I’ve never conducted a Skype interview before and knowing of all the technical problems that arise with an interview in person – let alone a Skype interview makes me a little bit nervous.

We’ve scheduled a Skype interview with Claire in the next couple of days and all we can do is prepare all the tech that we need: fully charged DSLR with another fully charged battery and 2 SIM cards with enough space on them, a H4n microphone in case we need the necessary sound grabs, a working computer and an air-tight room. Thankfully, Rohan suggested the edit suites so we were able to book ahead and be comfortable and familiar with the room itself. Below is a list of questions we plan to ask Mary, Carli and Claire:

MARY (Psychologist)

Broad

• What does a cult look like? (You mentioned 4 different types: political, commercial, religious, therapeutic (guru)). Are there any patterns that occur within these different cult groups?

• What was life like before Paddy entered?
• How did you realise that something was wrong
• What was your children’s relationship with Paddy like
• How did you make the decision to cut all ties with the cult
• Is there anything you would have done differently?

Now

• What are some of the tactics commonly used by cult leaders
• What are you doing now? (helping people get out of cults)
• Is there any advice you’d give to parents going through the same thing today?

CARLI
Broad / set up

• For someone who knows nothing about the group, would you be able to describe it to me?
• How did you first get involved in the group?
• What did the group teach?
• What did the group believe in?

During

• What activities did they make you participate in? (get her to describe)
• Did you have to wear anything in particular?
• If you feel comfortable discussing, what were some of the scare tactics they used against members?
• Can you describe to me the ‘survivors course’ for the 21st century?
• I read that Natasha claimed to be a reincarnation of Jesus Christ. Can you tell me about when she announced this?
• What was your relationship with Natasha like?

After

• At what point did you decide to leave the group?

CLAIRE
Intro

• (To start off) What is your name and what do you do?
• How would you define what a cult is?

First Cult

• What was your upbringing like? Were you exposed to the outside world? (School, pop culture etc.)
• What were some of their practices and teachings?
• When did you first realize you were living in a cult?
• How were your parents and family affected by their cult experience?

Second Cult

• What made you move to Melbourne when you were 18?
• Where did you meet your ex-husband (31 year old)? Why were you drawn to him?
• What made you decide to move to Nowra and join the Order?
• What were some of the practices and theories at that Doomsday cult? Was it any different from the first cult you were part of?
• What were the living arrangements like?

After

• What was the first day out of the cult like?
• What skills did you not have? And what did you have to learn?
• How did your children get affected by it?
• Does your kids still keep in contact with their father?

Broad

• It was mentioned in your BBC interview with Natacha Tormey that more than 70% of women make a majority of cult followers. Why do you think women are more of a target rather than men?
• What’s your take on religion now?
• Does sharing about your experience only bring back the pain you suffered or helped you heal?
• Is there anything you regret or wish you did differently?
• Any final words for us?

In reference to Rohan’s presentation in class, keep the questions broad yet succinct, and stay silent until they finish their answer! Fingers crossed everything goes well!!

Born into Brothels (2004) exposes the world to the realities of the sex trade in Calcutta, India. In particular, the children who were born and raised in one of India’s red light district. The film itself was fascinating and difficult at the same time for covering quite a confronting story, however, the filmmakers managed to condense the story to the innocence of the kids.

However, during our class discussion on Friday, many of us had raised more issues than praise for the documentary itself. I remember one time in class we discussed the ethics of adding yourself into structure and narrative of your short doco and how that could potentially change your intention for the film and manipulate your audience to view a particular subject a different way.

In Born into Brothels, director Zana Briski did so in what seemed like a film documenting the lives of the kids, became a story about how she “rescues” them from the oppression and life they’re living through. This is a clear example of the  White Saviour complex where “Western people [go] in to “fix” the problems of struggling nations or people of color without understanding their history, needs, or the region’s current state of affairs.

It’s scary to realise how much people have been heavily influenced by such a rhetoric and people of privilege are either ignorant about this or take full advantage of it. Another example is Kony 2012, where one polished video shared thousands of times on multiple social networks managed to convince hundreds of people to donate and partake in a “movement” to stop warlord Joseph Kony. However, the video itself oversimplified the entirety of the situation that the situation is described as “a humanitarian disaster” where other issues such as “militarization of poorer countries, short-sighted agricultural policies, resource extraction, the propping up of corrupt governments, and the astonishing complexity of long-running violent conflicts over a wide and varied terrain” should be considered. This article by Teju Cole articulates The White Saviour Complex eloquently. 

Surprisingly, Born into Brothels won the 2004 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. the Oscar speech itself reflects just how much the true intention was lost during the filmmaking process.

To be honest, it was difficult for me to finish or let alone watch the ethnographic documentary based on the indigenous Inuit people of Canada’s northern Quebec region, Nanook of the North (1922). Yes, the kids were super cute and the dog as well, but the obvious staging, and silence turned me off from the first 10 minutes.

This week’s reading by Fatimah Tobing Rony uses the metaphor of a taxidermy to describe ethnographic documentary as what is dead is made to looks alive. Indeed, director Robert J. Flaherty manufactured this world as if the indigenous Inuit people and culture were becoming extinct and as if positions us – the privileged audience – to sympathise to these characters.

Flaherty defends his film in saying that “one often has to distort a thing to catch its true spirit”, so what extent can a documentary film be considered truth if the truth itself is distorted or misrepresented? In fact, Cunayou and Nyla aren’t actually Nanook/Allakariallak’s wives but were Flaherty’s romantic and sexual partners in real life, and Nanook actually uses a gun to hunt but was directed by Flaherty to use a spear instead.

Sure, it’s considered a film beyond its time, but the Inuit culture and people are misrepresented and are used for those who are are being used by people such as Flaherty to gain a huge profit and disregard the truth. They are humans too who live their own lives accordingly and shouldn’t be treated as if they were animals at a zoo – or in this case some taxidermy.    

References

Tobing Rony, F. 1996, “Taxidermy and Romantic Ethnography: Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North”, The Third Eye: Race, Cinema, and Ethnographic Spectacle, pp. 99–126.

Image: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e4/e6/bf/e4e6bf7dc6046ed7887f7a35ae7a623c.png

YAY! We’ve finally locked in a story for our short doco!

After a few days of calling around and multiple Google searches, we decided that the raw and the aftermath of a cult experience would be story that hasn’t been told justice in the mainstream media, especially in Australia.

A psychologist based in Queensland agreed to share her story and the reason why she dedicates her career to help people get out of cults. We’ve also contacted 2 women who have been in cults themselves and have spoken out about their experiences in the media before. We realised that the 2 women live interstate as well, and the chances of interviewing them face-to-face is quite slim. The biggest dilemma we face is quality and how we will fit all their interviews in a concise structure and at a time frame that will do justice to the stories they’ve shared.

How are we going to create a high aesthetic quality when we are aware that a Skype interview alreadys strips that quality away? It’s a means of using as much of our resources as possible, such as doing a screen capture, audio recording and even potentially filming the screen capture through a DSLR. At this stage it’s a matter of trusting our interviewee’s in being comfortable to open up to us, and being certain that it’s these measures we have to take in order to share and raise awareness about an issue that many Australians aren’t aware are happening around them.

It was understood within our group that we wanted to create a short documentary on a story that creates social awareness and a story that hasn’t been saturated by the media over the past few years. A few of us were oozing with ideas and we managed to narrow it down to a few realistic potentials: a male escort service owned by two women, a psychologist who specialises in getting people out of cults, and an LGBTI elders dance club that occurs every month in the Fitzroy club.

Unfortunately, the two women who owned the male escort service were in the middle of selling their business and the psychologist is currently living interstate. We therefore decided to focus our short doco on the LGBTI dance club as it’s based in Melbourne and our subjects agreed to an interview within the next few weeks.

Everything went smoothly with the proposal and we were confident in wanting to pursue what we assumed didn’t have much media coverage yet. Rohan commended us for our detailed pitch, however, he dropped the bombshell that this story is about to become a feature film. It didn’t necessarily mean that we weren’t allowed to document this story, but it did limit us to only showcase it on an academic level rather than what we aim to be a story on a film festival calibre.

Rohan encouraged us to pursue any other people who are part of the All the Queen’s Men organisation and tell their story in association with the monthly dance club and the coming out ball. We do have a few leads to those who are active in the organisation and hopefully they can accommodate with our schedule.

Courtesy of: http://67.media.tumblr.com/d60c2982e276e027240625d2d7fd960d/tumblr_o365hoHwGb1qe4ru4o1_540.gif

Rohan warned us beforehand that this film was going to be some Australian Story-esque style. So we already had these assumptions in our minds about Maree Delofski’s 2002 documentary based on the origin story of Hollywood star, Merle Oberon.

Other than the extended long footage of Delofski’s cute, red beetle along the picturesque Tasmanian landscape, we as the audience plummet into Delofski’s curiosity of whether Merle was really the daughter of Lottie Chintock; a Chinese-Tasmanian native or someone who was of Anglo-Indian ethnicity and had no connection to Tasmania whatsoever.

Throughout the first part of these 55 minutes of our lives, we encounter quite a handful of characters from Tasmania who have the utmost confidence to know Merle’s story and “claim” her as an honorary Tasmanian: A former journalist and current dog judge who says she’s judged enough dogs in her time to know how to spot a certain ethnicity from afar, and a lady with funky, frosted blue eye shadow who claims to be a Merle Oberon expert but refuses to disclose the whereabouts of her birth certificate to prove she is Lottie Chintock’s child – just to name a few.

The second part explored Merle’s origin’s in India through interviewing Merle’s supposed childhood friends and neighbours who used to call her Queenie. Delofski then found herself in Canada to interview Harry Selby, someone who is adamant that he’s Merle’s nephew.

The last part of the film concentrates on Merle’s visit to Tasmania before she passed away and the uncomfortable and unconventional encounters she had with the locals. A Tasmanian local in her mid-40s to 50s reappears on screen to express how Merle’s story that won’t be appreciated by the current generation but is important for her generation and the past few.

The structure of film is quite clear and straightforward, but also seems to be artificially polished against Delofski’s narration. Additionally, the racist comments from the Tasmanian locals and Merle’s supposed childhood friend was unnecessary and should’ve at least been addressed through Delofski’s narration or shouldn’t been added at all. I get how Delofski tried to depict how people often are the product of their environment and time, but it also creates this negative representation of the locals in Tasmania.

More importantly, how much could we trust the credibility of all these characters? Especially the appearance of biographer Charles Higgins who was guilty of fabricating various biographies. Where are the interviews of Merle’s ex-husbands, her children or even fellow actors who knew her personally?  Delofski may not have realised these factors at the time in depicting Merle’s story back in 2002, but I guess that’s where her curiosity guided her in concentrating on just finding the truth. Judging from the class discussion we had, we’ve come a long way in society with addressing issues such as institutionalised race and statutory rape from just about 15 years ago.

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.