Length: 7-12 minutes Format: mp4 uploaded to Vimeo or YouTube as an unlisted/private link. Point Value: 90 points divided this way:
Initial Ideas on Short Documentary Presentation (5 points) Due: You will sign up to present.
Revised Ideas on Short Documentary Presentation (5 points) Due: You will sign up to present.
Draft 1 (15 points) Due: You will sign up to screen your draft.
Draft 2 (15 points) Due: You will sign up to screen your draft.
Final Draft (45 points) Due: You will sign up to screen your draft.
Distribution Plan (5 points) Due: 4/29 by 11:59pm.
Short Documentary
Who should the short documentary be about? This is a personal film, meaning that you, the filmmaker, are sharing with us an intimate story about yourself or about someone you are close to. In order to be safe during our current pandemic, you will only film those who are already in your circle of people you see on a regular basis:
Yourself.
One or more family members you already have regular contact with.
Your partner you already have regular contact with.
One or more roommates/friends you already have regular contact with.
Your pets.
Please do not engage with anyone outside your circle for this project, only with those you already see regularly. You can always add other voices after the pandemic is over.
What should the documentary be about? The trick to a good personal documentary topic is to narrow it as much as possible. When you’re dealing with someone else as your subject, you have limited access to them and their story. When you’re dealing with a personal documentary, you have a literal lifetime of memories and experiences to draw from. Limiting the scope is vital so it can help you discard some of the vast amount of material and experiences available to you. Here are some possibilities:
1. You can make a film about a particular relationship in your life, ie. your grandmother and you, your parents, your twin brothers, the best friend you had since you were a toddler and you. Once you figure out the relationship, you’ll want to narrow your topic even more. Perhaps you lived with your grandmother for a year during your childhood because your parents were out of the country. Perhaps your parents got married and then divorced and then remarried. Perhaps your twin brothers haven’t talked to each other for two years because of a fight they had in high school or perhaps they decided to be roommates in college and are in the same major and do everything together. In other words, the relationship needs to be unique or compelling in some way for it to interest us as audiences.
2. You can make a film about a particular person in your life. As with relationships, the person needs something compelling about them in order to intrigue us. Maybe your mom is a civil rights activist, your sister a competitive golfer, your dad the principal of a school for disabled children, or your roommate a refugee from a war-torn country. The film will revolve around that aspect of the person’s life.
3. You can explore an aspect of your own life in your documentary. Some of the more obvious (but not any less compelling) possibilities are what it is like to be a college student during COVID19, what being a person of color is like at a time when systemic racism is rampant nationally, what it means to be a politically engaged young person when the political climate is so fractured and polarized, what it’s like to be a woman studying at MSU in the wake of the Nassar scandal, and what it’s like to navigate life through social media when cancel culture plays such a big role in how people engage with each other digitally. There are countless current topics you can work through. You may also, however, choose to look at something that isn’t as present in everyone’s minds right now. Perhaps you came out as gender non-binary last year or you have always loved cat stickers and have thousands of them neatly organized in albums. Perhaps you’ve kept a long-distance correspondence with someone you’ve never met for a decade. Everyone has some aspects of their lives that can make for fascinating stories if told the right way. You’ll need to find what that is for you if you want to use this option.
4. You can think about a family secret or an important event that happened in your family or group of friends and work around that. This may be the trickiest of the options because it involves telling stories that at some point people thought should be kept hidden or working through events that concern a group of people who may remember them differently from each other and/or who may not want them revealed to strangers. I caution you not to, at least for this class, make a film revealing a secret most people in your family or group of friends are not aware of. Similarly, please do not make your documentary about an event that is so traumatic that those who lived through it are not yet ready to discuss it. Those kinds of extremely delicate stories are better handled by more experienced filmmakers who can navigate the very slippery territory that everyone involved must traverse when making and distributing such a film. If, however, the secrets were revealed in the past or the events have been digested by most of the people who lived through them, this may be a good choice for you. Some examples of possible secrets are children who didn’t know they were adopted, infidelity, professions that relatives didn’t know their family member had, crimes committed by family members. Some examples of possible events are untimely deaths, lost homes, family migrations to other regions or countries, running businesses or creating art together (the latter two fall on the lighter side of things, obviously).
5. You could focus on an issue and explore it through yourself and others you love. This could be something like race, gender, sexuality, social class, ability. If you and your best friend are trans, you could explore your coming out stories together. You could examine what it’s like to be Asian American by telling the story of how you and your family engage with each other. If you were brought up by a single mom, you could look at the struggles and joys of raising children on one’s own as a woman in the US (or whatever country you grew up in).
What elements can I use to tell the story? You have a variety of possibilities for telling this story. Narration and interviews are standard to personal documentaries, as are scenes where we see our protagonist engage with others in ways that resonate with the documentary’s topic. To make the piece more visually engaging, filmmakers often use home videos, photos, letters, manuscripts, documents, objects, and places related to the story, as well as images that metaphorically evoke the feelings and themes discussed in the film.
How will I film this documentary on my own? If you put the camera on a tripod, you can set it up, hit play and then put yourself in the image. Both cell phones and DSLR cameras allow you to flip the screen so you can see what you’re filming from where you’re filming it. Filming others will be easier because you can stand behind the camera and move it as you wish. One thing I have found to be useful when I’m filming myself is to have two cameras that I can cut between when I’m editing. If you’re filming with your cellphone, you can borrow a second cellphone and set it up from a different angle. You can also, if you’re using a DSLR camera, use your cellphone on a tripod to get a second camera going. Make sure if you’re using more than one mode of recording (Taskam plus one or two cameras) to clap at the beginning of each clip so you can easily synch your sound and images when editing.
How will I edit this documentary? Given our current pandemic situation, we may not be able to edit in class together as I usually do with my filmmaking students. Please use whatever editing software you have in your computer in order to edit the film. Make sure to organize your footage in folders and to name your clips with descriptive names (including date, characters, whether it’s a scene, interview or B-roll) so you can easily keep track of your footage before uploading it to your editing software. If you have editing questions, let me know and I will try to answer them. The software I know well is Adobe Premiere, but I have also worked with Final Cut Pro and iMovie in the past.
Does the short documentary need a soundtrack? Yes, and it should be made out of Creative Commons music, which you can find here: http://www.freesound.org,http://www.jamendo.com/en, and http://ccmixter.org. You’re also welcome to use other Creative Commons music websites and/or to compose your own music or ask someone to compose music for you.
Does the short documentary need credits? Yes, and you should also come up with a name for your production company to open the film with. Make sure to list me as an executive producer for your film.
NOTE: If you’re using something like Adobe Premiere, make sure to have a version of your Premiere file in the drive, in your computer, and in a Google drive you for this purpose. That way you will always have the project (if not the files backed up). Ideally you would have the files backed up in two drives. If that’s at all possible, I strongly suggest it. For other softwares, you may be able to do the same if the files are separate from the footage.
Short Documentary Planning Presentation 1
You will give a 5-minute presentation (which you can design in Google Slides, PowerPoint, Prezi, etc.) in class during which you answer the following questions for us:
What is your film about? If you are trying to decide between a number of ideas, please share them with us.
Who will your film feature?
How much access do you have to your documentary participants?
What kinds of footage (interviews, scenes, etc.) are you thinking of filming to feature your participants and what kinds of supporting materials (home videos, photos, objects, etc.) do you have access to?
What locations will you use to film this documentary?
What cameras and mics will you use?
What challenges are you worried about?
What questions do you have for us as you work through the documentary?
Delivery: Name it “Planning Presentation 1” followed by your last name and upload to our folder titled “Short Documentary Planning Presentation 1.”
Short Documentary Planning Presentation 2
You will give a 5-minute presentation (which you can design in Google Slides, PowerPoint, Prezi, etc.) in class during which you will answer the following questions for us:
What is your film about? What do you think the central concept of the story is?
How many participants do you plan to feature and how many times/where do you plan to film them?
What kinds of footage (interviews, scenes, B-roll) are you thinking of filming to feature your participants and what kinds of supporting materials (home videos, photos, objects, and so on) will you feature?
What locations will you use to film this documentary?
Mention at least two films we’ve watched that will inspire your aesthetic choices for this film and briefly tell us which aspects of those films resonate with your own.
What challenges are you worried about?
What questions do you have for us as you work through the documentary?
Delivery: Name it “Planning Presentation 2” followed by your last name and upload to our Teams folder titled “Short Documentary Planning Presentation 2.”
Short Documentary Draft 1
For your draft, follow these guidelines:
Share 2-3 minutes of edited footage with us.
If you’re sharing interview footage, we should see some B-roll as well.
If you’re showing us a scene, try to have it be a scene that starts and finishes in the clip you share so we can get a sense of the film’s emerging rhythm and style.
If you’re using narration, make sure it has B-roll to go along with it.
You may want to experiment with music for your soundtrack so you can start thinking about the sonic design of your film.
Delivery: Export the clip as an mp4 and save it to your computer so you can play it from your computer during class (that way the sound will not lag as much over Zoom). Additionally, name it “Draft 1” followed by your last name and upload it to our folder titled “Short Documentary Draft 1.”
Short Documentary Draft 2
For your draft, follow these guidelines:
Share 3-4 minutes of edited footage with us.
If you’re sharing interview footage, we should see some B-roll as well.
If you’re showing us a scene, try to have it be a scene that starts and finishes in the clip you share so we can get a sense of the film’s emerging rhythm and style.
If you’re using narration, make sure it has B-roll to go along with it.
Some of what we watch should feature music so we can provide feedback on the sonic design of your film.
Make sure that characters are introduced with lower-third titles.
Delivery: Export the clip as an mp4 and save it to your computer so you can play it from your computer during class (that way the sound will not lag as much over Zoom). Additionally, name it “Draft 2” followed by your last name and upload it to our folder titled “Short Documentary Draft 2.”
Short Documentary Final Draft
For your draft, follow these guidelines:
Share your completed 7-12 minutes documentary (including opening and closing credits) with us.
We will provide you with some feedback, which you can implement before submitting the final version alongside the distribution plan.
Delivery: Export the clip as an mp4 and save it to your computer so you can play it from your computer during class (that way the sound will not lag as much over Zoom). Additionally, name it “Final Draft” followed by your last name and upload it to our folder titled “Short Documentary Final Draft.”
Distribution Plan
What does the distribution plan entail? You will write a list of at least ten film festivals you aim to submit to and explain why. You should find documentaries in each of the following categories: student film festivals, submission-fee-free film festivals, Midwest film festivals, and film festivals related to your film’s particular topic. For each festival, provide the link to their website, as well as the next deadline, the cost of submission, and a sentence or two about why you selected that particular festival.
How do we find film festivals? There are two key film festival websites: Filmfreeway and FestHome. You may need to create a filmmaker profile in order to browse festivals.
Where do I add the link to my completed film? At the beginning of your distribution plan, you should add the link to your film on vimeo or youtube. Make sure to make it private, unlisted or password protected.
Assignment Delivery Make your distribution plan as a Word Document, name it “Distribution Plan” followed by your last name. Email your essay to hidalgo5@msu.edu. The subject of your email should be Distribution Plan.
Questions
If you have questions about the assignment, feel free to email me or make an appointment.
