After an incredibly unlucky start with both our host and back-up host both being sick I think our seminar went rather well, our guests were great and I really learnt a lot about documentary practice. It was great to get a different perspective from people who actually work within the documentary industry in Australia and have incredible insight into the process of documentary production and what documentaries are made up of.
Our seminar was good because our guests had a lot to say which was awesome, the worst thing would have been if our hosts got up and had nothing to say, it was almost that our guests had too much to say, which was also good as they were willing to go into a lot of detail about the documentary process. I also think there was good chemistry between our guests, especially Dennis and Steve because they had a lot of the same opinions about documentary and therefore could feed off each other throughout the seminar and create a conversation. Sometimes it was hard to include Natalie in conversation but Candice did a great job at focusing questions at Natalie to create a larger discussion through all three guests. I give Candice massive applause because she had to take the hosting job at such late notice and she managed to do a great job, even though some of her questions weren’t fantastically executed the guests were able to draw from the questions and we covered all the topics we wanted to cover in our notes.
Some feedback from after the presentation was that the skype meeting with Matt Bate was too long and I have to agree as it sucked up the time we wanted to spend on funding and the production side of documentary filmmaking. It also sucked up the time we wanted to spend on the Q&A, where I think we will lose marks on in the peer assessment I don’t think we really gave our audience enough time to ask questions, which was a shame as I think people were still keen to ask questions when it all wrapped up. I think if they skype meeting was perhaps 5-7 minutes it would have been better shortening the longer answers and keeping it snappy.
In terms of the content I really got a lot out of the seminar, especially in terms of this whole idea of ‘shape,’ where a documentary can really be interestingly about anything, yet what makes it interesting is how it is shaped and what part of the story is grasped and what is at the core of the story. I think this made documentaries really poetic and made me feel really confident about making documentaries. In fact, the overall experience of the seminar was really optimistic, in terms of both developing ideas and funding. I was really inspired by Natalie’s story because she literally scrapped money together and got funding right at the end and has made a documentary that has had a lot of success, so that’s pretty awesome. Another thing that I thought was really intriguing was how you get your subject to open up to you and different techniques to use, such as getting someone else to ask the questions, acting dumb or just taking your subject aside and getting them to open up like that. I think that getting ideas of tangible things to do is really good because having a really good subject is one thing and having them open up in front of a camera is another, so I thought that was really interesting.
Overall, under the world being against us circumstances our seminar went really well and Candice did really well at last-minute hosting and that’s super awesome. Next time I would have made sure that every person in our group knew the guests so that it didn’t seem so rushed, and that we could all confidently take on hosting.
This masterclass was very interesting in terms of gauging what it’s like to be a documentary filmmaker within the Australian film industry for so long. It was also interesting in terms of the moral issues documentary filmmakers face within very real environments. In True Lies we really looked at the moral implications but it was great to see how different it is within a real world tangible reality. These are the two main things I will focus on here as I found them the most interesting as well as useful in terms of what I would like to if I got the opportunity make documentaries about.
being an independent documentary filmmaker in Australia
If there is a pressing world crises that you want to document forget about getting it funded by any bodies in Australia. The process takes far too long, you need to just go self-funded. David Bradbury painted a very poor picture of the Australian media industry in terms of getting 1. your project funded and 2. getting it broadcast. These have been the main two problems for David Bradbury, especially considering his role as a political documentary filmmaker. A lot of his films touch on delicate highly political issues that sway in one direction or another, therefore he said that he finds it hard to sell his films to broadcasters such as the ABC. He said that even now after 30 years of making documentaries he finds it difficult to get his films on television even by the public broadcasters. This I find particularly interesting and if we get a person from the ABC or SBS it would be great to ask them what they look for in a documentary to allow it air time? Also if there is a funding body person at our seminar it would be great to ask them about how quick you can get funding if you really need to document a pressing issue? Can the funding process be fast-tracked to allow for the type of filmmakers such as Bradbury? In conjunction is it harder for political documentaries to get air time or funding due to their controversial political stance? Is it easier to get funding for a lighter documentary subject? and What about these two kids in the game how do they get their projects up and running? Do they see what they’re doing as sustainable? David Bradbury painted the Australian media industry in a very negative unhelpful light so it would be great to hear what these younger film directors think.
ethical and moral dilemmas
This was truly fascinating in terms of some of the moments David Bradbury chose to keep filming and I think it is really difficult and in that moment only when you can decide. What fascinates me and it was a question I kept thinking about but forgot to ask is the difference between the aware and the unaware subject. A lot of Bradbury’s key subjects in his documentaries were people that were within the media realm either journalists or photographers and also white western men who have the knowledge of cinema and how documentaries work and what they depict. When Bradbury was telling us about the photographic journalist he made a documentary about who didn’t want any information about his wife and his breakup being in the documentary and when Bradbury even started looking for some information the photojournalist completely stopped talking to him. What is the difference between a subject that knows and the subject that doesn’t about the process of making a documentary? What made me think of this is in comparison to the snippet of another documentary he showed being that of an Aboriginal community where he shot the people within this community. What I want to know between these two instances is the different relationship you form with your subject in terms of what you include and don’t include in the final documentary? What say does the subject have in how you portray them and there community? and in what moments is it obvious that you have the power as a filmmaker to shoot whatever you want? These questions draw obvious questions in terms of what Bradbury was saying in terms of you being a human and you being a filmmaker and where you sit on that spectrum at what point to you help the dying man and at what point do you film till? Do you film at all?
Overall, I found the masterclass really fascinating in terms of how Bradbury conducts himself as a filmmaker and always questioning where he lies in the spectrum between human and filmmaker.
definitions and ideas from skillset.org:
- scheduling, script breakdowns and communication with producer regarding budgets and schedules
The Production Manager, as the key person in the Production department, must liaise closely with all other Heads of Department to ensure that productions run smoothly, meet deadlines, and stay within budgets.
- oversee first ADs on drama shoots
Career pathways (typically):
- from 3rd to 2nd to 1st Assistant Director
- Assistant Floor Managers to Floor Managers to Location Managers
- Script Supervisors
- Production Assistants
- Production Accountants
- with the possibility to become: Directors, Line Producers
Knowledge & Skills:
- high communication skills
- good team members
- knowledge of technical processes
-
- initiative and problem solving skills;
- diplomacy and sensitivity;
- resourcefulness and the ability to troubleshoot;
- advanced analytical skills;
- budgeting and financial skills;
- excellent verbal and written communication skills;
- precise attention to detail and methodical approach to work;
- excellent organisational abilities;
- ability to conceptualise ideas;
- IT skills, and knowledge of the relevant computer packages;
- current knowledge of the relevant legislation, regulations, and associated procedures, including Copyright, Data Protection, Public Liability, etc. and how to comply with regulatory requirements;
- knowledge of the requirements of the relevant Health and Safety legislation and procedures.
texts:
Film Production Management 101
Production Management for Film & TV
links:
Film Victoria Industry Directory: http://www.filmmelbournedirectory.com/browse/position/189/
Is the title of our documentary seminar and so far our pre-production guest sourcing team have done incredibly well. We have one guest booked in via Skype and also another close to being booked. Both of our guests are Australian documentary filmmakers, who both have a documentary in MIFF this year so they are exciting guests to have. Our other guests are hopefully going to be within producing/ funding/ AFTRS or just from another aspect of documentary making. The whole idea of our seminar is the process of making a documentary from ideas to funding to morals to post production. It is all about how to make a documentary.
My job within this group is post-production and liasing with the steering committee so my jobs are quite interspersed and really I have to wait till after our seminar to really start this aspect of post-production for now it will be putting together bios on our guests to email to the steering committee when they are confirmed.
Today, was mainly spent scheduling the day itself, catering, coming up with questions and our tag-line. When we started generating some questions we realised it would be easier to figure out the areas we wanted to explore. These areas are:
- IDEAS AND CREATIVITY
- ETHICS
- LIMITATIONS
- PRODUCTION
- FUNDING/ SUSTAINABILITY
Throughout the week we will generate questions around each of these topics. Basically, everything is going quite well we are moving forward and finding guests without too much difficulty. It is difficult to report on my side of the process as I am mainly working in post so it will come later on.
notes from the Australian Government Website:
what is new media art:
New media art, as defined by the Australia Council, is a process where new technologies are used by artists to create works that explore new modes of artistic expression. These new technologies include computers, information and communications technology, virtual or immersive environments, or sound engineering. They are the brushes and pens of a new generation of artists.
making art from science (links):
http://www.anat.org.au/
http://www.symbiotica.uwa.edu.au/
http://artsactive.net/en/
http://justinecooper.com/
sound arts:
For many, it refers to sound-based art work (or at least art work where the principal focus is on sound) across the broad gamut of performance, installation and broadcast contexts, which departs from both traditional musical instrumentation and notational methods and frequently employs electronic media. Others may see it as an intersecting space with roots in post-Cageian music practice, or indeed ‘post-phonographic’ music practice, and installation art.
links-
http://www.sounddesign.unimelb.edu.au/site/index1.html
http://www.anat.org.au/2010/06/synchresis/
http://www.liquidarchitecture.org.au/
artists-
Madeleine Flynn
Tim Humphrey
projects-
Clatterbox
Portable Worlds:
links-
http://portableworlds.anat.org.au/firstedition/
http://www.anat.org.au/2010/06/surface-tension/
http://www.anat.org.au/2010/06/media-state/
http://www.anat.org.au/2010/06/pixel-play/
http://www.anat.org.au/2010/06/blast-theory-masterclass-i-like-frank-adelaide/
New Media Art Works
’tissue culture’ project by Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr
http://www.tca.uwa.edu.au/
Australian New Media Artists:
Patricia Piccinini- http://www.patriciapiccinini.net/
John Tonkin- http://www.johnt.org/meniscus/index.html
John McCormack- http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jonmc/art.html
Troy Innocent- http://www.iconica.org/main.htm
Stelarc- http://stelarc.org/_.swf
Arthur Wicks- http://www.artschool.utas.edu.au/pulse/wicks.html
S u z a n n e T r e i s t e r- http://ensemble.va.com.au/verve/art/artists_1.html#suzanne
General links:
http://www.mediaarthistory.org/
http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/themes/overview_of_media_art/
Filed under: media industries 2 | Tags: documentary, PNR, reflection, survey
From filling in the Student Careers Survey I kind of realised the key areas that I am interested in being: documentary, transmedia, editing, producing and experimental works, which kind of run in with transmedia. I found these out through different ways that either related to what I was good at in regards to skills as well as what I enjoyed doing. I think it’s really nice to find a middle ground, sometimes what you are really good at is different from what you really enjoy doing or sometimes they come together, which is nice. In terms of documentary it is something that I know from TV1 and TV2 that I enjoy doing a lot more than drama, even though I enjoy watching drama it is an entirely different story for me when it comes to making, which I have already outlined. When I say transmedia I kind of mean it in a more experimental and not necessarily internet-based I see it as videos, which work and can be appropriated as interactive, participatory environments. Editing and producing are in line with what I have done in previous projects. Producing is one that I know I am good at, yet not sure I enjoy, even though I have strong organisational skills I lack that communicative skills in terms of contacting people, I find this extremely difficult. Editing I really enjoy because it’s like connecting the dots, like inserting meaning into your footage. I find the production side quite grueling, yet I think this is only within the making narrative case.
What I found particularly difficult with the survey was this idea of career goals, because I see the media industry as out of the realms of this idea of a set career, and more as floating careers. I don’t want to be locked into a certain career for the rest of my life, in fact it would be great if I could experience all of the things I enjoy doing. I don’t want to be stuck in a job that I hate, I also want to be doing projects that mean something to me. This is something I really learnt from my MI1 project last semester, in which I realised how important it is for me to take on projects that are ethically responsible, I don’t really want to work in advertising or areas like that as I see it as a bit of selling your soul.
What I want to do now from doing this career survey is to form my PNR around it and something I really would want to do is to get interviews predominantly with females. I think within the media industry it is a different story for females, and I think I would get more out of speaking to women in the industry rather than men. I think following the line of documentary will be relevant to me, and then perhaps I could focus on areas such as producing and editing documentaries as well as experimental takes on documentary. I feel that documentary would be a nice avenue to explore all my interests, yet I would approach it in a different way to how we are approaching it for our seminar group.
So, what I need to do:
1. Figure out exactly what I want to do for my PNR.
2. Look into the history of the area.
3. Write a list of people I would like to interview and then categorise them and draw a hierarchy.
4. Contact proposed groups of people starting from the top to the bottom, with appropriate emails and ways of addressing people.
5. When contacts are approved think of ways to interview each person in terms of questions and perhaps filming or recording the interviews.
Filed under: media industries 2 | Tags: documentary, howtodieinoregon, seminar
Just continuing my MIFF documentary analysis in order to come up with some ideas on what makes a good documentary and some questions that arise from that. How to Die in Oregon documents people effected by the law in Oregon, which was the first state in America to legalise physician-assisted suicide. The documentary is for the most part observational, with interviews weaved in-between, with the majority of the documentary focused on one woman’s lead up to the physician-assisted suicide as she suffers more-and-more from stomach cancer. This documentary is touching mainly through this one particular story and also interesting through the other sub-stories, which a small snippets of other people that are either for or against this suicide.
In comparing this documentary to Project Nim it is a lot rawer and gritty in terms of it’s style. The interviews don’t have the same creative flare, yet present a more humanised interview through interviewing people in their homes or gardens, getting right to the think of the action. In fact what amazed me about this documentary is how much it seemed like the documentary subjects trusted the filmmakers. The main woman that is in it is so emotional in front of the camera, that you really feel an emotional connection to her story, where you witness her deterioration both physically and mentally, witnessing her good days when she smiles and her bad days when she cries with such raw emotion.
What I learnt from this documentary was totally different from that of Project Nim as I feel the documentaries were attempting to do quite different things, in Project Nim the camera de-humanises the subjects through these stark interview environments, which reflects the nature of the story being the really how humans humanised a chimpanzee into misery, whereas in How to Die in Oregon, it was important to feel the emotional connection with these people as they drew closer to the day they would end their own life. Therefore, you really felt this trust between subject and filmmaker as this person is letting a camera document the most difficult moments of their life, their struggle and pain and really she would have never seen the finished film, which creates an interesting relationship between filmmaker and subject.
What I learnt:
- If you want your documentary to be about difficult moments in people’s lives or difficult emotional circumstances there really needs to be an integral trust between filmmaker and subject. I think a question to draw from this is: How does a documentary filmmaker gain the trust of his/her subjects, especially regarding extremely emotional issues?
- If you want your audience to feel emotionally engaged with your characters interviews and observational footage in their own environments works a treat. Having the subjects comfortable within their own domain is really important, especially when the subject matter is quite grueling. It makes you feel like you know the character better if you see their surroundings.
Filed under: media industries 2 | Tags: documentary, miff, project nim, seminar
Due to the nature of our seminar being the subject of documentary I thought it would be nice to go and check out some documentaries at MIFF. In order to find questions for the seminar I think it’s nice to think about what you like about documentaries or what type of documentaries you like and take questions from that to relate to how you make those certain documentaries.
Last night I saw Project Nim, which is a documentary about a project conducted by a scientist in the United States to see if you could get a chimpanzee to communicate with humans via sign. What the documentary did was document the chimp’s life from the perspective of all the humans involved. What really impressed me about this documentary was how beautifully the interviews were shot. Each interview looked like it was shot in the same studio which was really simple, yet the lighting was fantastic is this rather stark studio room. Technically another thing that really impressed me was the editing. Editing is really crucial to documentaries in terms of creating an overall narrative and I think the editing was so smartly done in Project Nim. What the editing did was connect the stories between the characters, where even though the different subjects were all interviewed separately the editing allowed for an ironic twist on each tale, that allowed the contradictions of what each subject was saying to come to the surface. To take this a step back there must have been careful planning in terms of linking each of the subjects together in terms of getting them to tell the camera the same stories as the other people involved in Nim’s life at that time, which meant that careful planning had to go into what questions should be asked. Or perhaps not, maybe it came quite organically how different the views were of each human participant in the project.
This leads me to my next point, which is how integral it is to have an interesting subject. In the case of Project Nim, it was not the chimp that was particularly interesting or the case of whether or not the chimp can learn to sign, but how odd these human subjects were and their relationship to Nim. When you think about it how can’t these subjects be interesting they all volunteered to treat a chimp how to human, to the point that the chimp greatly suffered. This created a nice conflict throughout the documentary between each individual human subject and the video recordings of the chimp deteriorating.
What I really learnt from this documentary was:
a) the importance of getting good subjects, Project Nim was so powerful because it managed to interview a majority of the people involved in Nim’s life.
b) that interviews need to be well shot. It was especially important for this documentary, because a majority of the footage was archival, apart from a few reenactments. I think it shows a level of sophistication, and makes a boring interviewing environment something spectacular and interesting.
c) look for the links and contradictions between each of the subject’s stories. This made the documentary so intriguing that it became more a documentary about human animalistic behaviour than the chimp itself.
d) something like text can really add to the visual dynamic of the documentary. Due to the theme of this documentary being on language and words, using text as a visual element, worked in breaking up the visuals. Font is important and how the text works on the screen is important, and also if it is relevant to the context of your documentary.
Therefore, I think a lot of the questions that come out of documentaries relate to two separate categories that link quite extensively, or maybe the question is simply this: what makes a good subject and how can you make this subject even more interesting?
