Learning What Not To Do

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.

Documentary and Invasion of Privacy

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. 

How Birds are the Embodiment of Film

Watch this bird:

This is film in a nutshell. And I will explain why.

If you were to describe a bird in three adjectives, which would you use? Precise? Elegant? Free? Birds are beings of freedom and grace. The miracle of flight is something spectacular to observe. The first time in your life that you truly analyze flight, you are in awe. The miracle of flight mirrors the miracle of film.

Film is in every sense of the word, a miracle. To capture the motion, the emotion, and the reality of life on film is incredible. The first time you look at film in an analytical way, you realize how truly unbelievable it is.

Like a bird in flight, the filmmaker explores new avenues, using creativity to venture through space and time to achieve his/her goal.

In the video, at 11 seconds, another bird flies in front of the main bird. Every bird is influenced other birds. You can observe this in "bird V's". Each bird follows the birds before themselves, but take slightly different paths.

Just like these birds, filmmakers are influenced by the filmmakers before them. They draw influence and create their own paths based on the filmmakers of old.

An observer of birds is an observer of film, and I strive to be both.

What would you do to get the shot?

When it comes down to it, it's not about what camera is used to obtain a shot but what the actual shot is of. Many filmmakers go the distance by sending their cameras into the air, under water, or even attaching it to their pet. But this filmmaker has to take the cake. Having stumbled upon a rattlesnake pit, they attached their GoPro to a stick and dove in to receive some amazing footage. 

As you can see these reptilian beasts reacted surprisingly well to camera for a bit, but eventually started to strike. I've never seen any sort of footage of the sorts.

It felt like a horror film as they began to attack the camera, but nonetheless the technology that we have at our fingertips these days is what enables this sort of filming making. A camera attached to a stick is all it took to enter this rattler nest and that hockey stick is what also enable the filmmaker to get it out after it fell off its mount.

It's because of the accessibility of this sort of technology that results with these immersive videos. It makes you not only wonder if the camera operator is crazy but also how you can take a simple set up and capture something brilliant. You won't be finding me near a snake pit like this anytime soon but I definitely will take the concept of this video and apply it to my work. Live the moment and think outside the box because this may just be the reason you walk away from a day of filming with a viral video.

Tarkovsky and Herzog on Film Schools and life.

"What is important to the education of a filmmaker is not a matter learning a set of skills and techniques, but having a vital, passionate need to express something unique and personal. Above all, the student has to understand why he wants to become a filmmaker rather than work in some other art form and he has to ponder what he wants to say in film's unique form of expression. "In recent years I have met more and more young people who go to film school to prepare themselves to do "what they have to do" (as they say in Russia) or "to make a living" (as they say in Europe and America). This is tragic. Learning to use the equipment and edit a movie is child's play; anyone can learn that without half-trying. But learning how to think independently, learning how to be an individual, is entirely different from learning "how to do" something. Learning how to say something unique and different is a skill that no one can force you to master. And to go down that path is to shoulder a burden that is not merely difficult, but at times impossible to bear. But there is no other way to become an artist. You have to go for broke. You must risk everything in your quest to express a personal truth. It must be all or nothing. "The man who has stolen in order never to thieve again is forever a thief. Nobody who has once betrayed his principles can have a pure relationship with life ever again. When a filmmaker says he will try to please people - relatives, friends, teachers, or reviewers -- this time in order to get a degree or earn the money to make the film of his dreams the next time, he is lying to you, or even worse, lying to himself. Once he heads down the path of deceit he will never be capable of making a real film." --Andrei Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time, p. 124 (adapted and updated by Ray Carney)

   

 Werner Herzog on Film School "I personally don't believe in the kind of film schools you find all over the world today. I never worked as another filmmaker's assistant and I never had any formal training. My early films come from my very deepest commitment to what I was doing, what I felt I had no choice but to do, and as such they are totally unconnected to what was going on at the film schools - and cinemas - of the time. It's my strong autodidactic streak and my faith in my own work that have kept me going for more than forty years. "A pianist is made in childhood, a filmmaker at any age. I say this only because physically, in order to play the piano well, the body needs to be conditioned from a very early age. Real musicians have an innate feel for all music and all instruments, something that can be instilled only at an early age. Of course it's possible to learn to play the piano as an adult, but the intuitive qualities needed just won't be there.

As a young filmmaker I just read in an encyclopedia the fifteen or so pages on filmmaking. Everything I needed to get myself started came from this book. It has always seemed to me that almost everything you are forced to learn at school you forget in a couple of years. But the things you set out to learn yourself in order to quench a thirst, these are things you never forget. It was a vital early lesson for me, realizing that the knowledge gleaned from a book will suffice for the first week on the set, which is all the time needed to learn everything you need to know as a filmmaker. To this very day the technical knowledge I have is relatively rudimentary. But if there are things that seem too complicated, experiment; if you still can't master them, hire a technician.

 "Filmmaking is a more vulnerable journey than most other creative ventures. When you are a sculptor you have only one obstacle - a lump of rock - which you chisel away on. But filmmaking involves organization and money and technology, things like that. You might get the best shot of your life but if the lab mixes the developing solution wrongly then your shot is gone forever. You can build a ship, cast 5000 extras and plan a scene with your leading actors, and in the morning one of them has a stomach ache and can't go on set. These things happen, everything is interwoven and interlinked, and if one element doesn't function properly then the whole venture is prone to collapse. Filmmakers should be taught about how things will go wrong, about how to deal with these problems, how to handle a crew that is getting out of hand, how to handle a producing partner who won't pay up or a distributor who won't advertise properly, things like this. People who keep moaning about these kinds of problems aren't really suited for this line of business.

 "And, vitally, aspiring filmmakers have to be taught that sometimes the only way of overcoming problems involves real physicality. Many great filmmakers have been astonishingly physical, athletic people. A much higher percentage than writers or musicians. Actually, for some time now I have given some thought to opening a film school. But if I did start one up you would only be allowed to fill out an application form after you have walked alone on foot, let's say from Madrid to Kiev, a distance of about five thousand kilometres. While walking, write. Write about your experiences and give me your notebooks. I would be able to tell who had really walked the distance and who had not. While you are walking you would learn much more about filmmaking and what it truly involves than you ever would sitting in a classroom. During your voyage you will learn more about what your future holds than in five years at film school. Your experiences would be the very opposite of academic knowledge, for academia is the death of cinema. It is the very opposite of passion."