AD5800 - Ideas

Last year we had the opportunity to take part of a lecture run by the photographer Julian Germain, which I found extremely inspiring. Apart from his photography work, I really enjoyed his videos which are kind of moving portraits and I had never seen this technique before. I remember in particular a video of a man tugging a rope lifting an heavy object, but unfortunately I could not find it online. However I have found the classroom ones which I really enjoyed as well: https://vimeo.com/38028301

My original idea was doing a project of this style, taking video-portraits but for the nature of the assignment (60s video + 3min video) I had to reconsider my initial proposal.

As the subject of my video, I wanted to find someone doing some physically hard job that would be interesting and visually effective to watch.

After the last summer, I realised the fields in which I am more interested in photography and this year I really would like to focus my projects on sustainable communities and traditional rural crafts.

For this reason I have started to research possible contacts and sending emails to artisans and alternative communities possibly settled in the Costwold area. I have already got a positive response from one of the last blacksmith in the UK, based in Gloucestershire.

I am watching many videos in order to create a visual idea of how I want my video to look like. The National Geographic short documentaries on YouTube are incredibly helpful and I am taking notes of what I think makes them so effective.

I have created a playlist of the ones that I can use as a direct reference for the nature of their subject: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiGZ0U5HczRkcKze_11x0gu-BkPmK3iIJ

Here a list of the characteristics that I believe make them strong video:

- Great ambient sound transitions, also fading in/out

- Focus/ out of focus transitions

- The story is not revealed from the very beginning, they give you some glimpses and they catch your curiosity (focusing on small details / showing the location from far away)

- Sometimes they use absolute silence to break the back sounds between one clip and another

- Alternations of wide angle views and close-ups

- Rhythm / pattern

- Different speeds

For the first video (60s) I think I want to introduce my story without revealing it completely. I can start from a wide angle of the location and then focusing on close-ups of small details. The ambient sounds are crucial at this point.

Risk: boring. Nat Geo videos clearly show that it is possible to make an interesting video about every sort of topic (as in photography), the key is making them visually and acoustically compelling.

The 3 min video is gonna be more a traditional style documentary, I want to include one interview at least and show my story in depth.

I have also found this great series of crowdfounded documentaries which I can use as a valid reference: http://www.woodlanders.com/episodes/