Evan Mangold’s Class Films

Now that I’ve screened my rough cut I’m planning on making some changes to the end of the video, deleting some intro scenes for the Seattle and Bellingham segments, and using some different b-roll footage.  After that and probably a few more small changes here and there, it’ll be all ready for the final screening!

Here are a few books I’ve been reading for some background research:

“Ethical Vegetariansim” edited by Kerry Walters and LIsa Portmess. This book is composed of essays on vegetarianism from people such as Pythagoras, Gandhi, Tolstoy, Richard Wagner, and many more. It focuses mostly on the history of vegetariansim and how it first came about.  It also talks about the environmental impacts of meat production and dives deeply into the ethics behind eating meat.  It was nice to read about this from a more historical and philosophical perspective.

“Vegan Freak” by Bob Torres and Jenna Torres.  This book covers basically everthing pertaining to veganism.  It has a step by step guide for going vegan in less than three weeks, it covers all the arguments and reasons behind turning vegan, and it also talks a lot about being vegan while living with people who aren’t, or “being vegan in a non-vegan world.”  It was very interesting to read not just about the ethical reasoning behind veganism, but about how they cope with being outsiders in many places, including their own homes.

“Animal Liberation” by Peter Singer.  I am reading this because many claim that it is what started the modern animal rights movement (it was first published in 1975).  It’s mostly a philosophical look at things such as animal testing and or course meat production.  It has some very powerful discussions on the factory farming of animals.  It also has a lot of information on how the animal rights movement can actually make a difference in today’s world.

This research is in addition to all the Food Not Bombs research I’ve done, which is all in the form of online articles, zines, and interviews.

There is also the “Dark Days” documentary, which I talk about a few posts down.

The goal of this film project was to make an equally entertaining and informative documentary about the Food Not Bombs movement. The content I’ll be concentrating on will include the redistribution of food, food being a right and not a privilege, and sustainability. I feel that these are the main goals of Food Not Bombs, and so they take up most of the information in my documentary. These themes will overlay 3 different Food Not Bombs groups (2 in Seattle, 1 in Bellingham), whose methods will be the heart of the video. Experimenting with various editing techniques such as time lapses, freeze frames, narration, and uploaded images is another goal for this project. Hopefully these techniques will help keep the viewer involved in the film, making a more lasting impression. I hope to spread the group’s message through this documentary, while hopefully inspiring new people to get involved.

While researching homelessness, I came across a pretty amazing film.  “Dark Days” is a documentary about a group of homeless people living under train tunnels in New York.

Here’s a video of the first 10 minutes:

I’ve finished a very rough cut, which runs at just under 11 minutes.  There are still a few kinks I need to work out, and I have several silent sections which need music (which I’m searching for), but otherwise it’s just about ready for its first screening.  I also finished writing my artist statement today.

For outside research, I’ve been reading a book on veganism and looking into homelessness.  The best piece of work I’ve found, which might influence my final film a bit, is the documentary “Dark Days,” which looks at a group of homeless people living under a bridge.

It looks like I won’t be filming a 4th group now that I realize my video will be at least 10 minutes in length with the footage I have.  I’ve already got a general outline for my video which I’m going to screen for my affinity group tomorrow.  I still have to make some small changes, work some music in to several sequences, and come up with an ending, but otherwise the film is very close to being finished.

This weekend I’ll be listening to lots of local bands trying to find some good, uncopyrighted music I can use.

Last Sunday I filmed another Seattle FNB group, and overall things went very smooth.  I worked with the group from noon until around 9, and shot about an hour of footage.  The group was wonderful, very lively, lots of personality, and I think I got some great shots.  Only problem is that lots of the cooking shots have different music in the background, so it could be very tough to edit together.  Other than that though, I’m very happy I was able to get footage of this particular group.

I plan to start logging and capturing footage either this week or next, and I’ll possibly film 1 more group.  I’ve filmed 3 different FNB’s to date, however only in 2 different cities, and I’d like to get at least 3 cities into the final cut.  I’ve heard back from the Tacoma and Olympia groups, but I won’t be able to film either of them until mid-May, which may be too late, but we’ll see how it works out.

I just got back from filming 1 of the Seattle Food Not Bombs groups, and it went pretty well.  I got an extensive interview, as well as a bit of serving footage.  While filming I was worried about some of the footage shot outdoors because of all the “zebra stripes” on the 3-chip mini-screen, but after watching some of the footage on my television it turned out just perfect.  The shoot was tough because I had to operate the camera and shotgun mic by myself, but I think I pulled it off ok.

This last week I also helped crew for Guy’s video, where he’s shooting the same film on 16mm and the 3-chip, with the intention of overlapping the two in Final Cut.  I basically just helped with whatever it was he needed help with (light readings, operating the camera, etc).  I think his footage is looking great and it’s definitely a good learning experience to help out on such an experimental project.

I’ve sent emails and messages over MySpace to 3 more Food Not Bombs groups (Tacoma, Olympia, and 1 more Seattle group) but have not heard back yet.  I do intend to film at least 1 more group before I start editing.

Filming this last weekend went well, I got a lot of footage, but little footage of the actual meal downtown, as the camera made a few people nervous.  For the Bellingham portion of my video I’ll probably end up using some footage from my first FNB documentary attempt.

I’ve also contacted two Seattle FNB groups, one of which feeds on Saturdays and the other on Sundays.  I’ll definitely be filming the Saturday group this weekend, and possibly even the Sunday group.  The head of the Seattle groups also plans on giving me some great resources, such as the FNB zine (which he updates) and an old video lecture of the founder of FNB.