Today we went out and filmed a really great interview with the community centre’s manager AU. And now I’m going to reflect the hell out of it.

I will start with what went well. First of all, I am so proud of us for figuring out the equipment. We had on us a SONY X200, a SONY A7, two tripods, a lapel mic, a boom mic, a huge lighting kit, a lighting stand, and reflectors. I am not even going to go in details on how we carried all of that to the community centre- our only team member who owns a car couldn’t make it that day so the three of us took a train and a bus while carrying ten megatons of equipment. And then, we quickly set it all up in a way that it actually worked, and filmed some great footage. Absolute legends. We had a few troubles along the way like we couldn’t fold the light stand for a good 10 minutes and at one point I nearly dropped the camera… But all of those issues for minor at best and we actually got ready very quickly and efficiently.

Secondly, our interviewee was awesome. We had a lot of questions prepared for him, but we actually only had to ask one: “please tell us your name and what you do in the centre?”. After that, AU kept talking for 15 minutes straight answering all of our questions one by one. I had experience interviewing people before, and normally getting them to talk is the hard part.  This time, the hard part was getting him to stop. We also shot a lot of quality B-roll both during the interview and after, and I got some nice shots of AU’s hands as he was speaking- he is really passionate about his job. So, we have tons of great footage and we can even afford to be picky. Yay!

Another aspect that I am really happy about is that we are on the right track. I’ve had experiences when a project was thoroughly planned and prepared but then on the first day of shooting, we realised that it just didn’t work out. I was a bit worried that it would happen this time, but it actually went better than I expected. Moreover, I had my concerns that what we are making is more of a traditional documentary, but now it looks more and more like an open space one. When I was doing week 7 reading and I found these 6 pillars of open documentaries (not sure if I can call is that but English is my second language, bear with me). Now, I think that our project corresponds with almost all of them!

1. It restores human-scaled, localised, social agency in new and unimagined ways. It invites new conversations and connects people.

Our documentary might not be completely unimagined, but it’s different in its own way. Our goal is to get people to see another side to the West and to the immigrants and to tell stories of real-life people. Hopefully, to connect someone in need to the centre.

2. It is a practice that drives people to convene in and pay attention to real places, and to understand together how to reclaim the pervasive social-media environment from global corporatism.

This one is spot on. We want to educate people on that community centre, a real place with real people, and to show a side of life that doesn’t get much representation on media. On the news and on the social media we mostly hear of celebrities, politicians, global news or at least something out of the ordinary. Our society is hooked on the extraordinary, jumping from one extreme to another, but a lot of reality gets lost in this swirl of entertainment. This is what we hope to bring to the world with our documentary. Escape from the big and the loud to the quiet and real.

3. By reaching out to contributors across disciplines and generations, a media project, in multiple versions, can live and evolve through expansive networks, communities and clusters beyond traditional distribution channels.

I am not sure about this one #englishismysecondlanguage. But from what I got from it, our project definitely stands out from traditional distribution channels like TV or social media. It will be screened on a private exhibition and passed on to a museum. And who knows, maybe in 20 years someone will find our project and will want to add on?

4. It is a practice whereby media practitioners and exhibitors become context providers rather than content providers, creating scenarios that facilitate dialogue, participation, collaboration, shared experience and interconnections across boundaries.

I feel like it’s true of our project as well. Our stories are not exceptional or tv-worthy, but they touch on important topics such as community, acceptance, safety, diversity etc. We obviously aren’t going to surprise anyone with unexpected plot twists or CGI fights, but we do hope to get people to reflect on their experiences and attitude towards life.

5. It is a practice grounded in micro-territories.

I’m sorry, I don’t know what it means. #englishismysecondlanguage

6. It is a practice of continual engagement between convener and participant. Practices of collaboration, contingency, horizontality, multiple agency, adaptability, decentralisation, migration across media platforms and through different communities, permeability and mutability are central.

This one is not really about our project, to be honest. Our documentary isn’t too flexible in terms of media platforms and engagement, but it’s definitely something to work on for our next projects.

Now for the bad part. What could be improved? Well, the thing that concerns me the most is constant uncertainty. Will the interviewee be there? Will they not? Are they going to talk to us? Where will we set up? And etc. etc. I am a bit of a control freak when it comes to organisation and I like to know for sure what is happening, when and where. I know that it’s an inevitable part of documentary making but it is incredibly frustrating for me. Second, it’s the challenge that we brought up in our pitch- geographical. 3/4th of us live far from the centre and it is excruciating to carry all the equipment on ourselves. My back is killing me already. So, we definitely need to work out a solution to that because I am not sacrificing my back for an HD (maybe). These are the things I would like to improve. I know it’s not much compared to the ‘good part’ but I feel like everything is coming together really well.

To sum up, I am really hopeful. Our project looks great so far and I couldn’t wish for a better team. Hope to keep up the good work and nail this film!

Works cited:

De Michiel H., Zimmermann, P. (2013). ‘Documentary as an Open Space’, The Documentary Film Book, Palgrave Macmillan. 356-65