T.J. Davis Film and Video 160

During our guest lecture with documentary filmmaker Kazuhiro Soda I found his rules or commandments to be a bit puzzling. As someone myself who is very structured in their approach to creating content (note that I’m former military so, structure is important to me) I found the discussion to be quite the opposite in terms of the material covered in this class, but also while I’m following along with my current Developing the Documentary class where research, universal themes and pre-interviews with main characters or experts is important prior to even picking up a camera and filming. Clearly, Kazuhiro is more of an experimental or as he calls himself an “observational” filmmaker and the rules that he’s developed over the years have made it easier for him to not be restricted in telling his stories. I am also one who appreciates different genres of filmmaking especially “the fly on the wall” cinema verite style of certain documentaries. And, with those films, I f...

Interview transcription

For this assignment I chose a scene that takes place near the end of one of my favorite all-time films “The Last of the Mohicans.” It plays out in roughly a minute and thirty seconds and I counted a total of 51 shots altogether. The scene has a lot of forward movement, matched action and build up where one of the film’s protagonist’s Chingachgook confronts the villain Magua in a classic fight to the death sequence overlooking the Adirondacks. This scene or sequence of shots is not a montage, but rather follows in accordance to continuity editing protocols. It starts off with a low angle, wide/long shot of our two heroes Chingachgook and Hawkeye running up the trail of the mountain, from the left side of the screen. They cut to the first enemy they engage with right of screen who turns to face them. Hawkeye fires a musket and kills the enemy. There’s an immediate cut to the lead trailblazer, our villain Magua who turns and the audience gets a POV/over the sh...

It’s 1:30pm when I begin my sound walk in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. It’s just stopped raining and as I exit my apartment building I immediately hear a cornucopia of sound. The most intense sound signals are the whooshing tires of moving vehicles on the wet streets of Eastern Parkway. The keynotes of car horns and fire truck sirens are heard just down the block. I walk along the Eastern Parkway promenade and I’m surrounded by pedestrians talking, it’s almost a mumble because of the loud sounds of the wet tires of cars driving by. Birds are chirping above. The metallic clinking of bicycle spokes stands out as a cyclist passes me along the promenade. I take a couple more steps and hear a few fat rain drops plop on an empty plastic bag. Everything begins to register in this auditory chaos. I stand on the corner waiting to cross the street and hear what sounds like an old or dirty wiper that squeaks and scrapes the windshield of a Prius. A delivery man passes me and his wad of keys attach...

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