Hannah Letinich

AXA

Week 6:

Sadly this week was not very productive, I did have a meeting with my subject and we decided that after the rain had stopped we would continue filming. I am very happy that all of my shooting has been outside with natural light and no extra equipment, but at the same time I am upset that plans are being set back because of the weather. Working on Interview questions has been interesting, I have decided that there will be five main questions for each section of the film, but of course room for more if they come up. I can tell he is a little nervous about the interview, but hey its just going to be like two people talking, with pauses.

Affinity group was the same as usual this week. Week talked for about an hour, mostly covering questions and weather related topics. Rowan was missing, but everyone else was present. Steven told us to look at new pictures he posted on his blog of melting. After everyone seemed to be satisfied with talking we watched American Movie, which was extremely relevant to our program. Using CP-16 and Bolex cameras a younger guy created a horror movie. It was a great documentary, entertaining and motivational.

Next week is our individual meetings, and hurry up and wait time for the weather.

Week 7:

I’m glad this is all finally moving along. This week I shot “Washing the Van,” “Sailing” and recorded guitar playing. Thank you sunshine. I am so excited that all i have to do is audio work now. I don’t have much to say about the footage, because there is a lot of it, and I’m going to have to be very selective when editing. Marilyn wanted me to post stills of shooting, but I’m going to be honest, it was just me out there, so I will add a picture of the boat instead. I’m at the point where registration for fall and this project are colliding and I’m not sure how to deal with it all. Next week is post production week, and I’m think I will take 3 days to do everything, hopefully I will be able to spread it out a little. This is what I’m thinking right now:

…………..but…..I…….wait………..no……….think…………preserve……….unravel……………do……..

I don’t know what to work on first, maybe I should make a list or something. huuh.

Affinity group was non existant for me, Thursday was when we went sailing. I have time reserved in the MML and Suites:

Thursday: 6-10

Sunday: 10-2, 6-10

Monday: 11-2

I changed my custom header, now my blog is more personal, because I created my own header image. This week was semi-productive. I filmed more, a scene of my subject working in his wood shop, it was very successful. I might have to replace grocery shopping with this footage. Unfortunately I’m still sick, and its raining out today

which means I can’t do what I planned, which was to go to the  waterfall in Brinnon to film.

Meeting this week with the affinity groups were positive, we watched some of Rowan’s footage in San Juan, it seemed like it would all work well for him. I asked my peer group about the organization methods I posted last week, they all seemed to think it was a good idea, and would bring an assured rhythm to my project.

I am extremely glad that we still have three weeks to finish our rough cut, I do not feel rushed at all, and am taking my time to feel better, and get back in the grove, but not too much time because that would just be foolish. My dad is being very flexible with organizing times to meet and film, he told me yesterday to just call him when I have a day to film and we will just plan on it, I’m not sure how I feel about that, seems a little to loose for planning.

So far I have 45 min of footage: 10 of Trinacria, 25 of sanding on the docks, and 20 of working in the shop. I am going to have loads of of footage to turn into a 10 min film.

Oh and YES! I am going to be writing a bit of intro and conclusion narration, but it will be very minimal, maybe 4 sentences that have depth.

This week was suppose to be a production week, and it was for the most part. I filmed various aspects of my film planning, but not all of it. unfortunately I got really sick at the end of the week and that held back plans I had for the weekend. I filmed “working on the boat” “eating lunch” and some other “on the dock” scenes. The footage turned out really well, fairly well exposed, and the framing I planned on. My subject was pretty skeptical about being filmed in a public place, but when it was just us one on one he was fine. I am very anxious to do the rest of the filming in the next two weeks, such as “sailing,” “the van,” and “grocery shopping.” I’ve been writing drafts for a structure for the film to help lead meaning to viewers, and the best one so far is:

A) Intro with guitar and my voice over. (30 sec)

B) Transition into interview narration with guitar playing and imagery. (1min)

C) Continue imagery but eliminate guitar audio, keep interview. (2 min)

D) During middle segments show live matching audio and video of subject showing off boat (3 min)

E) Go back to Imagery of new aspect with interview voice over. (2 min)

F) Guitar playing audio again with continued imagery no more interview. (1min)

G) Conclusion will be guitar playing with a finalizing comment in the interview, imagery, and my moralistic narrating finish. ( 20 sec)

The word imagery in the sequence above will be filled with different aspects of sustainability that I will film, like the ones in parenthesis in the paragraphs before. Each segment of the film is a different length because the most important scenes should be emphasized, yet there should be an equal build up and  build down to the intro and conclusion. This pattern for my documentary is going to help me stay more organized when editing later. Maybe the different aspects of imagery I’m going to show should be organized from least important to most important then back down the line:

A) The Van ( Simple Green Car Wash)-Interview questions will cover product choices

B) Grocery shopping (co-op or farmers market)- interview questions will cover buying local

C) The Boat (sailing)- interview questions will cover no electricity or motors, being in nature

D) *Scene touring boat, live audio*- as is audio

E) Fixing boat (sanding)- interview questions will include his work vs, work on his boat intertwined, plus wood.

F) Waterfall Trip (one with the earth)- interview will be covering what he think of his lifestyle compared to others

G) The Van Again (Driving into the sunset)- guitar playing audio, my narration

That’s sounds like a nice documentary pattern to me. Oh by the way I really like the style of Branko Istvancic’s film like the one I posed last week, they are slow and meditative on one subject, but that one person represents his entire country of Serbia, very cool.

So I turned in my Grant Proposal packet, and I had to do some revisions after I had the meeting with Marilyn. So I did those and I’m much more proud of the outcome. I met with my “Subject” on Wednesday and told him more about the reasons behind my project and why I picked him to represent the sustainable individual. Later he told me that the Budd Bay Cafe Catering service dumps a huge pile of ice behind their restaurant and that he had been catching them before they dumped it and using that ice in his boat cooler instead of buying it, I laughed and called him a Gleaner. But that story is exactly why he is my subject, why can’t everybody think like that, reuse what others don’t want. Anywho I’m not shooting next week until Friday so I’m planning on drawing some storyboards to form ideas more clearly. Lauren told me today at our affinity meeting that I’m going to be one of the characters in her film, which is going to be pretty awesome since i’m a suicidal girlfriend who ties everybody back together in the end? lol. I don’t really feel like I did the extent of research that others did on their genre of film, I decided I will find a book about portrait documentary so at least can get some ideas from it. But I feel confident about my style and ideas so I don’t know if I want to expand my thoughts too much. Oh and here is a film bu Branko Istvancic that is alot like what I’m trying to do, A focus on one person to represent a larger community.

Starting today Thursday mornings at 11 am our affinity groups are meeting in the “pink room” on the second floor of the library. Today was not extremely productive, we verified when our proposals were due, which is on our one on one meeting with Marilyn. We also chatted about how we were doing individually on our packets, apparently Steven ordered his G.I. Joe toy for his project yesterday. We also watched part of a movie, just to pass time. Because this is the beginning of the quarter our group doesn’t seem to have any real issues to discuss, plus Otis and Lauren had to be at their winter quarter evaluation conferences during out meeting time. My progress is going smoothly, yet slowly. I worked an eight hour day yesterday, but have the rest of the week off and am not stressed out about anything in particular. The only confirmation of pre-production that I have gotten is an e-mail from Stephanie Zorn telling me she received my media request form. The filming schedule is going to have to wait until my subject gets back from Haiti, i don’t want to plan everything then find out it does not work for him. I am still going back and forth on the idea of exposing the fact the subject for my video is my dad, and not just an individual person. I feel like we have done enough autobiographical pieces, and I don’t want to make a personal video out of this, i just want viewers to see him as a person, not the filmmakers father.