I had an EPIPHANY! Open Space documentary research has come in handy!!!
The mothers’ group at the center has been of major interest to me since the beginning of the project, but it seemed like something we’d never be able to do due to confidentiality and ethics. But, what if, we told the story without the mothers? What if we were able to use a fair use poem or lullaby or even write our own? What if we were able to get an anonymous story and tell it without having the individual it’s about telling it? In moments like this, where my brain strikes gold, I remember why I wanted to be a filmmaker. And though this probably doesn’t make sense right now, it will be so awesome.
I’m going to skip over Tuesday’s class because it really was just a plan-a-thon and I get tired of writing about pre-production quickly.
On Wednesday, we went to interview Mr Ayelign. Honestly, the bulk of the interview is pretty crap. He was telling us what he thought we wanted to hear rather than just speaking from his heart. He was far less animated and excitable than he usually is. But when we began asking more questions, he started to light up a little. He told a really interesting story about a Nigerian man who came to Australia and expected to get a job as a lecturer immediately. He couldn’t understand why he wasn’t getting anywhere, and when the center looked over his CV, they saw that it was literally 10 pages long. He told us that the most important thing the center does is teach people how to live in Australia in their current state.
The true gold mine of the interview, though, came after the interview ended. We had started getting B-roll, just some shots of different things in his office, when he started to talk about how important it is to help young people, and how important we will all be one day. I started recording, and while the camera was a little too zoomed in, and the lighting went off halfway through, it is truly my favourite piece of footage from the day. There is also a bunch of B-roll that has super inspired me and all of a sudden I’ve got ideas about how to make karate beautiful.
Friday was also a bit of a plan-a-thon, though we did figure out how we want to present our documentary at the exhibition. We really want to use a sheet to project onto, as a lot of our imagery is very flowy and beautiful, and we want to emulate that in real life. Kim also suggested that we get photos of the center and put them around, almost as though the things we photograph could be there. I’m 900% here for this idea.
From the assignment feedback, Kim suggested I check out the film Profile by Timur Bekmambetov. I don’t think I’ve ever been so stressed out watching a trailer in my life! I can definitely see the similarities between this film and my previous project. I feel like I’ve been subtly pushed over the past few weeks into using some of the methods I used in that project for this one, but I literally don’t know how. The form seems totally removed from the subject. I don’t want to keep making the same mistakes I made in Assignment 2 (even though, in Open Space documentary, there are no mistakes, only accidental artworks).
From the reading this week, something that stood out to me was the story of Harlan County, USA by Barbara Kopple. If we remove the context of the film for a moment, there is the concept that filming your subject will ultimately change your subject, and, if you’re making a “watch while this unfolds” documentary, probably change the outcome of the film. When cameras are around, no matter what, the truth will change. This course is making me far more existentialist than I think was originally intended.