Attempt number one failed. At first the idea was intriguing. Ask a midwife about her life of bringing a new life into the world as a job. The technicalities sunk the ship. The obvious climax of showing the midwife at work would obviously breach the comfort zone of a client. No mother wants some college kid poking his Flip camera into an otherwise spiritual gathering of family.
The second attempt was canceled by an act of god. Rain fell upon the farmers market this past weekend making the project virtually unphotographable and otherwise unrecordable.
Desperate measures led me to seek a little help from my friends. A friend that I’ve known since junior high school put me in touch with a team of brothers that recently put out a documentary about the recession. Austin and Brian Chu spent the better part of 2009 traveling to every state in the United States of America documenting what they saw and the people they encountered, asking how the recession has affected each individual. The film is called The Recess Ends.
Arranging an interview was easy. The biggest challenge in interviewing the two was treating them as individuals that brought their own skills to the table. Afterwards, the editing of audio was challenging in all of the expected ways, meaning technical aspects of digital editing programs.
With reporting, the challenge lay in finding an expert source. Who could comment, in a relative way, on the documentary. The answer was to look towards those individuals that seemed obtainable. Associate Professor Aaron Kerner of San Francisco State University was able to provide his expert opinion on the topic of documentary film and what it means to be an aspiring film maker.
For those taking Digital Newsgathering in the spring, I would advise you to shoot for gathering as much material as possible. In otherwords, overshoot it so that in the end it’s not a matter of gathering content but picking and choosing the most appropriate material to convey you’re message.
