Blog 15 - Finished Product and Reflection

https://vimeo.com/145249305

Well at the end of the class, I must say that I really enjoyed this class. I had no idea about documentaries except for a very limited amount of examples before this class and my attitude about the whole thing has changed drastically.  I’ve always been interested in making documentaries and this has solidified my love for them. My goal now is to find more projects that I can undertake in the coming months. Once I get back to America, one of my goals is going to be making more films and posting them online as a sort of hobby but also a reel that I can use for resume’s and what not.

I think this class has really helped me build my skills and given me new ideas of what documentaries are and what constitutes a documentary film. I’ve learned that the distinction is very broad and that a great many things can be considered documentaries. With my film I wanted to show life in a single afternoon, a single moment in time like preserving a moment in a frame. With my film I hope I have conveyed how I feel about the beach and how I see it when I’m there.

Overall I’m really happy with this class and I think Pete did a great job showing us all kinds of different films so that we could go out and make the film that we wanted to make. It’s a strange job but making these films is always interesting and doing them is something that I have great passion for. I hope you all like the film I’ve made and that maybe it shows you something interesting. It’s been a great time working with this class and I am really excited to see what the future has in store for all of you.

Blog 14 - Voice Over

I wanted to really focus my voice over on the context of humanity’s relationship with the beach. It is a relationship I often think about and wonder how exactly it came about. The idea that we have a special relationship with the ocean is a fascinating to me and so I tried to channel that fascination into my work. I came up with this:

I’ve always been fascinated by the beach. To me it’s a kind of enchanted location where two worlds collide. In many ways the beach is the end of the earth. From the sand to the water, one environment shifts gradually into another. In one world there are the terrestrial beings and in the other, the creatures of the deep.

No line so divides the world like that of the shoreline. No barrier so obvious. What we see at the beach is a joining of worlds.

            Why are we drawn here? As humans, the beach is regarded as a place of leisure. We engage in activity, sport, recreation, all in one place. Is it the water? The sand? No one can be sure but it is true that we are drawn to it.

The congregation of people reminds me of days long passed. Days without technology or endless distractions. It was in these days that we had to create new ways to entertain ourselves. I suppose it would always end back on the beach.

It’s a slow place. The pace of runners is muffled by the sand. The struggle of bodies against the waves is like watching fight in slow motion. Those who lay in the sand are still in a landscape that has not been painted. Figures in an unchanged picture.

It is a hypnotic place. The beating of the waves comes in regular, soothing intervals, the sand makes for a soft cushion of ground. The mind cannot help but feel at ease along the sandy shore.

If the great skyscrapers and technology are monuments to man’s progress, then the beach stands in opposition to it all. The beach tells us that we are small and that nature’s monuments are somehow greater, more pure, longer lasting.

The beach is as it has been for millions of years. Since the waters formed the ocean and the ocean eroded away the rocks into sand. It was here before we were. It may well be here long after we are gone.

Humans are just borrowing it.

That text with edits for space, worked pretty nicely with the video and I think all that’s left is to put some finishing touches on the whole thing. 

Blog 13 - Music Part Two

After last week’s song, I wanted to make something that was a little bit more comfortable for the audience so I decided to go with an acoustic guitar track with a soft arpeggio chord progression that will hopefully be put at the end of the film or somewhere around there. The sound is very peaceful and will mesh nicely with the serene imagery of the late afternoon sun from the day I shot. The chord progression is standard with some alteration to the major chords but I think it comes off really well with the film.

My idea behind this was to have a nice scene with this playing around the end of the video after the voiceover so that the scenery and the music can be observed in full here. This will be more of the wrapping up point for the film. I hope it will leave an impression on the audience in general. My thoughts are to have it end right before the last long shot of the girl and the dog, which I have placed at the end of the film as the final moments. I think it would be good to have this end so that the total focus of the audience will be on this scene.

One of the problems I had with this one was finding an acoustic guitar. I didn’t pack mine with me so I had to borrow one from one of the people living in my dorm. It was a trick but it really paid off because the song works pretty well with the visuals. Next week I’ll be focusing on the voiceover and what to put in to make it all tie together. Hopefully with a good voice over, the context of all of this will come into focus and the film will look and sound great.

Blog 12 - Music Part One

This week, I am focusing on one of the songs for the film, specifically the first song, which I think I will be going for a more electronic, “ocean deep” feel to it. I drew inspiration from the original song for this one while making it have a little bit more of an eerie feel to it that I think will sound really good in contrast to the sounds of the ocean which I have decided to leave into the final cut. I originally had left this out in lieu of the music, but my friend suggested I keep it in as the sound is iconic. This song has a slow tempo and the lead instrument is somewhat similar to crystal glass reverberations. I matched it up with the original cut and I think it sounds pretty great.

My idea going into this was to make a song that contrasts slightly with the nature of the video. While both are relatively quiet scenes, the music has a touch of uneasiness to it that I hope will play well with the voice over that has yet to be recorded. My goal is to have something that the audience takes an interest in and is not just something that sits totally in the background but also doesn’t distract from the content of the film. That balance is certainly tricky but I think I have found something that fits the criteria

Next week I will be working on something a little bit different and I hope that will serve to bring the film to its close in a neat and nice wrap up. After that song, I just have to record the voice over which I have partially written and then I will have my finished product. So far, so good with this film.

Blog 11 - New Edits

After looking over everything, I think a lot of the base footage for the original cut was really solid. I think the pacing of it all is just a little rough and a lot of that went with the music being long and repetitive. I have started work on new music but this week I’m just working on getting those edits to really work for me. A lot of this really goes on feel because m any of these shots are really long but have a lot of moving elements. It really all depends on how long the shot needs to be to convey what it needs to. I honestly think I did a pretty good job of this on the first run but going back there were a few minor tweaks that had to be done, just to give a better look of it all.

I included a few extra shots to give a closer look at the water, which was somewhat limited before and also changed around the length of certain shots to make room for what I felt, were more interesting shots. This ultimately gives me a really good looking cut with the footage I have and now all that remains is getting that extra stuff to fit into place.

Next week I will be working on more music to put in and hopefully that will really match the tone of the film even better. The first song was made for something else and proved to be over-long but this time I’m going to make music that fits the mold a little better. Notably, I’ll be making two songs rather than one. After that it will be time to work on the voice-over work and then the final touches. Overall it’s going pretty well as of now.

Blog 10 - After Feedback

Showed what I had in class today and got about the response I imagined. I think my original cut runs a little slow with the repetitive music and I think the interspersed cuts of the stormy day were not totally within my vision. That being said, showing it in front of others showed me things about the film that I needed to see. I think getting caught in the editing room all day makes for a somewhat sterile product and showing it can really help to breathe life into it.

Pete had the suggestion to go for a more rhythmic style documentary but I’m not sure that really fits the idea of it all, he also mentioned that the long lurid shots were effective but that the effect was cut a bit short with other shots. Looking at it, I totally agree. I’m going to cut the short shots out of it and hopefully that will help the audience really fall into the frame of the film. The goal is to paint landscapes with video after all. I think my film can be effective in this regard but I will have to make it more interesting to watch.

Fixing the music will be a big part of this an I have some ideas, splitting the video into two songs that are shorter but have similar feelings to them will be effective. I think music is one of the more important characters in this film. Also I think putting a voice over in will help make the point of the film a bit more obvious. I don’t want the film to be over but having the audience know what I’m talking about is important. Writing the voice over will take a bit of consideration but it will probably be one of the last things I do.

Blog 9 - Edits

Editing everything together is one of my favorite processes when it comes to video production and I am going to have a lot of fun with this one before I get feedback. I’m going throw an experimental style out there first and see how it sticks with the class when I get feedback. The idea is to merge two separate days of filming together to show an extreme contrast between the nice weather of one day and the cloudy stormy day that follows.

Footage on the second day was tricky. The weather was very stormy so I didn’t want to be out there too long. That being said I think it really turned out ok and now I edited it so that the “bad day” only takes up very short segments. The idea is to have them so short that they are surprising to the audience and they don’t see this coming. The idea is based on my preference for wanting the viewers’ attention and trying to show something that the person watching will find interesting. I think this will work but I have never attempted to make anything like this before and so there may be issues that I don’t see.

Before I go to feedback, I have made a song on my computer that I think will work pretty well with the film so I am going to put it in to accompany the visuals while I show it in class. It’s not completely finished but I think it will work for the purposes of what I need it for. I will see how the song goes after I show it to the class and make changes accordingly.

So far everything is going along nicely. I have all the footage I need, I think, so going forward is all in editing and voice over, etc.