Category Archives: Sound

Back to Work

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My bags are packed. I’m going back to the Middle East to continue research on Shelter.

I’ll be visiting Beirut to explore the Romani and Armenian communities more.

And to Halabja in Northern Iraq.

I’ve been messing around with different cameras & sound recorders the past few weeks to find a lean and dependable combo for taking photographs, videos and interviews – hopefully I’ll be able to share some of my findings with you on this blog.

Wish me luck -

Binger Directors Lab – Week 6

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‘Finding Your Voice’ :
w/ Arne Bro & Lotte Mik-Meyer

1. SUMMARY

This intense but short workshop has been the highlight of my Binger experience so far. Arne & Lotte were genuinely interested in developing our true directorial voices through a combination of shooting, analysis and lectures.

On day one, we were all given video cameras and asked to shoot exercises and video diaries constantly. There was no time to plan and the directors worked from early morning into the late evening, sometimes until 2 or 3am. The idea being that work done in this state is more authentic and coming from the subconscious mind.

The husband-wife team examined what is the true aesthetic of each filmmaker. They analysed each frame of the director’s work & diaries in front of the group. It was a very precise analysis and slowly the directors began to see what they are really interested in exploring in the frame and their deep subconscious truths. While simultaneously acknowledging our ‘faults’ or marks of personality and uniqueness that give our work strength and power.

During the course of these six days, the camera became an extension of the pen, and in a strange way I found I was able to explore my project with a tool that has a life of its own.

2. SAMPLES OF THE VIDEO DIARIES

So with great reluctance I’ve uploaded two of the diaries.

These aren’t meant to be ‘samples of work’ but rather raw explorations that might prove to be useful material for my writing & filmmaking (or not).

At the very least, I hope it inspires you to try out these techniques yourself.

Diary 2 – The assignment was for us to find three places in Amsterdam that reminded us of three people related to our main character. We then had to ‘include ourselves’ in the frame to comment on these place-relationships.

Based on my previous blog post about what I’ve been slowly realizing about Stefan, I choose to use him as my ‘main character’ and speak about his great-grandmother, his daughter and his mother.

I found this alley in central Amsterdam that felt like a place from my script, that helped inspire me to speak about Stefan & his family:

Diary 3 – The assignment was to do a video diary involving ‘your body’. I choose a painful memory from a street fight:

3. EXPERIENCE IN SUMMARY

You can also hear the full details of my experience in the workshop in my first video blog entry:


Based on studying all of my video diaries this past week, I leave this workshop with a set of five practicing guidelines that I can always reference when I’m unsure of my next move as a storyteller:

My Manifesto, My Guidelines as Filmmaker:

  1. The human body is the most important object or graphical element within the frame.
  2. Camera work should accommodate human motion, and the character’s relationship with other characters and props.
  3. I’m drawn to flat images taken with wide lenses, images close to what the naked human eye would observe.
  4. The human voice is the most powerful sound. A character’s confession will draw us close, motivate camera to see more of his/her face.
  5. My film language strives to leave room for the audience’s imagination, to trigger their own memories and senses, to guide their hand rather than force their thoughts & feelings.
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