I really enjoyed watching “Cameraperson.” I think it was beautifully filmed and I love how Kirsten Johnson decided to cut the scenes and spread it out. For example, she mentions in the first image that what we are about to see are all the images that left her wondering but she does a great job with that to leave to audience wondering as well. The first segment I think of when I think of that is when she films the boxer. The first scene we see with him is him getting prepared but then it is cut and we do not see more. As the audience, all we want is to see what happens next, if he wins or not but Kirsten Johnson comes back to that much later in her film, therefore leaving the audience wondering for a while what might happen. Even with other scenes, it sometimes take a little while to fully understand what is going on in the frame or more what it means. For example, when she is in Afghanistan, it takes a while for us to be introduced to the fact that this is not some random landscape but where the soldiers are, in the prison. I think it makes it much more powerful that we find out about it a little bit later than right away when we are introduced to the scene. Overall, I really enjoyed the film and how it was created: the filmmaker did not think it needed a voice over and yet we understand everything she feels in those moments.

“My work can change the way my subject is perceived by the people who surround him/her and can impact reputation or safety for years into the future.”

I thought this line was very interesting because it reminded me of the assignment we had to do in class with the different statements and how ethical or unethical those statements were, compared with one another. One of the statements during that assignment was if it is ethical to change what someone says or edit it in a certain way that does not sound like what the person originally said. Although that statement and the one Kirsten Johnson makes are not the same, they do relate and bring up the idea that the way someone is can be altered on a video or can be seen differently by different people. It brings up the idea that it kind of is inevitable that this might happen. The filmmaker is well aware that this might happen but at the same time she will not stop her artistic process because a vision of someone might be altered. The statement we had talked about in class was different because it talked about it in a way where the filmmaker knew very well that the way he or she was editing the video was changing what the person was truly saying and therefore purposely changing the way they appear but I like the way Kirsten Johnson mentions it. Her statement also does not necessarily imply that the person will automatically be perceived negatively but it just means that a way someone is seen can be altered. I have only seen the first ten minutes of “Cameraperson” in class but from what I have seen none of the people filmed are shown in a negative light. Yes, the way they appear might be very different from how they appear to people around them without a camera but the change does not have to be negative. This statement is also important because it brings up the idea that films do impact people, have a purpose, can make people change their minds and that they’re also here for filmmakers to take risks and be “bold” so it makes sense that someone’s reputation can be impacted or changed and that the effect will hopefully carry on for many years.

You normally don’t hear a lot of filmmakers owning up to the fact that this might happen and I like that Kirsten Johnson is completely open about it and in her entire director’s statement she does not apologize at all for what might go wrong or “errors” if you can even call them that. She is very well aware and does not make excuses for the decisions she makes. For example, she mentions as well that she follows stories that the director does not want to follow, therefore making decisions on her own and deciding what is worth filming.

“Criminal at the age of 5”

The reason why I think “Criminal at the age of 5” is interesting is because it talks about a topic that is very relevant today and it either affects us or people around us. I think it would be interesting to get interviews with students and how differently they’re dealing with it. The idea touches on a such important topic that it would be interesting to explore it more.

“The loss we can gain” and “Urban desert”

As an environmental studies major as well, and the EVST capstone this semester is focusing on food and farms, I am very interested in being part of a film project that focuses on food as well. The EVST capstone will not be a film project but having the ability to do a film/documentary through the documentary class would be great. I don’t know about the food scarcity in Bethlehem so it would be a good opportunity to learn about it more. In terms of “The loss we can gain” this project would also be very interesting. I don’t think as students who go to Lafayette we are really confronted with food hunger in general so this would be an opportunity to understand what goes on around us, in the towns around us. Food waste is a big problem and definitely happens in all colleges and so it would be interesting to talk about it and maybe really show the contrast between certain places who waste a good amount of food and other places on the other hand who do not have enough food available.

Group: Lisa, Andrea, Shreya.

Audio of bad interview: We were sitting in Farinon and asked Andrea to respond to the question of how she feels about the DACA situation, how she is dealing with it. Since there were a lot of people around us and music was playing in the background, there is a lot of background noise. We recorded with an iphone:

Audio of human world: someone eating an apple

Of non-human world: sound of stepping on leaves and the wind

Of made world: we thought of made world in terms of technology so we recorded the sound of the microwave

I did my instagram video based on the pages 27/29 of the book when the author talks about how a good story is well told with the 3 categories of: Who the story is about; What the protagonist wants and the difficulty and tangibility of what the person wants. My video is about a friend (who the story is about) who is studying for the LSAT because she wants a good score and to get into a good Law School (what the protagonists wants) as well as showing how she googles the top Law schools in the United States because those schools are very competitive (difficulty but tangible).

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I did the framing assignment on the quad. What I found interesting was that it really forces you to focus on one specific part of where you are and it definitely did not feel very comfortable to not be able to look around you to what was going on everywhere, outside the frame. People in the frame walking were just there for a couple of seconds whereas normally you could see a person walking for one minute at least. It was hard at first to really just look in the frame and not have your eyes wander outside the frame. This exercise really made me think about the idea that filmmakers really think about what they want within the frame and that nothing is really not thought through. While sitting on the quad, I realized that certain areas around the quad were more interesting than others because it was either a prettier scenery or just more people walking in front of a certain area, therefore having more things happening. Therefore, like filmmakers, based on those differences I chose what I wanted in the frame and what I thought looked better to observe. I tested out different angles and came to the conclusion that having the frame show the entrance of farinon was the most interesting, with people coming in and out of the frame from every angle.

I am an environmental studies and film and media studies double major. Therefore, I have  approached subjects and issues with two different ways. I am always interested when the two topics come together, for example I love watching environmental documentaries and how documentaries can be very effective to convey certain environmental issues but also how it might not be the answer for all environmental issues. With that said, even if I like those movies a lot, that does not mean that I necessarily am very interested in creating environmental documentaries as much as I am interested in watching them and learning from them. I think partially it comes with the huge responsibility it can have to make a film about a subject that is so hard to still fully comprehend or that people have so many different point of views on the issue. With that in mind, I do not think I would not try (as I have never tried making a documentary based on a certain aspect of environmental issues so maybe I would actually enjoy creating one) but I think the main worry would be to pick the right environmental issue, something that would not be too complex. If the issue chosen is too complex it would be harder to unfold it while still being in college and not having as much time as we would always hope for.

I have never created what is considered a “conventional” documentary film but as we talked about in class, the way I mostly document things is through my phone by taking pictures or taking videos. I mostly document places I go that seem aesthetically pleasing, that I find interesting or of places I have never been. For example when I was abroad the past semester I took pictures of all the places I went to in the different countries I visited and in that sense I documented those places in order to show to friends and family. I also take pictures of things I see in the street that I find funny, amusing to show later to people too. I think sometimes I find myself trying to take pictures of too many things so that I don’t forget anything that I see but this leads to me thinking more about just the idea that I have the memory rather than how the picture or video looks, not necessarily thinking if this is the best angle or shot. Therefore, when I look back at pictures and videos I am often not very pleased with how it looks and in the end it always looks prettier how I remember it in my mind from when I saw it in person rather than how it looks on my phone.