I had a really hard time cutting down my interview. At first, the rough cut was around 5 to 6 minutes and it really took me awhile to get it down to around 2 to 3 minutes. I always find it hard to cut certain moments of an interview because I always think that whatever the interviewee is saying is interesting. I also know the interviewee personally so it made even harder to cut down because I really felt that everything she was saying was interesting. Also thinking back to the exercise we had done at the beginning of the semester with the statements and whether those certain things were ethical or not, I struggled with the idea that if I cut certain parts of what Azing was saying then maybe I was changing what she was saying or changing what her point of view was or even what her story was.

Since last week, we were able to get two interviews from Sarah Edmonds (farm manager at LaFarm) and Jen Giovanniello (president of LafCo). Sarah’s interview is only audio but it will be a great addition with the b-roll we already have and for Jen we were able to get an interview on camera.

Sarah’s interview:

Jen’s interview (video is better quality when it’s not on youtube):

Rought cut of my interview:

Adapting to a new culture is never easy, especially if it does not happen at a very young age. Even though it is not easy, if the person is able to adapt, it can bring so many positive outcomes by understanding two completely different cultures and being able to appreciate them in different ways. This is the story of someone who was able to embrace both cultures and countries, while both being very different.

Azing Chin moved to the United States when she was 11 years old.  Stories of people adapting to a new culture are common now but not necessarily here at Lafayette. While those stories are common, we often hear stories of people coming from Europe for example. While moving from Europe to the United States is a change, it is not a drastic change to say that the person’s world changes completely and is overwhelmed. Azing did not move from Europe. She was born in Burma and lived in a town called Hakha, with a population of around 35,000 people. We do not often hear stories about people from Burma, a country with a rich and complex history. The two countries are very different in many aspects that adapting to a new culture and way of living can never be easy. I personally had to adapt to a new culture as well but I came from France therefore it was not that hard. I did not struggle much because even living in the United States I went to a french school and therefore had an easier way of adapting. On the other hand, Azing had to go right away to an american school without speaking any word of English. I think it would be interesting to really explore how she was able to adapt so well without losing touch of the culture she had grown up in.

Through this interview, my goal is to bring light to both cultures and what both have to offer and to show how someone is able to embrace cultures who are very different and not forgetting one of them. I also think that it would be interesting to bring light to a country we might not know a lot about and the best way is through someone who was born there and lived there. By asking questions such as Azing’s favorite memory about growing up in Burma and what a typical day is in Burma compared to the United States, I hope those questions lead to understanding how she sees both cultures and what they have to offer. I also hope that through those questions we understand how she came to adapt to a new shocking culture. Through b-roll of pictures with her family in the United States and in Burma, we might learn that is through her family that she is able to still keep close to the culture she was born in.

I thought what the chapter had to say about research was interesting and important. I think it is a step we never put enough importance, especially for documentaries. We often think of what would be the best shot and such but if a lot of research is put before then the interviewer will most likely ask the most interesting questions and then get the most interesting answers which will always be compelling to the audience, whether the background is the best it could be or not. I often find myself thinking of shots even before being done with the research and it was good to read about to be reminded to not forget this crucial step.

I also like when the chapter mentions “don’t be afraid to ask basic questions.” I think that is important because sometimes we want to come up with the most interesting questions right off the bat but maybe asking simple questions at the beginning will first make the interviewee more comfortable and more likely to lead them to interesting comments and stories.

I really enjoyed watching the different episodes of “the F-word.” I like that it is divided in around 10 minutes episodes and that it is linear, not just focusing on one aspect of the adoption process per episode. We clearly understand that it is a struggle for the couple to adopt a child from foster care and I found it very powerful because we never see them give up and if anything as time goes by they are even more committed to having a child; they are always willing to negotiate and adapt to the situations they are facing. Even though we see a struggle in adopting, I think it is still great for the documentary to include happy stories as well, of the couple visiting other couples who have gone through the same process and it ended in positive outcomes. It plays the role of giving them hope in some way, that what they are going through is worth it. The most powerful/interesting scenes in my opinion is when we really get insights on what the two women think about all the different stepbacks and positive outcomes that are thrown out to them, when they talk about what they’re most excited for and what they fear the most. The videos touch on the idea that was mentioned in the essay “Mirrors without memories”: showing a truth about a subject we might not know about. It really felt like that when watching the episodes. We might think we know a little bit about the process of adopting but actually following a couple’s story is much more powerful and it is though that way that we really learn about a truth we actually knew nothing about. Overall, the episodes not only let us follow a story of a couple but also educates us.

I thought the author’s insight on “The thin blue line” were interesting. In general, I thought what she mentioned about documentary was interesting as well. One of the most compelling points is this idea of contradictions of the moving image: on one side there is not just one truth to what the image is showing/representing but on the other side documentaries have the power to show a truth the audience did not know about before.

Talking specifically about “The thin blue line,” the essay brings important insight on how even though it is a documentary it still has a specific story and the docu-auteur purposely reveals certain things at certain times, that in a way it is “staged.” The author mentions one moment that I thought was really interesting in the documentary and that kind of shifts our entire view of the story: when we see Harris’ hands for the first when he scratches his head and we realize that he is handcuffed. In this moment we realize that he is in prison as well but we know that he accused Adams of the murder so it makes us rethink the entire story right away because we know that Adams was accused by Harris but if Harris is in jail as well we question if he came forward at some point or is in jail for some reason. The tiny detail of him just scratching his head reveals so much more to the story line.

Another interesting insight is when the author of the essay mentions that documentaries who are more powerful do not set out to just follow one truth or go for a single target which is why “The thin blue line” works so well. The director originally was not looking to just show Adam’s innocence but was more interested in the story of the psychiatrist whose testimony is kind of the reason Adams was on death row and the psychiatrist was known for sending multiple people to the death sentence. Therefore, the director may have wanted to follow that story at first but ended up not just focusing on this point. He still mentions it in the documentary but he does not follow just one target in order to make the story more powerful.

I thought the documentary was very interesting. Even though the reenacted scenes might sometimes appear a little exaggerated in the acting or obviously not real, they are helpful to really vision how the murder happened. I really liked the way the two subjects were introduced because we do not know at first who might be guilty and who is not and having the two subjects being actually interviewed and explain what happened from their perspectives makes it more powerful. The last scene is one of my favorites, where all is filmed is the tape recorder on the table and Harris is being interviewed for one last time. He says that he feels bad for Adams and basically explains how Adams was innocent. If that last interview had been introduced at the beginning of the film it wouldn’t have made the same effect but the fact that it is the last piece of information we get makes us feel even more the injustice that may have happened.

I had never heard of this murder so after finishing the film, I directly looked online to see if Randall Dale Adams was still alive and if he had spent more time in prison. What came up was that a little after the documentary, he was released from prison. Granted, it was not just because this documentary had come out but it did bring light to the matter and creating it the way it was with interviews from him and Harris really made a compelling argument for his innocence, speaking to the idea that documentaries are powerful tools and can make a difference.

After seeing it just once, the feeling you are left with mostly is confusion. After watching it for a second the feeling is more uneasiness. Kirsten Johnson presents a very good parallel between the situation in Kabul and in Maryland. We would not think of making this parallel and yet she makes it and represents it for us in a way that makes it easier to understand. If just reading about it in a text, we might not understand well the comparison but having it on film with the exact same object and similar images, it works really well. When we see the blimp in Kabul, in some shots we almost forget that it is there because it is far in the background. By having much further away in the background makes it looks like it is almost normal that it is there and that it is not bothering anyone. We are also not told what its capacities are because it is classified so it gives us the feeling of “if we don’t know what it can do then we are not as afraid.” When going to the blimp in Maryland, we already have more information. One of the most powerful images from the film is when the blimp is in the background and then the american flag comes in the foreground, it tells it all about the meaning of it without using any words. It clearly shows us the origins of those devices, when the foreground is the church as well. One question I have when I watched it twice was: Why would they want to fly the surveillance system as much as possible if the camera is broken when it is in Afghanistan?

->is it to make people think there is always something/someone watching?

Kirsten Johnson is always able to create a meaningful piece and point of view without speaking at all, which makes it even more important that the audience comes to the conclusions she is putting in front of us without saying anything.