I love rhymes.

LOT’S to catch up on so strap yourselves in for a 12 hour long read!

Over the break, my group and I caught up to discuss how we were going to move forward.  It was a pretty standard affair and resulted in us planning a shoot for the following Monday at a karate class.  Can this day’s Me be honest?  I don’t fully understand why we’re shooting the karate class.  I feel like there are far more interesting elements to the center and that a karate class is not the best way to start our exploration.
Monday comes along, and boy oh boy do the Karate men not want us there.  To be clear: they agreed to have us.  They heard about our project, said “yes you can come film and interview us”, let us in the building, and told us to ask if we needed anything.  But they were VERY upset that we actually did those things.  We had some major camera issues that we tried to solve as quietly as possible as to not further anger the Karate Men.  The interview was kind of a disaster.  The things Karate Man said were good and helped me understand that this could be a far deeper subject than I originally thought, but there was so much background noise and he only had 2 minutes before he had to get back.  The other shots we got could definitely work if we use them in the right context, but I wouldn’t mind going back to reshoot, even if we receive the maximum passive-aggressive rage level from the Karate Men.

On Tuesday we did our pitch to our class, Kerrie, and John (I think???  This name may be incorrect and I apologize profusely if it is).  Before we get into Serious Feedback business, we shall all take a moment to gush over how good Katia is at making presentations.  Like, who does that???  She made us superheroes!!!  She animated it!!!  It was so well done!!!  I personally believe we should get an HD based solely on that powerpoint, but don’t let me persuade you.  Serious Business time: an unexpected win from the presentation was realizing that the museum didn’t actually know who Walker Close is.  We are bringing a connection that they hadn’t considered exploring before, and I think that’s pretty neat!  There was some important feedback on the project itself.  Namely: “Ok but what are you doing?”  I think we all thought we addressed it but looking back, there was a lot of stuff we assumed that they would already know or at least infer.  We could’ve done better to explain our idea more fully.  We also probably should’ve done some more preliminary research into basic things like “When was the center founded?” and “Where does it get its funding?”.

On Friday, we got down into the nitty-gritty of our project: what does it look like, when are we making it, and other important questions.  More importantly, we looked over interviewing techniques.  I really want to take a more conversationalist approach, but I am also the worlds most uncomfortable person.  In this class alone, a space in which I feel quite comfortable, I have accidentally discussed teaching autistic children about socialism and shooting children, so clearly, the 12 years of being a trained stage actor worked.  If I’m meeting someone for the first time, I think I’ll naturally take on a more formal approach just because I want to seem like I’m in control and that I Definitely Know What I’m Doing.  That said, the documentaries we watched in class really inspired me.  Specifically, Somewhere Special by David Hercher and My Favourite Picture of You by TJ Martin and Dan Lindsay.  While they didn’t inspire me too hard on this specific project, I now have an idea for a different documentary I want to make, so that’s fun.  I really like the casual, on the spot approach and reflective tone of David Hercher’s film and the subject, subject matter, and reflective tone of TJ Martin and Dan Lindsay’s film.  Margot Nash’s The Silences is one of my favourite documentaries and I feel like it’s super obvious as to why what with my fear/obsession of the unethical and apparent love of reflection.

I arrived too late to partake in the writing task but I have read other blogs and will steal the questions to complete it because who wouldn’t want more words on this blog post!!!

What is open space documentary- how might it differ from conventional documentary?
An open space documentary is a documentary that doesn’t care what you think of it.  If you showed an open space documentary the dictionary definition of documentary, it would rip up the dictionary and fly off on a rainbow, because it can probably do that.  In fact, it can probably do anything.  The entire point of an open space documentary is that it can be anything it wants to be.  Do you want to strap a camera to the head of a dog and let it run wild?  That can be an open space documentary.  Do you want to record the sound of a coin falling to the floor?  That can be an open space documentary.  In fact, there are so many mediums that cover open space documentary that it nearly doesn’t have a definition.  As long as it is telling a story that has some level of truth* to it, it can be an open space documentary.  

How can concepts from Open Space be applied to your project?
I feel like with our prior shoots, we were stuck in a hole of conventional documentary.  The idea of open space means that we don’t have to create the traditional documentary in order to be “successful” in our task or careers.  It’s given birth to certain ideas and reminded me of what I loved about past tasks, like the use of poetry in a documentary to tell a story rather than exposition.  I think, after our shoot on Monday, I was feeling quite defeated about this task.  I didn’t want it to be another film without passion, where I was just following the steps to get a mark.  If we use open space techniques and truly let our minds run free, I think I’ll be able to bring a lot more passion to this project which will, in turn, make the project more passionate.

Why are some stories untold?
I think most stories are told, just not necessarily through the media lens that we are now taught to look through.  The reason some stories remain unspread, however, is probably due to the narrative we’ve been fed by the media for so many years.  Not to bring Chimamanda back, but in her TED talk, she described not knowing that she could write a book about girls like her, who lived in Nigeria and who ate mangoes and who had never experienced snow.  That doesn’t mean her story was untold before this, it was just unspread.  The media favors certain narratives, narratives including “He is the boss”, “She is a slut”, “They are the enemy”, “We are the good guys”, “You are not good enough”.  Most of these can be broken down into our good friend’s Capitalism, Patriarchy, and Racism.  The reason some stories remain unspread is because of who has the control.  Why do we learn about the beginning of Australia as when the first white people arrived?  Because white people won that genocide.  The stories of Indigenous people are out there and there are more and more each day, but it’s far easier to find stories of white people bringing civilization.  We just have to look a little harder to find the stories we think are untold.