scheduled for this friday morning, and perhaps something else will be scheduled for later this week. Till next time...cheers.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Current and Upcoming Production

Last week we hashed out what really needs to be done to get the ball rolling and the movie on tract. Our meeting with Pro. Schindler was purely a positive experience, one in which our roles became more clearly defined. Bahati came up with a great production schedule for the next two weeks.

Production Schedule – First 2 weeks of March

Wed., March 4 (4-6 p.m.) Interview with Alison Diaz, founder

Thur., March 5 (4:30-6 p.m.) Interviews w/ Green Ambassadors Sara Laimon (Director) and Tyler Garber

Fri., March 6 (8-3 p.m.) 1st Period- Simeona working with Betty Marshall in main office
2nd Period Advisory- David (Ms. Mc Cabe ) Room 141
3rd Period – Shamms (English with Ms. Hill) Room 142
4th Period- Interview Ms. Frame Room 145
Lunch
5th Period- Tyler (History with Ms. Frame) Room 145
6th Period- Open
7th Period- Simeona (Dance with Ms. Grace) Room 133b
*Afterschool – dance squad practice

Wed., March 11 (4-6 p.m.) 10th Graders class trip to Joshua tree (11-13)
Interview with David

Thur., March 12 (4:30-6 p.m.) Interview with Mick

Fri., March 13 (8-3 p.m.) Filming all day—schedule TBA

As you can see yesterday, Wednesday March 4, was our first shoot in a couple of weeks. There were no students on campus during the time of the shoot, the students had a half day, this made a huge difference. The usual chatter from the students was absent making it easier to control audio.
Our first shoot this week was suppose to be an interview with ECHS founder Alison Diaz. Unfortunately she was tied up with administrative duties, she was in a meeting, and had to cancel the interview. Bahati and I made the most of our time by shooting some b-roll of the main office. There were a couple of banners we shoot, a dry battery drop-off station, and an article about the school.
Today should be pretty exciting, we have two interviews, one with Green Ambassador Director Sara Laimon, and a student by the name of Tyler Garber. Sara is a very exciting person and has a lot of knowledge to share with us. We should be able to get some great ideas for b-roll from this interivew. The second interview is with Tyler, I do not know much about this person, all I know is that Tyler was part of the auditions and is a Green Ambassador.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

"People who touch the ground, live longer...."


This phrase was eloquently put by our informant over the weekend at the Jerome Park Garden. Jose, a father of three, took his children to the garden for the second time this weekend. Our interview with him went very well and he gave us a true life stories about his father, growing up on a farm, and moving to the states. He shared personal moments of his life and expressed the importance of knowing about gardening and/or small scale farming.

Also, as a Santa Ana resident, Jose was able to tell us what it is like to be a part of the community and everything that goes along with that. The dialogue in the interview was very interesting and should make for great footage. We are also hoping to get permission to take a few shots of the garden from an interesting location. One family that frequents the garden live literally across the street on the second floor of an apartment complex. They have a perfect view of the garden and we really would like to get some footage of the garden from their daily perspective.

Our film is coming along and we are accruing more and more footage each time we visit Santa Ana. We have a few things scheduled such as an interview with Laura and also Cesar Chavez Day at the park which should really strengthen our film. We are optimistic and confident about the future of our film and are excited to complete it and show it to the rest of you.

Louis Sheldon goes to Palos Verdes

Rachel and I followed Louis to Palos Verdes for our first experience to watch him dive for shells. Despite getting stuck watching kids in baseball uniforms riding in the back of Ford F250's for 20 minutes, and Rachel locking her car keys in the camera case located in the trunk of her car, the day was exceptionally gorgeous and we hopefully got good footage.
Louis dove with his friend Alex who is a biology major at CSULB - they know each other because they share the same fraternity. Louis is still involved with the fraternity as an alumni. The hike was strenuous for me with the camera (I'm not going to lie, I was really nervous I was going to do some harm to the camera), but it was even worse for Louis and Alex with their 60-70 lbs. of extra weight from their dive gear.

Rachel and I mostly captured action shots and what will hopefully turn into good cutaways - hooking up a lav mic to a wet suit for an interview walking down a steep trail with the final destination being the ocean would prove too difficult. I am interested to hear the sound captured from Saturday - it sounded normal in the headphones.

While Louis and Alex were diving, that gave Rachel and I about an hour to film our surroundings. I asked Rachel to get a wide range of seascape shots - close ups of craggy rocks, long shots of the distant cliffs, shells in the tide pools, etc. Two highlights for me while we were waiting for Louis:

1. I was sitting on a rock enjoying the view and looked to my right only to find a colorful crab peaking out of a rock crevice...I quickly asked Rachel for the camera and filmed the little guy for 5-8 minutes.

2. There were 4 fishermen on the rocks we were filming from so I struck up conversation with them - one fishermen explained to me that he considers himself a hunter more than a fisherman because it is only in the off season that he fishes. His largest game he has hunted was a 600 lb. bear! If only we could make another documentary.


When the boys popped up out of the water, I got exciting footage of Louis almost being pounded into the rocks as he was coming ashore. It helped that on the climb back up the trail the boys needed resting points - that allowed me to run up farther and set up impromptu camera "stations" to capture their ascent on film. Once they reached the top of the cliff, Louis and Alex talked about the different world that only exists under water, how life is vibrant and all over, what they fear most when under water. Alex has an underwater camera and will be sending us photos and videos of their underwater dives together. All in all, a successful and beautiful filming experience.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Revamping Beauty

After our meeting with Prof Schindler last week, we've come upon some obvious ideas that were eluding us before. We think the lack of a third brain has limited us in our thinking on this project. Its quite easy for us to get stuck in a rut of thinking with just the two of us. But, now we're going to be moving in a somewhat new, but not totally new or story revealing, direction. Since our subject is truly something that is linked to imagery, we're really going to begin focusing on the tools that create the way we make ourselves look. We're also going to start taking more of a look at the male side of things, as we, and Dr. Schindler pointed out that it's a bit one-sided at the moment. We have an interview scheduled for this friday, and hopefully more will work out for this weekend as well. The logging of footage continues as we're still chipping away at it. It seems the underlying theme of the production of this film is "Slowly, but Surely". We hope that the coming weeks will provide us with captivating, visceral footage that we can add to this project.

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Tuesday, February 24, 2009

The High School Environment


At this point, we are trying to focus our story more. We have chosen 4 students to follow and schedule our shoot dates around. We are hoping that at least 2 of these students will lead our documentary. This feels extremely risky to us, because if for whatever reason, a lead student decides they no longer want to participate as heavily then our documentary could suffer.

After our feedback from out trailer, it looks like we still have a lot of work to do.  We are going to focus more on story development and pay more attention to cinematography. There was also concern about the choice of music for our trailer. But as a group, we decided we wanted out trailer to have a light-hearted feeling with uplifting music. Should more dramatic scenes or stories arise then of course that feeling will be portrayed as well. There was also concern about the fact that the environmental part of this school is not portrayed well in the trailer. Our story is not just based on the fact that this school is an environmental high school. We have also agreed that we want to focus on the theme of community, and the impact that this small high school community has had on its students. Our goal is not to expose these students as not being as environmentally friendly as they should be. Each student has a story, and attending Environmental Charter High School is just part of it. 

Production Schedule:
Thursday -- Student/Faculty basketball game
Friday -- Pep rally and school dance
Saturday -- In-home interview with a student's foster mother 

Issues: The issues we are currently facing is being able to attend shoots as a group, streamlining the system of watching footage and capturing as well, and story development. 

Shell Guy: Redefining

As the semester begins to define itself and as we define our plans for production, our team is also redefining our roles. After some discussion, we realized that this film is not solely directed by one person, but jointly directed by all three of us. As the original director, I felt like I was playing a unique role because I was supposed to be "directing" but I did not form the initial story idea and I had the least experience film making. It made it really hard to "direct" when I didn't know what to do! So I relied a lot on my team members for help. As our filming has progressed, we realized that we were all directing different aspects of the film. It has become a very joint project and for this reason we have decided to all be co-directors and I will be the producer.

I am okay with this change, as is the rest of our team and our professor. The one thing I realized I did want different, was more experience. As "director" or now "producer" I did not get a lot of the hands on experience. I've been setting up shoots, making contacts and doing interviews, but I wanted to get my fingers wet with cinematography and editing. After some discussion with my film team, I hope to get a little more experience in these areas. I don't want to take over either role, but I do want to learn what they do to share in the knowledge and the experience, since school is for learning. (That's at least the reason I took this class :) )

It's difficult once roles are defined to change and redefine, but I think that is a life lesson. We can plan for one thing, but for whatever reason, often it doesn't turn out as planned. We have to be flexible and sometimes ask: is there anything we can do to make this better? When we realize there is, we have to readjust and redefine.

For the future - we will be filming this weekend with Louis. We are still working out the details, but we may do a dive and at the very least ask some good interview questions and get some good content for our film.
On a completely different note - I watched a beautiful sunset yesterday at the beach. When I was standing there, I noticed all these little shells around me. If nothing else, working with Louis has opened my eyes to the whole wide world of micro shells and has given me a greater appreciation for all the beauty of the beach :)

Monday, February 23, 2009

Insane in the MemGRAIN

I spent some quality time with the camera this week, we filmed together as we strolled the busy streets of Santa Ana...we admired the architecture of the town....witnessed schoolchildren playing in front of beautiful murals..memories were formed that will be shown to you all in due time. In all seriousness though, our group got some long overdue filming done this week/weekend. We have begun to envision what will tell a story through images....We imagine a sort of stark contrast between the levels of the community and showcasing the fast paced lifestyle omnipresent in all of those levels. To really exemplify the feel of Santa Ana we will show disjunctive urban society and then show how community comes together doing community type things, and then ultimately community happening on a personal level (or shall we say GRASSROOTS level?).
We were able to conduct a few interviews this week and the information we attained from our informants will be very useful for our finalized film. We were able to interview two volunteers from KidWorks (a non profit organization also from Santa Ana focused on helping the children of the community), we also interviewed Nick Spain again. Our teaser critique mentioned a few flaws about the interview we used of his, hopefully this one will be better. We also interviewed some of the local children and got them doing children-y things. We also interviewed Dalilah, the sole proprietor of The Road Less Traveled, a sustainable conservation based store in Santa Ana. Dalilah also happens to be one of the three founding members of the Grain Project and has a great outlook on the Santa Ana community as a progressive entity. Her interview probably went the best out of all of them, we had conditions we could actually manipulate so the lighting, sound, and background were under our control.
All in all I think we are coming along and acquiring as much footage as we can and with more time available for editing we will be able to string all our pieces together and hopefully give you all a better picture of what exactly is going on in Santa Ana and the Grain Project and hopefully you will be as impressed as we are with the whole movement.

Keepin' on keepin' on.

As of this week, nothing new to report.  My esteemed colleague was out of town since Wednesday, and since we prefer to work on most matters of the film together, we haven't really done much in the last week.  I received the suggestions regarding our film form Prof. Schindler, and have been putting some thought into what he said.  He mentioned that we should try to stylize all of our shots to create more continuity.  The shots that were stylized were the ones that we used unnatural lighting on.  We'll have to get creative with our locations and setups if we're to stylize every shot from here on out.  And of course, we still don't know where this film is going.  Perhaps we'll figure this out sooner than later.  Until next week...Happy Shooting!!

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Making Sense of the ECHS film

While filming at ECHS for the last few weeks we’ve been able to meet so many cool young people who have interests in fashion design, break dancing and even producing hip hop music. It’s been a great experience so far getting to know the students each time we visit the campus. With so many students to pick from I’m learning from the other film teams that we’ll need to narrow down who we will focus on in the film.
Right now it seems like the focus and potential story line is going in all sorts of directions. We’ve shot a few of the sports games and interviewed several students and a few teachers. We were even able to interview parents who have sent three of their five children to ECHS.
After watching our teaser with my classmates and hearing their feedback and comments I realize that we’ll need to really explore and develop the environmental angle a bit more. It’s there. We just need to start digging and asking questions that will spark ideas for where to go from here. As we spend more time at the campus and talk more with students, teachers and parents about their impressions of what’s happening there, I’m confident the story will begin to unfold and the feel of the film will start to emerge and become clearer for all of us.

"Do you want to know the #1 reason women get breast impants?"

Things are moving along in our attempt at documenting the "Beautification" of Western humans.  So far we've logged about half of our tapes, 8 of 16.  And, we've created a simple, rough, teaser for class today.  In going through our footage together, we find that there are moments in our interviews of absolute brilliance and revelation into our topic.  Things that make us look at each other and say, "WOW, that is powerful".  Its these instances that help us to push forward in the hope that we'll create a good film.  
We've noticed that the playback decks don't communicate well with our version of Final Cut.  It works, but the deck doesn't always follow orders.  This may be due to our settings, but it may not.  We're continuing to work on the issue.  
Last weekend Tin had the opportunity of capturing some amazing footage of a liposuction and fat transfer surgery!!  Our contact, Dr. J, has been nice enough to invite us into his clinic repeatedly to get an inside look and what goes on there.  He was able to get a pre-op interview with a patient, and tape her surgery as well.  I must say, its some amazing footage.  The visuals are enough to get you, but the fact that Dr. J is talking about "Beautification" the whole time he's working is even better!  He even gives a play-by-play of what it is he's doing.  
Even though things are starting to come together, we still have a long way to go.   Stay tuned folks!!!


Go, go Grain Project!

We, as a group, are quite pleased to have officially completed our first extended, sit-down interview with a member of the Grain Project. We realized upon finally viewing our existing footage that it was mostly action based, which is great, but not ideal for telling a story. To remedy this we were able to contact Nick Spain of the Grain Project and have him sit down for an interview Thursday afternoon.

Overall the interview went very, very well. Nikki and I felt like we really didn't have to prompt him, or explain to him what we were looking for. Sometimes we'd ask him one question and he'd lead right into the next question on our list, without us even asking it! This isn't too surprising, as we had already discussed a lot of our subjects on prior field days without cameras. One particularly funny/heartfelt moment came when we were talking about why kids come to the garden to help and work. Nick went into details about how despite all the other options kids these days have for their free time (ipod wizardry, for example), they still come to the garden to help out.
Also, in a side note, about sound, the afternoon in a park is not the ideal time to conduct an interview, sound-wise. Too many soccer games and handball courts. People do not listen to you when you ask them (nicely) to stop playing handball.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Louis Sheldon Film

I apologize that I don't have any images to show you from my time with Louis our shell collector this Saturday.  Louis and his family were gracious enough to have Jessica and I in their home again to get thorough coverage of Louis' shell collection, Louis' enthusiasm behind a microscope searching for microshells amongst rubble (not rocks),

 

his shell research books, etc.  I even captured some intimate moments with Louis having conversations with his bi-valves, 
Drawing illustrating typical bivalve symmetry, where one valve mirrors the other
his two year-old niece, and showing his excitement as he received his bank statement in order to buy more shells...I think he was making a joke.  Lucky for us, Louis also said he thinks our film has been a good process for him to think about why he collects, researches, and devotes so much time to shell collecting.  

I am hoping to go with Louis as he visits his favorite local shell shop, Ferguson's Shells which also happens to be the shell shop highlighted by Hewell Howser in  2005 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dufQiX74WQ4) and owned by a shell club member,  on a dive for shells accompanied by his father, and back up to the Natural History Museum for better club member interactions and cutaways.
  
Welcome to the Natural History Museum

Which reminds me, Rachel and I went to Louis' shell club meeting last Sunday - despite horrific sound issues that I think were resolved, I was so glad to see Louis in a setting discussing his adventures in shell collecting and research while getting some hard-earned recognition.  It added yet another perspective, and admittedly for me, a legitimizing perspective on Louis' passion for shells.