Follow Up to Preproduction for Salad Trials

This summer, I shot six salad stories in locations all over Israel—the Northern Negev, the Lower Galilee, and Tel Aviv.  As I reached out to various individuals to ask them participate, my pool of possible subjects changed; one person was away for the summer and another preferred not to participate. I found the experience challenging but I learned a lot.  As I encountered obstacles and faced problems, I consulted with and was guided by my mentor, Michal Goldman.

Michal appropriately summarized the goal for this film: “A salad is a perfect metaphor for the film you’re setting out to make: it’s a mixing of all kinds of different ingredients that still hold their taste and yet, if the salad is well-made, end up making something all-of-a-piece.” She provided me with a useful approach to the interviews. She advised me to “stay close to the salad” with questions that have interesting implications but address the process of making a salad. For example, “Who taught you how to make the salad?” and “Where did you buy the ingredients?”

Here are short descriptions and screen shots of the individuals I filmed:

Merav—a secular Jewish woman living in Kiryat Tivon who works as a manager at IBM in Haifa;

Hadas—a modern Orthodox Jewish woman from a Yemenite and Iranian background, living in Mitzpeh Hoshaya, a religious community in the Lower Galilee;

Hannah—a Jewish artist living in the heart of Tel Aviv, who emigrated from Germany with her parents and sister in 1933;

Hillel—a retired Jewish Kibbutznik, living on Galon, a secular Israeli kibbutz in the Northern Negev;

Amira—a Muslim Israeli woman living in the town of Kefar Romat-Haib in the Lower Galilee;

and Abby—an Israeli-American food columnist and author (Breaking Bread in the Galilee), living in the moshav (settlement) Alon Abba in the Lower Galilee.

The project was a wonderful opportunity to learn how to use my fairly new Canon XA10. Unfortunately the learning curve impeded the shooting quality even though I was somewhat familiar with the camera, had read the manual, and had played around with the settings.  I made adjustments to the f-stop at each location but was often battling bright sunlight streaming into a house. During one shoot, everything was set up and the salad was being prepared when I realized that there was something off with the camera settings—each time my subject transferred cut vegetables to a bowl, the motion was blurred. I tried troubleshooting on the spot. Only later did I discover that I had inadvertently reset the camera when I was adjusting the exposure (the disadvantage of a touch screen!). I decided to shoot at 60i to achieve a television cooking show feel over a filmic look, and I used an external Rode NT3 mic to optimize sound. We turned off air conditioners and fans, in spite of the extreme heat. I was equipped with a small LED light attached to the camera, which created some depth. I realize now that there were inconsistencies to my thought processes: on the one hand I chose a reality TV show look in my camera settings, which ideally uses a three-point lighting set up, on the other hand, I was striving for a verité feel that uses natural light. The latter is obviously easier with the absence of a crew. When I shot at midday, it was very difficult to capture the landscape of the surrounding area because of the bright sunlight and haze.

Shot structure proved to be another challenge. I did try to manipulate the camera and zoom in when possible. Without a second camera, however, it was difficult to shoot cutaways and close ups. The absence of a second camera diminished my ability to properly capture the salad preparation process. Ideally, I’d like to have someone else on camera shooting from the moment we enter the location because so many important nuggets are lost when the camera is not rolling.

I also struggled with composition and framing. In some cases, because of lighting and camera angle issues, the individuals did not prepare the salads where they normally do in their kitchens. As part of the set up, I asked the subjects lay out the ingredients in advance before shooting began.

The most difficult challenge was connecting with an Israeli (or Palestinian) Arab. I realized that it was important to include Arab perspectives after reviewing the critiques of my Iran doc from the residency. I had to step out of my comfort zone and start approaching friends to arrange for me to meet someone. Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting from dawn until dusk, proved to be another challenge because it fell during most of my stay and only ended a week before my departure. I learned that it would be too dangerous for me to go to the Palestinian village near Tel Aviv to meet with a woman who was reputed to be a good cook, and the only way to interview her would be for her to come to my friend’s. I was surprised to learn that my liberal Kibbutznik friends weren’t connected to any Arabs. After talking through options, my good friend and author Sagi Melamed (Son of My Land) connected me with his friend Zachy, who arranged for me to film his wife Amira.

I struggled between controlling the content of the interviews and letting the subjects take the lead. I developed a set of questions in consultation with Michal, but found it difficult to juggle my roles as a director of photography and producer. Some talked more than others and one person shared her personal history in great detail. Three subjects chose to make a chopped salad of tomatoes and cucumbers—the most popular salad in the country. In my blog post on July 19, I wrote that some call this “Israeli salad” and others “Arab salad.” Michal commented that “in Israel/Palestine even salad is politicized” and this is worth exploring. Merav who made such a salad called it “salad.” When I tried to push her to label it, she stuck to calling it “salad.”

While I learned a lot, my overall feeling about the experience of shooting the salad stories was that the planning and filming processes were too rushed and intermingled. Before my next visit, I’d like to have a longer and stronger preproduction process based on a thorough examination of the footage. I’ll definitely use the footage I have to cut something together—possibly a fundraising trailer, maybe something more. I’m meeting with Michal this week to plan the next step.