Category Archives: Uncategorized

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The Loss We Can Gain Statistics

  1. In the Lehigh Valley, 100,354 tons of wasted food goes to landfills per year.
  2. In the Lehigh Valley, 50,177 tons of wasted food needs to be diverted from landfills to meet the 50% by 2030 goal.
  3. We are now spending a much smaller percentage of our income (9.7%) on food than we did in 1929 (23.4%).
  4. The Lehigh Valley has lost 80% of its farms and 53% of its farmland in the past century.
  5. Based on the average American diet, the Lehigh Valley is only able to produce food for 24% of its current population.
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Rufffff Cut

 

Here is my rough cut. I am thinking about adding a intro title card and some music to it. I was wondering if gradually introducing the music in the beginning would be a good idea? I’m also wondering if I cut the interview too short. I have more footage and could expand it, but thought it would be better if it was shorter. I can also add more b-roll if that is needed. I’m really open for any suggestions.

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please comment on my super duper rough interview cut

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1ZhszJ-tDmM4sFIvstfZsEXSETArvm1e6

With next to no time to shoot b-roll because I had a one hour window with her before she left to screen her film in Pittsburgh, I decided as b-roll I would use archival footage of Hebron, the city where her documentary takes place. Also, the export of this cut removed the sound from the beginning (I think I had one of the audio layers on mute). Let me know your thoughts otherwise, thanks.

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Reflecting on the Individual Interview

I was extremely nervous going into my interview. I had tested all the equipment, made sure it worked and had all my questions written out and ready. Coming into a FAMS class with little experience with professional filming was a little nerve wrecking and having to film alone was scary. I think the workshop we did last monday really helped, because I had the opportunity to interview my subject the Thursday after that class.

I knew my subject well but still was concerned with messing up the interview. In the end, I arrived to the shelter, shot b roll of the dogs and cats and was able to get my interview in front of the lake at the shelter, which led to a beautiful backdrop. What I was most concerned about was messing up the audio, which ended up having no problem. In the end, my issue was the lighting. The interviewee insisted on doing the interview on this picnic table but it ended up casting a dark shadow over her. It wasn’t the worst, but I had to try to lighten the frames during editing. I kind of noticed the darkness on the camera screen but thought it was just my angle. I thought about interrupting the interview to fix the lighting but I thought it would be too disruptive. My subject was an extremely busy woman, who was taking her time to talk to me and it felt wrong to move the entire interview.  Would it have been appropriate to interrupt the interview to fix lighting? I was unsure about the ethics and polite-ness of stopping an interview.

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Newtown

After the showing of Newtown, I can honestly say i was speechless. That was an incredibly impactful documentary and if there had to be a documentary on this topic, this documentary was the way to do it.

One cinematographic element that i found significantly impactful was the breaks to a solid black screen spaced between the interview. I felt like this really added to the impact of the interviewee’s stories. I spoke to Kim after the film to get a more in-depth understanding of why she, and the editor chose to  put in those black screens. She explained to me that it was placed to get a breather from the intensity of the story that was being told. In my experience watching the documentary,  those blanks in the interview allowed me to connect emotionally to the film. It allowed me to actual visualize what the interviewee was describing. Whether it was a tragic or gruesome scene, it brought me into the film.

One comment/question I had for the class would be how you feel about the choice of only choosing three families affected by this tragedy. I was thinking about it after we got out of the film, wondering how the families who stories weren’t told felt. Did those other families feel isolated. Im interested in knowing how others feel about this aspect of the film.

Other than that, I think it was an incredible film and I appreciated how Kim explained how it wasn’t her story, and how she didn’t show the horror scenes that were inevitably produced by the tragedy.