See What I'm Saying

taxes and the beauty of b-roll

Well, I've gotten better—I do actually have binders with dividers and receipts under each category, but today is the first day I'm going THROUGH the receipts; you know what's expensive? Coffee. This is a super-low budget film, but I'm thinking maybe a quarter of our budget is going into coffee, and feeding Jose of course. ;) Just kidding.

In case you're wondering, I'm still logging. My favorite, most recent moment on tape was a frame from some B-Roll.  B-Roll is a term used to describe footage that gives you a sense of place, but isn't a part of the primary action. Like driving down the street in New Orleans or, if I had money, a helicopter shot of any city—that would be B-Roll. Or in this case of the footage I'm talking about—I was looking at some B-Roll of the outside of the Library of Congress where Henry was playing November 1st, opening for Allen Toussaint. The Library was showcasing original compositions by Jelly Roll Morton who had also played on the same stage as Henry; since Jelly Roll was a piano player from New Orleans, like Henry and Allen, it all seemed to make sense.

Anyway, for that shoot day, I was working with a veteran shooter named Michael Ford, an extremely cool
talented guy, who's been doing docs for 30 odd years. The day we were shooting Henry was running long on rehearsal so Michael had to wait outside of the Library for awhile in order to film Henry walking to his hotel (where we would do our interview).  So while he was waiting, Michael got some really pretty footage of the outside of the Library of Congress at sunset.  The frame that got me excited (I don't know if this makes me a video/photo appreciation geek or what) was a neat moment where Michael was focused on the Poseidon statue that is at street level in front of the Library. It takes up about half the frame—a very muscle-y, forged from stone, stern looking Poseidon and then in the background, softly filling out the rest of the frame, was a D.C. man in a business suit, balding, with a cell phone—I just loved the contrast of god and man...a very modern man.

Perhaps I've been logging too much? I couldn't agree more. ;)

Logging Hell/Channeling Lucien

I am at home, at my desk in room 1 of our one-bedroom apartment, in serious tape-logging hell.

Part of the editing process is looking at everything you've shot and reporting (or logging) everything, EVERYTHING—that means transcribing every interview word for word, noticing shot elements in a scene when they change, moving from a close-up, medium shot or wide shot for example, and then every few minutes listing time-code. So important, soooooo tedious, but worth it when you hear/see something that really strikes you.

Such as this thing I just heard Lucien say—we're at his home, in this room he uses to practice music in; it's just covered with instruments, family photos and clutter, and Lucien's on a couch (medium shot ;)), next to an amp tuning his bass and talking about different things, when he says:

"...the way I was taught, you always have goals, throw them all the way up to the space shuttle and go get ‘em."

I LOVVVVVVVE that, perhaps because I'm feeling about a space flight away from achieving my goals. Or wondering what were my goals??  Glad I have them written out, it does get hazy when I'm logging. Ok, off to channel my inner Lucien.