Film Making is Suffering

I have been for the last two years been taking a senior digital histories class in little Tokyo.  My friend Robert convinced me to try it.  Last years project was turned in late due to the process of Chemo was affecting my output.  I did it on the Basketball Referee group that I belong to.  It did not turn out to my liking but I submitted it anyway.  It was the victim of too many technical errors, and essentially a talking head type doc that lasted 5 minutes.  The subjects deserved better.  It is my hope that sometime in the future, I can fix it.

This year was another late submission, mostly due to my method of creativity and procrastination.  My primary method is to collect everything, then put it together.  In video, that is a recipe for disaster.  You will forever be collecting material,  for every 10 seconds, you will probably be collecting 2 hrs. of video.

The other problem, is that no matter how many times you look at the video, you attempt to tweak it.  When you tweak it, it either creates problems in the overall flow or you just screw something up.  I do both.  I don't know how many times I tweaked a picture or video then screwed up the audio.  Most of the time, accidentally deleting portions and having to recreate it.

The other major problem is that my peak creativity hours are between 10pm and 2am.  That does not bode well for those of us still working for a living.

Not being one of the using the conventional methods of story telling, I decided to tell a story of the life witnessed by a rice pot.  What drove me there was that my main subject was not willing to be video taped and my recording of the interview was technically a disaster. 

Therefore I decided to write a script, have it recorded, insert photos and short video clips to fill in the corresponding visual component. 

In spite of the torturous process, what drives me is to tell people's stories.  There is a quote from president Bill Clinton:   “ I learned that everybody has a story but not everyone can tell it”. I have always believed that but it is a matter of getting them to tell it. I soon found that there are more stories out there than I can document. It is overwhelming at times as I create my wish list folks I would love to interview and tape.

Modern technology has now made it possible for old hacks like me to easily record and create videos. All modern digital cameras have video capabilities, and actually some of the classmates used their iPhones with amazing quality. Macs come with the program iMovie that make editing easy and powerful.  You Tube gives unlimited access. Seniors have a great warped perspective on life and it shows in their work.

So this is what I'm doing. I may not be a great videographer, but at least the story can be viewed.

Anti-Social Social Media

I got duped into joining Facebook years ago.  It was required to view some posted photos.  I ended up posting a few pictures of the grandson 4 years ago and been inactive since.  I didn't want to reveal much about my life, but willing to venture into others.  I find a lot of pictures of food and the positive snapshots of people's lives.

I was doing fine until I decided to post a picture of myself.  Why, I don't know.  I needed to find a picture for my video promotional material and decided to include it in my Facebook page.  Little did I know that once you post something new, it goes out to everyone on your friend's list.  That is another story.  So my question to my computer programmer son was how do you post without it going out announcing the changes?  His answer, you can't.  You can limit it to selected folks, but you can't stop it from announcing your new post.  He reminded me that it is called social media, not anti social media.  Hmmmm.

What brings up the subject is that I am contradictory in my peculiar preferences.  I am in a senior video class where your final projects are viewed at a film festival in a theater on a big movie screen.  Now I spent a lot of time on the project, developing a script, researching online archives, asking relatives for family photos, etc.  Then came the process of combining all the components into one video film about six minutes long.

The purpose is two fold, to document people's stories and to show them publicly.  The ultimate goal is to have them shown at other festivals.  I spent the time making the video, but am reluctant  to have people view it.  It is bad enough I have trouble viewing it in a theater.  Something about not being totally satisfied with the film and knowing where all the flaws are.  During the creation process, no matter how many times you view it, you will always find a flaw to fix.  Then there are those you just can't fix.

So why create it if you don't want people to view it?  Welcome to my life.

Wada Tradition

Well, another Wada tradition has been passed down to the next generation.  I should probably qualify that statement.  The Wada tradition is probably more of a Wada-Miyoshi tradition.

Saturday we received a text with a picture of the grandson with a gash in the head.  Apparently a collision with a dresser handle.  His mom posted the picture in black and white and had folks guess how many stitches it would require.

The Miyoshi text trail exploded.  Each of his uncles and his father have been there and each with their version and number of stitches.  There was a time where we speculated that they were going to name the ER after us due to the number of visits.  And the questions of how it happened without us, the parents being there to verify the account of how it happened.  Then Grandma’s siblings poured in with their ER visit and stitches.  

It was pointed out that if it was a contest of the number of stiches, Gayle reminded everyone that I won.  We just don’t know how many it took to sew my chest up after open heart surgery.  Ouch.  Camden had 4 stitches, did not cry, and is running around with a bandied on his forehead for at least a week.

I was going to post a photo of the gash, but after cropping and converting to black and white, it still gives me the creeps......