jared, production, status update

ashley, status update

In light of some recent conversations Jared and I have had, we thought it might be interesting to share with you some of our “realizations” we have had as we approach our second month of filming.

In every proposal or verbal description we’ve given friends, family, and industry contacts of Life’s Waltz, we have almost always included the clause that this film would be about “active seniors” and their lifestyles as they take place in a retirement community. In reviewing our footage, Jared and I noticed that even when our seniors have apparently “active” schedules, it’s difficult to consider the majority of these activities as “active.” That is, at least, in the sense in which we originally thought of it when we embarked upon the making of this film. After some initial panic and much discussion that followed, though, we’ve come to understand that it all simply depends on what it really means to be an active senior, and we may have to re-evaluate our own definition. Ah, unforeseen challenges that arise! But we believe that good things will come from challenges like these, so let me explain our revelations.

For example, if Sally Jones has a bridge game, happy hour, and bingo all in one day, it is technically a busy day, but all of those activities have have her seated and without very much physical movement. Or, if Bob has poker, a luncheon, and a movie night, he is still sitting there–stationary, immobilized, and without physical activity.

Admittedly, I have become a bit disappointed and even frustrated by this realization. I know there are 90 year olds skydiving! I just know it!

This realization doesn’t reflect on the characters themselves and whether their lives are interesting or not–in fact we find out through our initial conversations and interviews whether or not these these people are fascinating, diverse, wise, hilarious, dramatic, etc. But no matter how much they tell us, we probably won’t be able to make Life’s Waltz a compelling documentary unless we can show their lifestyles (which refers to the longstanding struggle in filmmaking of showing vs. telling). Nobody wants to watch a bunch of talking heads for 90 minutes! Film being a visual medium, meaning is best expressed through the visual, the kinetic, the dynamic.

We were quite conflicted over this–how do we continue production about a group of active seniors if they are not really all that active?

So, we asked our seniors for their definition of what exactly an “active senior” is…

Their answers, consistent with each other, weren’t necessarily surprising in the end–I guess we just hadn’t considered their response. We just had other expectations about what it means to be active. Most responded something along these lines: At the ripe old age of 89 you can expect that your knees may deteriorate or your back will hurt or you won’t be able to walk as fast or jump as high as you once did. The loss of mobility or physical ability is something that can only be expected, and ultimately, accepted (wow I love rhyming). But nonetheless they consider themselves active, and that’s because they’re active in a way we hadn’t considered much: mentally active.

Those who still are “with it,” or “sharp as a tack” consider themselves to be “active seniors.” They know each day’s schedule, they know what they want, and aside from the chronic or acute ailments that come with being 8 or 9 decades old, they can pretty much run their own lives. In fact, the same reason why so many of the seniors we’re working with feel just as young as they always have–like a “25-year-old stuck in the body of a 77-year old”, to quote a man in the previous, short version of Life’s Waltz–is the same reason why mental acuity is so important and there are activities at TVN like “Brain Aerobics”: staying healthy and active in the golden years is primarily about staying mentally healthy and mentally active. That’s where the feeling of youth lies.

As Dorothy would say, “How ’bout that?”

How ’bout this: since I’ve come to understand that mental ability is a priority for a lot of our characters, Jared and I have discussed this renewed definition of “active seniors” and how it might affect our approach to shooting and editing.

If anything, our footage has been conservatively shot keeping in accordance with the standard way of covering the action (a.k.a. “coverage“) so we can cut a scene in the editing room. When this whole issue of “active seniors” came about, we suddenly posed the questions, “If the subjects–the content, everything in front of the camera–are static, will the footage, and ultimately, the film feel static too?” and therefore “Should we be compensating for the physical stagnation of the content by shooting the film in a way (manipulating the style of cinematography) that would introduce a sense of movement and energy?” In other words, should we be doing quick zooms (punches in), tracking shots (tracing the movement or form of something), using Dutch angles (tilted angles), or anything else to give the footage more “energy”?

Here’s our debate:

The Pro of ramping up more stylized camera work: the footage would probably have more energy and would give the film a more distinct tone that stems from the technique, but not necessarily the content.

The Con of ramping up more stylized camera work: viewers would probably be more aware that there is a force behind the making of the story, or that the film is self-reflexive which might interfere with their connection to the characters and their suspension of disbelief.

Normally, a director would discuss with their cinematographer what kind of lighting, angles, and movement they want to shoot that sets the tone of the film. But since Jared and I trade off on camera operating and sound, we had a tacit understanding instead to just pick up the camera and shoot conservative/traditional coverage, in sync with our technique and style from the Life’s Waltz short. Traditional coverage comprises the master shot (whole scene to give the context), wide shot (WS=full bodies of characters), medium shot (MS=waists and up), and the close-up shot (CU=shoulders and up, or just faces), all typically on-level with whatever is being framed, and maybe throw in a couple of “cutaways” like CUs on hands.

So, we finally had that conversation…and…

After further discussion, we’ve decided on a couple of things: if the situation calls for it and if traditional coverage has already been shot, the camera operator has the liberty to stylize the shots with a little experimentation. Secondly, if the situation doesn’t call for this, we’ll stick to more conservative coverage. An important realization was that we can always heighten the energy of any given scene or part of the film with a faster-paced editing. Traditional coverage can be edited slow or fast, and everywhere in between on the spectrum. Stylized coverage, on the other hand, would introduce a potential constraint in the editing room so as to only allow for fast-paced cutting. For our purposes, therefore, we’re going to generally stick to traditional coverage, because we’ll only know in the editing room which parts of the film will require a faster or slower pace, depending on what part of this or that character’s emotional arc we’re in, the context of the scene at hand, and the narrative arcs of the film on the whole.

So there you have it–the definition of what active seniors are and the effect on our camerawork and editing. And to be honest, we’re pretty relieved. The thing is, our film is about what it’s like to grow old and to live in a retirement community, all for the typical person who’s going to be a typical senior. Bungee-jumping 90-year-olds, though quite physically active, are the exception, and while we are very interested in jumping out of a plane in order to film a senior doing such an extraordinary activity, our film is not about that… at least not right now! And in practical terms, this translates for us to: conservative coverage doesn’t mean it’s bad, in fact it’s perfect for the subject matter and therefore it’s the right choice for the film.

Ahhhh, such are the revelations of documentary filmmakers!

characters, production

jared, status update

We’ve shot 451.44 GB of footage which translates, at 14.92 GB/98 minutes, to 49.42 hours (49:25:20 h:m:s) of footage shot. Our goal for the first month is, as Ashley mentioned, to shoot 75 hours of footage, 40 of which should be interview and 35 of which should be active. While we don’t know the breakdown of interview to active footage shot, that means that we’re 25 hours short of our goal, with 5 days remaining to meet our goal until Ashley goes home to Oregon for a few days for Christmas. That means 25 hours in 5 days, which actually should be attainable if we’re diligent: just 5 hours a day. After all, we’re at TVN from 10am to 8pm every day on average anyway, so we should be able to get there! Just need to ramp it up a little.

Our original goal for January, then, is to shoot 100 hours. To give y’all a sense of perspective, for our previous version of Life’s Waltz, we shot 28 full tapes (42 minutes each) of footage that we cut down to a 16:30 minute film, which boils down to about a 71:1 ratio of footage shot to footage included in the final product. Given we’re aiming to shoot 175 hours total (a goal that may or may not be met, of course, but we will try!) for the feature version and cut it down to, let’s say, a 90-minute film, this would yield a ratio of about 117:1! Maybe we should just stop now and save ourselves time in the editing room! No… but let’s just say that the editing process will be neither quick nor easy! “Fun” may be the word I’m looking for.

production, status update

ashley, producing, status update

Week 2 of production, here we goooooo!

Here are the latest happenings at Town Village North (TVN), the retirement community where we are filming in Dallas:

1. SAM’S BIRTHDAY! It was Sam’s 89th birthday (88th maybe?) on December 2. Happy Birthday, Sam! He had a nice party, mostly friends and family over for a Pei-Wei Buffet. As he read his cards and blew out his candles, I could tell that he was processing (almost) 90 years of memories. I can only imagine how exhilarating and overwhelming that must be!

2. ELECTIONS!!! Two of our subjects are running for Residents Council–Sam and Ed. Who will be elected? Oh, the pressure! Four in all will be elected, and these four will basically be a voice for the residents and whatever they want communicated to the TVN administration.

Voting took place 3 times today, and will continue through tomorrow. It felt like people really came out of the woodworks for their chance to vote–the main hall was really buzzing tonight as people strolled by (cane in hand) or whizzed by in their scooter.

3. POKER GAME! Today’s Men’s Poker game had an unexpected bump in the road (and at least 30 minutes into their playing time!): there was an extra 7 of Diamonds found in the deck!!! Nooo-ooo! As the cards were inspected by the men, you could have cut the tension in the room WITH A KNIFE! But once that extra 7 was tossed out, the betting continued as before.

Today’s Jeer: We found out today that (prior to our arrival) a woman whom we had hoped to chat with and tag along with at TVN has had a series of hard-hitting bouts of pneumonia. We were also informed today that her children have decided to put her into physical therapy/rehab. According to this woman’s circle of friends at TVN, sometimes the next course of action for an individual like herself is be put into nursing care. While strange and almost sad for me, this is definitely one of the realities many seniors face.

Today’s Cheer: Jared and I have accumulated quite the group of characters–there are still some, however, who we would like to involve in the project: one individual is a 107 year-old woman who is sharp as a tack and loves to dance! Secondly, there is a married couple who actually met at TVN and got married there! I can’t wait to hear about this love story!

fun, status update

production, status update

ashley, jared, production, status update

Wow. I’m so ecstatic about what’s going on – we’ve had just a couple of days of production and already so many amazing and fascinating people have entered our lives and filled our footage with their quirky personalities, honesty, interesting perspectives, and unique stories!

Let me tell you specifically. We met first with Martin, a very distinguished gentleman and multiple-honor-recipient living at Town Village North (I’ll abbreviate that to TVN, because I have the feeling I’ll be typing it quite a bit!). We stayed for just about 45 minutes. We want our first “interviews” (which is a word we’re trying to stop using), or conversations, if you will, to be brief so as not to seem needy or overwhelming. Just to break the ice, get everyone used to the equipment setup – it’s not every day that a camera and audio setup is coming through the halls of TVN. Martin told us a story about having to leave Rochester because if he didn’t, his life would be threatened due to his asthma. He came to Dallas and has been here since. As it turns out, he was the first of more than half of the people we’ve met so far who are from New York!

At any rate, we then went and visited Yael (who had forgotten we were coming to visit–whoops!). She answered the door in total surprise and laughed. After saying we could come back another time, she insisted we stay and she got ready really quickly. What should she wear? Did she look decent? Should she change sweaters? Everyone’s thinking about how they need to dress up for the camera! We keep telling everyone to not worry about it. After some time, we know that people will stop dressing up for the camera and just be natural, but it definitely makes us feel like a pretty classy enterprise! Yael was born in Cologne, Germany, and she’s lived in countries all over the world, throughout Europe, the Middle-East, Africa, and the USA. And she speaks 6 languages, including Swahili! Incredible.

Then we met Sam. You’ve seen his video. He’s a riot and, like Ashley said, was blown away by the fact that we were recording straight to digital and could store 6 hours 40 minutes of footage on one card no larger than 1″x1″ (even though we’re only using 16GB cards that hold 1 hour 40 minutes each, we could be using a 64GB card of the same physical size to achieve that feat). He hinted that he may have some romantic interests that we should press him for more information on–awesome! That sounds juicy to us! When we stopped filming, he said he had something for us. He gave us four chocolate truffles (two milk chocolate, two white chocolate) and the following:
Haha! And that was after he complimented both of our smiles! What a fun guy. We’re so excited to continue working with all of these people at TVN.

Finally, we capped off the day with my own grandmother: Dorothy. She got all dressed up too, of course, and entertained us with her own ruminations on how different youth culture and life for youngsters like us(!) is nowadays compared to when she grew up. Oh yeah, that was after she fed us! Would I be biased if I said she’s my favorite? Her friend Ceil also showed up and so we filmed a little intro for her too, which you can see below. She’s hilarious. Not afraid to say what’s on her mind, which will be key for us to really get a realistic view of life in old age. In fact, everyone we’ve worked with so far has been very forthcoming and honest, I think, which is really encouraging.

The next day, we met with Ed and Selma. We talked about a common go-to: the food. Suffice it to say, everyone’s got their own opinion on that issue! Once again, Selma was from New York. (Did I mention that Ceil and Sam are, too?) Ed is our first born-and-raised Dallasite. Great Texas accent: my kinda guy. Really nice. We can’t wait to film with both of them again. Selma paints and plays bridge quite a bit, and she also attends “winery” (happy hour!) on Mondays–we’ll definitely be checking that out with her. But she said she only drinks orange juice there!

And finally, on our third day, we sat down with Ceil and her husband, Ed, for a few minutes in their apartment. They’re both really funny. Ed fed us chocolate-covered pretzels and propped up his legs on an ottoman for the interview with his pant legs pulled up to reveal pink socks beneath his khaki pants. Ceil called attention to them, and he said, So what? He likes them! He recounted his time spent in the army, in Japan in particular, and also told us about how he first met Ceil. He said, “I told my friend I was lookin’ for a broad!”

We followed them and my grandmother to dinner and shot in the dining hall. Everyone was looking at us, so we went table by table and told everyone who was looking on what was going on. They were all really interested about the project. Needless to say, it’s been an incredible beginning of production, and we can’t wait to keep going–we’re shooting through the holidays!

status update