Documentary Pre-Production

Reyes

Purpose: To show the struggles of a man dedicated to a goal in the face of overwhelming odds.

Contacts: The subject, his recruiter, his friends, family, support in general

Interview Questions:
What was your initial situation?
What challenges did you or are you facing?
Explain what you do to overcome these challenges.
What is the motivating force behind what you do?
How has your life changed since you became dedicated?

General Flow:
The film is going to start with some b-roll of him working out. He will explain his situation to the audience and introduce the challenge he has.
In the middle, we will have him tell us about how is life is like now that he had to change. He will tell us about what he does to improve and how he will attain his goal.
The end will be an update on his situation, what is looks like in the present. Then he will end with an inspirational viewpoint on what he expects will happen and if he will succeed.

Scripts:
There is no script yet because there is no b-roll and no interviews yet. The entirety of the script will be created upon acquiring the interviews and the b-roll. The story will be created in the edit. For an idea of what the script will be like, look at the general flow.

Shot List-
- BS of interviewees
- CU of working out
- MS of him going about daily life
- WEV of workout
- Handheld shots following him ie. Documentary style
- Other creative shots once we get an interview


Intro: His name is John Reyes. He has two goals. Lose the weight, and become a Marine.

Closing: --no closer. Film will end on an inspirational note form the interview.--

Short Documentary Review: "Misssey"

1

The narrative of this documentary explains the tragic life of teenage prostitution. It details how Misssey was created and its mission. It consults the views of its members, former prostitutes, and organizers. All interviewees detail their experience with under-aged prostitution and how they ended up with Misssey. The film works well in its narrative because with each new interviewee, the story gets more and more personal, more and more detailed. We can literally visualize the tragedies of these girls being picked up off the street by pimps. At one point, we get detailed descriptions of the horrors these children suffer through because of their situation. It gets really horrible and we are left with a bitter taste of disgust in our mouths.

This is furthered by the general apathy of our society towards this topic and the trend of inaction that is shown through spectators, those aware of the situation, and those who will look at this documentary and do nothing. But again, the really punch in this documentary comes from the personal ties the interviewees have to the situation and the inspirational stories some of them share provoke a sense of hope in us, and in the kids who have the misfortune to fall into this situation and have the chance to see this documentary.

2

The camera work is pretty varied. The interviews all have the same, slightly skewed, bust shot framing, but the b-roll is definitely more varied. There are cropped frames, low viewpoints, tight close-ups, dolly shots from a car, and shaky shots used for stylistic effect. But it should be noted that most shots are simply of talking heads. The b-roll for this story is limited by the fact that you cannot get some of this footage because it is too dangerous, because of privacy constraints, etc… Yet the b-roll is not what makes this film. It’s the story. Although, to make the shots more powerful, I would have added a “crier.” It sounds crude, but with a sad topic like this, I would have added an interviewee who is prone to crying when telling her story near the middle to really accentuate the seriousness of this topic.

Just the shot of the emotion connected to the story would help convey the story so much better, because then it really lifts us up when we see the bright side of this organization’s work.

3

The editing is nothing special. It is simple cutting between talking heads and b-roll. The editing of the b-roll itself is not too special either. They really stayed with simple cuts in this project, occasionally throwing in a cross-dissolve.

The audio is melancholic at times, made up of a simple score. Occasionally the music takes over in times of silence and sometimes there is no audio at all. The audio is composed mostly of the interviews, which I think, is perfectly fine because we focus on the story and not the sounds. There is a lot of information to take in and if the score were any louder or more diverse, it would be overpowering and we would lose the focus of the film.

Baraka Film Review

Overall, watching Baraka was like no other film I have ever experienced. The non-verbal aspect to it definitely threw me off. I was so taken aback that I did not know what to think. I just watched the monkeys chilling in the hot spring. The whole movie conveyed a sense of peacefulness and inner balance that I think many of us lack in our lives. It gave insights into other cultures and different areas many of us will never get to see in real life. It captured the natural beauty of the world. It captured the natural beauty of people. Watching the movie, I experienced a mixture of boredom at some points, amazement at others, serenity, curiosity, perplexity, amusement, and awe. At no point was I left emotionless. At the time, watching the movie, I didn’t know what to think. But in retrospect, the power of this movie truly is obvious and its message of inner peace is clear.

1
This movie is titled Baraka because it evokes the feeling of taking in a deep breath and exhaling it. This has a calming effect and I think it’s analogous to the meaning the film is trying to convey. “Take a breath, breathe, calm down, and find your inner peace.” The shots transport us to areas of the world far removed from our daily lives and show us ways to live that might not be our first choice. The music adds to the feel that this movie does not only consist of an amazing slideshow, but there are certain emotions we need to be feeling associated with some of these images. Also, if you look at it from the “essence” perspective, you can see how the entire world, broken down to its essence, is one being. Different peoples are the same, different cultures are similar in many ways. All our souls are part of the same essence.

2

There are many shots in this film that show wide, aerial shots of our planet. These shots that showcase the beauty of nature lead us to become analytical in a sense of our own culture. When shots are juxtaposed to show contrast between the pristine beauty of the Wetlands of South America with the slums of Brazil, we begin to think rather critically of our own societies. We no longer have a simplistic, doleful view of our societies and to a degree, we become envious of other cultures that get to experience the beauty of nature up close and personal. This also leads to us criticize our societies socially. We often view ourselves as more developed, and thus possessing a higher standard of living. But seeing these indigenous cultures perform their rituals, we get a sense that they are more alive than we are; that they have found happiness in its essence.

3
The main message, or theme, in this movie is that if we do not change our ways, we will end up living in a dystopia much like the garbage dumps in India where the people had to scavenge for food. Although making reference to a crude movie seems tasteless, this scene reminds us of the huge garbage piles from Idiocracy. We let ourselves fall into ruin and destroyed the beauty of nature we had. This is also a critique of our habits concerning the environment. If we do not change, we will lose the environment that harbors all the locations and all the cultures we see in this film.

4
Without a voice or text, we do not attribute a culture to the story. We understand it to be a global voice, the voice of the essence of the world’s people. So the lack of voice or text, and therefore language and bias, achieves the director’s goal of making this a global film.

5

The city usually has clips that are either sped up drastically, or static. Either everything is changing too fast to appreciate the world around us, or nothing is changing, no problems are being fixed, we are sitting in our own rot. It seems that the only escape, the only way to save ourselves would be to escape back to nature, back to the pure essence of the world, become one culture again and let the freedom of the world transport us to true happiness.

6

This monk could be the lone spiritual lighthouse in a sea of busy, materialistic people. He is there to show them that there is no need for our “modern” ways to be happy. Contentment and indeed happiness for some, comes in the form of divine connections. He could also be there questioning the morality of making those workers work in cigarette factories under the conditions they work in. Those who devote themselves to a religion are often symbols for morality and the simple cutting linking the monk to the cigarette factory might question the morality involved in that situation. But the film’s main blow with this juxtaposition is that it advocates religious endeavors, or spirituality. It is argued that only through the peaceful side of religion can we find our own inner peace.

7

With the refuse heap, Baraka criticizes the viewers on our complacency. It questions how we can sit idly by and watch others scavenge for food in dumpsters alongside livestock and wild dogs. How can we continue to throw out food we do not like when others are forced to get whatever they can just to survive? The film does a great job in throwing these questions of morality into our faces, potentially provoking some to action in the process.

8

The music is very diverse, made up of mostly the indigenous music from each area. The one that stands out to me is the one from the Kecak scene. Not only is the entire audio made up of them screaming, but it also has a certain melody to it that is achieved through their “primitive” musical instruments. The auditory beauty of the scene is also accentuated by the way it ends. It ends on one lone drum beat and cuts immediately to shots of a volcano, highlighting the power of the volcano and drawing a comparison to the power of the tribe’s ritual.

9
I think we watched Baraka because we needed to se that we are not the center of the universe. We are not the pristine example that everyone should follow. Sometimes, we need to take the backseat and follow in others’ wakes if we want to achieve the utopia every society strives for. This view could have arisen if we were presented with similar images not in a movie, but not spontaneously. If we are secluded form the world, and do not contribute to its essence the same way other cultures do, then we cannot hope to be able to come to these conclusions on our own. We need the exposure to be let into the light. And with this exposure comes the desire to travel. The movie shows us all this natural beauty and it would be a shame to waste our lives contenting ourselves with slideshows and audio tracks. We need to experience these instances in nature first hand if we want to be able to “breathe.”

"Hungry Love" Critique

Basically, this film is about a guy who is desperately in need of food and resorts to going through a series of acts to try to impress a girl and win her lunch box from her. I felt that I wasn’t having much success in my other films because the drama was too hard to imbue within those films. So when we started our Amélie Unit, I saw this as an opportunity to take myself in another direction. I based my whole concept on the premise that it had to be an awkward encounter between a man and a woman where there would be romantic tension, yet the whole thing would be very comedic. I think it does stay true to the romantic comedy genre of Amélie and that it did not turn out horrible, like my other films.
Overall:
First, I’ll begin with what I was tasked with. I was pretty much the director of the film and editor in my version. As director, I had to block my actors and pretty much detail all the facial expressions, movements, subtleties, and general actions they needed to be performing. I also had to make sure lighting was correct, sound quality was good, and the shots looked decent. As the editor, I just had to pull everything together. Because this film required a different edit to be handed in for each group member, I also had to work on the score and color correction for the shots that seemed out of place.
The main problem I had was that Devan, my guy actor, would not cooperate with some of the things I wanted to have him do. I think this took away from some of the comedic qualities of the film had I been able to get certain shots. But I gave in to his reservations and just tried to keep the whole production rolling. In editing, my only problem was really the lighting. The camera’s focus was not working properly so some shots looked too washed out and I had to color correct to smooth that out.
This time around, the whole production of the film went relatively smoothly. The only problems we had were scheduling conflicts, availability, and lighting issues. With scheduling, we would have miscommunications and as such, lost valuable shooting time. Also, many of us had very tight schedules. I had practice every day of the week and Katryna was needed for the school play. Tyler had work on one of the shooting days and the whole availability issue was one of the biggest problems we faced. But I think THE biggest problem was that the lighting was off. The first time we went to go shoot, Devan was late and we lost the period of time before the sun would be changing position quickly. So, some of our shots turned out dark. The second time we went to shoot, the light was changing even quicker and we lost an entire weekend because it had begun to rain. In the end, we managed to work out the schedule by prioritizing this project over our other commitments and the lighting could be fixed in the edit.
Critical Evaluation:
Story: The story begins by setting up Devan as a guy who is suddenly really hungry. Ten he goes through a whole bunch of ways to try to impress this girl who has food, and in the end he ends up not only with her food, but with her as well. I wasn’t really trying to highlight any issue or create a theme. I just wanted to make a funny little story about a guy who would do anything for food. I tried to portray Devan as this suave guy who knows how to impress women, and Katryna as a girl who is nice and proper, but not immune to the charm of a guy. I think I kept consistent with their characters and showed a nice evolution for Katryna as someone shut off, to someone who is totally open, but while staying true to both of their characters. I think I pulled off the climax nicely through reverse dramatic irony. Katryna sees what is on the card before we do and so we are itching to find out what it was. When we finally see it, we see that there is a cute message that wins her over because in the next shot, they are walking away hand in hand. So we know that Devan succeeds and we are left with a feeling of closure.

Casting/Acting:
I think we cast the movie really well. Devan, although you would expect him to want to eat all the time because he’s a pretty big guy, also takes you off guard when his cheesy wooing techniques work. Katryna also played her part really well. Her only criterion really was that she had to be a girl, but her acting was really good too. They were both really believable and you could easily distinguish who was who. Their personalities also provided a nice contrast and helped keep the story alive.
When it comes to their acting, as I’ve said before, terrific. You really believe that this is who they are, and we form ties with them as we would with our friends, and not simply as we would with characters. We didn’t really use any makeup or worry about their wardrobe. We only cared that it remained consistent from shooting day to day. There was also no dialogue, so the acting was better because we did not have to worry about making the dialogue believable too. Both actors do maintain a consistency in the way that they stay in character and a consistency in how they characterize their character.

Music and Effects/Lighting:
The music design in this piece was very simple. Aside from a few foley sounds to provide audio cues, there was only one score that was looped to create the romantic, French accordion café music that so effectively helped create the romantic mood in the film.
With lighting, we depended on natural light, shooting just before magic hour to get that nice rich, yellow and warm feel. Unfortunately, the changing light caused several consistency errors from shot to shot, and some shots were to dark, so we had to reshoot some of them. In the end, we still had to redo a couple shots by color correcting them. I needed to spend more time to make the color correction more precise, but I did not have enough time.



Titles and Credits/Camera Operation:
The only titles I used were in the beginning and for the credits. Both times, they were unobtrusive and only communicated information that we could not get visually. This was mainly due to the generic falling leaves of autumn, and the black background in each.
The framing in each shot is also pretty good I think. Many of the shots are static because I still have some uncertainty in my abilities to create dynamic moving shots, although I did try a few times. Whenever there is a zoom though, I felt that it appropriately fits and serves to create intimacy between us and the characters. Some shots that could be improved are the ones that have some awkward framing or that could have been tighter. With the shots, I also think that I could have used more variety in them. Possibly a few reverse shots would have been a nice stylistic characterization for my film. At the point where they are walking, I would have liked a nice aerial shot, but no one would let us use their roof.

Sound/Editing:
We did not record any on location audio because we knew that it was going to be a silent film. We did record a few foley sounds with the camera, but even then it was not on location.
When it comes to editing, I think the cuts came out relatively well and the pacing is appropriate. Each shot as the appropriate duration for a certain effect and they maintain continuity throughout the film. When changing from scene to scene, I thought about ways I could make it so that it isn’t an awkward or abrupt change. This time, I did not resort to fade to blacks or dissolves. I used the score to transition from the house, to the street, to the park, all the while maintaining the walking motion to create a link. Each shot is followed in my opinion by the appropriate reaction shot, POV shot, axis match, etc… a few areas I could have improved were the guitar opening scene. I would have preferred to use a close up of Katryna and show the guitar in the next shot that way, but due to the shot being too washed out, I opted to cut to black very quickly because I had no better method. Yet I think that each scene is appropriately trimmed and that the shot order is logical and fluent. The editing is almost transparent and except for a few moments like the guitar scene, the color correction near the end, and the ending with the heart, the editing is hardly noticeable to the commoner’s eye.



Objective evaluation
Reviewing my film, completely ignoring what went into making it, I would say that the film is pretty good. The key moments designed to make you laugh all accomplish this and the story is not lost in the shots. As a viewer though, I would have preferred that Devan be shown taking out the guitar and that the lighting/color correction be fixed at the end. I was also wondering if there should have been some cue for Devan to walk up to the window. It seemed weird for him to just get up and look outside. But overall, it works and the film itself was rather enjoyable.