A new project possibility

I gave this blog address to someone so now I feel pressure to update.  What have I been doing in documentary land?  Not a whole lot!  I have tape footage of a wedding in France and a sheep shearing in North Carolina and another wedding in DR Congo that are sitting in my closet. If I could just capture the footage onto my new shiny computer, I’d be golden for editing….

I’ve talked to a few documentary film makers at screenings here and there, but followed up with few of them.  Where did I put those business cards???

And I’m putting off returning an email about a project that I really do want to work on, which is based in Kinshasa.  For the moment, I would just help with research, such as monitoring UN reports, among other things.  Eventually I would like to be involved in the actual shooting and production, which should be possible as long as I can get myself there.  Fortunately traveling there is part of my job description, so that should not be too problematic.  The project is extremely ambitious but I think would be very interesting, covering different aspects of the current state of democracy in DR Congo and primarily produced by Congolese filmmakers and emerging talent.

Second project, first finished film

I finished a short (3-minute) video, which is really more of a pitch than anything, called “Conflict in DR Congo: A Crash Course.” Once I have the revised edit ready for public consumption, I’ll post a link.

At the moment, it is being evaluated by a panel of judges for a competition to win tuition for film school. I should know by May 20 if it has made the list of finalists.

From April 9-28th, I was in Kinshasa, and arrived without a suitcase, so my camera made it but several smaller bits did not, and the tripod went missing with the suitcase. I felt a bit deflated about my project, a feeling that did not improve when I asked my friends if they would let me interview them about expat life in Kinshasa and they said no. So I waited until the very last minute, the day before I was leaving, to get some footage for the 3-minute project.

I interviewed a friend and former colleague of mine, who summarized some of the issues surrounding civil conflict in DR Congo, which was acute between 1997 and 2002, but has continued to the present, particularly in the east. This interview is interspersed with some footage from around Kinshasa and some Creative Commons photographs from Flickr.

This project was a huge learning experience, but I think that’s a different post.

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The elin o’Hara slavick project is on hold temporarily. I spent about 10-12 hours editing thusfar, and it will take at least that many again to finish. I found out that I can edit at The People’s Channel for free, as long as I produce something that they can air locally. (Of course – who doesn’t want free publicity?) So I am planning to work in some editing time over the next month or so and get that off my plate.

The subject of my first movie

For my video production class, it was suggested that we do an interview of some sort and end up with a project of around 5 minutes. The example that we were shown was featuring the Carolina Roller Girls.

I proposed something with a bit less action but with a lot of political and visual interest. The project Bombsites by elin o’hara slavick is a series of paintings completed since 1999 that describe abstract maps of cities and countries around the world that the United States has bombed since 1854. There are 60 paintings in the series, 30 of which are online, and this total does not include all of the places that the US has bombed.

Last summer, a book was released by Italian publishing company CHARTA called BOMB AFTER BOMB: A Violent Cartography. This book features an interview of elin o’hara slavick, an introduction by radical historian Howard Zinn, and color plates of all the paintings with an index of descriptions in the back.

This is one of my favorite paintings in the series, Amchitka:

The Down, Dirty, & DIY Guide to Film and Video

I was looking at the Cats Cradle schedule and found the Flicker film festival website, which is a tad sparse, but nonetheless the phenomenon has spurred on chapters around the US and internationally, which is pretty neat.  Looks like I’ll have to reserve March 16 to go check it out.

But what I really want to tell you about is The Down, Dirty, & DIY Guide to Film and Video that I found linked on the site.

I am taking a video production class at the Arts Center and we received some materials, the main points of which are incorporated in this document.  I am also reading bits of Film Art for my online class, some of which are incorporated in here.  The cool thing is that it looks like a very approachable and usable resource, and it’s right there for you to download, too!  Looks like it finishes up with a list of some good web resources.