“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.”
-Benjamin Franklin
I have a ton of things to learn ahead of me.
In an overall note: It was incredible-- I was not as surprised to find yet glad to see how much I love to be behind camera's, directing my vision along the way and producing it to see the final product afterwards.
We didn't lay back for a second: we experimented. We got to use a variety of lenses which gave different effects to the narrative. Of course, I had already outlined the questions and subjects we had to cover but still, being alert to opportunities and having your creative antenas on in the moment, makes it a more fun and dynamic experience, plus, it keeps it real. Specially with interviews I feel, there is no way to mess up, because something that might come up all of a sudden can be used to make a point. For example, as soon as I was speaking to Lucia about the opportunity cost of having a buisness, her phone rang: It was Michele asking if he could order pizza. She appologised and almost cut off the conversation but the naturality of the situation made it authentic so I told her to relax, that anything could be cut off the tape afterward. Over-planning takes these things away, and it's ok to be flexible.. because then I realized, when she talked about not giving enough time to her kids as she would wish she did, that I could use that footage to prove the point. |
Even though Gabriel and I sweated through the process, carried huge lights up and down the greatest building of our school, had to ask for special permissions, set up the lighting, wait for the interviewee, check if the mikes where on, play around with the frames and then sweated some more...
I LEARNED
More than I could have ever learned on a film lesson sitting in my bum and reading a text-book.
Yes, the opportunity cost of spending all this time in one interview when after that, I will have to perform other 6 or 7 (or who knows how many) with the same expectations for quality, is that it keeps me from being at home doing other regular-day stuff.