Norma Salvador has been in the nursing industry for over 20 years. From her confrontation with death and the possible future of nursing; she shares the vulnerable human condition that nurses balance with on a personal and professional standard.

A Sony X70 and lapel microphone were used for the interview while a Canon 7D  was used for filming the b-roll footage.

Edit 1 

Edit 1 for Standard of Care was the longest and most gruelling edit of them all if I were to be completely honest. Condensing and cutting away 15 minutes’ worth of footage, especially most of the ‘um’s’ and ‘uh’s’ into just over 2 minutes took way longer than expected. The interview itself is cut down into a progression that concludes with her sounding advice to other promising nursing students.

In the beginning, the viewers are confronted with a story about how she experienced the death of her first patient – at this stage the viewer knows nothing about this woman and are immediately hooked with the shock of the taboo subject of death. Combined with this opening is a b-roll of a lowering heart beat monitor followed by a woman setting up an IV without her face showing and then cuts to a doll lying down on a hospital bed from the corner of a hospital window. As she introduces herself, the mystery is unveiled and humanises Norma to the viewer as a nursing facilitator who has been in the industry for over 20 years.

As she continues to talk about this relationship between patients and their families with herself, the viewer is given a glimpse of Norma at a lab demonstration of what occurs when checking for a patients vitality levels and to a short montage of what occurs when resuscitation is needed.

During her explanation of technology on the nursing industry, I decided to focus the interview entirely on her so the viewer can be more invested in this future that could potentially affect them as future patients.

Her final words are straightforward in that nursing is not for everyone as it is a passion and is then matched with a b-roll of her current position as a nursing facilitator. Her passion and hard work has led her to teach about her passion.

Re-watching this as a YouTube video, I noticed that there were a lot of cuts that didn’t match the background music, but managed to keep up with the pace of Norma’s fastening responses. Although it juxtaposes the pace of Norma’s responses, the background music complimented the tone of the piece well and managed to not outshine the b-roll in any way.

Edit 2 

Unlike the first one, the editing process was not so lengthy. However, the challenging part was to incorporate a different focal point within the interview. I noticed that the interview itself is quite dense and deep for a viewer to digest and understand, so I managed to cut it down to by about 10-30 seconds to get straight to Norma’s point without any rambling or repetition.

In saying so, it is an interview on YouTube that if a viewer were to miss a point she makes, then they’re able to fast-forward or rewind as many times as they wish. Through the use of b-roll’s I decided to focus on visual representations to provide association to such an intense topic.

As Norma recounts her first encounter with death, a montage occurs. A close up of her clenching hands rubbing her wedding rings, a close-up of her eyes blinking immediately cuts to a birds-eye view of the city to set her location and also represent the fragility of life.

A b-roll is featured again at the explanation of how nurses support their patients and families throughout the emotional preparation of a patient’s death. However, the b-roll features a compilation of plants and flowers that are featured throughout Norma’s office environment as a reminder to the audience that even the nurses are even affected just as much from a personal and professional level throughout the heavy process that reminders of hope is uplifted throughout the office space.

The final b-roll sequence showcases a montage between Norma working as a registered nurse to working as a nursing facilitator to represent how Norma worked hard as a nurse to provide that standard of care to her various patients’ while also teaching her knowledge and expertise to the next nursing generation embarking that oath to provide high standards of care. Furthermore, she mentions the importance of how theory knowledge translates into real-life practice – something that still continues to abide by as a teacher.

Edit 3

It was difficult to not being able to film Norma teaching a class but then realise it was unnecessary within the context of the interview.  This third edit incorporates elements from the first and second edits after re-watching and nit-picking each section within them. I managed to create a hybrid, and honestly, a better rough cut of the interview. This third edit definitely encapsulates Norma’s passion and challenges she faces as a professional that inevitably affects her on a personal level.

I decided to utilise the shorter cut of the interview while her passion for nursing is at the forefront. A short montage introduces the interview to somewhat recreate a semi-flashback of the death of her first patient with the blinking of her eyes, followed by an image of a cemetery.

In this version, a b-roll is incorporated during her explanation of how technology affects nurses in the future. This is visualised through found footage of the Vietnam War nurses transitioned to footage of Norma setting up an IV. This demonstrates how technology has changed over the years but the empathy of good nurses has never hindered.

Similarly to the second edit, the importance of human emotions in treating patients is emphasised through the compilation of plants within the office area as Norma appears to concentrate on continuing with her paperwork.

To conclude the video, Norma during the interview appears as if she is answering the viewer on a personal level and acknowledging the importance of sticking to your morals and values to provide the best standard of care for the patient’s dignity and for their loved ones.

“To gain our full humanity, blind people and sighted people need to see each other” – John M. Hull

Notes on Blindness is a 2016 documentary film by director’s Peter Middleton and James Spinney about theologian and writer John M. Hull who became blind after enduring decades of deteriorating vision.

The documentary incorporates a mix of interview recordings and personal recordings from Hull himself that the actors would lip sync to that it’s hard for the audience to distinguish apart. Unlike the previous documentaries we’ve seen, Notes on Blindness relies on digital media as the basis of creating an immersive experience into his life in living with his loss of sight. In Ohad Landesman chapter in Studies in Documentary Film, “digital technology, often perceived as complicating evidential claims about the representation of the world, has been playing a significant role lately in formulating new aesthetic grounds for the hybridity between fact and fiction in cinema”.

Not only is the film visually stunning with such colour and grace, but Middleton and Spinney ensure that their film is maximising its accessibility to almost everyone. The heightened sound throughout the sequences such as rain and wind against the grains of grass, and even the feature of the film within a VR simulation allows us to understand the purpose of the film in breaking the stigma that surrounds disability.

Although it’s quite a thought provoking with a heavy subject matter, the film straddles this line of fiction and fact with this collaboration and subverting these conventions of documentary. It’s an example that “contemporary documentaries… [are] pressing harder on the thin line between fiction and fact in an ongoing effort to redefine the genre’s aesthetic and ethical doctrines” (Landesman, 2008, pp. 34), and therefore engaging the audience into what is becoming a constant evolution and bending of a progressive genre.

References:

Landesman, O. (2008), “In and out of this world: digital video and the aesthetics of realism in the new hybrid documentary”, Studies in Documentary Film, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 33-45.

I don’t know what is happening to me right now, but all I know is that I’m bed-ridden with a nasty cold during pre-flu season. Other than the Melbourne weather, I could blame this cold as a result of some slightly stressful technical issues while filming and editing assignment 2.

1. A corrupted compact flash-drive card

In a way, I’m thankful that this did happen at the right moment. I managed to back-up my Canon 7D footage that I was hoping to use for the interview, however, Rohan strongly recommended the use of the Sony X70 video camera. As soon as I wanted to do a re-shoot of Norma’s interview, the Canon 7D compact flash-card corrupted (confirming this occurrence after running through all the camera shops along Elizabeth St.) and it was definitely a sign from the universe saying to re-shoot the interview with a proper video camera. Schedule was then delayed as there was a shortage of Sony X70’s. However, I was much more pleased with the outcome of the footage on the Sony X70. You could say it was some blessing in disguise.

2. Lapel mic and H4n

The annoying part was after the interview I decided to re-watch the footage onto my laptop using VLC and the sound wasn’t working!! Out of frustration, I decided to bolt to back to RMIT to collect the H4n recorder and redo the interview with a different backdrop.

Little did I know when I started to edit the interview, the lapel mic audio actually worked! I honestly preferred her answers in this version but the backdrop of the final interview was a lot more pleasant in white balance and rule of thirds composition. In a way, the running around was actually worth it!

3. Random Red Frames during post-production

For some reason, red frames would creep in out of nowhere within each footage. A low RAM on my laptop is a high possibility but another reason could be the cache. This tutorial helped me eliminate most of the red frames on the timeline:

Not to fret though, the red frames don’t appear on the exported footage.

“I didn’t want to be a woman photographer. That would limit me. I wanted to be a photographer who was a woman, with all the world open to my camera.”

Courtesy of: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/7b/72/06/7b7206d11c910ff020714baf3ec3fbc1.jpg

Eve Arnold never photographed someone with a wide lense as she considered it inhumane and unethical – that vow alone just shows how much of a respected photojournalist Eve Arnold is. She never cared about what status a person is in the social hierarchy of the world as she “don’t see anybody as ordinary or extraordinary”.

Arnold earned the trust of some of the most famous people alive at the time such as Marilyn Munroe and Malcolm X, while even travelling around the world to capture some of most human moments such as the seriously injured Vietnam War Veterans and Afghan Nomads during the 1970’s.

She is a prime example of what separates a good photographer from a great photographer – the importance of the relationship between the subject and the photographer. No matter who the person was in our social hierarchy, Arnold had the ability “to record the essence of a subject in the 125th part of a second” stripped of their fame and status and down to their human core.

“The police are the thin blue line separating society from anarchy” – Doug Mulder

Errol Morris’ style is quite unique in that he lets us follow these people as they re-tell the story from their perspective without any form of narration from the Morris himself or any form of appearance from him. His 1988 documentary The Thin Blue Line was this film that people either loved or hated it at the time of its release.

One of the reasons people would’ve either loved it or hated it, is that the story seemed to present itself as more fictional than a documentary with this new  style of re-enactment of the different accounts of those “involved” on the night of the police officer’s murder. Years later, the re-enactment has now become a staple for crime-drama shows and the documentary genre. Morris incorporated this into the film to provide the audience with a visualisation and a b-roll in case Morris wanted to remove a certain section in the interview.

For me, the film took a lot for me to invest myself in as it was confusing without any name titles at the bottom of the screen for the amount of those interviewed. However, Morris managed to make me invested into this case through his use of The Interrotron. Essentially, it felt like we were being personally talked to as each interviewee stared down at the barrel of the lens, as if they were piercing through our souls (well some of them).

Co-Design describes the technique perfectly:

“by shooting through a simple two-way mirror with a video monitor mounted under the camera lens, Morris can film his subject and make eye contact with him/her from the exact same angle… it’s a two-way street: the same mechanism gives the interviewee continuous eye contact with Morris, as well… the Interrotron’s subtle design genius humanizes the filmmaking process enough to break down the subject’s emotional barriers.”

Another thing that compelled me was how Morris cleverly divided each section up from Randall Adam’s and David Harris’ completely different recollections of that night, to the false testimonies from witnesses, and even the various authorities that were involved with the case over the 12 years. No wonder he was able to prove Randall Adams innocence! And how chilling was that recording of Harris’ last interview with Morris??

Although Morris’ proved Adams’ innocence, he also made a huge profit over his life story. Essentially, Adams would receive 0 profit from his life story if he were to tell his interview on a talk show for instance, while Morris would make a profit just from signing a Morris’ release form from this film. Thankfully, the case was settled out of court and Adams’ received sole use of all things written or produced about those 12 years of his life.

Morris responded to this incident by saying that “[Adams] became very angry at the fact that he had signed a release giving me rights to his life story. And he felt as though I had stolen something from him. Maybe I had, maybe I just don’t understand what it’s like to be in prison for that long, for a crime you hadn’t committed. In a certain sense, the whole crazy deal with the release was fuelled by my relationship with his attorney. And it’s a long, complicated story, but I guess when people are involved, there’s always a mess somewhere.”

Yes. There’s always a mess somewhere – especially when you try to profit from someone else’s 12 years of imprisonment and their innocence.

RESOURCES:

Pavlus, J. (2016), “Errol Morris’s Secret Weapon for Unsettling Interviews: The Interrotron”, Co-Design, Date accessed: 10/03/2018. https://www.fastcodesign.com/1663105/errol-morriss-secret-weapon-for-unsettling-interviews-the-interrotron

You do something for me, and I do something for you.

The first time I watched Crystal Moselle’s 2015 documentary film The Wolfpack, I felt this underlying discomfort throughout the entire experience – nothing changed when I viewed it the second time. This time I was conscious about these documentary ethics surrounding consent that Rohan mentioned during our Wednesday class – as Paul Byrne’s mentions in his 2015 Sunday Morning Herald review – the underage kids, their mentally handicapped sister, and their clearly delirious and drunken father. However, as Steve Thomas mentions in his article, Moselle was able to maintain much of the focus on the older siblings who are of age and are old enough to make their own decisions.

Throughout the entire documentary, it becomes obvious throughout certain scenes that the film were staged and the entire process was a collaborative between the older siblings and Moselle herself. For instance, the entire narrative is told as if it were a three act structure with the escape of one brother is revealed during the climactic stage of the story rather in a chronological order and the mother contacting her estranged mother. Moreover, the decision for the brothers’ to visit outdoor areas such as Coney Island and the first time they visited the countryside at orchard outside New York City seemed engineered entirely by Moselle. But does this collaboration makes this film to be more of a dramatization and fabrication of the film? Certainly not. Thomas further mentions in his piece that “as the old editing adage goes, you can cheat but you mustn’t lie. That is the contract”.

For me, the collaboration works in everyone’s favour where the brothers get to gain a production company named after the film and Moselle gains praise and profit from the telling and permission of their story. Their collaboration also provides this focus for their close relationship with their mother and the optimism for the brothers’ future despite their father’s abuse – the abuse having never been explicitly mentioned but hints of physical abuse towards their mum. It somewhat reminds me of this underlying discomfort with the 2015 film Room where the torture faced by the mother and child are distinct but the perspective remains on the child’s innocence throughout the entire ordeal and the strong bond he has with his mother.

The irony of it all is their dad felt misunderstood and his decision to shelter them in the apartment was a way to protect them from “the outside world which is the real jail, full of drug pushers, guns and muggers”, however, the brothers’ have shot to fame and are now part of such a public and exposed industry. Moreover, the film being sponsored by VICE – a publication known for pushing boundaries, left-wing and constantly questioning societal norms.

We must commend the brothers’ for having turned out alright despite what they have been through their entire life and using the one thing that no one could take away from them – their imagination.

Resources:

Thomas, S. (2015), “The Wolfpack and The Ethics of Documentary Filmmaking”, Pursuit. Date accessed 4/3/2018. https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/the-wolfpack-and-the-ethics-of-documentary-filmmaking

Byrnes, P. (2015), “The Wolfpack Review: a confronting and confounding true story”, Sunday Morning Herald. Date accessed 7/3/2018. https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/the-wolfpack-review-a-confronting-and-confounding-true-story-20150826-gj7tys.html

So there’s a time to feel proud about what you’ve produced and then a time to cringe over it in a few years. I mentioned in my previous blog post that I’ve produced 3 interviews throughout my time here at RMIT and they all have completely different outcomes in both their style and their release.

I wish I could take this opportunity to analyse and mention one of the interviews that was particularly a huge learning curve for my craft in the documentary style and my boost in confidence as a filmmaker, however, I was not granted informed consent by the subject themselves. During our Wednesday class, Rohan stressed the importance of informed consent to be signed by every single person that appears in our films in the future and this wave of stressful memories clouded over me.

Informed consent: the practise of informing potential subjects, before the cameras roll, about the possible consequences of their participants.

But why didn’t this person decide to sign the form after the interview was conducted? First of all, this person is admirable and I have nothing but utter respect for them, however there were a few factors during production I wish I did and considered in order to have the outcome I desired.

Organise everything during pre-production. Rohan in our first class mentioned that in order to be considered for grant towards the making of your film you must have everything organised and documented from your pitch to your script. As an overexcited second year student with the opportunity to interview this highly regarded and established person in their field of expertise, I plunged into the production side of things and hoping to “wing it” until post-production comes along. Long story short, the disorganisation from the start kind of bit me in the ass as soon as post-production came along. You can never be too early to organise, research and document everything before going head first into the deep end of it all. Is it going to be in chronological order? Is it going to have some revelation at the end?

Stop. Collaborate and listen. One of the essential components of the studio is what I failed to even recognise throughout the entire process – collaboration. Sure, I collaborated with my fellow uni students in helping each other but I decided to embark on this journey solo without even consulting with my subject throughout the post-production side of it. I left everything to last minute where they weren’t happy with the flow and portrayal of their interview and work that I was purely fuelled by caffeine and lack of sleep throughout the remaining days until the due date. Most importantly, put egos aside and find a way to adapt your style into their story, never let your style overrule and dictate their story. The important thing to remember is that they opened up to you about their story and it’s only deserving for them to be openly allowed into the process as well.

Try and overcome that social hump. This one’s a tricky one for almost every one of us and most of it does come from experience, but we really do get nervous and awkward when it comes to initiating an interview with someone you barely even know. Firstly, I did an introductory interview in that is was candid and it was a recorded conversation between myself and them so that we were both comfortable and that I would enough content for me find a focal point for the main interview. I always have a set of open ended questions and back up questions to ask before the interview and group the questions that correlate with each other and separate them from the questions that are of a different subject in case they were needed as a filler. My mistake at the time was that the questions were too different and that I actually didn’t have a focal point that when it came down to post-production, it took me way too long to even condense the interview from 1 hour down to the required 5 minutes.

Film, film and film! Probably one of the only things that I managed to not mess up but it’s important to note that you can have enough footage. The b-roll kept rolling out throughout post-production and the exciting part is to decide which part of these shots are relevant for each section of the interview. Remember, you have the creative control!

Never neglect the technical stuff. If you’re using 2 camera’s make sure they’re on the same manual settings, everything is fully charged, you have extra SIM cards that aren’t at full capacity, lighting with correct white balance is key, clean audio that is recorded is key (obviously), lapel mic is on, everything is focused, everyone’s phone is on silent, and all mouth’s are shut unless necessary.

At end of it all, they were satisfied with what I produced. However, based on their experience in the past they were uncomfortable with the publicity of this interview in that they would rather keep it an educational level within RMIT instead of it blowing up all over social media. Certainly a huge learning curve for me but all in all, I was proud of what I was able to achieve what I was capable of both in my technical and social skills.

“One human looking another human in the eye through a lense”

Okay, so Wednesday 8:30am classes has suddenly become a time I am willing to sacrifice a sleep in for. Firstly, Rohan has such a great energy to liven up our Wednesday mornings and secondly, it’ll be my third time filming in the documentary style.

In my early years of high school, I never found myself interested in watching documentaries as I’m guilty of getting caught up in purely watching Hollywood blockbusters that lead to a “k-hole” of sappy rom-coms. It was until watching and studying Werner Herzog’s 2005 Grizzly Man in first year did I begin to appreciate and question documentary style in a broader sense. Even though documentary presents fact, the director still has the ability to control how you perceive or to what extent could Werner portray Timothy Treadwell’s life and death and the ethical debates that surround creating a film after the person has passed away.

We call this style non-fiction and often, people describe documentaries as factual content. But to what extent is a doco factual if it’s still in the hands of the director’s creative control?

“What types of ethical issues arise when we turn the camera on documentary participants, and, from a production standpoint, what creative and technical challenges arise whilst filming and editing interviews?”

The brief for They Film People, Don’t They? challenged my perception of filmmaking itself and particularly intrigued me about ethical issues within the finished product of a documentary film as a result of the production side of it all. It’s this idea of exploring that grey area portraying and condensing real life into a time frame.

Judging from the weekly schedule of our class time, I look forward to soak in as much of the fired up class discussions, explore the different documentary rhetoric’s and styles from a range of directors, and most importantly open my mind up to the various stories that encapsulates humanity as it. With that information soaked up, I hope to implement that into the next human story I tell and simultaneously gain more experience in my practical skills such as lighting and audio. But I guess the first step into making it happen, is finding that courage again to ask someone to tell their story – the need to overcome that social hurdle yet again.