Reflections

Well this is it, I'm afraid! We've come to the end of the project, the following is a reflective essay on my experiences.

I've learned more about documentary over the course of the past couple of months than I could have ever imagined. From watching a range of famous and obscure documentaries to implementing their striking techniques into my own work, it's been a wonderful experience. We began the year discussing concepts for our projects and watching documentaries that our Tutor had brought in for us. Two of the documentaries I liked the most were "Searching for Sugar Man" (dir. Malik Bendjelloul)  and "Stories We Tell" (dir. Sarah Polley). Both share stories of searching for something that is lost while venturing off into little 'anecdotes' to flesh the story out more. We hear accounts of the subjects (Rodriguez and Polley's Mother respectively) that further elude to the mystery, really engrossing the viewer and drawing them in.
Aside from the factual points of both films, they employed a performative approach to certain scenes, more so in "Stories" where professional actors are brought in to play Polley's parents in mock-up archive footage. I kept this in mind when approaching the studio because from the beginning, I wanted the studio part of the film to have an over-the-top, campy and colourful vibe to it to contrast the normality of the interview.
Looking back on the overall project, I've made a film that is almost completely different from what I set out to do. Initially I intended to make a documentary about the life of a drag queen, and dove straight into my research and looking for a subject. The latter was the main reason we had to make a lot of changes, as I underestimated how difficult it can be to pin someone down, especially a drag queen. We were offered the opportunity to film a drag competition outside of town but unfortunately had to decline due to time and money restraints. My group and I began to come up with solutions and alternatives, more-or-less having to rethink the entire piece. Anya, my assistant director suggested that we dress her friend up and ask him questions about gender-related issues and topics. I was slightly dubious at the thought, but it worked fantastically and we ended up with some stunning footage and interesting chat.
I felt the shoot was very much a collaboration between myself, Anya and Scott. Anya took charge of Glenn's (our subject) costume and makeup while I decorated the set and set up lights, and Scott was on camera. After the colour and madness of the studio shoot, it was an interesting change to shoot the interview. We shot at Anya's lovely Grandmother's house and recorded an interview with Glenn, myself and Anya acting as interviewers. At this point, our documentary had turned into an observation on gender roles in society and how the media portrays gender and sexual stereotypes. It was interesting hearing a straight man who had only just tried dressing in drag talk about these topics and issues, bringing up some very good points and examples, such as Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford not fitting the 'gay' stereotype fed to us by the media.
Getting stuck into the edit was tricky and I was struggling to meet deadlines having been faced with a number of personal problems, but I believe what I produced is a good, clean and topical piece that I'm very proud of. During the shoot I insisted on the camera rolling at all times, even when there isn't any action, it was to record any banter of behind the scenes madness that was going on. Adding those behind-the-scenes banter and chatting clips gave my piece a very candid feel at times which I felt broke up the camp and glamourous side of things while easing very well into the interview segments.
Overall, I am very pleased with my piece. I enjoyed the documentary unit immensely, both theory and practice. Before this unit I would not have likely been interested in filming a documentary, but I feel inspired by the films I have watched, in and out of class, and by the process of my own work.

(Word Count 677 words)

The end is nigh!

My edit is complete, and is now awaiting the accompanying essay. The editing process for me, has been the most fun part of this entire production. I've always had a passion for editing but I feel this was a new experience for me, mainly because it was new software that I'd never used before, but I hadn't done a project like this before.

Trust me, it's much simpler than it looks... Maybe? Here I'm adding filters to a clip that is part of a montage. Filters can be agonizing if you (like me) are only adding them after having your rough cut submitted, so any jump cuts you added must be filtered and matched up to each other so as to keep the continuity!

Filters can also be extremely fun to experiment with. For this particular project I wanted the colours in the studio to really pop and stand out, so increasing the contrast and lowering the brightness ever so slightly really helped, add a little colour correction and hey presto!

The finished product will be put up here for all to see very soon hopefully! Hand-in is tomorrow so wish me luck!

On the Watch-list

I've been keeping my eye out for a decent Drag-related documentary for editing inspiration at this stage but my search has been fruitless, until now!

I'd heard the name 'Paris is Burning' before on RuPaul's Drag Race, but I never really thought about chasing it up because I thought it would just be another film, but lo-and-behold, it's a documentary!

I don't know an awful lot about this, other than that it follows the lives of the LGBTQ* community in NYC in the 90s and the origins of "vogueing" culture and "haus" culture. Exciting stuff, once I get round to watching it within the next few days I'll post my thoughts and whatnot!

Editing under way

Just a quick update, there will be more to come when I'm back in the editing suite tomorrow!

Until last week I was a complete newbie to Adobe Premiere so it's very interesting to see how this all compares to Final Cut, the software I've been using to edit for the past 3 years. To start off I fiddled about with a montage of our subject getting into drag, applying some filters to experiment with making the colours pop etc. I'm trying to find some suitable (and un-copyrighted) music right now, which is proving very difficult... It's much more difficult to find an alternative to something you planned out so well in your head!

That's a wrap... for now!

As of last Friday we have completed principal photography for our documentary! Having shot the bulk of the 'drag' segment of our doc, which was the interactive/performative part of the piece, we only needed to shoot the interview with our subject and we were good to go, provided reshoots weren't necessary (After looking at the footage from last Tuesday I'm happy that we have all that we need)

Now comes the edit. Since both shoots we've been throwing around some ideas for editing techniques and music. During the interview Glenn (our subject) mentions a couple of celebrities or figures in the media who are associated with the things he discusses. A few pe
ople of note are Eddie Izzard, the extremely cross-dressing comedian, known for performing his comedy sketches in drag but not being gay himself. Another is Rob Halford, the lead singer of the British heavy metal band 'Judas Priest', an openly gay man who one might not normally associate with the heavy metal scene.

One of the main points that we discussed and that we'd love to focus on in the edit is the idea of how the media portrays sexuality stereotypes, e.g. a gay man would be portrayed as very flamboyant and camp and a gay woman will be portrayed as very masculine and butch. Despite this preconceptions by the media, in our society we have very masculine gay men (Rob Halford) and very feminine gay women (e.g. Portia De Rossi, wife of openly lesbian TV presenter Ellen Degeneres).

Photos from set

Just a few touch-ups before the camera rolls.

The team + our sublime subject.

Last-minute wind machine!

The set coming together, featuring the first of many additions

The makeup table, a labour of love.

Big updates coming soon!

The past few days have been crazy, with the big shoot on Tuesday and all other work involved with college, so it's annoying that I haven't put aside the time to dedicate to my blog! This is just a quick post before the shoot today, where we'll get mainly interview footage.

Over the past couple of weeks we've been watching documentaries, both famous and lesser-know, to help gain an appreciation for the genre, but also to give us ideas and techniques to implement and emulate in our own pieces. One documentary we watched yesterday in class was 'We Are Not Afraid' (dir. Declan Keeney), a hard-hitting artistic look at the lives of those affected by the Siege of Sarajevo that took place from 1992 to 1996. Keeney's use of colour struck me the most about the film, with scenes splashed in red just as a subject discusses her dislike of the colour, and colder tones of white and blue.

During the shoot on Tuesday I made an on-the-spot decision to incorporate red gels in my studio lighting set up, something that went down quite well with both my colleagues and our peers who happened to come into the studio. Watching back the footage, the set is often bathed in a deep red or a warm pink, both feminine colours to a degree, which gave the look of the footage like a barbie house dressing room, albeit with a drag queen!