"Artifact"

On Friday (17th January) I finally got around to watching the critically acclaimed documentary made by the band 30 Seconds to Mars (and directed by Jared Leto) and how they had the idea of making a documentary about their next album (named "This is War" during the lawsuit process feeling this was too appropriate). The tables turned however when they almost ended up getting sued by their own record company for $30,000,000 and their documentary played a huge part in every day people finding out what really goes on in the music industry.

One of the main reasons that I was attracted to this film was because I'm a huge fan of the band and have been for a long time. I knew something had been going on for a long time but in terms of the media, I myself, never heard too much about the lawsuit that went on between them and EMI. Maybe that was because I don't listen to much news or it was purposely not "put out" that much because of the success and power that EMI have in the music industry.

Below are some screen shots that I took from the film, not only because I found the shots interesting but because they are beautifully shot:

(Lee Trink: Former Pres. of Capitol Music Group - EMI)

(Jared Leto on one of the first phone calls on hearing of the lawsuit)

(Tomo Milicevic speaking throughout the documentary about their struggle)

(Shannon Leto and Jared Leto in one of their big meetings with their lawyer talking to the competitor over the phone)

(Amazing shot of Los Angeles where 30 Seconds to Mars spent most of their time during the recording of their album)

(Jared Leto on the phone to his lawyer after not hearing from EMI after thousands of promises)

(Chester Bennington from Linkin Park talking about the hidden struggles of the music industry)

(Tomo and Jared jamming in the studio they built)

(The build up of how long it takes EMI to get back to Jared, despite being promised the next morning)

(The continuation of the build up and numbering what day it is of the lawsuit)

What surprised me most about 'Artifact' is that even though there were four film makers during the entire process, the film felt very smooth and you never noticed what camera man was shooting what footage. With over three thousand hours of footage, you have to give credit to the editing team of narrowing down that footage and smoothing it out perfectly. 

Now when I listen to the album "This is War" it feels so much more passioniate that I could have ever imagined. The songs are very powerful but I didn't know the fight and the power games that were going on throughout the making of this, and that is why it just screams at you now. They truly showed not only the music industry, but the media industry overall that it's about fighting for what you believe in, and not giving up despite questioning why it is happening to you.

Reflective Essay on my Experience.

As I reflect over my documentary experience, I have had both ups and downs. Now naturally, this happens in every single production because nothing will ever run smoothly, that’s not how life works.

I feel like my partner and I didn’t connect as much as I had hoped. While this has its disadvantages, it also had its advantages. We were able to create two completely different edits; Jamie’s focused more on a montage piece of the knitting group whereas mine dove into a more personal element with my Mother along with the knitting group as well. I personally prefer working alone on the editing side of film making and with us both having two very different views on how we wanted our projects to turn out, I think the editing process was a lot easier working separately.

The disadvantages outweigh the advantages however; pre-production meetings were few and far between (despite them being regularly organized for certain days and times) and a large majority of our communication was done over Facebook. In my past experience, using Facebook as a primary source to communicate with a group hasn’t always worked out well, so I wasn’t a huge fan of using it this time around. I feel my partner and I had very different ideas from the start and it took us a few weeks longer than other groups to actually choose our subject. Both having different ideas isn’t necessarily a bad thing but when one has to compromise for the other, I feel like the other person will always have more of a passion for the subject than the other. Even when we first started speaking about knitting, it was clear that we both had different visions for what we wanted our documentary to be and because we are both inspiring editors, we both wanted to edit as well. I’m very glad that we had the opportunity to do our own edits because I didn’t want my favourite stage of the process to be dampened with questioning and debating each shot with each other.

Going into the knitting groups, I was very nervous about walking into a part of these people’s lives and having a camera sitting in front of their faces. I was worried that they wouldn’t want us to film, or we were getting too close to them or that they would be very uncomfortable in our presence, which is something I definitely didn’t want to happen. I know being a part of a documentary is that you stage reality to a certain degree but before the subject was knitting, I didn’t want to walk in and have to ask some-one to knit that again or distract them, causing them to make a mistake. We didn’t have to stage any shots in the knitting group and maybe we should have done it for one or two shots, just to have something extra but I honestly don’t think we needed it, which made me very happy.  

For me, my disappointment happened when we came to the realization that we would have to re-shoot the knitting groups again. At the time, I thought I had done something wrong but I came to learn that there aren’t many film shoots that don’t have re-shoots so that made me feel a little better. As we finished our re-shoot and looked over the footage, I was shocked at how much better the re-shoot footage was compared to the first. Our main mistake was not using a tripod and we should have used one from the start; we didn’t think we would need one because we wanted to do a lot of moving and close up shots, and using a tripod, this is a lot tougher. So the second time around, even though I wasn’t able to get as close as I wanted to the wool, especially at the knitting group, the footage came out clearer and more smoother, so I didn’t mind compromising on moving shots so much.

I have played a small part in documentary film making before but it was very unstructured and I didn’t like the end result. This was a lot more structured than my previous work but I feel like for this documentary, it could have been more structured than it was. I would have liked to work as a team more but I fear that our edit and both our visions would have been compromised if we had to do one single edit because of the different ways we wanted to go. I’m very happy with my edit and how it turned out; I gave colour correction my best shot when it came to the interview stage but that was a small problem with the lighting in the room so I don’t feel it takes away from the documentary. My music is quite quirky and could be called cheesy at times but that was the style I was going for because of the subject matters, and I think it fits the shots, the vibe and the story well.

Overall, I enjoyed the majority of the documentary experience and I would say the only large negative I have is the lack of communication at times. I find it very stressful when I don’t know where projects are headed, and meetings help me get through that struggle.

I don’t feel like my documentary is just your average short documentary; I believe it has character, as well as being insightful and entertaining about a hobby that everyone has heard of but doesn’t know much about. 

Knit One Film One.

My documentary is finished! After reflecting on my documentary experience (in my next post), here is a link to "Knit One Film One". Enjoy!

"Tightly Knit"

Here's a link to my partner Jamie's blog, and how he has progressed throughout this process too.

http://jamieshawdocumentary.blogspot.co.uk/

Looking back to the beginning.

As we tidy up our production folders ready for hand in, I look at our treatment from when we started this project, compared to our edits, it hasn't become the outcome we once wrote down in October. When you're making a film, I don't think that any treatment will match the film in the end, and I think that shows what I said in a few posts back about how 'life happens' and how things can change throughout the filming process.

The treatment is meant as an strong outline for our film and although our original intentions were interesting, exciting and had a lot of potential; we came together and made two totally different visions and it's for this reason I don't mind that the documentary went in a different direction completely. I'm glad we had the treatment as a structure of course, but I'm happy that we explored other areas and that the documentary turned out with surprising results.

The Hope Box.

Not only did I conduct my Mum's interview over the Christmas period, I also did the hope box sequence too. She spoke about the hope drawer or hope box in her interview and since I'm looking at a more personal side, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to show the audience inside her box. 

Inside her hope box she had hats, booties, jumpers and baby blankets that I did many extreme close up shots of, because I wanted to really show the detail that was going into each of these small pieces of clothing. 

I also created a small montage of throwing the jumpers on top of each other through a small part of the interview. I didn't want to add all the baby clothes into one sequence and I think it looks a lot better split up.

The Editing Process.

The editing process of film making is possibly my favourite part of creating a film. I usually edit on my own, so I can sit for hours and finely tune everything as best I can and it doesn't feel like work. I worked for a number of days on my edit, before Christmas and after Christmas, and I'm very pleased with how it turned out. 

After everything had been shot, I was a lot more happier to edit because I already felt like I was closer to finishing it even though I had just started. I encountered a small number of basic problems while editing but I feel like I handled them well with my best efforts.

Colour Correction:
This was only due to either not the right white balance being set or the fact that the lights I used where normal household lights and most lights like this, do have a yellow tint to them. After spending at least two or three days on colour correction, I did what I could but there is only really so much you can do before you start going into over exposure or making it too dark. Despite this, I don't think it takes away from the documentary, which I'm very happy about.

More Footage:
Part of me doesn't want to have to say that I wanted more footage because I already spent hours deliberating what shots to use, and this wasn't because of a lack of footage by any means. The shots I took after I interviewed my Mum; I got a few shots of her knitting and if I could do it differently, I probably would have got my camera out only for a minute or so every time she was knitting something different and created a short montage piece of the various things she was knitting. I just think it would have added slightly more depth to the piece.