Ted Schilowitz from Red shows off the latest version of the camera a lot of indie filmmakers have been waiting for. And more waiting is the keyword: it was supposed to be out last year; now it’s slated for “spring or summer.” The model shown here is a non-functioning prototype.
It looks like an amazing camera, for sure. And at a price-to-quality ratio never before seen in the industry. This is a high production value camera for making films aimed at viewing on the big screen.
But for documentary shooters like me, for whom story generally trumps production value, I’m not sure it’s where I’d put my money (although I might change my mind after I get my hands on one). I also seriously question the workflow, which sounds really cumbersome compared to my drag-and-drop JVC HM-100 to Final Cut workflow. Of course, from a quality standpoint the quarter inch sensors of my JVC don’t even begin to compare with the 2/3″ first-generation Scarlet sensors. On the other hand, the Scarlet doesn’t compare with the Canon 5d MKII’s full 35mm sensor.
As much fun as it is to peek behind the curtain at what Red is developing, I question their logic in hyping the camera months, or in this case, years, before it’s even finished being designed, much less available for sale. I prefer the kind of frustration Apple dishes up – never knowing what’s coming until the rabbit comes out of the hat, and I can place my order the same day.
Alex Gibney has quite a pedigree as a filmmaker. He’s been producing or making documentaries since he graduated from Yale. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005) was his 8th film or TV series, proving that you don’t have to be an overnight success to be a success. Enron was nominated for an Oscar, and in 2007, Gibney actually won an Oscar with Taxi to the Dark Side (a film I’ll be screening soon).
This film uses lots of news footage to cobble together a difficult, complex story. I doubt I could ever make a film involving this much research – I don’t have the patience for it. They use documents that were probably entered into courtroom cases as evidence, panning through the document Ken Burns style to help explain how Enron went from being the darling of Wall Street to one of the biggest cases of corporate fraud in history.
Simple but creative use of visuals reinforce what the narrator is talking about (yes, of course there is a narrator in this film – how else would you tell such a complex story? I’d love to know, because maybe I’d have liked the film more if they’d found it). For example, there are cutaway shots of paper being shredded while we hear voiceover about how Enron shredded paper. There’s even a cutaway to a Simpsons cartoon that helps explain things (something Al Gore does in An Inconvenient Truth).
I like the use of music to reinforce and subtly make points in this film. Immediately after a historical clip of Ronald Reagan describing the “magic of the marketplace,” we hear “That Old Black Magic” which is a very effective way to subtly call bullshit on Reagan. “Son of a Preacher Man” is a great choice for the background music while narrator introduces us to Enron wonderkid Jeffrey Skilling. The editing is straightforward: begin the sequence with the music at full volume, fade it down to background so we can hear narrator, and keep it playing until the sequence is complete – then just fade it away.
Structurally, this is a straightforward, traditional doc, with heavy use of historical footage, narration, still photos, cutaway shots and b-roll, all supported by interviews with experts and participants, who are all looking slightly off camera. It’s a time-tested formula, so I award no points for inventiveness in how the film is structured.
I love Sherman’s March. There’s so much to take away from this film, I hardly know where to start. So I’ll start at the beginning: with filmmaker Ross McElwee misdirecting me into thinking that this is really a film about Sherman’s scorched-earth march across the South near the end of the Civil War, complete with stentorian hired-voice narration while arrows depicting the march show us the route on a map. Psyche!
Cut to empty Manhattan flat, with McElwee narrating. His girlfriend, he tells us, has just dumped him, triggering an existential crises in his life. He’d just received $9,000 to make a film about Sherman’s March (a decent chunk of change in 1981, when he did the filming). McElwee resolves to make SOME kind of film as therapy, and we’re off on a nearly 3-hour ride that loosely follows Sherman’s march route through the South, but very closely follows McElwee’s quest to find a new girl.
This is an intensely personal film. In fact, I discovered there’s a special genre of documentary in which this film resides called, appropriately enough, “personal documentary.” The filmmaker adopts a “lovable loser” role describing with deadpan humor his luckless encounters with women, many of whom are past girlfriends whom he visits while on his trip through the south. A journey is a powerful metaphor, and so is the figure of William Tecumseh Sherman, with whom McElwee identifies as someone who was mostly ignored or despised during his own day.
What I admire about this film is the ability that McElwee showed to make his OWN film. The historical Sherman’s March simply provides a structural support for the film, the canvas if you will, on which the artist paints. I saw another film recently that attempted a similar approach: An American Journey, in which journalist-turned-filmmaker Philippe Séclier retraced the steps of photographer Robert Frank. However, Séclier doesn’t manage to make the journey his own anywhere near as convincingly as McElwee does. And that’s the takeaway for me from this film: to make really good films, they must be films that only you YOU could make.
Intriguingly, I don’t think this film would have worked had it purported to be a film about a guy going in search of a girlfriend in his native South. That’s too obvious. It needs the twist, it needs to misdirect us a little bit, in order for us to see it’s genius. Our minds crave seeing beyond the obvious.
Random observations: The filmmaker maintains a deadpan narrative delivery throughout, which is funny. The humor helps the film work. He also keeps the camera rolling through a lot of delicate conversations and first meetings, which must have required a lot of negotiation. He uses a simple convention three times during the film: a shot of the moon (in different phases for each of the scenes) with his voiceover describing his dreams. Very effective bridge technique between sequences. In a way the film is a celebration of Southern women. We really get a glimpse into their character.
I love how he enters the film saying “I have no idea what to film next.” You really almost feel sorry for him at that point, you identify with him. And you want to keep watching to find out what he DOES find to film.
Beautiful shot: when he finally gets the MG running, you know he’s got it running when you see the reflection of the car in the stainless steel gasoline tanker, which is a reveal shot – you have no idea what it is at first. He managed to shoot it while driving. Kids, don’t try this at home.
Ultimately he does get a nice cross section of southern life, everything from the nut jobs at the survivalist enclave, to the women’s rights activist who keeps going back to a boyfriend who appears to be no good for her.
Tip: If you screw up and forget to record sound, as McElwee did on two occasions in the film, just admit it and narrate over the visuals! This technique allowed him to cover his mistakes and helps build the case that he’s a lovable loser.
He films himself walking around the battlefields looking a little lost. Nice bridge scenes. Also a sweet camera move when he films the big plastic rhinoceros, in which he starts out walking backwards in front of the guys who are carrying the rhino, then stands to one side and lets it pass away and travel into the scene. Simple camera move but nice one that tells story and is nice to look at.
He provokes a confrontation scene by following Burt Reynolds into the place where he’s making a film. Reynold’s henchmen see him right away and he films them for a few seconds while they confront him, which cuts straight to a police officer writing down his name. Yes, he keeps the camera rolling. Remember that.
I was really curious how he’d end this film. Does he find a girl? He finds a way to tie it together that feels honest and hopeful.
This film was full of lessons for me. And it turns out that McElwee went on to become a professor at Harvard University, where he teaches – surprise – filmmaking.
The way this film was shot breaks a lot of “rules.” Basically, it’s a Power Point presentation. But a really, really good one. Plus, the fact that the man making the film was the winner of the popular vote to become president in 2000. But we all know what happened there. Al Gore is a tragic figure who, with this film, finds something he can be really really good at: telling the devastating truth about global warming. Gore makes an absolutely compelling case that global warming is an impending global disaster.
The film opens with a series of nature shots, which I think were filmed on or near Gore’s family farm. Voiceover of Gore talking about his goals and what he’s failed to achieve in life. Beautiful and simple transitions use classic technique of person in moving vehicle to project a sense of forward motion with a disolve from car moving directly into tracking shot from airplane of glacier cuts to single point of ice with water melting under it to tie it all together and tell us what this film is about. In particular I like the way Davis Guggenheim shot Gore through the window of the car – he apparently leaned out of the front passenger seat and shot Gore through the reflections in the class of the passenger window, so that you can catch glimpses of him. Nice way to create dramatic visual in otherwise boring visual situation.
The film is structured simply: introduction with Gore talking about himself and providing a glimpse of the problem, and we see him preparing power point slides at his home, and in hotel rooms. Then we get straight into the presentation, which is filmed with high production values complete with complex crane moves sweeping over the crowd up toward Gore and his slides.
Then after Gore makes a particularly powerful point, we cut to a quiet interlude. More traveling. We get that Gore is really dedicated to the cause of spreading his message to the entire world. There’s a great moment where he says “Is it possible there are other threats we need to address besides terrorism?”
A lot of the footage is slightly shaky – in the car, also Gore at his farm looks shoulder shot. Adds to the feeling of believability. Lots of very slow zooms or dolly moves when Gore is giving the presentations makes them come alive more. On the many still photos of Gore’s family members, we get the Ken Burns effect: slow pans and zooms into the pictures. Great Upton Sinclair quote: “It’s difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
There’s one beautiful shot that I’m guessing was made with a stabilizer of some kind, like a Steadicam Merlin, when Gore gets out of his car and the camera crosses in front of him. That’s a shot I want to use sometime and I recently purchased a Merlin, which I’m practicing with (because it’s not simple to get good results with it).
Gore talks VERY slowly and deliberately throughout the film. It’s a very effective way to get people to listen: slow down. Deliver clearly. A takeaway is that you can tell your subjects to slow down in interviews sometimes if you want what they are saying to have more impact.
Simple but very well crafted and ANIMATED graphics throughout film (presumably provided by Gore’s power-point designers) provide visuals for the film. The fact that they are animated makes them very effective. Map lights up while he talks about cities he’s traveled to. Nice music interludes with electronic riffs provide background for the transition sequences.
This is a devastating film. You can’t watch it without feeling in your core that the planet is fucked unless we change course radically and fast. Gore addresses the skeptics and preempts some criticism by addressing skeptics questions directly and then debunking them. The film doesn’t try to do what journalists do – get the “other side” of the story, which is really a cop out. Gore shows in one slide the number of journalistic articles that provide “balanced” coverage by quoting someone from the “other side” but then shows that among scientists, the numbers are an avalanche with literally just a tiny handful of scientists who dispute the finding that global warming is a real and present danger to our way of life and survival as a species.
But the film concludes hopefully with a great quote: “In America, political will is a renewable resource.” And neatly provides a place you can go to act: climatecrisis.net. The film credits are intermixed with steps you can take to help. So that as a whole, the film is a stirring call to action. This film is, in my opinion, an example of absolutely brilliant documentary filmmaking: it shows a strong point of view that is based on facts, without taking the easy path that so much so-called “balanced” reportage does when they include “the other side.” Filmmakers are free to look at the facts and make up their own mind, then share that with the world in the form of a compelling film worth watching. Which is why I love this medium so much.
I became an instant Joe Berlinger fan about 10 minutes into watching his most recent film, Crude, which screened last fall for a week at the Varsity in Seattle. After watching that as-it-happens legal drama, which pitted native people in Ecuador against Chevron, I want to see everything this documentary filmmaker has ever done. First top: Brother’s Keeper, his first feature length documentary (which he co-directed with Bruce Sinofsky).
Crude was about a courtroom battle (with most of the action filmed outside of the courtroom) and so is Brother’s Keeper. But in both films, there’s not much tedious back-and-forth argument between attorneys in a courtroom. From a filmmaking perspective, what I found remarkable about Brother’s Keeper was the fact that the story builds like a Hollywood thriller toward a climax in the courtroom. Berlinger takes us into the lives of the defendant, a man accused of murdering his brother.
The film is classic verite. That makes sense given Sinofsky’s background – he worked as an editor for the verite pioneering Maysles brothers in New York before partnering with Berlinger in 1991 to create his own production company, Creative Thinking International. But what most impresses me the way Sinofsky and Berlinger put this film together is the care they must have taken in selecting which story to tell. All of the classic elements were there – this story was a major media event at the time, because it involved accusation of assisted suicide as well as murder, and the entire local community supported the accused. All the juicy elements of conflict were in place, so it really didn’t matter how the case went in court – it was going to be a good film no matter what. And that’s my big takeaway from this film: pick stories where the conflict is so great that people will stay on the train until it reaches its destination without getting off early.
The film appears to have been shot mostly from a shoulder mounted camera, which was on sticks a lot. There’s brief but frequent music use that helps creating a feeling for the place where the drama happens – down-home violin music which feels like a barn yard. I noticed also that they lit many of the interior scenes with one or two hot lights, in such a way that the lighting doesn’t call attention to itself.
You can hear the voice of the filmmakers frequently, asking the questions and interacting with the brothers. That works very well as an approach here, and something I’m tempted to try out myself. But the filmmakers do not enter the frame (although Berlinger at one point almost entered the frame and you can hear him protesting that he doesn’t want to “be in the film.”) Camera movement doesn’t call attention to the techniques being used – that is, no dolly moves or anything like that.
The way the film is structured, with pauses between the interview segments to show b-roll of the farm with ominous music chords works very well, before we go back to next interview. And we hear depositions from lawyers and prosecutors but we don’t SEE them until much later in the film, a very effective technique. This is a technique I’m going to use a LOT in my films because more than any single technique, showing one thing while hearing something else is a very powerful way to hold viewer’s attention and add a third layer of meaning to what’s being shown AND what’s being said. The sum is greater than the parts when this is done well.
Another interesting observation: they don’t ID the people portrayed, they just show them, and you have to guess who the person is based on the clues they provide and the context. This helps make it feel more like a narrative film, and less like a documentary, and I like it. Another thing that adds visual interest: virtually all of the people included in the film are OLD. Really old. And they look really interesting with the texture of their faces and the way they talk.
Traveling shots with brothers riding on tractor create a sense of the film being pulled forward and helps get us from one interview to the next. Part of the fun is the long sequences in which we hear filmmakers asking questions and hear the answers aparently without cuts, so it feels very real and immediate and trustworthy. Joe asks obvious and human questions, like “Didn’t you have a girlfriend? Why not?” One very important observation: the filmmakers do NOT stammer or have to restate their questions – they just ask them, simply and directly. They are good conversationalists with a lot of clarity in their speech. They ask a lot of simple, probing questions, such as “Why” and “Why not?”
The farmers do answer frequently in simple “yes” and “no” style, which normally doesn’t work for an interview, but which helps establish them as simple, salt-of-the-earth people, and partly explains why the filmmakers included themselves – because the simple answers need the voice of filmmaker for context to the question.
Great use of signs to establish where the action is happening – sign of state police before we find outselves in an interview with a police officer tells us that we are inside that building for the interview. We see the farmers continuing their simple life while the courtroom drama unfolds on the sound track. Nice cuts of people getting into car and driving away as a transition.
Finally, the climax of the film happens when the case goes to trial. The camera is allowed in the courtroom, and after the jury deliberates, they reach a verdict and we are on the edge of our seats as is every single person in the courtroom to see the result, which is the stuff of classic story climax. After that, the film wraps up very quickly – we see the main characters congratulated by members of the community, and the main character says “it feels like I’m going to start over again,” gets on a tractor, and rides off into the rest of his life. Nice way to tie it up.
Glidetrack arrives from UK in a securely packaged tube
When filming things that don’t move, it’s sometimes nice to set the camera in motion. The opening sequence of my first film Shine, for example, is a tracking shot of a crowd made using on a dolly at Fremont Studios here in Seattle. The smooth motion creates a sense that you are taking the audience on a journey, that the story is beginning to unfold. Since then I’ve had my eye out for a way to achieve this effect that doesn’t require a small army of technicians and a fat bank account.
What's in the tube
So when I read about Glidetrack, I was intrigued. After doing a bunch of research, I ordered one just before Christmas (I like to think of it as a gift to anyone who watches my future films). With FedEx shipping, the only option provided, the total was $355. I also considered a Pegasus Carbon System from Cinevate, but it costs $850 configured the way I wanted it. The difference between $350 and $850 is – for me – the difference between actually making the purchase and thinking about it. Although I’d sure love to get my hands on a Pegasus some day.
The Glidetrack arrived via FedEx in a 4″ diameter tube, into which the Glidetrack was carefully packed for overseas shipping from the UK, where they are made by Alistair Brown. Taking it out of the packaging, it’s immediately clear that this is a really solid, simple device: a 1-meter-long piece of aluminum with some channels for the slider, which is already attached, and holes for mounting it on a tripod.
Assembly is a snap
It’s a snap to put Glidetrack together using the included hex wrench – you simply bolt the end pieces on, and you’re done. The end pieces have soft rubber feet that allow you to use the Glidetrack as a table dolly, or on a nice hardwood floor, without leaving any scratches. The big question in my mind: is it possible to mount the 1-meter long Glidetrack on my tripod from a single point in the middle and have it be stable enough? Or would it require two tripods, one mounted under each end piece?
Good to go
I tested out the Glidetrack by making a short film starring the chandelier in our upstairs media room (which I’ll post later – you can see another film I made with it below). I mounted the Glidetrack on the quick-release plate of my Manfrotto 755XB tripod, which has a 501HD fluid head (which FYI I’m replacing with a 701HD head – the 501 is too heavy for use with this tripod and makes it top heavy). The Glidetrack felt stable once I mounted it to the tripod, although I had to really crank the quick-release far tighter than normal to keep the Glidetrack from slipping from side to side while using it.
Tip: Use a ball or fluid head
The gliding platform of the Glidetrack contains a standard 1/4″ mount which you could twist your camera onto. But that would mean you’d have to adjust your tripod legs to tilt the lense. Ideally you’d mount a small fluid head on this. I used a Manfrotto ball head, which does the job fine for under $40.
I mounted up my JVC GY HM-100, and tested out the stability by sliding the camera all the way out to the edge of the Glidetrack. It does dip a bit from the weight of the camera, maybe a half inch total. And, I found that my already top-heavy tripod almost began to tip when the camera reached the end of the rail in some angled positions – I think this will improve when I swap in a lighter head.
Tip: use rubber band for silky slow movement
I pushed the camera from one end of the track to the other, and the first thing I noticed was the sound: it’s a noticeable swish, but not loud. The faster you push, the louder it gets. But slowing it down, it’s almost inaudible. This would be a problem if you plan to use a shotgun mic to record audio while you’re filming. But for this type of shot, it’s common to use externally recorded audio or track the shot over music, which is what I did. The small noise factor is a tradeoff I’m willing to make to have such such a small, portable, inexpensive piece of equipment (if quiet operation is of critical importance, check out the Cinevate Pegasus carbon fiber system I mentioned previously).
Now for the fun part. I positioned the tripod and Glidetrack under my chandelier, and took my first shot by starting the camera, then pushing the track from one side to the other. The unit slides easily and uniformly. I noticed, however, that my first movements were not perfectly even, resulting in some very slight jerkiness. So I resorted to a trick I learned for smoothing out tripod pans: using an elastic band to pull the handle rather than by touching it directly. That way, the rubber band absorbs the small jerks and the whole thing moves smoothly. I’m afraid I have shakier than normal hands, so I have to use this technique as standard procedure. Works great.
You can see the results in this short film I made using the Glidecam:
A couple of filmmaker tips I learned while producing this:
1. You can actually do some interesting, crane-like shots with the Glidecam by turning the tripod head and thus the Glidecam track, while at the same time pulling the slider down the track. However, it’s difficult for one person to manage both with perfect smoothness.
2. To make the unit rock solid, you will want to mount it on two tripods, one under each foot. It’s solid with just the one center mounted, but I had to wait for minor bouncing to subside after moving the camera all the way to the end of the track before starting a new shot. I’m willing to put up with a little instability for the added range of motion and ease of repositioning that comes with using a single tripod.
3. You have to move the camera REALLY SLOW, slower than you think, to produce silky results. You can use the elastic band tip (mentioned above) to accomplish this without jerkiness.
I’m thrilled with the results of my first Glidecam shoot. It’s a tad long for taking everywhere, perhaps why the unit is available in a half-meter length. But I like having the full meter of runway to work with. I also like that Glidecam appears to be an indie product, produced by a guy with a name whose Twitter account I can ping to say: Thank you, Alistair Brown, for a producing a solid, affordable tool that puts smooth tracking shots within easy reach of documentary filmmakers.
I signed up for Film Movement last month, a film-of-the-month club for independent and foreign films. The first disc arrived last week, containing a documentary called Mine, which was the audience award winner at SXSW last year. It’s a film by Geralyn Pezanoski, a San Francisco based producer who was so moved after seeing news footage of pets stranded by hurricane Katrina, that she (along with hundreds of other animal lovers) drove straight to New Orleans and pitched in to help save them. The idea to make this film came to her later, after she noticed that many of the people who adopted animals in the wake of Katrina were unwilling to return them to their original owners. With the classic elements of conflict falling into place, she got busy directing her first feature length documentary.
This film is pretty much a classic and well-executed example of what I would call “traditional” documentary as it’s practiced today: it makes heavy use of interviews, cutaway footage, historical footage, and follows a handful of people and their pets through what happened to them before, during and after the hurricane. It looks and feels like a film made by a skilled producer who has worked her way up in the video production world and knows how to cover all the bases with efficiency, fairness and professionalism. You can’t watch this film without feeling deeply moved by the plight of helpless animals – and the people who love them.
Filmmaker takeaways:
1. Show the universal through the particular. The filmmakers found a great mix of characters through which to tell the bigger story.
2. Tell more than one story. I like how the film switches constantly between the individual stories to tell a larger, but interrelated, story. It keeps it interesting to have more than one thread going at once and be able to jump between them frequently. Nicely structured.
3. Develop the characters. Even though they live very ordinary lives, it’s impossible not to start to care about the people because we hear them talking over and over about how much they miss their dogs. You begin to understand that their pets are part of what gives their lives meaning and they get a lot of joy from the relationship in a world that otherwise can be pretty bleak.
4. Stay with it. I’m not sure how long this film took to make, but I’m guessing quite awhile, because by the end of the film, most of conflict has been resolved in a satisfying way – with the majority of the pet owners portrayed in the film getting their pets back.
Happy ending bonus: watch the dvd extras to find out what happens with the guy who was still waiting to be reunited with his dog at the end of the film.
Zachary Levy taught another solid 3-hour workshop this afternoon at Northwest Film Forum. I’ve had a fair bit of mostly self-taught experience with lighting, so I was curious to see how my technique stacked up. I picked up these great tips, as well as a raft of lingo that’s new to me. Armed with this info, I feel more confident that I can speak the language of lighting with other professionals. Which was totally worth the $35 workshop fee. Here’s the highlights (so to speak):
750 stand – a sturdy light stand that is more solid than standard light stands, perfect for supporting heavier fixtures such as the Arri 650 fresnel light that we were using today.
Power math – When arriving at a location, you need to do some simple math before you start plugging in lights, or you risk tripping a breaker halfway through the interview. Typical households in the US operate 15 amp circuits, at 120 volts. Professional lights like the Arri 650 list the wattage they consume in their name, which means the Arri 650 consumes 650 watts. Here’s the formula:
Watts divided by Volts = Amps.
So in our case with one 650 watt light + one 300 watt light, that means we’d do this math:
950 / 120 = 8 amps.
In this case, we know that we’re fine to run both of those lights on the same circuit, because 8 amps is only about half of the 15 amp maximum for the typical household. Commercial buildings typically support up to 20 amps per circuit. It’s important to remember that a circuit isn’t just the same plug outlet – it’s usually all the outlets in the same room, so you’ll need to run an extension cord (commonly called a stinger in film set lingo) to tap another circuit.
Striking – when turning on a powerful light on set, it’s common to alert everyone that a potentially blinding light is about to go on by yelling “striking” (as in striking a match).
Color bars – In interview situations, it’s common to use a field monitor to get a really good picture of what you’re getting while you’re getting it. And prior to every use, it’s good practice to calibrate the monitor quickly by displaying the camera’s color bars. It’s simple: switch to “blue only” mode, which turns the color bars all grey, then adjust the chroma, luminance, and brightness until the top of the bars most closely matches the bottom. For brightness, turn it up all the way, until you can see three short bars in the lower right. Then turn it down until the brightest of the bars is just barely visible. Bingo: you’re calibrated.
Just 5 stops – most prosumer video cameras see only about 5 stops of light between the brightest white and the blackest black. Our eye sees thousands of levels.
100 percent zebra – Zach recommends setting zebra stripes to 100 percent so that you can see where the 100 percent white is clipping, and use your eye to gauge the lesser levels, rather than setting zebra’s to kick in at 70 or 80 percent, because then you can’t tell the difference between 70 and 100.
Chair test – prior to the interview, make sure chair that will be used doesn’t squeek, rock or rotate. Obvious stuff, but easy to overlook and can kill a great moment in your interview if you don’t plan ahead.
Scrim – Red scrim is typically a double-strength scrim that cuts light by a full stop; green scrim is half-strength scrim that cuts light by a half stop.
C-47 – it’s not an airplane; it’s not a high explosive. It a fancy name for wooden clothes pins, used to attach gels and diffusion to c-stands.
Assume the position – it’s a convention to position the interviewer so that they are close to the camera between the camera and the key light. This way, the subject is looking more into the light. Also, position interviewee to one side of the frame – not in the middle. Then, you can position the next interviewee on the other side, and they’ll intercut better (not always in same place). Reframe during questions. Keep camera on sticks, but don’t lock it down fully – be ready to follow interviewee.
Pack black garbage bags – and gaffer’s tape to mask out unwanted window light when you’re trying to fully control the lighting for an interview.
Clothing – avoid pattern shirts on interview subjects (because it causes nasty moiree pattern on video). White is also bad – it’s too hard to lighten face relative to shirt.
I had the privilege of participating this afternoon in a cinéma vérité workshop taught by documentary filmmaker Zachary Levy. He’s in town for the Seattle screening of his first feature documentary, 3 years in the making, Strongman. It opened last night and deserves a much bigger audience than the handful of people who showed up to see it last night at Northwest Film Forum (I’ll be blogging a filmmaker review of the film soon).
As a cameraman on big shows like Oprah and 60 Minutes, Zach has a ton of experience in how NOT to make the kind of films he wants to make. Citing influences like Al and David Maysles, Zach pursues a simpler, “truthier” style in his own filmmaking known as cinéma vérité.
Eschewing even common cinematic accompaniments such as music (there is only one song in Strongman, and it accompanies the credit roll), Levy strips artifice to the bone, leaving his characters with nothing to be but themselves. To make this kind of film, Levy says, you want to find a subject who WANTS something – the stuff of classic character-driven plot. Then you start shooting, and trust that what happens will be interesting. Levy compared this approach to filmmaking with a jazz musician’s improvisational approach to music: the notes that are in front of you determine the ones you play next.
Here’s 12 things I learned from Levy today:
1. Hold the Shot. When you THINK the action is finished and you’ve got it, force yourself to count to 10. Something even more perfect just might happen, OR you might get something that will make your edit easier.
2. Wear long pants. Translation: be willing to use your body to get the shot. That means kneeling, standing for long periods of time, stretching beforehand, getting physical with it.
3. Keep your camera close. Simple body mechanics, but something I’ve overlooked: when you hold the camera in your hands actually touching your stomach or chest, it’s not only braced and more stable, but it’s better supported, so you can shoot much longer without getting tired.
4. Always shoot SHOTS. That is, think like a still photographer and frame things so they look good. That doesn’t mean going all “Living in Oblivion” style. But do shoot pretty rather than just shoot.
5. Look for the conflict. Stories that make for good verite involve conflict of some kind. In the case of Strongman, the conflict was mostly internal.
6. Shoot first, get releases later – if at all. Learning this one fact was worth twice the price of the workshop. As a former photojournalist, I have a solid working knowledge of “fair use” doctrine. But I’d been led to believe by other filmmakers that since films were commercial in nature, different rules applied. That turns out not to be the case with documentaries. Get releases when you can, he said, but don’t let NOT having them stop you from making your film. Got it.
7. Use signs as a form of narration. Levy included a brief “welcome to Orlando” sign in one scene as a way of revealing to audience where the action was happening, since the film has no narration.
8. Use visual metaphors. In one scene, Levy consciously includes a clock in the background to emphasize the fact that time was passing as one of the characters celebrates her birthday.
9. Watch the line. It’s an established filmmaking convention to keep characters on the same side of the frame throughout a scene, to avoid confusion about who’s who. You can break this convention, but be aware of it, and do it consciously for a reason.
10. Watch for repeat behavior. People behave predictably – so observe that and use it to your advantage. Over the years of filming, he came to know exactly where Stan would sit, and was able to make subtle adjustments to the table beforehand so that light would fall just enough to light the scene without Levy having to intervene.
11. Keep lighting simple. Levy was able to get acceptable levels of light in most of the scenes in Strongman by simply replacing the standard 60-watt bulbs with 80- or 100-watt bulbs. Side benefit: the natural light of the place was preserved, and he didn’t have to do any additional work to light the sets. Drawback was he had to use a big shoulder-bourne camera that was capable of shooting in low light. (That is less true today with small cameras with fat sensors like the Canon 5d).
12. Sound guy should “fade away.” Levy’s crew consisted of just one person – a person to record sound. And he made clear to this person that he or she was not to make eye contact with the subjects, as much as possible, so that there wasn’t any relationship developing that would show up on camera and have to be edited out.
Levy’s teaching another workshop tomorrow from noon-3pm, which I’ll attend and blog. Meanwhile, if you’re interested in seeing what a Slamdance-winning cinema verite film looks like, don’t miss this chance to see Strongman – it’s showing at NW Film Forum through Jan. 14.
This carefully crafted film doesn’t fit easily into any genre, which is part of why I like it so much. Filmmaker Caveh Zahedi uses direct address throughout the entirety of I Am A Sex Addict. And he mixes actual footage of his past girlfriends with actors portraying them to tell the story of his life through his relationships with women, wrapping it up neatly with a significant real-life event at the end (at least I THINK it was real, although with this type of film you never really know).
I admire filmmakers who are as comfortable in front of the lens as they are behind it. I’m not. It’s quite a talent to bare your soul in a way that is entertaining and informative. As someone who has spent (and still spends) a ridiculous amount of time mentally undressing women, I would say that what Zahedi is doing in this film takes almost as much courage as what James Longly does in his.
Technical observation: There are briefly animated scenes that show the characters flying across the Atlantic, really simple, just stylized head shots of the characters flying over a map. It works. And in some of the acted sequences, Zahedi looks at the camera and reveals that the scenes aren’t really where they purport to be – which is endearing and somehow makes the rest of the film more believable.
When looking for ideas to turn into a film, it’s tempting to think “life is elsewhere.” I’m a big fan of filmmakers who can take something that is right in front of them, and turn it into a compelling story. Zahedi certainly has done that with this film. That’s the takeaway, perhaps: good films are made with ingredients that are right in front of you.
I’m reading a book right now called Making Documentary Films and Videos by Barry Hampe. The author devotes a lot of space in the book to defining what a documentary is and what it isn’t. For him, documentaries are more related to journalism than they are to Hollywood. “The difference between television journalism and serious documentary filmmaking is the difference between a newspaper article and a book,” he says.
According to Hampe’s definition, a film like this is clearly not a documentary. And Hampe is quick to dismiss even Michael Moore’s films as “Docuganda.” But I disagree. I think it’s up to every documentary filmmaker to define the word for themselves, and let their reputation speak for itself. If, like Hampe, you want to keep both feet squarely planted between the goal posts of verifiable fact, go for it. If you want to take me on a fact-based flight of fancy, I’m down for the trip.
