KJ was a great guest to have on Monday. She started in my women in film class, where she made a big impression on how she can connect personal stories to documentary film. I thought it was interesting how she turned our own personal stories around and helped us to understand how documentary is made through how we all have our own stories to tell. She asked us all to answer one question, and through that question told us about listening, understanding, and communication. Also, she touched on the importance of building relationships and intimacy of interviewing and capturing stories.

Her film Cameraperson was interesting to me. I was confused about the storyline at the beginning, but was intrigued with how she developed a new way of documenting. I loved her authenticity with the film as well because I didn’t have to question how much thought she put into it. It made me understand the idea that documentary isn’t always made on the pre-filming table and that the story unfolds at the editing portion of the film. I loved how she made herself known in the film, pulling out weeds, sneezing and even talking. I think too many times, documentarians want a polished and perfect film, when documentary is supposed to be the raw and live action that we want opposed to narrative cinema. It gave me encouragement to know that everything doesn’t have to be spick and span and that I can actually give the documentary that ‘real’ feeling, as documentaries are supposed to do.

I found a few similarities in some of the Lehigh valley documentary ideas. I found some dealing with food, art, and expansion. I found the most interesting ones to be the ideas on art, seeing as though I want to continue documentary filmmaking on more artistic coverage, since it’s becoming a larger thing around the world. I also liked the idea about the food coverage, seeing how it plays a big role in scarcity some places but also how it can reconnect a fallen community. I am most interested in music and understanding why music has become so prevalent in getting across messages, and why it’s similar backgrounds to stories told in music. Since I wanted to cover something similar for my upcoming capstone, I think it would be cool to be able to uncover the music scene in Bethlehem as one person mentioned in their draft title “The arts Valley”.

When I read books multiple times, I get something new out of them each time. This especially happens as I age; for instance, I have read The Great Gatsby many times and continue to pause in thought or surprise every so often.

I watched Chasing Coral for a third time tonight at a screening hosted by the Geology club, LEAP, and PAW. I watched it twice this summer, but I found myself just as, if not more, mesmerized watching it tonight than either time before.

There were many aspects of documentary filmmaking that I newly appreciated. Mainly, these were struggles, challenges to be overcome. During the first few rounds of attempts, divers and filmmakers experienced countless frustrations. These brilliant people were attempting to film a documentary and affect change in an environment for which no equipment is truly built. It was hard and painstaking, but people were driven. Parts were custom made for the project. Mass amounts of time were spent brainstorming and creating parts that would allow for these underwater timelapses to be perfect. Data came back, and was blurry. Troubleshooting began.

The team had to adapt to their environment not just underwater but in quickly changing water, with unpredictable storms and harsh currents. When an opportunity arose to shoot somewhere else, they had to make moves to do so; they handled these times with intense motivation and grace. I found that while watching, I thought that I could only hope to learn to handle unexpected situations in that manner.

The second we heard a sneeze that shook a camera shooting lightning, I was engaged.

I was not sure what to expect when I sat down to watch Cameraperson. I appreciated and respected Kirsten Johnson’s director’s statement, and was excited to meet the writer. I was not quite sure how a biographical-type documentary worked. The filmmaker is separate from the film; the point of documentary is to facilitate this separation in order to find and illustrate truth. Right?

Wrong. The point of documentary is to bring truth to light, yes, but there are many ways in which to do this. Cameraperson taught me that truth can be found by exploring the world through the eyes of the filmmaker. From their vision, you learn not only their personal truth but also that of others with whom they interact.

This film was quite honestly an intense emotional rollercoaster. The snapshots of a documentarian’s lifestyle are absolutely riveting; Cameraperson did an excellent job of showing how invested the filmmaker becomes in their stories, and the fast transitions illustrated how difficult it is to be torn away. I became absolutely and wholly invested in the lives of the people in the films, as I could tell KJ did as well.

I found myself moved almost to tears when she returned to the family that she had earlier filmed. Documentary takes wild and unexpected turns; that had not been her original intention. The happiness of those children and their family watching the old video was contagious.

Cameraperson is so well-done. Getting to speak with the creator is inspiring and motivating. It made the film all the more meaningful and powerful because I was able to spend time with her enough to get a sense of her personality, how she talks to people, how she thinks. Her openness to questions, her ability to connect. I felt like we were her subjects and she was the camera. Her intimacy and carefulness to explain herself when answering questions, to go ‘off’ topic which somehow explained the question in a way that is indirect and makes you forget what you asked, but in a good way. She is an amazing teacher. I learned so much about filming from her workshop and her film. I learned so much about being human. The pains, emotions, anxieties, joys, appreciations, humbleness, I could go on. It never ended. A brilliant woman, a brilliant soul. I am forever indebted to her brilliance.

I had many questions about for KJ, and while many of them were answered by other students asking what I had in mind, there were others I was still curious about before we ran out of time. I wanted to know what kind of cameras she used and what kind of recorders her sound guy used. I very much see now how the equipment used is nowhere near as important as how good the cameraperson is, but it still would be interesting to know what technology this veteran documentarian prefers. I watched cameraperson on my computer at home a few days before the screening. During the screening I noticed the sound was much more intense. At first I thought it was just simply louder. I noticed the quality of sound especially when the shot of her twins were playing with her camera and you hear her son pat the microphone with his hands. The sound was very clear, but very low, bass-driven, and I am wondering how that was done. Was her camera’s microphone just that good? Was the sound from it cleaned up a bit? Was a new fabricated sound used in place of that?

It has been 4 days since the screening and all I can think about is her and her film! I keep thinking about how she wanted to do something that hasn’t been done before. She was successful in that as far as I know. She really has set the bar in terms of genre for the 21st century. I’m sure there will be college students all over the world playing off of Cameraperson for their capstones and senior seminars. She has inspired me to want to think out of the box and challenge certain parts of me that consider all her heavy experiences to be anxiety-ridden, hence things I thought I could never do.

“I investigated a murder with a camera – an oddity in and of itself, it was not telling a story about a murder investigation, it was the investigation – and evidence was accumulated with that camera…” — Errol Morris

I love this. I find this inspirational and determinative of what I hope to be able to achieve. If even a nuance of this makes it into a project I am apart of I would be happy. I am constantly curious and trying to work out what kind of style I might want to adopt, or what style I might tend to lean towards. I won’t know this until I try different styles out, but it is something I think about. The camera as an investigator seems like a style itself; not making assumptions, not taking a subject for granted, not altering in any way. Instead, keeping up with the events, the camera being the sponge that soaks up everything that takes place, then later, remembering everything and piecing it together as elegantly as possible, like a record of history. Later Morris is quoted again saying, “documentaries can play an important, potentially life-or-death part in contemporary social discourse.” I never want to forget that documentary can change lives.

I don’t want to bore people. I want the audience to care about what is on the screen. I want them to connect and want more from it. On page 132, Bernard talks about deciding whether or not to keep with the chronology of the events and how it is not always the best way to approach each film. In her examples, it is clear that mixing up the chronology a bit can engage the audience because it get them to ask questions, which keeps them enticed. However, knowing the chronology as the film maker is beneficial for staying on track and keeping true to a series of events and reactions that occurred.

On page 137, Bernard quotes Alan Berliner who says, “one of the hardest things I had to do was let go of everything I knew— to accept that the film could not possibly contain everything I had learned about names.” This was a great insight and something I’ve thought about. There are so many branches to any given topic, but I must choose a few branches and stick to those otherwise the film would never end. It assisted my understanding of the documentaries I’ve watched. People only have the knowledge of what you’ve shown them, not what has been left out. The filmmaker must choose what to include, out of necessity for length and complexity purposes. These decisions will be difficult, but important to make.

Now that we are beginning to talk about what documentary ideas we want to pursue as a class, the chapter on Planning and Pitching has been a helpful and relevant read. To pitch effectively, the filmmaker has to pitch both the story and the topic. To pitch one rather than the other would be a disservice to each. The story is the means by which the topic is explored. Therefore both have to hold their own weight, yet complement one another.

Something else I want to keep in mind is to remember to let people speak for themselves. There is more power in someone speaking on their own behalf than hearing a secondhand story from an unrelated or removed person. Their perspective might be vital to have as well, but hearing it from the horse’s mouth provides the honesty the audience needs to take the film seriously.

The first thing that stood out to me when I started watching Cameraperson was the power of the natural sounds in the documentary. The birds chirping, the sounds of Kirsten navigating the camera, her pacing breath, her footsteps, and just how the audience can tell that there is a person behind the camera is so important. During Kirsten’s talk, she confided that she didn’t have a good ear at the beginning of her career. Sounds would just run past her ears. But as she started gaining more experience, she realized the essence of sound and how it adds life to the hundreds of images that are being displayed onscreen. I also respected how we could hear her comments and reactions to certain stories during Cameraperson. The shot I recall clearly is when the boy from Kabul, Pakistan talks about how he lost his brother and Kirsten’s voice after saying that she couldn’t hold her tears. We can tell how compassionate and affected she is through the breaking of her voice in this part.Sounds do tell a story of its own. Similar to Sergio Leone’s Once Upon A Time In The West, we hear the intensity of the drops of water falling from the broken ceiling and the irritating fly. The sounds in Leone’s film are extremely important for the film as a whole. This also reminded me of Nolan’s powerful sound effects in Dunkirk. The loud sounds of war carry the entire film, leaving scarring vibrations in your head after you leave the cinema. The essence of sound is how realistic it makes a video.  As a documentarian and a film scholar, I’m trying to work on being more observant towards sound. Kirsten did also mention that she doesn’t take charge of recording the sound but she advocates the sound recording role to another professional. She believes that there are specialized people for every part in the film industry.

Kirsten,

Let me start by saying that I have no words to describe how incredible your documentary was. I have never truly laughed, cried, felt heartbroken, loved, and been angry all in one sitting. I’m the type of person who reads a book or watches a show once and that’s it. I never re-read or re-watch anything but I can guarantee I will re-watch Cameraperson more than just a few times and learn something new about documentary and myself every time.

Already I have told numerous people about the life-altering documentary I saw Monday night and when asked to describe it, no matter how hard I try, I fail miserably at giving the documentary the justice it deserves. After the film, you talked a lot about sounds versus picture and I found that very profound. No one needs to see the photos of the boy getting dragged behind the car because the sound of the chain was enough to send chills down everyone’s neck. This idea of sound reminded me of Grizzly Man where just the shot of someone listening to his death was enough to make you cringe. The documentary also made me think a lot about perspective. When there was a really intense scene of you in Afghanistan or with the angry women whose mother killed herself I was always thinking about you, the person filming, the scene. I know that’s the point of the movie, to think about the cameraman’s perspective, but it really showed me that there is a human on the other side of the lens sacrificing many things in order to get the shot. The act of seeing those intense situations was much more meaningful than just having been told about it. The question it brought up was what’s the line and when has a line been crossed?

Overall, an amazing documentary, I aspire to be as creative as you.

~Grace Veghte

I used to be a computer science major. After switching to FAMS, I have always questioned my decision to leave the diverse and promising CS job market that would await me after college. After seeing KJ, I can honestly say I will never ask myself that question again. She is easily one of the most inspiring people I have ever met. Her story from the Visual workshop about moving to Africa after college with essentially no plans was incredible. I have told myself that I am going to take a similarly brave and ambitious path, but to learn what these risks yielded, shaping her into the incredible film maker she is today, gives me hope for my future. After watching Cameraperson, it quickly became my favorite film. From the most broad perspective, her vignette structure sets the stage for a unique cinematic journey. From the very start of the film, KJ sought to establish her own humanity as she prepared to take the viewer an a journey that examined humanity through love and suffering. Sneezing and pulling grass away from the frame was KJ’s way of introducing herself to her audience. From there, we quickly became immersed in her world and memoir. It is easy to understand the therapeutic component that motived her to make this movie. The stories she has seen and heard are tremendously heavy, filled with the absolute worst side of humanity. The way she managed to convey true evil, by shooting the humanity and individuality of the victims of genocide, while also true love, by sharing her family, is simply mind blowing. To me, Cameraperson is not simply KJ’s memoir, but a physical example of how powerful film is. This film is not just about her life, but instead life in general. It is a call to arms for me-to dare to be as great as KJ is-leaves me reeling with the possibilities of documentary film.