Motif
[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=8UuCszaXN2k]
Pre-Production Ideas and Response to “Documentary”
[response to Documentary can be seen here]
I want the principal idea I am conveying in this project to be that we shouldn’t forget the people who serve us — I want to show this by placing all my shots in a typical dorm cafeteria. I was thinking I could show recurring shots of the cafeteria workers prepping food and getting ready to open, and other repetitive tasks, such as swiping cards, refilling food items, and at the end, cleaning up. I want to interweave this with time-lapse shots of students speeding through the food lines (consuming what the workers made), sitting down at a table and as soon as they leave having their chair replaced by other students (showing the speed/pace at which they eat/amount of thought they usually give the food) and returning their trays and leaving. To end, I think I would go to a cafeteria worker and ask them what time they woke up to get to work (most of them get up really early to do so). The recurring images of repetitive tasks the cafeteria workers do mixed with high-speed shots of students would make my point clear I think.
Pre-Production
In my pre-production process, I thought through specific shots that I wanted to get, and the form in which I was going to present them. One unexpected obstacle I had to face was getting permission to film in the cafeteria. I knew I would have to get special permission to film there, but I was unaware of the different channels of hierarchy I would have to go through to get approval. First, I went to the cafeteria manager with a project proposal, seen here:
“Project Proposal:
“Don’t Forget the Hand That Feeds You”
This project is for the course ART 250- Writing With Video.
In this project, the principal idea I want to get across to the viewer is that we should not forget those that serve us. The way I am going to convey this is by juxtaposing images of the preparation and upkeep of a dormitory cafeteria meal (at Allen Hall), by the University Dining Employees, with speeded-up shots of students going about their meals in a way that shows the contrast of the two (often, students do not give thought to those that prepared the meal for them).
Shot List:
This shot list is divided into three sections, that are organized as they will appear chrono-logically in the film. Only employees’ hands will be filmed- no faces.
Preparation:
Employee turns on monitor for swiping station
Employees place food out in stations
Food Time:
Students Enter through doors — Contrasted with close-up of card swiping.
Students shuffle through food line — Contrasted with Employees replacing food
Overhead Shot of table: students eating, then leaving, and other students taking those seats — Contrasted with Employee wiping table
Cereal Line: Students getting cereal on side-angle — Contrasted with Employee refilling cereal
Tray Conveyer Belt shot — Contrasted with inside shot of behind the wall; again, no faces
Students Exiting through doors — Contrasted with clean up:
Clean Up:
Putting Away Food
Sweeping Floor
Turning off Card-Swiping monitor
Blank Screen with question to an employee, “What time do you normally wake up to get to work?” with reply.
Conclusion:
This project has been planned out with great care; the ultimate goal is to show the dedica-tion and service of the Dining Staff. I will protect their identities by never showing their faces, only their hands. For the question at the end, I will not show the employee, but only use the audio of the question. I would greatly appreciate the cooperation of Housing, as this deals directly with appreciating all the work that Housing Employees do as a service to residents!”
Soon after showing this project proposal to the manager, I found out that I would have to go through higher levels of management to get authorization to film. I emailed higher up, but as the weekend progressed, no response came (which is understandable). I really did not want to change my whole project, but it seemed that was to become more likely as time went on. Quickly, I shot back-up footage of a different motif, clouds. I thought that that back-up project was turning out quite adolescent because I didn’t think it was saying anything larger than showing the different clouds in different areas of campus. I wanted to tell a story through the images, and I didn’t think my back-up project was really saying anything larger than itself.
As Monday arrived, I was quite dissatisfied with my work and chose to hide it, embarrassed. I went over to Clark Hall, the administrative offices for Housing, talked with one of the main supervisors in Dining, and gave her a physical copy of my proposal. She thought it was a wonderful idea, but needed to insure approval from above. And so I waited for an email with the answer to my proposal. Luckily, I had finally received the support of Housing, just before class. Thankfully, I was also allowed a rare extension on the project; I was sure to not take unfair advantage of this allowance. Finally I was ready to shoot. I reviewed my shot list, called the cafeteria supervisor, and prepared the camera; Tuesday was going to be a busy day.
Production
As I swiped into the cafeteria on Tuesday for lunch, a great anticipation welled within me. I felt a bit uncomfortable with the idea of filming in such a large, public place. As I met the lunchtime supervisor, though, a sense of ease washed over me. She showed me around the different parts of the kitchen, as she explained the different functions of the various staff members. She listened as I nervously explained the project to her, and helped guide my way in filming, especially for granting access to put the camera through the tray conveyor belt line.
I quickly realized that the 1 1/2 hour break I had in between classes was not going to be enough to get all the aspects of the dining experience, so I asked her if I could come back to film preparatory shots for the dinner period, and she said that was fine. Filming during the lunch period was more of a dry run to get familiarity with the area, although I did get important shots of the dishwashing line.
I arrived again to film preparatory shots. I was so glad I had the cooperation of all the employees– they were intrigued by my project, and were glad to help out with it. As filming went on, I really felt I was understanding the amount of work that goes into a meal. I have worked in food service before, as a dishwasher, and later as a busboy at a country club, so I am aware that it is a lot of work, but when I actually went through the process again from a different perspective, I began to really see the magnitude of the effort and depth of care that the employees put into their work.
One image that was particularly striking to me was the salad that had an “I” on the top of it out of sheared carrots. The artistry that went into that salad was the quality I would expect to see at the country club where I work, but it was at a Dining Hall! I really wanted to get across to the audience the amount of work that went into a meal, and I think that this shot really shows that.
As dinner opened, and shooting progressed, I realized that I had to deviate from my original shot list. Some of the images I wanted just would not be possible, and I found that my original closing was not going to really work. Instead, I decided to take on the idea of the camera as a point of view as being a secondary important idea to draw a conclusion. I thought that my original ending [which was going to be shots of students leaving, and the monitor being turned off] did not really communicate the idea of hands working, and also really did not do justice to the workers. For this reason, I decided to interrupt the third-person view of the cafeteria at work with a first-person view sequence to tie in a progression towards the hands cleaning up after leaving the cafeteria. This way, there would still be a sense of closure chronologically, as well as conceptually.
It was fun to film on top of the tray; I enlisted the help of my friend Ryan to be the hand in the video while I steadied the camera on the tray with both hands in a clamping fashion. I chose the specific foods to match the same foods that I filmed being placed out on the line. As filming wrapped up and dinner drew to a close, I thanked the staff for their assistance; it was greatly appreciated. Being Tuesday, I knew what now lay ahead of me: editing.
Post Production
One thing I knew was going to be important was cutting away at the film to create a concise product at the end. I had over 30 minutes of footage, and many ideas for how that was going to go together, but I knew I had time constraints on both the final product and also the due date. So I multi-tasked. As I was importing the film, I was going through my iTunes to find the music that I thought would appropriately express my intention of the work, and I wrote down a general list of shots I was importing at the time. I knew the basic trajectory I was going to take in my production, so that helped in the organizing process, even though I knew I was going to stray from my original shot list.
I had over 50 different clips, out of which I narrowed down to 38 that I could possibly use. I denoted which ones would have to be time-lapsed to fit in the space constraints of the project, and then wrote out a list of the order in which I was going to present the clips [See the lists here- General List; Ordered List] I had to resist using many of the shots, and left only the ones I believed would help move the narrative forward.
I decided on my music choice- Movement 1 from String Quartet No. 3 “Mishima” by Philip Glass. I felt that this piece of music was methodical in nature, which matched the repetitive actions and preparation. I also felt, though, that the music itself was a bit melancholy, its harmonies brooding and repeating in the string lines with a sense of both anticipation and a bit of desolation. Because of the repetitive actions in the strings, my shots and transitions were easily molded to fit the music. I think that the music also helped greatly to set the mood for the film and most importantly, the point I was trying to get across about the workers.
Understandably, there was a lot of going back and forth between versions of iMovie for the time-lapse effects. It took a while to do, but I felt the responsibility to work through it to get the point across. The only main issue I could now see was the time restraint on the project- it was supposed to clock in at around a minute. However, I felt that to really bring my point across, I had to use all the shots I used, thus pushing it past the limit. I really did not want to cut too much because it would have dampened the idea about the workers. I felt it necessary to do the tray shots; without those, I could have made the time limit. But by doing so, I thought I would lose the sense of humanity; it felt too foreign being placed in a third-person point of view.
Hooray! Time to export!
Distribution and Reflection
I was really pleased with the end product. After showing it in class, I think that most, if not all, of the points I was trying to get across to the audience came across, and the class definitely had helpful critiques for a specific issue I had with how to specifically work the ending. I think that having the story unfold in a chronological manner helped a lot, and I really was very happy that they noticed the emotional, human side of this story. This was most vocally shown in the appreciation by students who have worked for or currently work in the dining halls. I think that the time issue also seemed to be not as large, due mostly to the fast sequence of images and pairing with the music. The issue I wanted to illuminate had really gotten across and I am very appreciative to my classmates for thinking about the issue afterwards, instead of only focusing on little details, important as they are.
One detail I would try and do next time is work with the lighting if I am in a particularly dark area. One shot that was very dimly lit was the shot of the cardswiper’s monitor. This was due to the physical area and the complexities of the other light source (the monitor). I chose to fix this in post production not by changing brightness values, but by transitioning it with the food line light switch, so that it could be established. This preparation makes the shot a bit less foreign.
I really enjoyed this project, and seeing the other class member’s work. I felt bad, however, that my shooting was delayed because I got to see all of their videos before starting filming mine, which I felt is a bit unfair. Even though the circumstances were not in my control, I still felt bad. I definitely appreciated the others’ work, and in particular, Natali’s project was influential to mine. We were both were both dealing food, and meals and we both had the same chronological idea and food preparation to dinnertime trajectory, but we were dealing with the issue in different ways in different situations (which is good). When watching her video, one thing I noticed was her use of cross-fading the images. Originally I was just going to have the images placed next to each other, but after seeing how seamless her transitions had become, I decided to use the cross-fade, so I thank her for that.
As I watch other students’ work, I can see what works and what doesn’t and apply it to my own work. This is what being in this class is about. We may have never made a video before (I haven’t) but we can watch and learn from our classmates’ works, and by doing so, increase our own production level. Next project, I would like to work with increasing the quality of sound and lighting in my videos. I am still very foreign to the importance of lighting, but by seeing other class examples of really good lighting and sound, I can see the importance of these elements to create a cohesive, understandable work.