IHWACHENG 的所有相片

Flickr 上 IHWACHENG 的所有相片。

Dong Kim screening response: Sherman's March - and the beauty of documentary filmmaking!

Sherman’s March was a really fun documentary about a journey into the filmmaker’s real life. The film is very self-reflexive, as we constantly hear the voice of the filmmaker, him planning the documentary, the hidden variables of romance, his change of mind, and so on. The filmmaker walks the historical path of Sherman’s march in the Civil War era, but it is strangely about his own minds and feelings. The subject matter of the documentary will be ‘the improbablility of life, such as meeting a girl who was accidentally filmed the other day in a blind date.
Like many things in our lives, filmming documentary is all about trying to controll the unpredictable situation. Planning a self-documentary itself has a flaw that something totally unexpected may happen and change the direction of the documentary. Watching this film while I was planning my documentary about this Homeless newsletter gave me a lot of things to think about. Everything seemed perfect until I brought the camera out and find out that Edge wasn’t out there that day. Sometimes, I had to miss a golden moment because I was in the middle of changing the battery. This unpredictability can be a drawback of documentary filmmaking, but the filmmaker of Sherman’s March makes it a very interestng subject matter.
I found it most amusing and interesting at the same time whenever there is a motel scene with the filmmaker by himself talking to the camera. I guess people have to face their true self when they are bythemselves, especially at nighttime. When the actress girl leaves for her audition, the filmmaker is left alone in a double sweet room, saying something like ‘I don’t know where this documentary is going now.’ This somewhat miserable moment(laugh) in documentary fimmaking was something that I could totally understand and sympathize. It is every documentary filmmaker’s common sense of being lost, and through the honest narration, the film makes the viewers feel that eventually the film is about themselves and their lives. The honesty of the filmmaker makes it very interesting and focused. I think ‘self’ is always a good subject. Everyone is different, but that is why we get to imagine ourselves in that situation and have fun.
By the way, I came to know that the filmmaker got married with one of the girls he met in the movie. What a wonderful uncertainty are we living in!

Donghwan Kim screenign response: Burma VJ

Burma VJ was a very stunning piece of documentary, that it was full of action and harsh images, and the flow of the documentary, as the filmmaker VJs the footages coming from Burma, is very refreshing.
The shaky visuals and the un-tamed audio of heavy breathing of the cameraman and street noise in this documentary throws away the common voyeuristic point of view in many other documentaries, and immediately reveals that the filmmaker and the cameraperson are actually ‘part of’ the situation. The opening was very suspenseful, as the footages of very normal day of a Burma street, where people buy and sell things, go to work like usual, are shown with the filmmaker’s voice that says ‘something was going on in the streets, within the people.’ The memory of brutal suppression by the government in 1988 people of Burma’s fight for democracy keeps recurring, adding the suspense. It is a constant battle between the hope of ‘this time it will be better’ and the fear of massacre that already happened once.
The fear is unfiltered through the lens, as we see the cameraman quickly hide the camera when he sees a policeman. However, the voice says, ‘the heart is beating too fast, but we keep on shooting.’ The Burmese monks’ march begins and the viewpoint is right in the middle of the crowd. The audience immediately walks and feels the atmosphere of the Burmese street as the cameraman bravely walks inside the march. This is a different kind of documentary, that Burma VJ is about something the filmmaker belongs to and fights for. It is such a different perspective that keeps the viewers from staying in the position of tourists to a foreign world. It urges emotional reaction to the viewers, and unlike most of the other documentaries which try to demand something to the viewer, such as Michael Moore’s documentaries or Chicago 10, the insider’s point of view becomes instantly very persuasive without many words.
The failure of the Burmese people’s fight for democracy is very heartbreaking. The brutal violence pictured in the footages is followed by the silence of the filmmaker in a shadow(when he waits for the cameraman to answer the phone). This was a very powerful moment of sadness and anger. The filmmaker throughout the film is hidden in a shade, and as well as the sense of danger the filmmaker is in, the figures in shadows shows that the film is not about making heroes, but about letting the people know of the outrageous situations in Burma.

Donghwan Kim Screening response: Daughter from Danang

Daughter from Danag is about the family reunion taking place after about fourty years of separation, the clash between two different cultures, and the drama about the Asian American identity. The Vietnamese mother had to let go of her little daughter to a U.S. program called “Operation Babylift”, which adopts the Vietnames children to an American family in order to protect them, as well as trying to make the war look more humane to the U.S. public. Heidi, the daughter is half American, because her father was an American GI. Thus, with her Caucasian looks, she adapted to the new environment in Tennesse, grew up, and got married to a white man.
However, she always had a desire to meet with her real parents, and she contacts many agencies to find the mother in Vietnam. The film starts as Heidi knows where her mother and the Vietnamese family is. She talks about the pressure of facing the ‘real mother,’ talks about the experience of being adapted to a white family, how she felt about her adopted mother. Then she goes to Vietnam in order to meet her biological family.
There are very dramatic and emotional moments, especially when the mother instantly notices Heidi and cries on the sight of her daughter. A few days pass in a dream-like happiness of reunion. However, as time goes, Heidi slowly realizes the size of the gap between the life and culture of her mother and American culture. The tension grows, as smothering heat and humidity of Vietnam annoys Heidi more and more. Finally, the big blow, hits her as her mother and her biological brothers and sisters ask her for financially aiding the family and take care of her old mother. For Vietnamese people, it is most natural for a grown up daughter to participate in taking care of her old parents, but Heidi cannot stand the pressure. A hysteria takes over the happiness, and Heidi leaves Vietnam with a mixed feeling.
This ending was very stunning to me. Everthing had to be an emotional extreme when the two separated worlds meet each other, and the misunderstanding was inevitable. The film tells that the War that separated the mother and daughter was too overwhelming that its effect lingered on aftere 30 years. Also, it provided a very subjective narration of an Asian American’s identity as being under the umbrella of American culture while still wanting to find her origin. The drama, the tension, the introspection of one’s identity.. It is a good film to watch.

Self-Evaluation

So, the semester has come to an end, and here are my final thoughts.

First off, I want to congratulate everyone for finishing the semester and their respective documentaries! I have to say Dong and Jim, I think both of your docs came a long way and were really cool to watch at the end of the semester. Kelly, your piece is beautiful and a really successful doc. And Brett and Lacie, your piece looks incredibly polished, and I think you could find a home for it in broadcast television or on the Web; it's a really successful piece as well.

As for my own project, I have to say I'm pretty happy with it. Michelle and I had a lot of bad luck this semester what with the internet mishap and pissing off our first couple, then finding a second couple who eventually disappeared so close to the end of the semester. Then, the Wiener Dog races happened so late in the semester that our final project was very rushed. Still, we managed to put something together in the last two weeks of school. I think the final piece is entertaining and tells a good story, start to finish. It makes me laugh, and it seems like other people enjoyed it, so that's probably the best thing you can say about a doc like this one. I think the use of epic, melodramatic music really does a lot for the piece, and following Ari and Sandy from start to finish really ties the piece together where it could otherwise be very chaotic.

I do think the doc is a little long, and the ending was rushed and very hurriedly put together. I would like to have spent more time focusing on the good things the festival does for Buda, and there's nothing in there about the Wiener Dog rescue organizations, which I think is an important thing to get across about the festival. The only "message" our piece could really offer at this point is that the people who come to this event have a great attitude and don't easily get disappointed about losing, but I think the festival has more to say about community involvement, giving back to the community, charity and being a good, considerate, generous and loving pet owner. Those things fell by the wayside in order to tell a complete narrative, and I think further edits of the piece could keep the whole story in place while finding room for those other elements without making the final piece half an hour long.

In the future, if I had to cover an event like this, I think I would spend more time dealing with the mic setup for capturing audio so that it's easier to edit the main subject's dialogue separate from the ambient noise. I'd also spend more time up front getting to know the festival organizers, getting interviews with them ahead of time, and making myself and the crew known to every employee so there isn't any confusion about who we are or why we are there on the day of shooting. That gave us a little trouble with access to the racetrack; it would have given us more opportunities if we'd done a little bit more homework ahead of time. I'd also try to include my project partner more often, as I assume this is the aspect of this process that created some tension and made the final editing process very one-sided.

Overall, I think Of Wieners & Losers is a fun little festival piece that tells a fun, humorous and complete narrative; it's a bit rushed at parts and relies on some cliches to get the story across, but I think it provides just enough entertainment to keep the viewer watching while providing some insight into a world many people may know nothing about.

Studs Terkel

STUDS TERKEL is about a man who has made an iconic history at the Chicago radio station WFMT where he interviewed many important players in decades of American Culture. He's interview Marlon Brando, Woody Allen, John Sayles, etc. The film is a portrait about him, and though it has current interviews with Studs and his peers, it focuses on an historical perspective of his life. The film is essentially a homage to Sterkel as he passed away in 2008.



The documentary is pretty straight-laced in terms of its structure and style by creating as holistic of a picture as they could of a figure like Studs. So, what makes this documentary particularly straight-laced? Well first and foremost, the filmmakers were able to get primary interviews from Studs himself. As a matter of fact, he died short after their very last interview for the film. Arguably, what is more important however is all of the archived footage of Studs interacting with his interviews. All of the interviews he did with WFMT were also archived on tape and used sparingly to add interesting moments in his history. A lot of the tapes were actually turned into books. And finally, there were very many interviews with her peers and contemporaries. The obvious usage of these interviews really helped to illustrate the life and actions Studs was revered for.

One of the most valuable things in a documentary of this nature was to get the voice of the subject in current times, to give a sense of current relevance. I was reminded by Mimi Pickering's documentary in progress we watched earlier in the semester about an older woman who had led many protests and was an activist for rights of the disadvantaged for most of her adult life. These documentaries seemed to be made at the exact right time for their subjects as their stories culminate and their lives end, though not their legacy mind you!

Many considered him the master of America's oral history. And, Anna Deavere Smith states that "he's been absorbing and telling the American story for a very, very long time" and he did that like no else before or after.

Manufactured Landscapes

I really do watch a lot of documentaries on my own time, and lately have been pretty satisfied with the diverse styles and topics of docs I've been watching. One of my favorites this semester was called Manufactured Landscapes, directed by Jennifer Baichwal. It is based on the photography of Edward Burtynsky who is known for his imagery of what he's coined "manufactured landscapes", factories, dumps, wastelands of human created trash and terrain of disregarded technology. The film follows Burtynsky on some of his trips to capture his photos, and is able to give context to many of his works. The photo above is a still from the film and is of Chinese children sitting on piles of plastic and metal. The circular disks are the plastic circles with the numbers 0-9 from old school rotary dial telephones - manufactured in China, then dumped in China when there's no where for excess or the waste to go.

The film plays like a combination of a documentary and a photo essay. I started in photography, so I've started really liking these hybrid films. Recently seeing some of the work of Donna DeCesare and having photojournalism students in our class has really gotten me to refocus on photography, and making sure that each frame I film has the potential to stand alone as a photograph.

A good example of this hybrid, but also how film can show things and create emotions that photos can't, is the intro to Manufactured Landscapes, which is posted below. The intro is a solid EIGHT MINUTE tracking shot inside a Chinese factory. The first time I watched it, halfway through the shot I called my friend to tell them to watch this movie. As each minute ticks by, you think SURELY this shot is about to end...end....end. After the shot it shows a still photo from above with the title. Not quite the same. A single photograph could never capture the extreme scale of that factory, while also letting the viewer experience the sounds, energy, bustle, and personality of the people as they work as this amazing shot does.

Towards the end of the film it begins to look more at factories in depth, working conditions, and how people are affected. It is a very oddly gorgeous film, as Burtynsky is finding an ironic beauty in the destruction and mess that we've made all over the world. Slowly paced, but definitely worth checking out.