post-screening reflection

today, i sent a file of the film to a colleague who didn’t get the chance to see it at CCCC’s. as i wrote, i realized:

“here’s a thing i shouldn’t maybe admit: when i started trying to do a documentary on M, i thought i’d try much harder to work with more traditional documentary conventions, and i did. i didn’t try to set out about making the best new documentary in the most aesthetically hip ways, just a little doc, telling a little story. so, ha, says the rhetor – ‘conventions’ really do matter. it’s sad when you realize how often you fight (often, to your frustration) against the very best things you teach!!”

i’m like … professional (intro: backstory)

use the link to see the intro (i don’t know why it’s not embedding properly (?)) at this point, i’m sharing only the very initial sequence. i’ve used reassembled clips distributed by M Dot Strange on YouTube, reassembling them for my (e-vile) purposes.

i plan to spend some time w/ M this fall, and i will hopefully bring original footage of my own to the project soon thereafter. luckily, however, one might tell M’s story exclusively via his YouTube output. so for now, that is what i’m doing.

so then, the intro clip: 
i’m like … professional (v.1) from bonnie lenore kyburz on Vimeo.

timelining

preface: i. can not. imagine. working in an editing suite without a timeline. i hear that iMovie – which i don’t use for much more than manipulating still images for import to Final Cut Pro (and this reminds me that i should learn to use more of the tech in the FCP 2 suite for this kind of thing) — so but iMovie no longer has a timeline. wha? how does one imagine manipulating images and sound and effects as particular forms of movement within a specific timeframe absent a timeline on which to (em)plot those bits of light and sound? how does one conceptualize time-dependent motion sequences without the conceptual schematic of the timeline? maybe it works. let’s say. so maybe i’m too skeptical and need to spend more rather than less time w/ iMovie, especially if i want to be teaching filmmaking because that program is most readily avaiable to students (?). but so not for my film. not now. no new learning except in doing. and this, via FCP.

the “rhetorically groovy ‘workflow’” point: i’m writing more to say that i’m laying some of M’s YouTube videos onto my film’s timeline, which is to say that i am beginning to map out the documentary (on, ahem, a timeline). i will be using a lot of what he has already produced and then laying in my interview and other footage (including a way cool audio introduction, courtesy of M’s voiceover, that we’ll hear in darkness). i may take this opportunity to share my refined acting skills and do some affected voiceover work, myself. it’s my film. so.

the “overt rhetorical action” point: by way of further updating on my “workflow” (Johndan), even as i suggest to the ether: that. i. have needs … i need to buy a wireless router so that i can work exclusively at home instead of going to campus to download video. i also need to buy a good camera for stills, which i’m going to be using much more than i have in the past ’cause i’m going all (or, a bit anyhow) Chris Marker on this film. i’m looking at the Nikon D300 w/ the AF DC-NIKKOR 85 mm f/1.8D lens. should total @ $2500.00-$3000.00, plus $179.99′ish for the router. so today, i’m going to apply for some grant money (that, or renegotiate the budget w/ the hubster). and/or pray for money to fall from the Heavens. and you know that sh*t happens.

image: anthropologie

happy update

yu-cheng chou, "emotions"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a quick and happy update on the film project.

performantive documentary conventions

yu-cheng chou, "emotions"

so we hear quite a bit about the need for the documentarian to form a “bond” with her subject, a kind of trust that enables her to capture special moments that reveal more than what we find in the context of a straight-up journalistic feature. i wonder if this bond is essential, forming a core documentary convention. maybe the convention myth lucky accident of the documentarian’s bond with her subject compromises a documentarian’s critical distance?

whatever the case, trust between a filmmaker (of any genre) and her subject(s) seems useful, if not necessary. it makes sense. i had thought that i was pretty good at communicating with my subject(s) over the years and forming these kinds of bonds, although i think about them only retroactively, remembering the moments when the bonds seemed to emerge or crystallize rather than how i strategically plotted and forced them into being — because i try to avoid the latter — either we will work well together or things will be a bit more complicated, possibly compelling me to be(come) more rhetorically strategic and saavy and less organically invested that i had originally hoped i’d need to be <sigh>.

all of this is to say that i am especially sad to report that my communication with the subject of my newest film project has trickled down to the pretty tiny space of a short email exchange we had a few days ago. he revealed that he’s had to alter his schedule and is feeling appreciable pressure, having committed to several other forms of interview and whatnot, for bigger and shinier publishing venues. he even went so far as to say that he’s feeling life and death kinds of pressure. wow.

so but of course i’m supposed to understand and kindly take what i can get, which is less than we had discussed and even tentatively planned. now, a few days later, i’m emboldened to say that (duh) i too give myself deadlines and schedules and pressure, and i too find that it often feels like life/death-type urgency that drives me and keeps me where i want and seem to need to be, creatively. so i suppose i’m writing about how trust goes both ways and even wondering how often a creative artist turns critic because of trust gone bad. so but i’m not simply “disenchanted” or “disappointed” any longer. i am insulted. and angry. and disenchanted.

so how do all of those loveable documentarians do it? how do they form these precious bonds? audiences often wonder and ask about this ostensibly precious commodity in screening q & a sessions. the answers are often vague, sometimes celebratory, and sometimes a bit more like straining to remember to play nice. i am beginning to think that these documentarian-subject bonds must be in large part about perserverance and performance (pp). it’s sometimes (often?) about more than magically “being there.”

so, how well can i perform “patience”? how well can i perform disinterested observer who is just, gosh, lucky to take what she can get even when the plan has been radically altered? how well can i perform, “oh no. my passion is not important, my drive and seeming lifeforce isn’t compromised in the least. you do what you need to do. it’s you, you who are the Serious Artist who needs to protect your precious gift.”

so but sure. my subject may read this, and it may further compromise the project. and i might possibly grow and mature from the experience. whatever the case, i find it valuable to write about and reflect upon documentary experiences and conventions from an ethnographic perspective,  a position that enables me to be increasingly discerning and critical of the documentaries i both see and make.

oui, ca va

 

so yesterday was mixed with hope and profound disenchantment. first, a fabulous morning audition for a local non-union film. i auditioned for a small, ”character” role (sure, everyone’s a character. i’m referring to the concept of the “character actor,” the very best of which is found in early PSH, especially in The Big Lebowski). but so for the audition, i went BIG. i don’t know what had changed. some rhetorical awareness. some giving up of my sadlittledreams.

because i ususally go small, aware as i am of how the camera catches tiny nuances, the kinds of quiet moves and performances i tend to salivate all over and dream of delivering. but sadly, although i beg to differ with conventions that say it’s so, i am. apparently. no ingenue (hear a sucking wind, deflating girlish dreams). so i’ve come to accept this sad fact and am embracing what i (actually, according to convention) bring.

so at the audition, the casting director, who may also be directing this film, along with his 2 colleagues, laughed at all the right moments and seemed genuinely intrigued. it was an odd performance. the character is described as a completely judgemental mother of a young boy. in the scene i played (the only one she’s in) ”Mrs. Grady,” who confronts 2 girls who have put vodka in the lemonade they sell at their front yard lemonade stand. Mrs. Grady’s son, she’s discovered, is apparently quite drunk (after having visited the stand 3-4 times). but so it would seem that she is angry over the drunk son in this scene. but, as i read it, she’s actually using this moment as an excuse to more fully read the girls and their parents –the mother sits on the lawn drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette, so i guess this is part of the film’s moral judgement on what are locally considered to be p-r-i-t-t-y nasty sins. so here are these seemingly neglectful parents who are also smokers and coffee drinkers (gasp!), and in my imagination there’s even more backstory elaborating her disdain for these people. maybe not. but that’s how i prepared the scene in my mind –  there’s more going on that just the vodka.

i had orginally thought that i would try to chanel something between Mirian Shor’s performance of Yhitzak from Hedwig and the Angry Inch (quietly dignified discontent) and her performance as Janet in the new sitcom (?) Swingtown (similarly quiet but quite soft and sad, too). this mixture could help me to manifest my inner ingenue even as i played this craggy old windbag (ha!). so i had these images and concepts working into my preparation, but every time i rehearsed, out came Glenn Close as Cruella Da Ville.

i decided that i would go to the audition and experience what might happen in the moment, which performance would surface. because it’s all about the moment, improv, listening and (re)acting to what we hear (from other actors, from our intuitive “voices” . . . ). as it turns out, Cruella Da Ville won.

following my 30 seconds-or-less performance, the woman assigned to play the girl(s) from the lemonade stand said, “you scared us!” and then everyone went on about how my choices were really good and unique (they hadn’t seen anyone make these kinds of choices). and hey, in an audition, one of the key moves is to make a choice, to show that you have prepared something, a holistic character you’ve built up; it’s death to simply show up and read the lines (unless, of course, you *are* the ingenue, drop-dead gorgeous, and etc., etc.). the (casting?) director (?) said “i will definitely be calling you back,” which is to say that i will probably get one more read when the field narrows. and so i’ll wait to see if he calls. it’s a small-paying job, but it’s a job, and i like working on a film set, especially as an actor. so.

so but then yeseterday’s lows? eh. read the previous post. BUT . . . i was just now thinking that, while disappointing, in many ways this news isn’t all bad. i must admit that my excitement over M’s work had  compelled me to imagine a full-blown production, a feature documentary. and that’s nice. it would have been cool. but also. it would have pulled me away from my “own” creative projects (yes, . . . documentary filmmaking is creative work . . .) but, it’s also riding the subject’s creative project(s) in ways that may be limiting my own creative potential (to finish the book, to finish any of several screenplays, to audition, to take roles, to start any of the 10,000 projects i have in mind, to, to . . . ).

so maybe. this is all. just. fine. i will make instead a documentary short, testing my prowess with more conventional documentary methods — which is what i’d planned, M’s creative work comprising the subject, and me, more simply recording and editing and drawing upon documentary conventions (unlike my first documentary, which wanted to be My Great Art Project. ha! . . . i mean, i love it, but. well. you know).

merde!

  as i had feared after not hearing from M in quite some time, M, the subject of my film, has gone and gotten himself so famous that’s he’s now committed himself to several international workshops and colloquia and whatnot and so mylittlefilm has slipped far into the background. so that’s one thing. but now, also (hear painfully creaking and rusty industrial materials — the sounds of my interior, affective architecture) M says that he doesn’t want to appear on camera in my film but will help with behind the scenes footage (”making of” stuff he says he won’t distribute on YouTube). and that’s nice, really. very. but i had hoped, so hoped to be doing a conventional documentary and happen upon Maysles-level magical captures and “find” something in my live exchanges w/ M that would make the film and make it worthy of the “feature documentary” category. now, i’ve got a short. and i’ll screen it at C’s, and it will probably be fabulous, but i must admit that i’m fairly well deflated over the whole #$%$#@!!! thing. cursing symbols . . . i know. very mature.

on the bright side, it could be that my disenchantment empowers me with a kind of critical distance i had likely surely been missing until. just. now.

i. have. a crew.

exciting things are happening on the funding front. remember when i shared with you my emerging rule of independent filmmaking? you remember, here, when i suggested that you bypass all formal channels? well, sometimes it works out. just. so . . . this time, through a series of informal convos (i hate that word; it just fell out) with friends who happen to be colleagues. i was contacted to help the Honors Program develop a critical film initiative that would move students beyond mainstream film toward an appreciation of and capacity to produce independent film. well, with a bit of creative prompting on my end and with the help of my friend/colleauge, the one initiative is evolving into 4 different but related strands: 1.) film colloquia, partnering with the Sundance Institute, 2.) a course with content provided by year-round Sundance screenings and events, 3.) a team-taught course (with Scott Carrier, our new Communications faculty member, of NPR fame!), and 4.) FUNDING for my 4-person crew (me, Mike, and 2 Honors interns) to fly to San Francisco to begin filming M Dot Strange as he develops his new film — essentially, funding for my documentary. i had planned to end this post with my conventional, “voilà,”  but i will instead borrow from my niece, who has come up with a take on “… money.” that’s so candy!

the magical university

"paper tore" (william gaddis)

with good news comes bad. it’s kind of a given.

so, we’re a University now! and, um, that’s great for the community, for students, . . . and but so the IT switchover has apparently been such a colossal brain cell-destroying venture, that the new grants site isn’t up yet. big deal. right? not when there are timetables for obediently participating with official protocols and whatnot. so, that the forms are not ready means, for me (possibly, for others) that my request for a grant (to support my film project and offer student interns work in documentary filmmaking) has been stalled because . . . here you go . . . THE ONLINE FORMS SYSTEM ISN’T READY.

GRANTS COORDINATOR

I’m sorry, bonnie . . .

yes, we received your abstract,

but if you could be patient until our online forms are ready . . .

 

ME

(a strained but politely sighing beat)

of course,

but my window of opportunity for filming

is narrow, so i suppose i’ll self-fund,

skip the interns (unless they too can self-fund),

and hope for possible “retroactive” funding (?),

later, when your forms are working.

(a long, pensive beat)

say, maybe you could have someone walk my abstract over –

or, hey, email it to the reviewers?

(a quick beat of awareness)

oh right, that’s crazy talk.

 

 

and the universe says . . .

philip seymour hoffman @ the sundance filmmaker labs

“. . . sure. i can fund your projects!” now, i’m not exactly sure of the form and amount of support, but i just heard from my friend in the Honors Program; they are interested in partnering with Mike and i to create increasingly sophisticated film work (analysis, appreciation, writing about, production, etc.) for the Honors students (in my utopia, it would happen for all, but i’ll take what i can get/serve as i can). i may get an intern or 2 and maybe some funding for the film. we will certainly work to create colloquia — screen a cool sundance or otherwise indie film and host speakers (filmmakers, talent, etc.). start a new media series . . . the options are wide open just now, but i have a lunch meeting w/ my friend from Honors next week. yay.