I think this past Monday will remain as one of my most memorable days in my life. I also think that this one blog post will not do justice to my experience with Kirsten Johnson. I feel very lucky that she chose to add some more sparkle to our Lafayette film community. Last Sunday, I remember bumping into any friend and telling them how they should attend the Cameraperson screen downtown. I was extremely excited after KJ’s visit because as some of you may know, Cameraperson was the only random documentary I chose to watch one sad Saturday night. When I think back to that night, I remember that Prof Andy had emailed me saying that I could be part of this documentary filmmaking class. I knew I hadn’t watched many documentaries and wondered what I’d have to add to this class, as having some back knowledge of watching documentaries could help. This summer Saturday night, I was feeling low because I wasn’t enjoying my internship at the bank. Movies and TV shows helped me get through that boring month. I decided to look up, “best movies directed by women” and a page on IndieWire popped up (http://www.indiewire.com/2017/05/best-films-directed-by-women-21st-century-1201830875/). That is the actual page. KJ’s film was ranked at number 23 and it was also a documentary. It was perfect! So there I was, tucked in bed at 3am, with my brains, eyes, and ears about to be blown off by this piece. And it was…

Women In Film Class: I was lucky enough to be in Professor Sikand’s Women in Film class where Kirsten made her first appearance. She led our class in a very unique way by asking us to go around and speak about a time when we felt apart, separate, or different from our family. The way she tackled this was by picking us randomly, not from the start or the end of the table where each student would anticipate when they’d be picked to speak. We weren’t given a minute of heads up time to gather our thoughts as the person before us was concluding theirs. The beauty of her approach forced us to actually listen to our peers and to also think on our toes. This was a powerful listening activity. The concept of thinking on our toes was related to cinema, for instance, when we watch certain movies or hear stories from people we interview, things take a different turn and can tend to throw us off. This was the effect she wanted to leave on us. Moving on, Kirsten said that if we ask X where they’re from, it wouldn’t affect them. But, if we ask Y about where they’re from, they might get pissed. She says that as a questioner, our questions come from a place, a point of view, experience, or lack of experience. We could be hurting someone’s feeling or putting them on defense with our first question to a person. Kirsten emphasized that this is how we learn. Body language and a person’s tone were also two key factors that she and the camera focuses on during interviews. When someone told a story about their childhood, she immediately noticed how the person gripped their hands and could tell how uncomfortable they were talking about this experience. In Cameraperson, we notice how Kirsten focuses on hands, in order to show emotions that words cannot. Another classmate shared an intimate story about her family, and Kirsten noticed the crack in her voice, the sound of shame. She emphasized on how we all can read things from people’s bodies because that is how emotions are expressed. The camera has the ability of looking into people’s private business and seeing things that people will not share. These small moments happen and they pass, but it is the camera that holds on to them and makes them true. When interviewing, “dig deeper,” she says. Relating to Cameraperson, Kirsten did dig deeper, especially  when she rushes to film her emotional friend who was coping with her mother’s death. Essentially, we became Kirsten’s interviewees and she showed us how she is able to read people through these small yet important details.

Visual workshop + Q&A : A comment that stuck out to me was how KJ said that documentaries reduce one person to one part of the story/a category/a victim/a narrative. If we interview Jane on sexual abuse, to us we only identify Jane to that one topic she’s talking about. She is nothing more to us because nothing more is told about her. As a documentarian, it is a challenge for us to portray someone for the person they really are. We are easily able to be unethical and disrespectful to our interviewee in post, but it the director’s choice to determine how the interviewee is portrayed.

Another thing she said a few times was, “own your advantages, use your sexuality.” Kirsten shared her personal story about how her height was always critiqued on as she was growing up. But, in her career, she used her height to intimidate those who underestimated her. Her comment reminded of the alumni panel lunch when Ayesha said that she uses her sweet smile and soft voice to be able to get an interview with some government official. Ayesha said that someone else in her workplace tried to get an interview but their efforts were in vain. This was rewarding and a positive way of using her sexuality to her advantage. It can be intimidating to be a woman in the film/media industry, but this piece of advice stood out to me from both talks.

She also emphasized on how our stories don’t need to be a narrative. Her documentary wasn’t three act structure, it was put together the way she and her editor thought would do justice to her 25 years of filming. It will allow the audience to feel things, rather than be told. I later had asked KJ a question: It surely takes time for your interviewee to get comfortable with you and the camera. When you initially talk to your interviewee, do you ask them the same questions like you do in front of the camera or do you ask them random stuff to get to know them? She stared at me and said, it’s different with every person. There is no formula and you have to trust your gut. Every experience is different, but make sure to get to know your interviewee.

In my WIF class, I heard a lot personal stories. KJ said that we don’t even realize how good we’ve had it. Everything is part of a system, it is connected to history and to a system that has been deeply unfair. We all experience different things. After watching Cameraperson, I felt grateful for what I have. After hearing my peers open up to KJ in our class safe space, I felt even more grateful. I still have a lot more to share about my experience of just being around her, but I think I learned so much about why being a documentarian, a filmmaker, a scholar, and just being human a human who listens is so important. I still remember how excited I was at this hour last week, unable to sleep because of my excitement to see KJ. I was still unable to sleep after seeing her on Monday night, and she has left these sparkles of excitement in me. Below is KJ and I( awkwardly holding back my tears).

Another takeaway from the Kirsten Johnson Q&A is her response to the question that I asked her, “At what point does the one behind the camera have to stop filming and act when there’s (potential) danger about to happen to a subject.” KJ first responds by reminding me that just be being behind the camera that one is already acting. The cameraperson is already intervening and changing the dynamic of things occurring in front of the camera. She spoke about this being a dilemma for ethical people and that one has to negotiate these “second-to-second basis” of what/when to film. She says that we can’t know certain things; therefore, we must constantly seek to understand the people and the environment that we’re in.

What are the ethics of surveillance? And who is being surveyed? These are some questions I was left with after watching Kirsten Johnson’s film “The Above”. A second viewing was helpful; at the end KJ included the U.S. Army 1st Brigade After Action Report: they recommended keeping a surveillance blimp flown above Kabul at all times, even if the camera was broken. People act different when they believe they’re being watched. KJ’s use of this statement only at the end of the film reminded me of something she said to us last week. In her filmmaking, she said she doesn’t like telling the audience what to think/feel. Rather, she hopes they learn how to watch a film during the viewing. I felt she employed that technique with “The Above”. I discovered how I felt watching the surveillance blimp as KJ showed me just how many places it reached and just how mundane its footage must be. Mostly people living their ordinary lives; or at least as ordinary as possible under constant surveillance. It almost reminds me of 1984– Big Brother is always watching. And that mantra is most effective as a ever-present feeling: something that doesn’t necessarily need technological follow-through. KJ allowed viewers of “The Above” to relate to that feeling by putting us mostly in a position of looking up at the balloon, on the ground with the people of Kabul. Going a step further, she showed us what it would look like in suburban America. Asking us to fully relate to a feeling of being watched.

KJ’s short doc, “The Above,” was interesting in how most of the film’s coverage included a shot of the blimp in nearly every scene. My eyes were drawn to the white surveillance balloon; thus fascinating me to want to find out more about the unknown. The doc presents us with a series of shots taking from different parts of Kabul. At first some might think that they’re just being shown a group of images, but rather each shot setup is revealing information about the surveillance balloon. I like the cinematographic choices when instead of focusing on the actual surveillance balloon, we are shown actual (playful) balloons. I was forced to find a connection between the shots of the surveillance balloon and the playful balloons. When I saw the shot of the green balloon floating around towards the end of the doc, it started to symbolize freedom and happiness. Contrasting that to the surveillance balloon, there is a level of uneasiness that the people are feeling because they feel as though they are being watched.

One of the key takeaways that I got from the Kirsten’s Q&A is about how to gain trust : One way that KJ is able to gain the trust of the people in her documentary is she gets close to and “see” the “specific” individual. She states, “It doesn’t matter what kind of camera you are using, it matters how you are present with people.” KJ says that camera work is about moving around and that depending on where the cameraperson positions his/herself to his subjects will determine the relationship between them. She moves around with the camera because “there is a compression of time”; thus, she wants those in front of it to know that she is present.

I cannot imagine what the people in Kabul must be feeling. Obviously, the U.S. Military have their reasons for such actions but I feel as though this is unnecessary. There is no sense of privacy, whatsoever. Every moment of every hour of every day, essentially, the locals are being watched. Unfortunately, we do not know what the actual capabilities are but I can only imagine that it is for spying purposes.

Something else I found interesting was the statement about the obligations. “Fly the Persistent Ground Surveillance System as much as possible, even if the camera systems/feed is broken.” The camera blimp, besides the U.S. Military’s purpose is to act as a scare. “Insurgents and Local Nationals alike believe the blimp can see everything and will act differently when it is up.” The local people have no idea what is going on and for all they know, their every move and sound is under surveillance.

I am not exactly keen on what going on in the world in terms of politics so I’m not sure why the military is doing such activities. I’m sure politics is playing a huge role it’s interesting to see the extent of invasiveness.

In Kirsten Johnson’s short film The Above, viewers are able to identify different view points of a blimp. All of the information that was explained in the short film was new to me, so it was very interesting to learn something that I wouldn’t usually learn about before. I believe the message in this documentary is that this blimp tells us so much information about the world. It can fly over many different countries, but it still has the same meaning. I really enjoyed the different shots that she took of the blimp. Seeing it at different angles was extremely interesting, because sometimes I had to look in the frame to see where the blimp actually was. I am left with a sad feeling after watching this, because this blimp can really show us how this world could possibly change for the worse.

In KJ’s documentary, The Above she plays with the parallels of seeing and being seen. In order to achieve this idea, throughout the short film, KJ tries to show the similarities and difference between her camera and the blimp. By having the blimp always in the shot, whether as the focal point or indiscreetly in the back, she shows the contrast between invisibility and visibility. Just like her and her camera while she is filming she is never fully invisible like the blimp. She conveys this by always having the blimp in the shot showing that while some may forget that it is there, it still sees what is going on. Unlike her where people can tell her not to film them, they can’t-do that with the blimp. The blimp is always in the sky. That is the biggest difference that KJ tries to make. While she may also be considered a foreign object people still have agency over her in the sense that they can ask her to stop filming or ask her what she is doing. I also thought it was interesting how she captures the blimp in many different angles showing the many different perceptions and opinions of the blimp. I thought it was odd because KJ is appalled by this foreign blimp in Afghanistan but yet she parallels herself to it. What is her main goal with this idea? Is it for herself, a reminder that her work, directly and indirectly, effects people?

Whether it’s in Kabul, Afghanistan or Aberdeen, Maryland, there are military surveillance balloon floats in both places. The sudden cuts that Kirsten Johnson placed in her short documentary The Above showed comparisons and helped to relay the point she was trying to make.

With this documentary, Kirsten made me feel as if I was always being watched, whether at church, in my neighborhood, or even on the other side of the world, there will always be this greater force watching me. The only words that were spoken in the film was about God, who is also known as this higher power always watching our actions. The film gave me an eerie feeling, and no matter what I do to try and get away from being watched, I can’t escape it.

I noticed a little clip in this film on the ferris wheel that was a moment inserted into Cameraperson. It was intriguing how it Cameraperson Kirsten clipped the images together to show a whole different meaning than she did in this film. This just shows that the way you edit your footage can really change what you are trying to say.

The style of KJ’s “The Above” is contradictory to her film “Cameraperson” in terms of style, sound, and movement. There were several still shots, done purposely, and a significantly minimal amount of dialogue, with several shots done in silence.

The only dialogue included in the film was the necessary dialogue – such as the man speaking about God – whereas the dialogue and sounds in “Cameraperson” carried the film, giving it life and evoking emotion.

The lack of sound in this film is meant to make a statement. It elicits an uneasy response, as we view different shots and angles of this mysterious figure in the sky that people are conscious of, yet do not seem to question. Watching this twice helped to reveal the message even more, as I did not even see the blimp in some of the shots in the first viewing. With her shots of the blimp in different areas in front of different places, Johnson eludes to the idea that blimp is “all-knowing” and everywhere.

We are not left with any closure at the end of this film, and I think that is done on purpose as well. Johnson wants the viewers to be left feeling uneasy and thinking about this figure in the sky and its potential capabilities and impacts.