Gun Music

I’ve been trying to hustle my way through the Michael Rabiger tome “Directing the Documentary,” which may be a somewhat Sisyphean effort considering that the book is due back at the library well before I will be able to finish it. I’m also closing in on my final cut of the slot car piece, The Buzz-A-Rama 500. Deciding that I’m done with a piece has also been a struggle for me, but I think I need to close the book on this one and move on to another if I’m going to learn anything new. I had a lot of troubling trying to figure out how to score Buzz, and finally settled on a variety of instrumental hip-hop. I decided on the first song in the piece as more of an in-joke for heads, but you’d probably have to be a fan of the Wu to have a chance of getting it. No matter, I still find it funny.

Anway, Rabiger in the early pages of his book theorizes that the increasing availability of digital technology is going to move documentary out of the control of corporate interests and the traditional “objective” journalistic model, something that I happen to agree with. But it’s interesting to note that he also thinks this shift will have a fundamental impact on how documentaries are going to be structured, with greater importance placed on lyrical/poetical approaches to subject matter, as opposed to a more stark, literal approach that a journalist would probably bring to a piece. Rabiger traces the history of figurative documentary back to the early 20th century, when filmmakers shot footage of the working classes that resulted in empathic film intended to express daily living conditions.

Getting away from a literal approach to my pieces has been a constant struggle. I tend to think in words, and not pictures. In my opinion, the first priority of any written piece should be the conveyance of information. The reader should be able to understand the information you are trying to impart clearly above all else. If that has been accomplished, only then can you turn to incorporating literary devices to make for a compelling read. In journalism school, the first thing you are taught is the “inverted pyramid” format. The idea is that the story should lead with the most important information, with the included details becoming less salient as you work your way down the story. The approach forces a writer to thoughtfully prioritize the raw information he has before him in order to develop story structure. Only after you’ve mastered the inverted pyramid should you attempt to create a more complex piece that might incorporate tension or some other hook to keep the reader moving along. First learn the rules, then break them.

The problem I’ve encountered in my documentary exercises is that there is no analog for the inverted pyramid in the film world. The medium’s strength is its malleability, its ability to present a near-infinite possibility of organizing and presenting information. I have no rules to learn, only ones to make up as I go along. And here I’ve encountered yet another weakness of my little DIY film school.

On the playlist today was a classic, Pavement’s Slanted and Enchanted. Messy and beautiful. Has the lo-fi indie revival started yet? We seem to be closing in on the 20-year cycle.

Last Night a Slot Car Saved My Life

I spent a few solid hours yesterday in Kensington working on my next short doc project. I ended up having a lot of trouble trying to monitor my audio levels, compose my shot, and make sure everything was exposed correctly at the same time. I guess one-man crewing takes practice, and hopefully I’m getting better at this. Two of my subjects, an old married Brooklyn couple, both of whom are natives of the borough, made for some interesting footage (at least I hope they did). Step two is capturing the footage and figuring out what’s missing so I can go back for a reshoot. Generally my projects have stalled at this step, languishing in the purgatory that digital video exists in before it is moved to my hard drive and then into Final Cut. But hopefully I can push through my natural tendencies toward procrastination and get some editing started this week.

On the playlist today is the Philip Glass-composed score of Dracula–performed by the Kronos Quartet–which I just picked up from the library on Friday. That guy is on some total other shit.