Documentary Film Ideas

For me, videography is much more than the time that I spend at the location filmming.  That’s actually the easiest, most enjoyable part for me.  In reality, the real time and value that I add comes in two parts.

1. Shooting on location = approx. 20% of cost to me
2. Editing your footage and researching market trends and advancing my knowledge-base = approx. 80% of cost to me

I love shooting video.  It’s very fun to me.  But understand that you aren’t paying me for just showing up and pointing my camera.  You are mostly paying for the time It took me to increase my knowledge and keep up with the current trends artistically, and also the amount of time it takes to edit footage to make sure it is valuable both technically and artistically.

But I don’t downplay the difficulty of the actual location shooting.  Every location brings unique challenges to it, both visual and audio.  Recording professional quality video requires advanced knowledge of the latest equipment and familiarity with your equipment’s weaknesses and limitations.  Personally, I own the best equipment out there and I’m a fan of Canon, which produces the best quality cameras and lenses, but I also understand the limitations of my equipment in the real world.  Audio is another important aspect of filmaking that is not fully recognized by the general public.  I have an arsenal of several types of recording devices.  I must evaluate each shooting location independently to determine how audio will be recorded.   Professional audio for video is a profession in and of itself, most average people do not realize.  As a videographer, I have fill multiple hats of several specialties.  This requires a lot of research and education.

Although I own the latest technology, I learned videography and filmmaking from the ground up.  Some other videographers just buy the best equipment and think that they can produce quality solely through technology.  In contrast, when I started out I learned how to produce quality video using poor quality equipment, understanding the limitations and abilities of my equipment.  My personal philosophy is simple:  Make videos that bring joy to people and capture reality in a way that is positive and brings value to everybody.

My DVDs

• Not all DVD players are the same, make sure your DVD player is less than 10 years old.  Also with some DVD players, you have to adjust the screen size.

• My SD DVD’s look better when played through a Blu-ray player onto a HD TV.  Technically, it will be 720p HD.

• My DVD’s are widescreen format. They look best with widescreen TV’s.

• My DVDs have a printed label directly on them for a professional look and feel.  I use ink-jet to print directly onto DVD.  No paper labels.

• I have several types of DVD cases. Slim cases, dual disc cases, paper sleeves, etc.. Whatever best fits your application.  Also, I print full color DVD covers for all my weddings.

• I also do a custom Menu for my DVDs with background music, including chapters, extras, about section, photos, and photo slideshows and montages.

here’s some night footage of downtown Atlanta. I’d like to do a hip-hop video one day and shots like this are essential.

Canon XH-A1. 3CCD HD Camcorder. 20x zoom, lots of manual controls. Handles great in low light.

The focus of technology for the past decade has centered around San Francisco and a few other hot spots with the internet revolution and computers. But is that all technology is? Where’s the hardware? I’m not talking about computer chips and memory, I’m talking about flying cars, advanced transportation, the energy revolution. What happened? Why did my first car, a 1993 Saturn, have better gas mileage than a 2008 model car of similar price that I rented recently? The “engineering” community today is limited to San Francisco, and most of these self-proclaimed engineers only produce software. They aren’t real engineers. They are just young people who are riding this new wave of connectivity. You also have a large group of IT professionals who are also more in-demand these days than REAL engineers.

I don’t think this will last forever. I think it’s just a fad and will go away. I hope this next decade is the decade of hardware, REAL technology. Then maybe people will step out into the sunlight and actually live a real life. I drove by a newly built large 6 story apartment building last night, and couldn’t help but notice how many flat-screen TV’s were turned on, and how barren the sidewalks were/are of life always. My apartment is similar. This town is pretty desolate considering how dense it is. I can go out to any random suburb in America and it’s more lively than Atlanta. What’s the point of living here? More restaurants or shopping? Doesn’t that get old? I think it is old and people realize this now. I doubt that I’m the only person with this viewpoint in Atlanta or America.

There is created demand (silicon valley and technology), and real demand. It’s the real demand that is out there that needs to be filled this decade. The problem is that it’s easier for people to “ride the wave” of the internet and computer-based technology. You can live a sedentary life that way.

This blog is called “documentary film ideas” as if it’s a place to discuss topics, possibly political or controversial. That’s not a productive way of blogging in my opinion.

The direction I want this blog to take is the more general aspects of documentary making, producing, editing, technicalities, etc…

“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.