Editing reflection

So how to solve a problem like Maria? Well thank god I was not the problem here but La-Ra’s editing skills. I fully understand and recognize La-Ra's blog on the issue of editing week four’s interview exercise. With 45 minutes to shoot and uploading it online as we did with the Lenny Project, some skills were rusty for me too. Whilst I was interning La-Ra and Diane did this editing and I edited a project in TV journalism. I am glad I did it, and I could see which little but important things needs improvement before the final editing. Importing went fine, but the rendering did not – why on earth had I not set the time code properly. Lesson learned. Then there were the use of editing tools; while my poor partner clicked back and forth on the razorblade and the arrows she could not understand why the whole thing did not move at the same time – always use multi marker not the simple one, it overlaps both sound and footage. What we had improved on though was lighting; daylight overcast only – gives more time for color grading and sound level adjustment.

The interview

New Zealand and extreme skiing - can it get better than that? At this point in the semester, thinking back on what I have learned about docu, the knowledge I have of it now is stronger than it was in week one. Its form that can be loose raised curiosity of how filmmakers in other fields produce documentaries. Stepping outside what is mentioned at university on docu, and exploring things of interest, I came across extreme skiing and extreme snowboarding documentaries. In both these documentaries and what has been taught at RMIT, I would still base the docu around interviews. I think if we ask Yanni the great question, he will talk like a waterfall and say those something’s that really captures the audience’s attention of the truth.

For me, TRUTH works when I can see and hear the talent, and the way he or she performs is not reconstructed but naturally told (with pauses, eye language, body gestures and emotional). In The edge of never and STEEP, extreme skiing legend Glen Pake talks about Trevor Peterson’s death and the going back to his son about extreme skiing. They wanted to make a movie about the heart of skiing and the producer meant that to do so, they would have to get to the bottom of it. The documentary introduces the story via a live interview, where they simply tell the truth of the kid that lost his father aged 6, now 15, that now is hitting the slopes that killed the father.

STEEP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cr7_4LrF8As
The Edge of never
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SP02fGLldM

Besides the stories of Glen Pake and Trevor Peterson, the truth here is also seen in the reality of extreme skiing: how this sport for some guys, a part of becoming a man – something that sounds bizarre and cliché, but for this particularly audience, that is the truth, the reality and the reality of their truth. No risk, no adventure and for these guys adventure is a part of life.

Fiction and nonfiction

The great divide between fiction and nonfiction is seen it is wide context of narratizstion and dramatization of storytelling. This genre can sometimes be inseparable from each other as fiction, nonfiction and documentary overlap. They do so due to the interrelationships between drama documentary and documentary drama, where people appear in reconstructed and re-enacted scenes. Author Ward states this in his examples of how real people/non actors play themselves in some way through acting and simply being. For Ward, it is the re-enacting of the real where the performing of real-life scenarios becomes fiction and nonfiction.

The documentary about the serial killer Aillen Wuornos, is what Ward names as truth valued: ‘how such acted dramas can have a documentary or truth value is something returned to below via the discussion of the various versions of the story’. Here, for Ward, (and also to be seen in Tina goes shopping or Pissed on the job), these are fictional in the sense that they are fabricated. Even though there were real life people being interviewed upon their real life story, these docus were reconstructed with performing actors.

But what about Ben Cousins’ Such is life? Is that fictional? Whether it is killings, alcohol or drug addiction I think what these have in common are the nature and the reality of a personal problem indicating a wider social issue, through fictional performance. A camera trick that I learned here from the text was shown numerous of times in Such is life, in both part one and two when the talents (Ben, the sister and the father) were speaking. Given the example of Aileen Wurons’ close up, when the talent speaks, the camera holds the talent in close-up achieving a fly on the wall observational intimacy, recognized in many documentaries and is often take as the marker of ‘authenticity par excellence’.

I think whether I was filming Aileen, Ben or Yanni, I would have to include this observational interviewing trick, to show the importance of the talent’s true story.

Researching Yanni.Fin.

Reflecting on the research of the docu, the film we have proposed to make involves the existence of Yanni Warnock – Melbourne artist and filmmaker. For the talent we have chosen to use, the research shows Yanni’s knowledge and experience of filmmaking, how he sorts out information and issues of filmmaking, his behavior and his little brother Michael. As we have discussed in the tute and also in the group, aesthetic approaches we have thought about, is the formalism of the documentary. When thinking back on the short film ‘NOW’ (1965) that was shown in the tute (and also what we talked about earlier in the semester of ‘documentary and form’ and how it can be loose) this became a key point for our project. In terms of Yanni, he can change identity due to himself as both a performer and a filmmaker, and I think it is the deepness in this we can explore through the docu production of a filmmaker. What we mentioned in the about this was how:

‘The relationship to Yanni, can celebrate the view and an image of being subjective, to this one collective authorship’.
To break this sentence down, I would highlight the challenge we as filmmakers face here: as for Yanni’s complexity of himself, the filmmaker and the artist – I think, we will experience how an interviewed person, will be more than one ‘subjective’ and maybe instead ‘subjectives’, talking about himself in one wholeness. Why I say that is because we will not know when each part of Yanni comes out. How do we know, when if he says something about filmmaking process, that something could be meant to us in how we use say for example lighting? Differentiating this will be fun I think.

Lastly on this research, the effects used in ‘NOW’ as expressions, music, tri-effects, crash zooms and culture, highlighted the theme of this movie and I believe it was this combination of footage and sound effects that strengthened this short film. For location, this has been selected. We have also tested the camera and sound equipment, and are now individually exploring both old and new technical tactics on these.

Driving Visuals

Thinking about visuals that are driving this docu production, I imagine that Yanni the filmmaker, has a lot of these objects around him. Having not met Yanni but seen pictures of him, the visuals so far driving it is what is mentioned in Pawliowskis article:


“For me, making a documentary involves a degree of Schizophrenia: I try and enter the subject, see the world through its eyes, accept its logic, while at the same time maintaining an aesthetic and often an ironic distance from it” (Pawliowski 389).


The visuals I encounter here, is how a filmmaker, whether it is Spielberg, Yanni or us sees the world. How he plans a production, how he selects actors and how he will act in front of the camera by a filmmaking team as a filmmaker, are visuals driving this docu production. After seeing a black and white picture of Yanni, an unknownness hit me and I started thinking what other visuals and also audio visuals is driving this talent as a filmmaker (see: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=466160&id=745177714&ref=fbx_album).
Visualizing a guy that looks simple with historical filmmaking equipments, made me think about how he sees the world in the C21, and how we can implement this into our production.

Idea selection

The idea selection was based on the idea of art and a document participant. The curiosity of exploring the personality of a Melbournian artist and filmmaker, is what made the selection process land on Yianni Fin. I selected this idea as I was wanting to see more of art and the filmmaking process from another person’s view and level. Having been told what to expect from the nature of this character, has also made me think about visuals that can drive it – which footage to use, details and subjects.
I think the potential here is Yianni Fin’s existence and his relation to art: where do his ideas come from? How does he manage to sort them out? Why art and filmmaking? What is the essence of his life? Will we capture glimpses of the real Yianni?


To capture these glimpses of Yianni, I think B. Hampe’s (1997) statement fits in here:
“If you want to make good, believable, useful documentaries… you have to get over the idea that you can suck reality into a camera and blow it back at your audience.”


How to proceed Hampe’s statement of ‘sucking reality into a camera and blow it back at the audience’ will require hours of filming environments and asking Yianni deep and unusual questions that can cause more than a raising eyebrow but also the ‘this is real’ moment, by persuading Yianni’s nature to the camera.

Collaboration and Communication

Collaboration is crucial in any filmmaking and the approach I have for it this semester, is to continue and develop new teamwork skills. Good, honest and continuous communication is one important aspect of excellent teamwork. This semester, I am to try at least as hard as last semester and more. I was already prepared in week one and told the persons in the tute I was interested in working with, that I want to work in a tute, targeting the grades distinction and high distinction only. I think, when starting off and being honest already from day one of a beginning group work, the grade setting is crucial for how the group will work together and whom to work with. I talked with La-Ra about it, and she wanted the same and therefore we decided from then on, that this semester at least the two of us would work together on the docu production, targeting the same goal. Also, because I was lucky to get a work placement at the ABC, I informed both the group and the tutor about it and in this way the agenda for the group work knows its flexibility.
In TV 1, the ‘how to communicate’ worked when all group members were ‘all in’ for it (checking emails and having phones nearby at all times). In terms for the assessments, setting up a Google Waver is making it easier to share files and communicating instant feedback on this.

Documentary – Different from drama and fiction?

From Christine’s lecture, the requirements of characters, conflict, a journey, some kind of dramatic arc, a resolution and a theme was presented but raised an interesting question: is documentary different or not? When thinking about this question, this makes one think outside the course for a moment and helps honing ideas for what to make and create. In a documentary, shouldn’t we be manipulating the drama and the narrative to the audience? And in what way? As a documentarian, we are to a great degree in the hands of the material and the journey we seek to present is a different form. So when saying that documentary is different from drama and fiction I would say that it is this looser form that differentiates it from the two other genres, while it at the same time shares some of the same requirements. The looser form is also due to our expectations and it can be argued that documentary needs drama as we search for meaning and to understanding theme structure.

Luis Malle

Luis Malle (1974) showed this loose form as the first documentary was showing the old man walking in the street. As an audience I was searching the meaning of Malle’s work, but instead I ended up thinking about his life – why is he walking, why is he doing all these CUs and medium shots of himself in these streets? I then saw that the loose form here could have been domino effects of other elements in the shoot (the child, the bike, the street and the little street markets) signifying his life. As for documentary production, this aspect of going beneath the surface of someone’s life to discover and explore someone’s quirkyness, funkyness, façade or what it is, is what will be a selective choice for a particular piece to camera. An example of this is seen in Malle’s ‘Trop Humain’ where we see the life of a few people and their daily rhythm of bending metal. The CU of a woman bending metal in high heels, the CU of hands on metal, workers in the background and especially the CU of these workers facial gestures showing ‘not happy’ expressions clearly demonstrates the lives and the class system of these workers.

For me, this means that the documentary we will produce will require constant interrogation. I think this is important as we decide why we are telling this particular story when we make the film about Yanni.Fin. What conflict and consequences we will encounter in this documentary production will be seen in how the filmmaker inserts himself into the process and in front of the camera. This will reveal a personality in the film and the experience of the actual filmmaker.