Monthly Archives: September 2006

Live Blogging Monterey Pop Festival

documentary film

I was five when the hippies gathered in San Francisco for the Monterey Pop Festival. I just started watching the film made by D.A. Pennebaker. (It was recommended in the Rosenthal book about making documentaries.) He is known as a pioneer in direct cinema. The Wikipedia article on direct cinema isn’t very good…it takes it awhile to get to the definition and even then it isn’t very good because it’s contrasted with cinema verite: “Direct Cinema, on the other hand, is more strictly observational.” I’ll see what I can track down for a better definition. One point the Wikipedia article makes is that this kind of documentary generates lots of film. Because so much editing is required, the editor is sometimes given co-credit for the film.

I am enjoying the film: great, classic music…the music that I grew up with, listening to on my clock radio, sometimes making tapes of the late-night radio shows with my Radio Shack cassette recorder. I am struck by the diversity of the music. I know I sound like my parents when I write this, but today’s music all seems to sound the same. So far, in this movie, I’ve heard jazz, blues, rock and roll and folk. John Weider of the Animals played violin. And, of course, Pete Townsend of The Who smashed his guitar as the roadies run on stage to try to rescue microphones and other gear.

Random thought: this wouldn’t happen now. Another random thought: in terms of dressing weird, today’s kids ain’t got nothing on the hippies. While I really came of age in the more cynical 70s, at the tail end of the baby boom (in fact, I can be a genx-er if I want to), this is the generation with which I identify. I experienced a few festival concerts but they had been toned down by the 80s when I went, more orderly and organized. I can’t help but wondering where all these people are now? Many of the musicians are still recording.

It occured to me that this is what I will be doing with all my video footage, creating direct cinema. And, for now, I am looking through the documentary, enjoying the movie, immersing myself in the story, rather than thinking too much about documentary film techniques.

GarageBand Screencast Update

adult learning, Screencasts

I posted about my screencasting project that I started last week.

I am ready to declare a final version:  http://www.simplykaren.org/videos/gbscreencast.mov

It is just over 9 megs including the audio, which I managed to get down to 3 megs itself.

The final format for the movie is as follows: H.264, 640X480, with medium-quality AAC

It seems one problem is that SnapZ creates Apple Animation files that get blurry when they are read into iMovie.  Couldn’t figure out a way to change the setting in SnapZ.  Final Cut Pro is probably the answer here as iMovie only imports in certain formats.

And that problem will be solved when my new MacPro arrives!

So, let’s reflect here:

What have I learned?  How to make a small but high quality screencast

How did I learn it?  Trial and error, some reading, some discussion (Troy was the one who told me that iMovie doesn’t import every file format.)

How could I have learned it better?  I could have actually read all the stuff that’s out there about creating screencasts (What is Screencasting? from O’Reilly is particulary detailed) but then the screencast wouldn’t be done, would it?  I did do a little reading about codecs and had experimented with mpeg-4 over the summer so decided to try out H.264.

How could I use what I’ve learned to benefit others?  I am going to be creating a screencast of my Moodle site for the K12 Online Conference in October so my skills will be used to teach about another topic.

Well, It Turns Out That Lonelygirl Really Wasn’t – New York Times

Media, Media Literacy, Movies, Postmodernism

Well, It Turns Out That Lonelygirl Really Wasn’t – New York Times
“They were like the new Marshall McLuhan.”

I missed this one…don’t spend enough time at YouTube, I guess. Anyway, it turns out that the teen who has been videocasting from her laptop is actually a 20-something actress who is videocasting from someone else’s laptop.  The interesting piece of this from a media literacy standpoint is that the audience suspected all along that this wasn’t “real” yet were fascinated by the story as well as the mystery of who she really was.  There is a fine line between fiction and reality these days, isn’t there?

What About the Project?

learning contract

I am working on my learning contract and having the most difficulty with identifying a final project. In his book on creating documentary films, Alan Rosenthal comments, “For me, working in documentary implies a commitment that one wants to change the world for the better. That says it all” (p. xv). Right now, I’m not completely comfortable with that charge. My goals are less lofty.  I have a drawer full of analog and digital video–mostly travel and nature stuff–and I want to do something with it.  I’m not really ready either technically or emotionally to make a documentary film.  I just feel like there’s a lot of ground work to be done.  (I’m also not comfortable with the table format I used for the contract…very constricting to me.)  So I’m just going to write it out;  here’s what I propose to do this semester.

Learn about documentary films:  Rosenthal doesn’t cover the history of documentary films in his book but suggests that it is very important.  I know nothing about it.  Read an article by Eitzen about defining documentary film that helped me see the nuances and details that I should know about.  So, as part of my contract, I propose to learn about documentary films: read Rosenthal’s production book, read (at Rosenthal’s suggestion) Erik Barnouw’s Documentary: A History of The Non-Fiction Film,  watch documentaries recommended by Rosenthal and Barnouw.  I’ll keep track of my learning in this log as well as in my media wiki.

Learning technical skills:  there is some hardware I need to learn to use or to use better (ie, microphones, recorders, digital cameras).  My usual method is to just take them out and use them, but I think I sometimes miss the more subtle details that way.  For instance, putting the lights together and turning them on is easy.  Figuring out how to direct them so they enhance the picture is not so easy.  That’s really the piece I need…not how to use the camera, but how to use the camera to take better video.  This means doing some reading as well as talking to Troy and some of the undergrads at the media center who have had a film class.  I’m going to add a technical section to the media wiki and put in notes about each piece of hardware along with links to resources.  I think it might be useful to others as well as me.  I feel like I need an active piece here. The projects I’m thinking about will use already captured video for the most part.  I enjoy interviewing people so will plan to include some interviews as a precursor for a larger project

The other technical piece is the software: Final Cut Pro studio.  I have a good foundation in iMovie so I think I’ll be able to pick up the software pretty easily.  But like the hardware, the software does more than just digitize.  It can also be used to enhance video, make it better.  I’ve done the FCP tutorial and I can follow the directions, but if I were thrown out on my own, I wouldn’t know when or why to apply color correction.  I plan to read Diane Weyand’s book, and I’ll use FCP for the project…

The project:  here’s where I’ve had the most trouble.  What do I want to do?  Rosenthal says to think about the story you want to tell.  If I’m going to be completely honest, the stories I want to tell are all about me.  We spent a summer following the Lewis & Clark trail and this summer, I began digitzing that analog tape.  There’s some great stuff there and I would like to create a series of short videos called “Roadside America.”  I would use FCP to create a template for the series: titles, credits, etc.  then pull in interesting clips and add narration. Make it a weekly vodcast.  In addition, we have captured some pretty spectacular nature video over the years, and I would like to work with some of that, too.  Maybe a bird watching guide to the Outer Banks and Florida.  I’ve done some of this with iMovie but it’s always quick and dirty, and I’d like to see what I can do if I take the time and use the high end software.  When I post the video, I’ll add notes about what I did technically to create it…what features of FCP I used to edit/enhance.

For a semester, I honestly think this is enough.  But I have the sense that I need a final project.  So, I propose to create an outline/script/storyboard for a longer documentary that would incorporate the learning from the semester.

Disney Does 911

Media, Movies

<DisneyDoes911>

I haven’t seen any of the 9/11-related movies but this one is already generating controversy and is another perfect text to study in a media literacy class. ABC’s movie is a “fictionalized” account of history before 9/11 and evidently seems biased against the Clinton administration. Where’s the line between news and entertainment? Can you create fiction out of history when the main players are still alive and have any reason to stand up and say, “That’s not how it happened?” So, I wonder if this makes people think twice about all historical fiction, especially who is telling the story? Maybe it should even make them think about historical non-fiction 😉

NB: After I posted this, I read an article on defining documentary films by Dirk Eitzen that addresses the very issues at play here.  My notes on the article can be found at the wiki.