Class Notes: Week 7

  • Landy Elliot
    • Polis @ Duke
    • Candidates Forum at 7 PM – primary – social equity  - October 15th at 8 pm
    • Politics in art – art to use your political vote
  • Frank – Cassilhaus – Click Triangle Photography Festical – clicktrianglephoto.org – Sunday 3-5 PM – curator talk at 7 PM on Sunday – opening on Contec downtown – free open to public on Tuesday night – lots of other photography related things all month
  • Dean Sue – Student Affairs – 
  • Bill Adair – Student Lab – Director of Dewitt School 
  • Fida – Saladelia/Mad Hatter owner – listen to comments, cherish feedback, do the job that she is here for – serve audience well 
    • Partner with Amy on Artstigators – Gator cookies – hand-roll, hand-decorated cookies
    • One thing Amy admires about Fida – possible stories that people connect with – that’s how some stories get told – appreciate Fida’s love of arts – going to Saladelia when Amy was at Duke – art on wall and jazz – local artists on walls
  • Features
    • Gene Dillard – Alex and Chris
      • If you want his address, go talk to him – kind spirit – Old North Durham – Elvin Street – Northgate Park
      • Did a great job of capturing mosaics – people were skeptical about it, but it looked really good. Great close-ups, intricacies, don’t appreciate it until you see tiny pieces he put in one by one
      • Areas of improvement – wide shots, establishing shots were great. Worked in nat sounds.
      • What to improve next – levelling audio, parts that were loud or quiet
      • Nat sound of breaking mirror, first sound byte hooked me
      • Tried to get to open up – but didn’t open up about family, didn’t budge – difficult to get him to go somewhere that he didn’t want to go
      • Moved here for a woman – try and dig deep but would only go into intricate detail about how he made stuff
      • Got a lot more interested – flee family to realize creativity 
      • Way he is talking establishes him as folk hero – story was great 
      • Wanted to see more of how he actually did this to his house – what does he use, what paste, explains all of that in great detail and not as interesting to put in video 
      • Missing a time lapse of something to come together, 
      • Mechanic fixer-upper – other life would be interesting – great follow-up
      • Landy – loved music that was chosen – bopping along and liked it
      • Love the angle of the story – no TV
      • Curious to see if other neighbors want him out of there – positive and quirky story 
      • Neighbor was great – got two neighbors before 
    • Jenny and Wei – Creative Yoga
      • One of the challenges – better job of natural sound – wasn’t comfortable wearing a mic while instructing, would’ve been here but is TA’ing a class
      • Have some of the nat sound in between 
      • Opening sequence put in right mood
      • Low angle, high angle, good foreground, background – took advantage of depth of field
      • People were not incredible at yoga – added to community feel – don’t need to be a huge yogi to come – gave her more personality
      • Paired well with what she way saying
      • Quick, subtle lower third for Laura Ritchie
      • There were only two people doing yoga when they were there – did a good job making it intimate as opposed to empty 
      • Trouble shooting daylight and night – timelapses were great to transition – night shots of Durham – great job creating sense of place
      • Creative way in doing angles/showing time fit the piece and energy well – think about all angles that people could get
      • Sliding shot was nice – b-roll sequence matching action on dolly
      • Big emphasis on community – but maybe talk about other things – first reaction 
      • Would’ve liked to know more about her – as a grad student – talk more about her interest in philosophy – going to one of her classes – seeing her in her element
      • Is there creativity in the yoga itself? Whacky yoga class? Wednesdays from 7-9 PM
      • Frank – specific mandate for pieces
    • Cassilhaus – Melissa and Jillian
      • Spent a lot of time with Frank/Ellen – got to go to house twice, office once – camera filled up twice, didn’t have synced audio and video
        • Three minutes of content – fewer had video that was synced – mostly b-roll in that way
        • Artist in residence – had to work around audio – learned how to use new equipment – no experience with Zoom before
        • Used over-the-shoulder – used iPhones – couldn’t tell – timelapse – set iPhone up – left it there for 30 minutes – can’t tell difference between iPhone and camera – nice to have it as a backup
      • Fake animate text – fun to do 
      • Camera filling up – cleared off cards – two cameras too – run in to issue – card full
      • Titles were large – graphic combining names were good
        • Knight’s Castle
      • Did a great job – sound issues, but first one where there were two people featured – for some challenges in time had. Trying to get to know them as a couple, in relationship to house, relationship to people in apartment – touched upon all of them. 
      • Cat close-up was great
      • Wanted to know more about all of it – did great job keeping focus on Frank – could be developed into a full documentary
      • Film about art – no art in it
      • Music overpowers the voices
    • Tristan and Sophie
      • Could see excitement of magic in space, being an arts entrepreneur – Durham is growing quickly – poses risk to community with arts
      • Last shot – him doing same thing from inside and outside – matching action with b-roll – same movement – inside and outside
      • Great footage, great composition, nice positive – nice tension and threat – didn’t get tired of it – story took left turn and pulled further in
      • Theater reveal at end – what is going on – payoff at end was nice
      • Brandon – man looking at mask – leaving as show is going on – good sequence of b-roll
      • How did she react to magic/spark? Put two separate parts together and it worked – feel free to go back at end of different section – tell me more. Okay to do it at the end.
      • Hearing her talk about magic was amazing – she believes in it – contrast of losing magic – contrast with empty lot
      • Making time – 4-9 PM shooting – work together in pairs to be there
      • A lot of these are processes – want to see evolution – takes amount of time – collaborate on that!
      • Leave a camera set up depending on the situation – as long as you have more than 4 gb
      • Landy – filming of the exhibits and people gave a great sense of community – felt very comfortable and wanted to be part of community – put it in slow-motion – looked good
      • Same kind of panning shots – too liberal of an angle – the eye doesn’t do full 180 sweep too much – video being subjective – taste palates – good to hear
      • Guys glasses kept reflecting – ask them to take them off – works with natural lighting – challenging – TV friendly glasses – special lenses
      • More relationship of context with Carack of guy in red sweatshirt – b-roll of guy in red sweatshirt being in space – 
      • Mic is in the way in the shot – put it under their shirt – that is the Poetry Fox 
    • Lifekit/ The Makery - Cassidy and Cara 
      • Guys were hard to get through to at first – pitched idea – said they were into marketing themselves – evolution of brand – show us their products
      • Took an hour for them to open up 
      • Sound engineering was tough – one guy would talk, pause for 10 seconds, then finish sentence 
      • Go back in and edit what they were saying to get more content into a smaller amount of time. Had to cut out all the uh and ums. Some of the b-roll disappeared – don’t know where it went.
      • Portrayed them in a positive light – not self-promotional – seemed pretty natural and normal 
      • Good sound bites on being entrepreneurial was great
      • Kool-aid popsicle sound byte was cool
      • Tongue-in-cheek portrayal – Stay Humble, but then they are very cocky/confident – all these innate gifts to share – stay humble contradiction
      • One take-away about entrepreneurship – there’s always a way to succeed – strange ways in starting, used to steal things, create capital – made it work and still making it work even if money isn’t there – spoke up about selling out of dorm room
      • Soundbyte at end – entrepreneur in Durham – culture keeps them going -  return isn’t always monetary – sometimes smiles from young lady – so many different returns that come from entrepreneurs
    • High Strung - Brandon and Nathan
      • Entire soundtrack is all nat sound from jam and guitar – jam band, two guitar players, got it all from a lav mic – this is good
      • Jam was from zoom dual heads – eliminated most of the noise – quality of guitar was nice – whole soundtrack was purely from shoots
      • Pick topic that has some great nat sound – Zoom is great mic to use
      • Experiential interview was AWESOME
      • Rack focuses across jam sessions and instruments
      • Nat sound under exterior 
      • Hear more about struggle and challenges – right off east campus – big guitar center near northgate
      • What does High Strung offer – didn’t seem concerned – market on music rentals – didn’t fit into piece – getting instruments into hands of viewer 
      • Didn’t feel like marketing, forced or official 
      • Positive story – to Amy’s point – dig to see if there is tension there – look for tension
      • How does guitar shop at northgate going to affect business? Don’t open in it
      • I’m Lee from High Strung – worked well – lose the lower third on that, lower third on Matt was too small
      • Get people to introduce themselves at the front and back 
      • Liked quirkiness in one shot of old lady listening to violin – headphones plugged in – picking it 
      • Thought the interview with Matt was awesome – see close-up of hands
      • More balance with music and dialogue 
      • Shift from violins to guitar was awesome and represented shop well
      • Image matching sound was on point
      • Maybe have more establishing shots on High Strung’s place in Durham as this small place of music