Documentary Film Ideas

“The Garden” is a documentary about an urban garden in downtown Los Angeles, and the community’s fight to keep the garden from being redeveloped. This garden is special because it’s in an area that was once part of the 1991 LA riots, but has been transformed into something positive for the community. The documentary takes us through the community’s fight to keep the land for their garden, and keep it from the greedy owner/developer and the corrupt city government that did not have the constituent’s best interest at heart.

“The Garden” was nominated for the 2009 Academy Awards for best documentary. It of course lost to “Man on Wire”, but it deservedly was nominated because of its good documentary form. My first reaction when I started watching it was the poor camerawork and poor color. LA is best place in the US to shoot a film because of the amount of bright light they get 360 days a year, yet sky in this film had a blueish tint to it. Also there was shaky camera work, I think they were using prosumer and maybe consumer level cameras.

Yet it’s content that matters. Kudos to the editor for telling a story through visuals, interviews, and sound. The sound design was nice, although my TV’s speakers experienced some problems in parts of the film, which I thought was very weird considering how tiny my speakers are. Overall though I liked the film because there was a lot of passion involved and the story’s revealing is far reaching to other parts of the US, where land owners and community work for different goals.

I use at least 2 video cameras for my weddings. Camera 1 is always in the back and points down the isle, and is usually stable on a tripod. I’m usually manning camera 2 on a monopod. I like to move around the outer perimeter of the ceremony, in such a way that I do not interrupt the guests’ experience. As the bride walks down the isle, I kneel down with camera 2 at the edge of the first row of seats to get a frontal shot of the bride and father approaching the alter. As she comes down, about 2/3 the way, I move off to the side and the camera 1 in the back will cut in and record for a few minutes. Then I position myself and camera 2 such that I’m up front but to the side, so that I can get a better facial shot of the bride and for a closeup as she says “I do” or makes the kiss.

I’ve added photo slideshows (also called montages) to my list of services. For just $100, I can make a photo slideshow including music on a DVD. Checkout my example from Edwin’s 40th Birthday party here.

I’m happy to report that I’ve been featured on the website atlantaweddingbliss.com.

Atlanta Wedding Bliss is Atlanta’s premier wedding resource. We are here to supply information on local wedding services. Whether you are looking for a wedding photographer, videographer, venue or wedding planner we have you covered.

I’m currently updating my website to include more sample videos.  I’m no longer going to use vimeo because of concerns over copyright issues.  The update should be finished by Feb 1, 2010.

To view my current sample videos, click here

I’m posting this in hopes that it will receive hits from google.  I own a Sony Vaio VGN-FW190 laptop.  The laptop was pre-installed with Vista.  Since I do video editing, It was essential that I install Windows 7.  Still, my computer is having problems and Sony support has stated “we don’t support your model”.  I want to post this as a warning to anybody buying a laptop from Sony that you are stuck with the pre-installed operating system.  I think that a lot of people with existing models will be affected and this will only fuel the anger and get more people to switch to macs.  I would normally be sympathetic, if it weren’t for all the sony vaio product placements I see everyday in Windows 7 commercials.

Sony has really degraded as a company overall.  They don’t lead the industry on any of their electronics categories, including audio players, computers, televisions, and cameras.  When I’m ready to shell out $5000 for a professional camcorder, I won’t even look at a Sony.  I will go with Canon or Panasonic.

I have been absent from this blog for too long, and plan on making daily posts in 2010.  2009 brought great success to me.  I have mainly been focused on wedding videography.  I recently finished a wedding and the client seems pleased enough to give a copy to each of their parents for Christmas.  It’s very rewarding to both improve my skills and also bring value to the world.  Wedding Videography has been a great way for me to continue with my documentary making interest while also learning new things and improving my overall video production and DVD authoring skills, which I think will be beneficial for when I have a full feature documentary.

Stay tuned…

What Remains is an artist documentary, about the photographer Sally Mann.  This is one of the best documentaries I’ve ever seen.  Sally Mann is a photographer in Virginia.  Her focus is landscapes.  She was ranked “The Best Photographer in America” one year, and she got recognition around the country and most notably among some circles in NY.

This is a very personal and honest documentary about this very humble artist living on a farm in rural Virginia.  The documentary takes you through her career.  This is much more than just a documentary with interviews, several events of Sally’s life are caught on camera in the moment as they occur.  The documentary walks us through Sally’s interests and her subjects, and why she chooses her subjects.  Her interest in the early half of the film is portraits and landscape photography.  An interesting event occured on her farm where an escaped convict was murdered, and so she began to pursue the effects of human decay on the landscape in the later part of the film.  She was allowed access onto the Univ. of TN crime lab, where several real corpses where laid about a field in order for students to study real human decay over time.  Sally photographed corpses in several degrees of decay.

Her career took a turn for the worse, when a NYC show canceled her.  However, she regained her spirits with an exhibit in Washington DC, where her family and friends could easily make the trip.  The film takes you through these ups and downs in her career, in real time and in good documentary form.

The film was directed by Steve Cantor.  At the 2008 Sundance Festival, the film was awarded Best Documentary of the Year.

In the 1950’s, the federal government built Lake Lanier in North Georgia for hydroelectrical purposes.  Metro Atlanta was also allowed to tap into this lake for its water supply, just as a benefit on the side.  Atlanta expanded throughout the 1990’s and 2000’s, becoming a mega region of 5 million people.  Neither the state of GA or the metro Atlanta government did anything to address the possibility that maybe water wasn’t an infinite resource.  Instead, they sat around and continued to draw water from Lake Lanier, more and more each year, with a let’s see what we can get away with before it’s too late mindset and planning model.

Under federal law, a lake which serves several states must be shared equally with each state.  A water basin increases more and more the further downstream you get from its origin.  Alabama and Florida are both tributary states to Lake Lanier which is in the Chattahoochie River Basin.  The Atlanta metropolitan region, which sits at the top of the basin, withdraws more water than any place downstream of this basin.  Not only that, but Lake Lanier was given to Atlanta, without it Atlanta would have had to build its own reservoir.  While it may make sense for a major lake north of a major metropolitan area have water drawn from it, the complete lack of communication of both the federal government, state of GA, and the Atlanta metropolitan region demonstrate the huge infrastructure planning deficiency that has been in place in the US for the past 50 years.

This problem is almost exactly correlated to the US electric grid.  The transmission lines were built a long time ago, and it is well known that 1 single tree falling on 1 line can bring 1/4 of the country into darkness.  We’re waiting for the massive problems to occur before we’re willing to address them.  For the water situation, we did face a crisis here in the Atlanta region 2 years ago, when Lake Lanier dropped several feet and water restrictions were placed in GA.  However, for the state of GA, this still isn’t enough to grab state politicians by the collar and get them to take action.

One obvious thing that could be done is build more reservoirs to store rainwater, instead of letting the water flow into the rivers.  What are the political, economical, and practical challenges of undertaking such public works projects.  What alternatives are available, and what are the political requirements for all of these ideas?  Should this be done now, next year, in 5 years?  Should Atlanta’s growth be halted?  Will it take a major crisis to bring action?

The business world for the most part is filled with and operated by parasites.  Parasites who have no independent thinking ability or creativity.  The only skill left in today’s business place is the ability to ask the following question:  “what do YOU think?”.  That same question is asked, like a chain reaction of dominoes.  This method of doing business has for the most part worked in the past 100 years, you can’t argue that.  We’ve achieved great financial prosperity operating under these rules.

Being a team player, and running around the office waving paper in the air might let you keep your job, but in the long run your establishment will get what it deserves.  Team players have no independent thinking ability on their own.  They bring no value.  Without the corporation these people are going to be the most impacted by the new economy, these people are going to get their due karma.

A job in the new era we’re in is different.  It doesn’t involve going to an office and working a predetermined length of time.  It involves working independent gigs.  Short term gigs only given to proven performers.  Unlike the business world of the past, the games and office B.S. get you nowhere.  You do the job, then you enjoy your day, whether it takes you 4 hours or 10 hours.

If you disagree with my viewpoint on the new definition of a job, then you continue what you’re doing.  Work those 8 hour days, and enjoy those 2 week vacations.  Good luck on that, I hope you live long enough to enjoy a “retirement”, or as I like to call it, “worst case scenario insurance”.