I'm baaaaaaaack!

     DePaul University is an amazing college. I will just say that despite the fact that the tuition is jacked up beyond belief, the programs and specials that they decide to give out to their students are endless and amazing. There could not be anything better to do on a weekend than to attend a lecture that is offered by my university. On that note, I would like to tangent off and talk about an evening that I had most recently.

     I showed up to this thing about ten minutes late, not knowing what it was going to be. Well, that is sort of a lie: I did know that someone was going to be talking to the people that attended the lecture. I also knew that it had something to do with documentaries. My friend, Cat, and I sat quickly into two unattended seats near the back as soon as we walked in, and moments later, a man began an introduction. This did not seem like it was going to be fun. The people in the room were very diverse, and it seemed as though this was going to be just another classroom chat. I did not like this, but I swallowed my throat and looked up as the man speaking took his seat. There was clapping, and a man stood up and waved. That was Frederick Wiseman.

     He seemed like a nice old man; he spoke like a professional and was completely down-to-earth. He opened up his lecture with a 12-minute clip from one of his documentaries, Welfare. I could only describe what I saw on the screen as honest and crucial. It was in black and white, and it had to have been filmed many years ago; there were some classic demeanors that totally switched my senses to the 1970s. Not knowing what to do as I watched the projector screen, I pulled out index cards and took notes as to what I saw that stood out to me. I noticed little, but there was a lot that stuck out to me. A glance that was made at a certain time, or the brief awkwardness that made each scene stick out and seem realistic. I will never share exactly what I wrote down as I watched the movie clip, but I do remember thinking that it was exquisitely thought-out. My pen went down as the lights came up in the room once again, and Mr. Wiseman began speaking. I really wanted to see the rest of Welfare, but I guess I will have to go out and get a copy for myself to see sometime (seeing as how it is a 3 hour documentary).

     Mr. Wiseman talked about his process for going about making a documentary.  Here is what I got from his lecture to the room:

• He works with two other people when filming directly (the camera man and a specialist).
• He does not record any staged events.
• He does no research prior to recording; he relies on the film to be his research.
• He spends about 4-12 weeks working on filming and collects about 65-140 hours of footage during that time.
• There are no staged points of view or perspectives made prior to recording.
• His documentaries range (after editting) anywhere from 73 minutes to 6 hours.
• His goal is to capture contemporary America and make sure that it is viewed with clarity.

     After he ventured talked about his style in general, he decided to give us a little bit of his reasoning for filming and editing the clip of Welfare that we viewed.  The film was made in 1975 about the toils and troubles of clients and welfare workers in a New York welfare office.  It gets in-depth, covering layers of psychological issues to unemployment; it also is a great depiction as to the regulations that we follow and live our lives by in the United States.  To start filming for this, Mr. Wiseman decided to camp out a day before filming, just to get a sense of the routine that the workers and clients had developed.  He started filming bright and early the next day, taking notes of certain comments in his mind to later be further examined in editing.  He also gave a hint out there to anyone that is wanting to make a documentary: be sure to capture the presence of people within any room.  It makes for easier editing to move from one person to the next and capture emotions from one person to another.  You can use footage like that to shorten conversations, and make points in much shorter time than what you can if you film certain scenarios a different way. 

     After one month of collecting around 90 hours of film, he began to review and log each scene with certain notes.  He went into a great amount of detail talking about the logs; the funniest of the comments being that he did not do the logging for Welfare; he got someone else to do it for him!  Logging (making notes) on each different scene is a long and difficult task to do, and he said felt that it would be better to let someone else take care of that part before actual editing went on.

     He created something called his "first assembly" after three or four days of straight editing; he breaks the movie down from 90 hours to about 4 hours.  He has to break it down further and spent as much time as was needed to come up with the final product.  The documentary is astounding (and I didn't even see the whole thing)!

    There was a brief Q&A session before the evening became quite late.  Some final tips that he gave about general documenary making were:

• Construct a title and ask what type of movie you are trying to produce
• Create reasons for introductions and transitions
• Examine the function of each scene, and comprehend what each part of the film is suggesting
• Do not make the point that you are trying to get across too obvious (*cough*MichaelMoore*cough*)
• NEVER make the film for a certain kind of audience

     He was thoroughly inspiring, and let the lecture close watch a different clip from Essene.  There are no words that I can say about that clip to really describe how great I thought of it.

     So, as I type these tips this evening (and hoping that DePaul doesn't sue me for posting this up on the internet [the guy only said that I cannot post any audio/videos up online, so I should be in the clear]), I would like to thank Mr. Frederick Wiseman for his wonderful achievements in film, and I will leave you with some tiny hint as to what I might be working on in the (near) future:  AlieNation. 

Evening, folks.  I hope you enjoyed this little slice of edumacation!  Fun to learn something new, yeah?  ;)