Log #2: I'm tired

This week was kind of a strange week. I think my cohorts agreed with me. They sent me an email basically saying how much this week sucked and how they were already lagging behind in the readings. I can agree with that. For some reason, my enthusiasm this week as been a bit haggard. Usually, I'm pretty good bout keeping up if not even ahead of the current week's readings. However, this week, I'm just not feeling it. I'm not interested, and I can't keep concentrated for more than five minutes. I think I'm just tired. It's only the end of week 3 which is kind of lame, but I think my energy will be revitalized next week. One of my cohorts has three kids and she's doing it (one of which is a new born), so if she can do it, well damnit, I sure as hell can!! 

Yet this wasn't the main point of my blog.. I just wanted to go off on a real quick rant about how this week sucked and how tired I am... Today of which was especially tiring because I was on campus from approximately 9am till about 8pm at night.

Tonight though, we were able to view a couple of the thesis films from last year's MVA students. Now, unfortunately I did not stay for the entirety of the screenings because I was exhausted and I felt like I was about to face plant the desk. The four I did catch were pretty interesting. The first one was about crazy football Trojan fans, the second about this minority ethnic group that's part Chicano and part African, the third was about horse packers, and lastly, the fourth was about a community in Peru.

After watching the four films, I now have a list of do's/dont's that I will TRY my best to uphold:

#1

For the love of god do not include a voice over. Self reflexive narrative voice overs are for the most part shitty in a documentary and I do not want my film to be lame. To me personally, they sound kind of cheesy having this omni-present voice speaking out of nowhere. Basically, it's stupid. 

#2

Along the lines of #1, #2 is to NOT include myself in my film. Ok, my topic can apply to myself, but regardless, I hate the self reflexive. The film IS NOT about me, it's about my subjects. Why am I going to be selfish and make it a story about myself? That's stupid. No one cares. I personally feel it creates a biased and therefore glorified portrayal of me. 

#3

Consistency is key!! In some of the films, it was obvious that different types of cameras were used. The quality clearly changed over different scenes. I personally am a stickler for consistency and I think it ruins the aesthetic quality of a film when you shoot in different formats. Shoot the whole damn thing in one format!! Of course, this is not applicable to added archival footage (or something old) into your film. 

#4

Get a good camera. I'm aware that the content itself is more important than the visual aspects, but I still want a perfect film. I am also aware that on a budget such as mine, it is almost damn near impossible to produce a "Hollywood" quality film. Regardless, I'd like to try my best to get the best quality that I can afford. 

#5

Avoid terrible frame changes within a interview. Perhaps they had no choice, or that it was an intentional move, but changing the frame while your subject is still talking looks so piss poor lame. Let them at least finish a thought before zooming in or something. Otherwise, it just looks tacky. 

#6

If you need subtitles in your film, for the love of god, don't pick crappy imovie style subtitles. They look terrible, they block off part of your frame, and it just doesn't give it any sort of justice.

#7

Avoid fast cuts that seemingly make no sense and are edited in the wrong areas. This is purely a technical error that can be fixed with the filmmaker. One of the films I saw looked amateur in nature because of the lame edits. Sometimes a jump cut isn't necessary....

So as you can see.. This is kind of a comprehensive list that I need to follow. I'm sure that I'll think of more along the way. I would like to point out that one of the films I saw tonight pretty much violated most of the "dont's" on this list. Let's just say that the content wasn't too great.

If any of the above makes absolutely no sense or sounds strange, it's because I'm about to face plant my keyboard because I'm beyond exhausted. I shall leave it in this unedited and not proof read form because I want to be cool like that. I'm trying to be self reflexive ok??

Log #1: So the journal begins...

I have decided to create a blog about my year in grad school and the crap that I will most likely have to go through. More or less, it's like a journal of what I'll be doing and the process in itself.

For those of you who do not know me, I am currently a grad student at USC. Yes, it's a prestigious school, yes it costs a shit ton of money to attend. I am studying what is called Visual Anthropology and getting my masters in it. Now, I could go on a long rant about what Visual Anthropology is, but I'll just summarize it and say it's kind of like documentary filmmaking but with tons of theory thrown in as well. Another way to describe it is the study of Anthropology through visual means. Anything from photography to film would suffice, but in my case, I'll be working with film. It's a one year intensive program in which my masters thesis is not a paper, but a 20-30 min "ethnographic film." I like it because it combines both theory with production which is pretty much what my undergrad degrees composed of. My background in undergrad was predominately theoretical based therefore I find the more hands on experience to be very enlightening. So I guess this is predominately a blog of what I'll be doing, how I will be doing it, and all the crap that comes with it. Plus, I'm an "anthropologist" so it's good for me to log everything that's on my mind.

Now, there's this whole theoretical debate about the differences between ethnographic film and documentary film. I'm kind of torn between the two as well. To me, they're basically the same except one is more academic and the other is more "commercial" so to speak. For me personally, I'm kind of in this limbo as I can identify myself with both the theoretical as well as the commercial/Hollywood side of these film processes. This is why I titled my blog oh so appropriately. I don't think I need to explain at length why I entitled it the "ethno-documentarian log."

But I digress.... In applying to the program, I had to come up with a proposal of a potential documentary that I wanted to film. I was considering abandoning the project for something completely different, but I decided to stay with the original idea for several reasons which I will dive into later. First off, my project is simple.. I wanted to look at the coming out process in Asian American communities. Coming out is a difficult process for anybody to go through, but with Asian culture, I feel it is especially hard to come out to parents who are not so accepting due to cultural as well as generational differences. Questions I have so far are is a parent's reaction due to their growing up back in Asia? Is it generational based? Does gender matter? Does it differ between different Asian countries? The list kind of goes on... The reason why I decided to stick with this topic instead of diving into another (my other proposal had to do with Africa) was because logistically this seemed more feasible. Furthermore, ideally, I'd like to put this into festivals and hell, the "Hollywood" side of me knows that this topic appeals to two particular niches. This topic has more widespread appeal. I guess that's so "mainstream" of me to think that way. If you want to know more, feel free to contact me. I am always looking to share my experiences with others. Additionally, if you know of any organizations or people that could help me with my project, contact me as well.

So before the school year started, I looked like this:

Let's just say that I was naive. I was excited of the year that loomed ahead and I was ready for a new adventure. I didn't know what the hell I was getting myself into, I just knew that this was going to be fun. I thought about how much I missed undergrad and how grad school will be just like undergrad except a little bit more difficult. Well, I wasn't prepared.


I'm in the second week of schooling and I now look like this:


Yeah, let's just say I'm kind of stressed. I'm worried about quite a few things, such as logistics, how I'm going to go through all of this, how am I going to film, am I going to get the answers I want, blah blah blah!! We all know that no matter how hard you plan, you probably won't get the outcome that you want, but hell, I want to try!!

By the end of this year, I'm sure I'm gonna look like this:


Sexy right?? I totally try. Let's hope I really don't look like that because I'd like to continue my long and hopefully fruitful life.

What's bothering me now then? Well a shit ton of things. I'm worried about balancing my academics with my film as well as with my social life. I'm worried about how I'm going to go about this project and how it's going to turn out. Clearly, I want it to be awesome. I have to think about legal issues such as getting the people I film to sign an agreement to be put on camera. If I decide to use music, I have to think about licensing. In my case, since I'm a broke student, I'll probably ask a very nice friend to compose something for me (hint hint cough cough) or I'd do it on my own. I'm worried about my skills as a filmmaker since I'm clearly untrained. I'm concerned with how I want to put together this film (even though I haven't even shot ANY footage for it). Pretty much this list of worries can go on for eternity....

Now what have I done so far?? Honestly not that much. I've contacted some professors within USC that have knowledge of this issue. Furthermore, I have contacted a friend who is heavily involved with Asian American LGBT advocacy groups and thus can give me the subjects that I need. I guess that's a start right? Perhaps I'm just worrying too much for no reason, but I think I have a reason to be worried.

Nonetheless, I have ranted for far too long. I should probably be reading right now since each week I'm bombarded with a crap ton of reading. Until next time...