December 1, 2013
I left the June residency flooded with ideas,
challenges, and doubts. The most poignant critiques of my Iran documentary
sample left me wondering if the AIB visual arts MFA was the program for me: How
does my documentary relate to the art discourse in the AIB MFA Program? Can one
categorize conventional documentary style as art? How can the MFA program serve
me as a documentary filmmaker? I was faced with the challenge of breaking out
of my professional habit of doing film tributes and having this style permeate
all of my work. Through studying films, reading texts, writing about the
language of film, analyzing footage, and experimenting with my video camera, I
have gained a beginning understanding of how to infuse my video projects with
creativity and artistry.
Summer 2013
The day after the residency, I left for Israel for
six weeks with ideas for a new project and copious residency notes to review,
process, and synthesize. I had with me a library of books on filmmaking in
addition to a collection of films to watch, recommended to me by my advisor,
artist and MFA program director Judith Barry. Michal Goldman, an established
documentary filmmaker, was confirmed as my mentor a couple of weeks into my
stay.
As I had in prior years, I purchased tickets to a
selection of films at The Jerusalem Film Festival. To borrow Michal Goldman’s
metaphor, the festival was truly a feast with an extensive menu of items from
which to choose. The Festival paid tribute to exiled Iranian filmmaker
Mohsen Makhmalbaf by showing three of his films, Salaam Cinema (1995), Gabbeh
(1996), and his latest film, The Gardener
(2012). He was present for two of the screenings and participated in Q &
As, sharing his influences and motivations behind the films. His words and work
deeply impacted me, especially his film Gabbeh,
about an Iranian nomadic tribe of carpet weavers. In Gabbeh,
Makhmalbaf uses vivid colors of the carpets, tribal dress, and landscape to
contrast with black, the predominant color in post-revolutionary Iran. He also
weaves in the lyrical Iranian poetry of Hafez and Rumi. All of his films are a
combination of documentary and narrative, and he uses ordinary people as actors
because they have “fresh life in their face[s].” The film opened a window for
me into alternative, symbolic ways of telling a story. I was deeply inspired by
his objective as a filmmaker of striving for peace, friendship, and human
dignity through art.
With this
inspiration, I began hashing out a new idea that had been percolating in my
mind, focused on exploring the diverse religious, cultural, and socio-economic
make up of Israeli society. In Israel, Muslims, Jews and Christians; religious
and secular Jews; and Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews live together yet maintain
their identities. “Salatim,” the Hebrew word for salads, are commonly served at
almost every meal in Israel, including breakfast. Preparing, serving and eating
“Salatim” is a cultural phenomenon that crosses all of Israel’s divides. I
decided to film Israelis from different backgrounds making salads, the salad
being a metaphor for the tossed salad of Israeli society. Would I, like
Makhmalbaf, find a way to bridge differences through this common peaceful activity?
The
experience of shooting “Salad Stories” highlighted several professional
challenges for me. Filmmakers can wear different hats: producer, director,
director of photography, editor, and/or writer. While I feel comfortable
wearing many of these hats, I often feel intimidated by the more technical role
of photography. In 2012, I purchased my first professional video camera, the
Canon XA10, which I’ve been determined to learn how to use. This project gave
me the opportunity to develop and expand my camera, sound and lighting
skills—but not without challenges. For example, when filming Hillel, a secular
Israeli Kibbutznik who makes traditional Israeli salad of finely chopped
tomatoes and cucumbers, I accidently changed a setting on the camera, which caused
motion blur every time he moved his hand. Also, the face of Hadas, a modern Orthodox Jewish
woman who makes a pickled vegetable salad, was not
well-lit because I didn’t have an adequate lighting system and the natural
light was insufficient. Fortunately, Michal connected me with several online
forums for the Canon XA10, and put me in touch with a well-established
cinematographer, Boyd Estus.
Through my
friends and connections in Israel, I lined up participants representing many
different slices of Israeli society. Finding an Israeli Arab to participate,
however, was difficult for several reasons. In all the times I had visited and
lived in Israel, I had not connected with Arab Israelis. I assumed that my
secular, left-wing friends would have Arab friends, but this was not so. Also,
most of my stay fell during Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting from dusk
until dawn, which prohibited my ability to set anything up during this time. If
this film was to appeal to a broad audience, I could not ignore this important
segment of Israeli society. By not presenting a balanced picture, I would be
putting an elephant in the room. It was a religious Zionist friend, Sagi, who
connected me with Zachy and his wife Amira. Amira graciously allowed me to film
her preparing a colorful “salat Aravi” of chopped cucumbers, tomatoes, cilantro
and parsley. I felt as though we forged a bond that will be long-lasting
This
summer, I also began exploring the language of film. I watched many Alfred
Hitchcock films, Russian Ark and other
films recommended by Judith, and started reading the reference books I had
brought with me. I was beginning a process of research that would inform my
academic and studio work throughout the semester.
Towards
the end of the summer, I did my first exercise assigned by Judith: recutting a
Hollywood film to create a new story, different dialogue, and restructured
shots. This
exercise proved to be quite challenging. The version I ended up with does tell
a different story, in spite of unavoidable continuity issues. I learned a lot
about shot structure, like shot-reverse-shot, and the importance of having the
necessary shots to tell a good story.
I also completed a research paper where I analyzed
the elements of mise-en-scène--setting, lighting, costumes, and acting-- using
examples from the films I had been watching and the resources I had been
reading. The knowledge I gained would later help me analyze the “Salad Story”
footage I had shot this summer. Most importantly, analyzing mise-en-scène and the creative process involved in it
helped me gain an appreciation of filmmaking as an art form.
September 2013
By the time I had my first meeting with Michal in
September, I was feeling overwhelmed because I still had to do several video
exercises to learn the language of film and I didn’t know how to begin. Michal
immediately allayed my concerns by suggesting that I do exercises that would
help me in my documentary projects. For example, she suggested I do a
mise-en-scène exercise to analyze my “Salad Stories” footage and a long take of
Sharona, a character in my Iran documentary, as she moves through an
environment that is important to her, where she’s thinking her own
thoughts.
We also began discussing an approach to my Iran
documentary footage, the film’s point of view, and my voice in the film. Michal
explained her process of selecting characters for her films. A character must
be alive on screen and have good storytelling ability. Michal emphasized the
importance of analyzing my interview footage to determine which characters are
engaging. I shouldn’t choose the material because the characters state
interesting facts; facts can always be presented through narration or
inter-titles.
For my second exercise, I did one long take without
cutting, where I followed Sharona, a character in my Iran documentary,
gardening, and then added a voiceover in post production about her memories of
her family’s garden in Kerman. I researched steadying options for the camera,
and purchased the Opteka Steadyvid Pro Video Stabilizer system. I’m still
mastering how to achieve static and dynamic balance using the system, but it
definitely helped smooth out the movement of the camera as I followed Sharona.
For the mise-en-scène exercise, I
cut together segments of my “Salad Story” footage, to illustrate the four
elements of setting, lighting, costumes, and characters, interweaving stills
from well-known Food Network cooking shows as a basis for comparison.
At first, I was baffled by the concept of Point of
View (POV), and not understanding it fully, I tried to use my existing footage
to cut together an exercise to illustrate this. I started researching the
concept, which would later be developed into my final semester paper, and
realized that I really didn’t have any POV shots from my “Salad Stories”
footage to use. Stumbling on a
description of POV narration in Sheila Curran Bernard’s book, Documentary Storytelling, I decided to
write and record a first-person narration about the process I engaged in to
select characters for “Salad Stories.” which I then superimposed over segments
of the footage.
This month I researched and wrote a paper comparing
the more conventional editing style of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds with the innovative editing style of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless, examining editing terms like
“continuity editing,” “match on action,” and the “jump cut.” Through
researching and writing this paper, I learned the terminology for editing
techniques, and most importantly, that taking risks and breaking conventions in
the editing room can yield extraordinary results.
Finally, I began sitting in on Sunanda Sanyal’s
course, “Issues in Art History and Visual Culture,” which focused on the
relationship between art and society, exploring how art develops meaning and
communicates ideas within our society and how institutions shape our attitudes
about aesthetic value and self-expression, among many other topics. I began to
gain a deeper understanding of the importance of context and discourse in art
history.
October 2013
In my meeting with Michal this month, we reviewed the
three video exercises I had worked on. She loved the feeling of warmth and
intimacy of the long take I did of Sharona gardening. She taught me that I
should be directing my character as she says the audio, and find ways to make
it sound less formal. She instructed me not to zoom, rather move with my
character as though it’s a dance between two people. Judith suggested I do more
analysis on the long take regarding framing my shots and sent me a link to an online
article in The Daily Beast with clips
of famous long takes. The long take in
4 Months,
3 Weeks, and 2 Days gave me the idea
of doing the same type of shot in my Iran documentary where some of the family
members sit around a table eating Persian food while discussing their memories
from Kerman. When I showed the long take to Sharona, she felt self-conscious
about how she looked because her shirt was too revealing. While she’s
comfortable with me showing the exercise in the January residency, she prefers
that I not leave it on my blog. I decided I would film different long take of
Sharona at a later date.
Michal felt the mise-en-scène exercise showed an
understanding of the concept since I analyzed wide frames from the “Salad
Stories” shoots. Michal did suggest an alternative way of showing mise-en-scène
by organizing it by character and not element.
As far as the point of view exercise, Michal felt
that the voiceover I did was not personal enough and she had meant for me to do
an exercise on POV shot structure. She gave an example of Sharona dressing her
daughter, where the audience sees her hands, as her daughter looks up at her
and looks into the camera lens.
After my meeting with Michal, I redid the POV
exercise filming Sharona making Persian rice, showing the entire process from
her perspective with over the shoulder shots. I also did another long take of
Sharona at a farmer’s market with a voiceover about her experiences at the
Bazaar in Kerman. Michal gave me an additional assignment: to review all of my
Iran documentary interview footage and make a timeline of selects of only the
material that’s “alive” and “engaging.” “Interesting” didn’t matter because
that could always be told through narration. This proved to be quite
challenging because I struggled to define “alive” and “engaging.” I also had
difficulty limiting the selects reel to one hour by “being cruel and honest
about what’s worth using” (Michal).
The paper I worked on this month was fittingly about
POV, and in it I explored POV narration and camera shots. I also discussed the
new technologies that are enabling filmmakers to depict POV in innovative ways.
I had been impacted by another film I saw this summer at the Jerusalem Film
Festival, Leviathan, which used GoPro
cameras as an experiment in POV. Judith emphasized that I need to figure out my
own perspective in my stories, which has been my focus as I worked on a
treatment for my Iran documentary. I’m also interested understanding further
Judith’s idea that I experiment with using shot structure as the narrator’s
voice and conceive of shots alongside how I would use narration.
In Sunanda’s course, I enjoyed the classes on
representation and the colonial discourse and representation and race in
America. These two classes in particular fed my interest in analyzing and
confronting social and political issues in society.
November 2013
Michal and I reviewed the selects reel of my Iran doc
that I had put together, and in the process I learned about framing interviews,
evaluating characters, and culling themes. Michal brought up two important
points: the interviews showed a subjective version of history and I must either
somehow acknowledge this subjectivity or include a collection of viewpoints
that can present itself as a comprehensive telling; and characters should tell
us their personal stories while experts should present the history. My final
assignment is to write a treatment for my Iran doc and construct a 20-minute
timeline of the most compelling material that works emotionally. Based on the
footage I shot to date, I could take the film in one of two directions; I could
make a historical film about the Jews of Iran at the time of the Islamic
Revolution; or a film about the Mizrahi family’s personal story of exodus
around the Revolution. I am pursuing the latter and now have a new working
title, “The Mizrahis.” I’ve been researching the art of writing treatments and
found the online video with filmmaker Nina Rosenblum on “How to Write A
Treatment” particularly useful.
Michal recommended that I see three films in the
Spotlight on North Africa series at the Boston Jewish Film Festival, which
would illustrate three different approaches to making a film about Jewish
community in the Middle East: Tinghir-Jerusalem,
Echoes from the Mellah about cultural memory of the Berber Jews
of Morocco, El Gusto about a small
orchestra of Jews and Muslims connected by their history, and Jews of Egypt, a broad depiction of an
exiled Jewish community.
In Sunanda’s course this month, we
saw the film Photo Wallahs (1992) by ethnographic filmmakers David and Judith MacDougall, where they
explore the meanings of photography in a hill station in the Himalayan
foothills of northern India. The film was an excellent example of direct cinema
and highlighted for me our present-day need for instant gratification and
immediate information—I kept waiting for subtitles or narration and felt
somewhat lost without it. This film, together with the films Verena Paravel and
Lucien Castaing-Taylor’s Leviathan and
Chris Marker’s Three Cheers for the Whale
that I had also seen this semester, stirred an interest in cultural
anthropological filmmaking that I’d like to explore further in coming
semesters.
Planning for Next Semester
For my studio work, I’d like to cut together an 18-minute
short of “Salad Stories” to assess the footage and figure out the next steps
for this film. In addition, for “The Mizrahis,” I’d like to reshoot some
interview footage in a more casual, conversational style, and shoot long takes
of the family gathering together and reliving past memories or engaging in
activities with voiceover reflections. I would also like to explore Judith’s
suggestion of using shot structure as a form of narration. All this would
involve further developing my camera and editing skills. I plan to take the
documentary camera one-week course at Mass Art in January with Michael Sheridan
(after the AIB residency) in addition to experimenting on my own.
For my academic work, I’d like to continue studying
the language of film and explore how this can impact my studio work. I’d also
like to study and experiment with the use of music in filmmaking. Additionally,
I’d like to research cross-cultural filmmaking, specifically the work of Lucien
Castaing-Taylor and David MacDougal. Continuing to watch and deconstruct
classic narrative films and documentaries will further inform my studio and
academic practice.
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