The Library

My name is Carson and I am a filmmaker who hasn’t made a film in a very long time. Very long. This is my confession.

I began volunteering with NW Documentary shortly after moving to Portland five years ago because I thought that being a part of the documentary film community would inspire me to continue making films. I have had many amazing experiences working with NW Documentary but they unfortunately have not included working on my own documentaries. This leads me to a second confession, the reason I have become a defunct filmmaker is because I am afraid of failure and the longer I have gone without making a film the more terrified I have become. Whew. 

The reason I am blogging about this here on the Library @ NW Doc blog is two-fold. First, my primary goal for this blog is to be a a resource for filmmakers, in particular, student filmmakers. I have a feeling that I am not the only one out there struggling with confidence issues and I hope that sharing my experiences will help someone out. Secondly, I have decided to be defunct no more and have been working on research for a short documentary that I will be making over the next several months. I hope to use this blog to chronicle my journey and hopefully pass along wisdom and resources that I find along the way. 

The first bit of wisdom I will pass along to any of you out there that would like to make a film but have a pile of excuses standing in your way—find a support group. NW Documentary will soon be launching monthly meetings that invite NW Doc alumni, students, and any one else looking for support and feedback to come together and share ideas. If you are interested in joining in on the fun at NW Doc and are living in the Portland area let me know. 

Stay tuned for an introduction to the film I am working on and links to pre-production resources.

When documentary film legend Frederick Wiseman was interviewed after receiving the Charles Guggenheim Honors at the SilverDocs Film Festival this year he offered up some great insight into his filmmaking process. The following are some of the highlights taken from the interview and abbreviated by the folks at Docs in Progress:

• I do very little research – only one or two days on site. I don’t like seeing something interesting happening and not being able to film it.
• My approach to filmmaking is very similar to Las Vegas. You roll the dice and hope for the best.
• My films are a combination of luck, instinct, and judgment.
• My only rule of when to turn the camera on and off is to not stop the camera in the middle of a sequence.
• In terms of post-production, during the shoot, I watch silent rushes on a 3-day cycle and make notes.  An assistant syncs the sound so all the rushes are available when production is completed. [Blogger’s Note: Wiseman still shoots and edits in film so that is why he watches silent rushes since they haven’t been synced with sound yet].
  
• When the shoot is over, I log the shots in an accounting-style notebook. I take 6-8 weeks to look at all the footage and note it with a ratings system of 1, 2, or 3. I eliminate 40-50% of the material in this first cut. In the early days of my career, I looked at the footage chronologically. Now I tend to look first at the sequences I remember liking during the shoot.
• Once I have made the first cut down of material, I take 6-8 months to edit the candidate sequences. I look at each sequence individually and am not yet thinking about the overall structure of the film.
• Once I am down to something close to the final version, I look again at all the rushes including the original rejects. Very often I find something which can be used for transition sequences, contextual information, or character development in material I originally threw out.
• I don’t know how to think with an audience in mind. It is hard enough for me to make up my own mind. My only assumption about the audience is that they are as smart or as dumb as me. I don’t want to get caught up in the Hollywood-like focus on cutting to the lowest common denominator. Editing is really talking to yourself.