Cinema Verite Project Reflection

Yes I know that the project has come and gone but I figured, better late than never. Now before I start this, I would like to say that I did understand the point of the project. That in the real film world, if there had to be a re-shoot then it would be very important to try to mimic the same motions again as closely as possible and that just in general, if somebody can direct a person's subtle movements than they probably know what they are doing directing wise. However, if I'm going to be completely honest, I was not a fan of this project.

The main thing that I had a problem with was that there wasn't any fiction involved, there was no creativity. Yes I suppose that recreating something could be considered creative but I felt like just spying on a group of people and then recreating their motions wasn't creative to me. It didn't satisfy my creative itch. I think it would have been fun if we had a choice of a movie scene and we would do our best to recreate that. Because then we would have the choice of our scene and we would be able to put our own creative twist on it while still recreating it. I think that that would have been a directorial exercise that would have been both fun and informative.

Another thing that I wasn't a huge fan of was the actual video. I'll explain what I mean by that. In the beginning of the semester you said that you wanted us to make videos that we would want to put in our reel, videos that we were proud to show off and brag about. Now I only speak for myself when I say this, and not for anybody else in my group, but in all honestly I'm not that proud of the video. It's not something that I would ever show somebody mainly because I don't think it's very interesting or entertaining in any way. It doesn't tell a story and if I was to just show it to somebody, I honestly feel as though they wouldn't care at all about it. The one shot project on the other hand I am very proud of and I have showed it to my friends and family and I think that it came out very well. I liked the story I told and I'm very happy with how it turned out. This cinema verite project however, I can't say that I feel the same way.

Like I said at the beginning of the post, I do understand the point of the project and I do understand where this exercise came from and in all honesty I think it's a good idea to do. However, I really wasn't a fan of making this a full blown project. We spent over a month on this and I personally think that this is something that we should have done over the weekend as a quick exercise and then just left it at that. Making this a full project was something that I didn't really like. I really didn't feel like I put any effort into this and that's probably because I didn't. Personally I just wanted to get it out of the way so I could move on to whatever was next. If I was going to spend over a month on something, I would have liked it to be for something that I would end up feeling proud about, and as I have already mentioned, I really wasn't proud of this project.

Which takes me to our next project. This is the one that I'm looking forward to the most and probably for a fairly obvious reason, I have a lot of creative freedom for this one. Yes it needs to be based off of a news story but I mean, the news is more than interesting enough for a fictional story to come out of it. This is the kind of project that I would like people to see. After watching this final project, then people could form an opinion of my directing and storytelling abilities.

We can't stop here, this is bat country!

It's so strange to miss class so early on in the year; in fact, it's really messing up my mindset for the semester already.  I definitely need to catch up, and fast.  It's amazing how losing out on just two hours in a lab, spending them instead revisiting lunch on the ceramic throne in my Emerson dorm, can feel like such a casualty to my learning already.  Sure, I did the usual talking to friends in the class to see what I missed, emailing professors that needed a reason for my absence, but I can't help feeling a little lost anyhow.  Have you ever noticed how anxious you get when you know that you've probably missed something important (in my case, creating a group and working on a scene), but the only thing you can really do to get back with the program is to barrel forward blindly and hope for the best?  It's definitely an awkward position, especially since we're only in our second week (I think...?).

So, instead of feeling like I'd totally lost my ground, I opted to watch a movie in between trips to the bathroom.  My first thought was to pick something off of Arturo's extra credit links, just to see what kind of hidden gems are out there, only to realize that I should probably watch something I know a bit better if I was going to be frequently running away and missing large chunks of time.  Thus, I put in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Don't know the movie?  Check out the trailer:

It's absolutely fascinating to me, as far as storylines go; who would ever dare to push human limits in such an insane way?  I've always been curious about what Thompson was thinking when he wrote this book (though I believe he wrote it based on personal experience, which then leads to even more questions).  Then, I look at the intriguing ways that they manipulated the cameras and shots in Gilliam's film, and am both amused and intrigued by it.  Certainly the effects aren't anywhere near up to par (I mean, the movie's over a decade old), but it's curious to see how such psychedelic effects could be portrayed to the audience without entirely confusing them.  Going back and forth between seeing the "trip" and reality was a good choice, in my opinion; it brings out the chaos in both characters' minds for viewers to better understand while also showing them how strangely the two men are truly acting in the world.  It's comical, yet it poses a somewhat alarming question: how far will people go just to have a little fun?