My Dearest Class,
After about a month of being here, my project is finally in the thick of it. Two big issues have come up. The first issue is that there is absolutely no place for me to meet with Claudene and Sclovia without having loads of people peering over our shoulders. I've tried the stadium, the road, a restaurant...and those are pretty much the only places to go. My shots thus far include lots of others and I'm wondering if instead of resisting this, if I should just embrace the fact that my project will also involve many others. At the same time, Claudene is pretty shy and doesn't have much confidence, I don't know if she would feel as comfortable talking to me in front of others as when it is just the three of us. Any thoughts??
Second, I'm having such a difficult time simultaneously shooting, talking to the girls, and drawing/talking to them. I'm wondering if I should set the camera up on an tripod to manage it but am also worried about removing the feeling of interacting. My camera work is really suffering because I can't pay attention to composition or audio quality.
The stuff the girls have been filming is great- really performative and playful. And its really interesting seeing what each girl has decided to film. For example, Sclovia is always with many friends and has shots of her family. Claudene hasn't shot anything with her family and usually is by herself or with one other person. Both tend to shoot clips that are between 20-60 seconds and I'm wondering if I should tell them to take longer shots, or if I should allow those short clips to represent how they explore their worlds. I wanted to upload some clips but its impossible from here.
Going to the Rwanda Film Festival tonight! They are showing films on blow up screens in the most remote parts of Rwanda, and lucky for me, tonight's film is just 30 minutes away!
xxx
Hi Elisa,
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear you've gotten an established. I had a thought concerning your question about setting up the tripod to film. One of the most arresting camera angles I have noticed in the film work I saw over the semester are ones shot from a vantage perpendicular to the image, which often creates a very flat sense of depth and the viewer the embodied semblance of being above and seeing the scene below (in contrast to the orientation of the verticality of the screen itself)
I find it an extremely powerful angle and am still figuring out how I might incorporate it adroitly into my own work. I attempted such an angle when shooting myself reading pense-bete by placing the tripod on the table, fully extended and zooming in, although I did not quite achieve a strict 90 degree angle.
Examples of this shot from class is Sarah's shot of white hands against red pillow( or was it a jacket?), the opening shot of tarot card reading in Agnes Varda's Cleo from 5 to seven and in hollis frampton's sequence of man peeling a tangerine in zorns lemma, if you've seen them. As you can see, the angle has a powerful mnemonic effect on me. The disadvantage in your case, based on my reading of your treatment, is that the shots of the girls drawing would have seem more "scripted" or "stationary" as opposed to being shown during the course of their daily activity. On the other hand, such static shots, horizontals with flat affect, could provide an interesting relief and accent when juxtaposed with other shots taken with more depth of field, such as action on the soccer field and whatnot in the composition of your film.
Just one (long) thought.
Best of luck regardless! Sounds like things are working out. ~cynthia
Elisa, it sounds like your project is coming along excellently! I’m excited to see what the girls have shot with the HD flip camcorders, and to see how you’ll incorporate that into the film. I honestly think that if you’re sure you’ll use clips from the girls, your film won’t suffer at all from using the tripod. In fact, I think it would make a good contrast, and help distinguish the girls’ footage from your own. I forget who the filmmaker was (maybe Julie Mallozzi? Alfred will know), but in my intro video class, we watched a video about inner-city teens who participated in a cultural dance troupe (maybe Chinese dancing? Blast my bad memory), and she utilized a lot of footage that her subjects shot. She differentiated her own footage from her subjects’ by artificially boosting the gain or somehow “fuzzifying” her subjects’ footage and adding video-esque visual effects in post-production (corner brackets, the red “record” circle, REC, etc.). If it’s important to you to be coloring and interacting with the girls and still shoot handheld, you could possibly find a way to brace the camera while you color. For example, if you were coloring on the floor, you could sit with your right knee up in the air, and balance the camera on your knee for extra support. If you’re in a chair, you can use the back of another chair to bear the brunt of the camera weight. Going back over my old notes, I found a short list of “stabilizers”: (1) neck or over-the-shoulder strap, (2) monopod, (3) shoulder brace. A shoulder strap would be easy enough to construct with a good piece of rope, and just about anything can be a monopod—an overturned trash can, a drum, a good walking stick attached with string to your steady wings. These might give you a steadier shot without the disembodied feel of a tripod.
ReplyDeleteAs for getting the girls alone and Claudene less camera shy, I think you’re headed in the right direction by filming them coloring. If they’re involved in an activity, on-lookers might be less likely to jump in the shot… I notice that when I shoot someone or someones doing something, and I’m clearly trying to capture an activity, people are less likely to walk into the frame, and more likely to skidaddle quickly if they do. Also, Claudene will (hopefully!) be too engaged in this alternate activity to be self-conscious about the voyeurs! Lots of luck—keep us updated on what you do, and what ends up doing the trick!