Now that the semester is wrapping up, it is time to start thinking about where we want to go from here with our documentary. We already know that we are going to have a composer do some work for the film before we start to submit it places. We definitely want to submit it to festivals, but my dad also just met someone who does some work with documentary distribution and wants to see our film. At the beginning of the semester we had considered looking into getting in contact with a distributor so we could screen the film at different colleges around the country so students could be informed about issues relating to the refugee crisis before they vote in November, but we kind of forgot about that until now. However, I think that could be a really good idea.
As of yesterday, one thing became extremely obvious: our documentary is not going to lose its relevance anytime soon. Now that Kasich and Cruz are out of the election, it's going to be all Trump all the time. While this news is extremely unsettling, it also makes it more important than ever that our documentary is seen by as many people as possible.
One of the feedbacks that we got on our documentary was that we should have shown more people who aren't Trump supporters that are opposed to refugees. While I think that would have been beneficial, I also think that for a long time, we all assumed that Trump supporters were just crazy people. However, it's become more and more obvious that all different types of people support Trump. More people are backing him than ever expected, which means his views are actually the views of a lot more people in this country than most people would have thought.
After spending time getting to know the refugee community in Buffalo, I refuse to imagine a country where he is in charge. His ideas, and the ideas of his supporters, are filled with such hate toward people who deserve nothing but love. Now that it's inevitable that we'll be seeing him around until November, I hope our documentary can persuade at least a few people that voting for him is not a good idea.
A few weeks ago I took a course on color correction, and I don't think my eyes will ever be the same again.
I learned a lot during the course, but it didn't really effect me until I started doing the color correction for my documentary. Now I just can't see colors the same way I used to. I'm hyper aware of color changes in T.V shows now, and I completely don't trust my own eyes.
Our brain does a lot to try to make sense of the world around us, and color is no exception. Take this illusion for example:
The two gray squares with the yellow dots are actually the same color, but our brain tricks us into thinking otherwise. It's super trippy, and this type of realization can really make you question the way you see things. Now that I'm beginning to understand color more, I'm not sure I can ever return to seeing it the same way.
This week I watched Finders Keepers on Netflix. Although I gravitate towards issues documentaries for personal viewing, this documentary will shows the power that good characters can have in making a documentary engaging and entertaining. The real life story follows a media feud and legal battle between Shannon Whisnant and John Wood over a very interesting item--an amputated leg. Shannon purchased an abandoned storage unit that housed Wood's leg that was amputated after a plane crash. Odd events transpired that resulted in an all out legal battle that captured media attention. The two men in particular (however we do see this with the other family members as well) are eccentric and, quite frankly, this story seems to fantastical to be true. Check out the trailer below:
Over the years, the Western world, particularly the world of Hollywood, adopted a mode of documentary that is highly observational and conflict-centered. The popularity of the Western Observational Documentary is evident in the Oscar winners of recent years. Amy, CitizenFour, 20 Feet From Stardom, Inside Job to name a few over the most recent years. However, Inside Job began a breaking of the fourth wall in the interview setting - partly out of necessity.
In this scene from Inside Job, filmmaker Charles H. Ferguson inserts himself into the documentary through his questioning. This participation, I believe, is out of necessity, since the man isn't answering the question, rather than the purpose of referencing the filmmaker. When a documentary film becomes participatory, the film becomes a narrative of interactions between the filmmaker and the subjects of the film, rather than a report on a topic. As VICE gains in popularity, this mode of filmmaking becomes more popular in an online forum.
In Screwed in Houston, the filmmaker is integrated into the story. His demographics become increasingly apparent as he interacts with the Houston hip-hop community. These moments of interaction are a part of the story, rather than something that is off-screen. In my opinion, this creates a more honest depiction of the community as well as builds the filmmaker as an author of this history in a particular moment, not an expert or objective observer.
"Prepare to be transfixed by the opening shot in The Messenger, a new documentary about songbird declines. A Black-throated Blue Warbler, closer than you’ve ever seen one, flies in slow motion against a black background. Slo-mo can make anything look graceful (even creatures as clumsy as Hollywood actors) so just imagine what it does for a warbler in full breeding glory. It’s the most beautiful footage of a bird in flight I’ve ever seen."
The Messenger is a visually thrilling ode to the beauty and importance of the imperiled songbird, and what it means to all of us on both a global and human level if we lose them. I am not familiar with the documentary so I am unaware of what the consequences of losing songbirds are, but I did some research, and the documentary has done surprisingly well for a bird documentary. It got an 8.4 out of 10 on IMDB and a 100% out of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes and is being screened all across the United States as well as Canada.
If that doesn't make you want to see the documentary, then maybe this will! Ithaca's very own, Andrew Farnsworth, makes multiple appearances throughout the doc!
Andrew Farnsworth
Definitely a documentary to check out if you have the time. Great flick for the family as well as for education!
I've always been pretty restless. I don't like staying in one place and doing one thing for too long. I hated high school because it seemed like the same thing every day, every year. College, though, has been quite different. Looking back, this year has been especially crazy.
Last semester, I produced a documentary in New Orleans. I found myself in the car for a total of 80 hours with people who were once strangers. I was stranded in Tuscaloosa for 24 hours. I filmed at jazz clubs, and hung out with amazing musicians. I even ended up sitting in a bar that I was too young to be at, in the middle of a confrontation with a former NFL player because he didn't like our doc.
This semester, I've been to Buffalo and back countless times, often just for the day. I went to Canada for a couple of hours just because. I filmed a family being reunited after 15 years. I decided to not be a vegetarian for a day, and ate goat from an African market. I tagged along while an Ethiopian couple went grocery shopping in the U.S for the first time. I stayed at a hotel that was allegedly haunted by a child ghost. And I even went to a Trump rally...
That's right. A Donald Trump rally.
Of all the things I have been through this year, the Trump rally was easily the strangest. People were selling shirts on the street that said "Hillary sucks, but not like Monica. Trump that bitch." There were protesters corralled into a small section, and people protesting the protestors. A seemingly average lady told us that refugees take perfume as a sign that it is okay to rape a woman. And Donald Trump accidentally said 7/11 instead of 9/11.
One of the strangely surprising parts of the rally was the fact that we were able to get media credentials. I woke up that morning assuming we would just film outside the rally, and ended the night on the media riser, sandwiched between Time Warner, CNN and Fox. One of the reporters there was extremely helpful: he found us a spot next to him on the riser, got us hooked into the mic box, and gave us a run down on what we should expect. At first, I was shocked that he was helping us without us even asking, but then I realized that Evin and I definitely stood out. We were the youngest people in the press by at least 15 years, and I was the only female cameraperson.
The rally ended by Trump walking off the stage to the Space Jam song, while his supports all chanted. The entire thing was bazaar, disturbing, and the perfect way to wrap shooting for the year.
Being a doc major has been pretty crazy, and I'm excited for the adventures that still lie ahead.
This week I sat down and watched a documentary that has been sitting in my Netflix queue for quite sometime. The Hunting Ground explores the incidences of sexual assaults on college campuses and how they go disgustingly under-addressed due to college's desire for a "clean image" to attract future students. The doc follows two students from Chapel Hill whom, after the own assaults, were largely treated as an administrative problem rather than a victim of sexual assault. They threw themselves into legal research, filed a title IX complaint against the school, and began a country wide investigation of similar instances of neglect in colleges around the country.
The film is a powerful portrayal of sexual assault and how it effects victims and their families around the country. Many times throughout I felt myself have strong emotional reactions ranging from sadness to disgust. While documentaries are supposed to entertain and educate, the emotional reaction that they can inspire is perhaps the most power part. I highly recommend giving this a view. While it does have some problems, such as it's lack of attention to male victims of sexual assault, it is a powerful exposition of one of the biggest, under-discussed problems faced by college campuses.
In nonfiction media education, every student always gets asked the question of whether or not staging a scene from real life is still nonfiction. If you haven't asked that question - try it. Robert Fenton is the historical example of this question in action through his photography of the Crimean War.
One photo is the photograph right after a battle, while the other is a photograph right after Fenton placed a few canon balls in the road to make the scene more intense. The question is - which is true?
In documentary film, this question of half-truths becomes even more prevalent. A filmmaker could stage a subject in his room with a poster of half-naked women behind him or the filmmaker could stage him at his church for an interview. Which is true?
In my opinion, documentary film is a series of half-truths. At the beginning of my exploration into documentary film, my goal was always to bring the truth to life, to be an advocate of accuracy, a sultan of specifics. However, one quickly realizes that life is full of half-truths. Unfortunately, the human psyche does not exist on a binary of real and fake. Instead, our beings are made up of half-truths. Subjects in documentaries reveal, but they cannot reveal everything. But if what I see in every documentary is a half-truth, what's the other half? I don't believe its a half-lie. I don't believe it's half-fake. Documentary film can just only capture what the time and place allows. So rather than being half this or half that, a documentary is a product of circumstance.
Generally, in documentaries, the audience relies on the filmmaker to portray the truth and reality of an event. But sometimes, as a filmmaker, it is easy to want to manipulate and direct what is happening in front of the camera. Whether or not this is okay is up for debate. Some people think that you can manipulate events slightly as long as you're not changing the overall truth of the film. However, this turns a fine line into a very blurry line. How much manipulation is too much? How much can a filmmaker direct without effecting the integrity of the documentary?
Nanook of the North, by Robert Flaherty, is typically considered the first documentary film. At the time, people were fascinated by the inside look Flaherty provided on a culture that was foreign to them. However, it was later discovered that Flaherty lost all of his original film for the documentary in a fire, and went back and tried to recreate it all. In other words, he was telling Nanook what to do the entire time. Can we even consider this a documentary then?
This week, Evin and I went back to Buffalo to film with one of our subjects, Rubens Mukunzi. Rubens is the creator and editor of Karibu News, a multilingual newspaper in Buffalo. He used to be a media star when he was still living in Rwanda, so he is extremely comfortable in front of the camera. So much so that, while we were following him on his paper delivery, he started directing his customers and telling them what to do on camera. At one point, he staged an entire scene for us. So what do we do? The footage is great and gives solid insight on the paper, but does it ruin the integrity of the doc since it is directed?
We essentially have three options: use the directed scene, scrap the directed scene, or include the scene along with his directions. I would argue that it is okay to use the directed scene because using the footage does not discredit the doc; it does not change the overall truth of the documentary like Flaherty did. However, using the scene along with his directions could be interesting since it really shows his personality. We'll decide as we continue with the editing process, but I think that this provides and important lesson for documentary filmmakers. It can be tempting, and much easier, to direct your subjects, but it's extremely important to make sure that doing so does not ruin the integrity of the film.
My documentary project revolves around media criticism and serves as a platform for greater discussion of the treatment of transgender individuals in the media (non-fiction, news media, that is). To facilitate conversation and illustrate the problems in the media regarding bodily privacy and respecting an indvidual's identity. While I am in the process of reaching out to the various media outlets for permission to utilize footage for my project, I'm not receiving any feedback. While I need to keep trying, I started thinking about my other avenues. Insert fair use. I watched this fantastic video on youtube that features prominent entertainment lawyer Michael C. Donaldson. For each media example I utilize, I must ask myself three questions:
1. Does this item well illustrate your point?
2. Did you only use as much needed to illustrate the point?
3. Is the connection between the item you are using and the point you are making obvious to the average viewer?
I thus far have asked myself those questions and it has aided me well in cutting down on the length of the clips I've utilized in conjunction with my interviews. As Donaldson mentions: I need to treat this project like a journalist. Through my research and interviews, I have revealed a lot of inequalities and inappropriate treatment of trans individuals within the media system, and that's what my focus is on. While I want to do this process right, this project has ultimately been a creative and intellectual exercise for myself and a launching pad for what I plan to take with me into graduate studies rather than something I aim to distribute.
Confession: I used to hate watching documentaries. People used to ask me if I had seen a certain documentary and I would usually tell them no, I don't like watching documentaries. "But you're a documentary studies major," they would usually say in response. That's when I would explain to them that I'm always picking out the flaws in documentaries and that's why I stopped enjoying watching them. Then, this year, I realized how ridiculous I was being.
One of the best ways to learn is by learning what not to do. It's important to watch documentaries that are really well made in order to gain inspiration, but it's just as important to see what doesn't work so great in films. In order for a doc to be really great, you have to incorporate the good and keep out the bad. You can use some really awesome techniques, but if you also use bad ones it can completely break the entire film.
Sure, I sometimes long for the days when I could absentmindedly watch a film without being hyperaware of where the lighting is coming from, how many cuts are in a specific scene, or why a director made a certain production decision. I think that for a while, I resented the fact that it was hard for me to sit and enjoy a film like most spectators do, so I decided to stop watching them all together. Now I realize though, that I'll never grow as a filmmaker if I don't study and pay attention to what other people do. I try, in life, not to make the same mistake twice. What I've realized now, is that by seeing other people's mistakes, I can avoid making certain ones from the start. I can't watch documentaries like I used to, but I'm finally realizing that's a good thing.
Last week Evin and I spent most of our spring break in Buffalo. While our friends were posting pictures partying on beaches in Florida and Mexico, we were enjoying the beautiful upstate weather. If I'm being completely honest, I wasn't looking forward to filming during the week; but looking back, I wouldn't have wanted to spend my break any other way.
We went into the week not sure what to expect other than sit-down interviews. We had just watched a documentary where they were with refugees when they arrived in America, got to their house, and went shopping for the first time. We both agreed that while that would be amazing, it was very unlikely that we would get access like that. Fast forward to the end of the week and we got agency staff setting up an apartment for a refugee family that would be arriving soon, an Ethiopian couple on their first day in the United States, and a Burmese family arriving at the airport and being reunited with their family for the first time in 15 years.
We went from expecting a lot of sit-down interviews to being right in the middle of very intimate and vulnerable times for people. Once things calmed down, and we returned to our hotel each night, I couldn't help but feel a bit shocked. I couldn't figure out what it was about us that helped these people allow us to connect with them and follow them through such emotional experiences. I'm not sure I would have been so willing if I were on the other side of the camera.
But then, after returning to Ithaca, I went to a documentary screening on campus about sexual assault on college campuses. Afterward, a survivor who was a main character in the film did a Q&A with the people in attendance. One person asked her why she was so willing to share such an intimate experience in the film. She said it was a little uncomfortable at first, but then she realized how important it was for her voice to be heard. I think that is probably similar to the thought process the people we were working with had. I could tell they were a little uncomfortable having the camera around at first, but then they started to open up and really share their story. We all have a story to share, and I think that if anyone shows genuine interest in our story, it may be uncomfortable to open up at first, but in the end we want our voices to be heard. I'm beyond thankful that the people of Buffalo were willing to share their stories with us.
Two weeks ago, I sat down and filmed myself as part of a job application. It took me a million tries, and I even ended up explaining that I am a lot better behind the camera than I am in front of it. I feel safe behind the camera, I feel way more in control. Being in front of it, however, is a whole different situation. When I finished filming that application (and editing it to make my thoughts sound 10 times more coherent), I vowed to stay away from the front of the camera in the future.
Flash forward two weeks, and somehow I ended up in front of the camera again. Yesterday, someone from ICTV emailed me asking me to do an interview for their women in media episode on News Watch. I know how stressful it can be finding interview subjects, so, despite my two-week-old vow, I happily obliged.
This was unlike anything I had ever experienced before: the script was completely switched. Instead of conducting an interview, I was the interviewee. It was like my mind went blank as soon as the camera started rolling, yet at the same time thousands of thoughts were running around like crazy. How should I answer this question? What answer is he looking for? Am I talking in circles? How is he going to edit this together? What is the final product going to look like? Am I even answering a question right now?
Maybe other people don't think that much about an interview while they're participating in one. Maybe I was just hyper-aware because I'm so used to being on the other side of the camera. Regardless, I think it was helpful being in the hot seat for once. Now that I've been in front of the camera, I have a better understanding toward how my subjects may feel. It's easy to have expectations as an interviewer, but I think that understanding what it is like being an interviewee is important in order to make those expectations a reality.
Maybe, in order to be even better behind the camera, we should spend more time in front of it as well.
Animal Collective's music video for "FloriDada" is a technicolor ode to the Sunshine State. It mixes the palette of resort wear with the nonsensical nature of Dadaism for a really bizarre, uncomfortable, but compelling four minutes. I actually didn't like this song until watching its music video, which is a testament to the influence of visuals--specifically, in this case, color--on a project's reception.
From what I have seen of Saint Lucia, it is colorful in the same beachy way as Florida: hillsides of pastel-painted shacks, blue waters, light sand. Just as they do above for "FloriDada," these colors convey the mood of the place; they communicate its warmth, its vegetation, its landscape. I think it is not only appropriate but imperative, in order to establish and characterize the setting, to douse the frame with the colors of the land.
boats docked in Saint Lucia
houses in Saint Lucia
We are going to scout out colorful locations for wide shots once we arrive. I have also contacted an illustrator already with the hopes she can create whimsical, animated designs for our marketing materials and/or title card(s). I think the use of color and of graphic design will help even out the darker heaviness that our subject matter is bound to carry into this film.
the opening shot of "FloriDada"-- especially colorful!
Since "Amy" won best documentary feature this past weekend, I decided it was time to watch it. As I sat and watched the film, I couldn't help but viscerally react to what I was seeing. At the time, I figured that was the point: we were supposed to be uncomfortable. As Manohla Dargis put it in a New York Times review of the film, "This discomfort is crucial to the movie’s complexity and is why it works as somewhat of an ethical and intellectual provocation. With “Amy,” Mr. Kapadia isn’t simply revisiting Ms. Winehouse’s life and death, but also — by pulling you in close to her, first pleasantly and then unpleasantly — telling the story of contemporary celebrity and, crucially, fandom’s cost." So I finished the doc and went to sleep, still feeling a bit unsettled, but figuring it would pass in the morning.
But then I woke up this morning and I suddenly realized why I felt so uncomfortable. In a way, the film is everything it is criticizing. The film claims to present the Amy that the public did not get to see, but they can only achieve this through archival footage and by having the people close to her describe her. We don't actually get to see the real Amy Winehouse, the person she was when no one was around, we only really get to see the person she was when she was around other people and in front of cameras. Sure, it's a more intimate look at her life than we had previously seen because it is told by a more private sphere than the media, but I can't help but feel like it's still not authentically her. It can't be.
Furthermore, as Dargis points out, the film tells the story of contemporary celebrity and its cost. The film does not hesitate to show their distaste for the paparazzi, yet a solid chunk of their footage is taken by paparazzi. How can you criticize and utilize something at the same time? Let's face it, the latter half of the documentary would not have been as powerful if the paparazzi footage wasn't present, so Kapadia is benefiting from the same thing he is criticizing.
"Amy" did really well in the Box Office as far a documentaries are concerned, which makes me feel even more uncomfortable. The documentary can be seen as a scathing view of how we treat celebrities, but it's been capitalizing off of the life and terrible death of Amy. Is the documentary really much better than the people and industry that it is critiquing? While it may be a critique, it still turns her into a spectacle. After watching the film I can't help but think that Amy would be disgusted if she knew it existed.
Considering the film won an Oscar, I'm sure I am one of the only people who feel this way, but I had to get it off my chest.
I've been looking for examples of documentaries about refugees to get a better idea of how to structure a story for ours. I came across "God Grew Tired of Us," a 2006 documentary produced by Christopher Quinn that won Sundance's Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award. The film follows three of Sudan's "lost boys," a group of displaced young men who fled the wars in Sudan in the 1980s and have been living as refugees in bordering countries ever since, as they move from Kenya to the United States. One of the most interesting parts of this film is the beginning. The filmmakers actually filmed them in their refugee camp and got scenes of the boys getting assigned to their new areas (two are going to Pittsburgh, one is going to Syracuse). It even shows them as they take their first plane ride (a highlight is when they're served airplane food and can't figure out what everything is).
The "lost boys" boarding a plane from Kenya to the United States.
The film continues, and shows them getting acclimated to their new home. The lost boys learn about their new apartment and get introduced to amenities they've never seen before (flush toilets, showers, electricity). They are also shown around a grocery store and learn about common American foods (broccoli, hoagie buns, donuts). These scenes are comical but also very interesting. It's difficult for most people to imagine the conditions these people have lived in for most of their lives, and it's hard to illustrate that. However, in seeing their amazed reactions to things that have become so commonplace to us in America, the audience gets a better sense of where they come from and what things they've been deprived of in their life.
In their first trip to a grocery store, the "lost boys" are offered to sample a donut.
Without including direct interviews, it's also apparent through dirty glances on the street that many Americans aren't comfortable with the "lost boys" living in their community. This is more subtle and, in my opinion, more powerful than having a talking head interview with someone rattling off their xenophobic beliefs. The film is mostly talking heads, which I think is one of the main detractions. It does include a lot of footage of the main characters going about their daily lives — Working, shopping, eating, etc. It just combines these scenes with talking head interviews, which is effective but at times gets a bit boring to look at. If they had just asked them the interview questions while they were working, shopping, eating, etc, then I think the visuals would have been slightly more interesting.
A typical (and poorly lit) talking head interview from "God Grew Tired of Us."
Another detraction is that the camerawork looks slightly amateur at times. As you can see in the screenshot above, interviews are often very badly lit. It was likely a challenge because the main characters are very dark skinned, but in a seated talking head interview with one subject, I don't think there's much of an excuse for poor lighting. The camerawork in other parts is smooth but uninteresting. You do get the sense that you're given a privileged view, being shown something you otherwise never would have, but the cinematography borders on almost home-video style with little composition.
Overall, though, this film is a success due to the storyline it crafts. There's a clear beginning, middle, and end. It follows its main characters as they prepare to leave their refugee camp, take their first plane ride over, adjust to their new home, and build a life here. Dani and I would love to have similar scenes in our film, but I know much of that will be unattainable. For one thing, as of right now we can't travel to a refugee camp to film a group of people preparing to come to the United States. We'd love to, but budgets and time obviously wont allow it. We are also doing our best to try to meet refugees who are brand new in the country, as we'd like scenes of people adjusting to their new culture. However, the refugee organizations we're working with are understandably hesitant to introduce us to people who are brand new in the country. They have enough to worry about without having a camera shoved in their faces. It's possibly too lofty a goal for this semester, but Dani and I are both interested in continuing to work on the film after the semester is over. So, given enough time, perhaps the organizations we're working with will feel comfortable enough to introduce us to refugees who have just arrived in Buffalo.
This film has given me ideas for things we can do in ours. To begin with, I'm thinking more about specific main characters we can follow. At the moment, Dani and I have a good problem: there are so many organizations and refugees in Buffalo that we have almost too many people to talk to. Though we don't have access to anyone who just got here, we do have access to people who have become leaders in the refugee community. I think we should pick two of them and follow them as they work with newcomers and discuss the issues new refugees face. Toward the end of "God Grew Tired of Us," one of the "lost boys" becomes a community leader and works to bring more refugees to Syracuse. I think we have characters who are similar, and I think this could be an interesting storyline that highlights the issues we'd like to address in our film.
John Bul Dau, one of the main characters in "God Grew Tired of Us," discusses the conflict in Sudan and his life as a refugee. Bul Dau has become a community leader in Syracuse and is working to help bring more refugees over to the United States.
Though we can't follow many of the storylines "God Grew Tired of Us" does (though maybe one day!), I think this film sets an example for how to show issues facing newcomers to this country. Even though it's a bit heavy on talking heads, there are many issues that are shown rather than told to us, and I think that's the standard we should try to achieve moving forward.
The Oscars are coming up as most of us know. There are some amazing films nominated this year, especially documentaries. The Look of Silence is a disturbing look into mind of killers who took part in the Indonesian genocide, Winter On Fire follows the Ukrainian uprising day by day, and Cartel Land is a thrilling story about those who fight back against the cartel.
All thrilling and important documentaries. Also nominated is Amy, a bio-doc on the singer who died at the age of 27. I must admit I have not seen it like I have the other documentaries but I hope this year does not go the same as 2014.
That year, the best documentary I have ever seen, The Act of Killing, was beat by a feel good show business doc, 20 Feet from Stardom. I could go on forever about how important of a film The Act of Killing was, both socially and artistically. It was the perfect documentary. But unfortunately, the Oscars are a popularity contest. It is likely Amy will win over the other films, but I hope it doesn't.
Unless you have been living under a rock, you probably know that the Oscars will air this Sunday. As a mixed girl and sociology minor, I want to boycott this major night on television (#OscarsSoWhite), yet the film student in me will probably win out and I can pretty much guarantee I'll be watching.
This past week I was looking for inspiration for the documentary I'm working on in class, and decided I may as well check out one of the docs nominated for the Academy Award this year. Since I had heard about it around school, I decided to check out Cartel Land. As I sat in the hall between classes watching the film, my mouth continuously dropped in amazement. How did Matthew Heineman get access to all the characters in the film?? How in the world did he convince people to let him film at a meth lab?? How could he possibly have so many documentary appeals AND amazing cinematography???? After watching the documentary I felt simultaneously inspired and terrible; this is the type of documentary that seems nearly impossible to achieve, so why not give up now?
After I finished watching Cartel Land, I decided that Heineman must be super-human and I needed to know his secrets. After reading through several interviews, I found exactly the inspiration I needed to make my thesis film. It turns out that Heineman is just a regular guy who had the patience to capture such an incredible story (he didn't even go to film school!). I realized that if he could make such an incredible film, then one day I can too.
Now, to end this rant about the amazingness that is Cartel Land, I would like to share the biggest piece of inspiration I found while reading and watching Heineman's interviews, a quote by Albert Maysles: "If you end up with the story you started with, then you weren't listening along the way."
On Feb. 12th Sue Klebold, the mother of one of the Columbine shooters, spoke on television for the first time since the shooting. She appeared on 20/20 and was interviewed by Diane Sawyer. The entire 20/20 episode was chilling and emotional, and I definitely recommend people check it online.
Listening to Klebold talk was extremely interesting, but I was also paying close attention to how Diane was conducting the interview. As an aspiring documentary producer, I have become more comfortable conducting interviews throughout my time in college. However, sometimes it is hard to gather inspiration for conducting tough interviews. Documentary producers often edit together interviews so most of, if not all, of their questions are not heard in the film. Sometimes I watch interviews in a documentary and wonder how the interviewer was able to make the interviewee respond the way they do. After watching Diane Sawyer conduct the interview with Sue Klebold, I felt inspired because of how powerful Sawyer's interviewing skills are.
Sawyer was not afraid to back down from a question, and she did not sugarcoat her wording in order to make Klebold feel better. She was blunt and often cut off Klebold if she wanted more from the answer. I've seen this (slightly aggressive) technique used before in documentaries, but usually the person conducting the interview is a man, not a woman. In fact, last semester my professor told the class that women are typically better interviewers when you want the interviewee to feel comfortable opening up, but men are better when it comes to asking tough questions that the interviewee may not want to answer. Sawyer left me feeling inspired because she proves that gender does not have to play a role in how tough a person can be as an interviewer. As long as I don't let myself believe I am limited, I can ask the tough questions too.
My two favorite jazz singers of all time, Amy Winehouse and Nina Simone, just so happened to be in two of my favorite documentaries of this year (which just so happened to be nominated for Oscars). What a mouth-full.
These two films tell two tragic tales. Neither of these lives were easy. Both films take on a similar aesthetic in the singers tell their own stories through found footage, audio and photographs. However, What Happened, Miss Simone? takes on an even larger task of telling the history of the civil rights movement through her lived experiences. Amy remains self indulgent through a riveting tale, but one without huge depth.
Of course, the music really tells the stories of these women's lives. The lyrics are carefully embedded into the story, often with no introduction. However, I was surprised Feeling Good, one of her most noteworthy songs, was not featured in Nina's story. Instead, the film introduced hidden gems in her line of work. Either way, I highly recommend both films.
