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Omnipresence documentary6/13/2023 ![]() Getting together and watching films in class is crucial. Many of my students are young filmmakers. Still, no expenditures for travel means lower costs and more guests for the students - an unspoken lesson in budget filmmaking. ![]() ![]() When things broke in March, I wasn’t so happy when I realized that virtually all my teaching would be virtual. Every day, across the world, we’re all imitating Chantal Akerman. ![]() It’s all stasis and energy, like some of my favorite films. The frame is locked, the silence of thinking is magnified, and the unfeeling camera creates a flat canvas from which mise-en -scène pops forward. hlEA7U3B5n- Bookcase Credibility June 4, 2020Įarly in the pandemic, Eric Hynes, Jeff Reichert, and Damon Smith released a Zoom-based installment of their series Room H.264, and it showed the possibilities of this now nearly universal visual language. Barack tells us change is needed for flowers to flourish and books to fill shelves. Gaps in a bookcase can indicate humility, that there is more to learn, but if they widen into chasms then credibility slips away. Remember the brief national fixation with Barack Obama’s bare bookshelves? As the late great documentary editor Jonathan Oppenheim said, interview is behavior, and the frame reveals personality.īarack Obama takes a risk here. Think about how carefully you’ll study the bookshelves and décor behind the person you Zoom with, looking for clues. Maybe we’re also getting more interested in reading images. Now we all live on camera, so we might as well become decent documentarians. In the before-times, we were more selective about when to turn on our video images. Small performances and self-projected fantasies often make for great nonfiction cinema. Our homes are now stages, and we learn a lot about each other based on where and how we film ourselves. The circumstances of its use have made us all think about the image in a way that feels almost like filmmaking. Skype, FaceTime, and other videoconferencing tools have always held the faintest scent of cinema, but Zoom doesn’t feel quite like them - there’s its sudden omnipresence, its particular image quality, its ease of use, the way we’ve all learned lighting techniques (or not), its frame, the quiet desperation on both ends of the line, etc. Yance Ford (image courtesy Netflix)Īny image can be made into a movie, but there’s something different about Zoom. And I can see them get it.įrom Strong Island (2017), dir. Something potent happens when he maneuvers his face into the exact same angle and distance from the camera as in his film. Thousands of miles away, my students lean forward to watch their own screens. He discusses the mechanics of that close-up interview technique that helps give the movie its unique intensity. He holds his face close to the camera, not unlike the signature image of Strong Island. But I’ve had Yance talk to my students many times, and this is the best class we’ve done. The now-ubiquitous Zoom image is draining for students and professors alike. We used to fly in visiting artists, and it was a real loss when all that was cancelled. Holding classes over Zoom has become a necessity in a pandemic. The Oscar-nominated director of Strong Islandis wearing a T-shirt and clearly feeling chill. When Yance Ford switches on his camera to talk to my class over Zoom, he’s in what looks like his home office, but it could be a bedroom. Filming someone in their own home is common it’s relaxing, and people can be themselves. One basic lesson about filming interviews is that you should try to place your subject in an environment where they feel comfortable. I teach documentary filmmaking at the Murray Center for Documentary Journalism at Mizzou.
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