I have been going back through some of the footage shot for my thesis this past summer. I wanted to say a few words about my process before I get into the content. This project actually grew out of a short I did during the summer of '07 for a week-long workshop at VSW. I had been working in documentary for a while and was encouraged by the instructor, Wendy Smith to make a more personal film than I had been planning on. My work typically involved allowing the subjects to tell their own story in their own words, quite literally editing my own voice out of it. The film that I ended up making during that workshop was called Arroz Con Gandules, in which my mother in law makes a pot of rice (the title is Spanish for rice with pigeon peas), a common dish from her native Puerto Rico. During the course of this 7 or 8 minute short, my mother in law discusses not just the preparing of food, but the culture that this grew out of. People who who saw the short responded to the rich character of my mother in law, but to my surprise, they also responded strongly to my involvement. The rapport that I had with the people in the doc was directly related to my relationship with them, and it was a very different approach than I had taken before. 

It wasn't until I traveled to Puerto Rico with my wife back in January, and spent time taking photos around the island while visiting various locations, including Arroyo, the town where my wife's family came from and where her mother was born, that I knew I wanted to do something more with this. There were so many stories there that I wanted to tell, and since her mother had not been back in more than 20 years, I knew that this was a trip that I had to make again with her and document as part of my thesis. 

The initial planning involved an outline of elements that I knew I wanted to capture, from the issues that I wanted to cover and the principle characters that would be central to the story, to the visual elements that I knew would be important to telling that story. I spent the spring working from that outline, and interviewing my mother in law, Lucy, my father in law, John, my wife Norma and her sister Andrea together, as well as their uncle, Hector, who is the younger brother of Lucy. My interviews, tend to be more conversations than covering a list of questions. I keep notes nearby, but rarely look at them during the actual interview. There are no pre-formulated questions. I don't want anything to distract from the discussion that I am engaged in with the person I am interviewing. This is of course complicated by the fact that I am responsible for operating the camera, however this trade off is necessary considering that having a second person working with me would change the complexion of the response that I am getting from my interview subjects.

I also spent quite a bit of time this summer shooting events of daily life to capture some of the visual aspects to help tell the story. I follow the traditions of many of the Cinema Verite filmmakers like the Maysles, or Direct Cinema, as in the tradition of Frederick Wiseman, with a bit more of personal involvement in the process, as with the work of Ross McElwee. I am guided by the instincts that I have developed shooting news for the last seven years, reacting to the situations, looking for moments, finding the visual cues, close-ups and cutaways that will allow me to create an atmosphere in the final piece that fits with the environment in which I am shooting. I also look for these things that will allow for edit points, developing sequences and cutting together sound in a way that will move the narrative forward without disrupting the visual flow of the piece. 

I'll continue this post tomorrow with a few thoughts on my process of logging tape and developing an editing script that I use to build a timeline.

Had the opportunity to get into the film vault once again and this time I vowed not to get caught up in the organizing, moving, labeling or otherwise managing any aspect of the films collected there. I just wanted to screen something and take in that glorious glow of projected film. It's amazing how much is taken for granted today, to be able to pop a DVD in and instantly view a film without so much as moving from the couch to change a reel, or adjust focus, or god forbid, splice a broken section. Not to mention the fact that we can do so with a 60 inch plasma screen (or for most of us, likely something much less extravagant) without the 50 foot throw necessary to blow up a projected image that large.

So I grabbed a stack of cans, and headed for the deserted media center. I threaded the first one through the projector, started that baby rolling and... wait a second, what the hell is that awful buzz coming from the left speaker? Spent a half hour checking connections, trying different cables, no luck. Oh well, at least if I pan all the way over to the right, that speaker will be fine, right? But what is this crackle? Alright, well, I can screen Thanatopsis with no sound. It's really about the images anyway, just to get me in the right frame of mind. Perhaps it's having trouble with the mag sound strip on that film. I'll try another. No dice. What the @#?&**! is going on here? So I grab headphones and plug into the projector with just enough cord to awkwardly sit beside the door to the projection booth and view from the back of the room. This tactic gets me through Frank Film. I discover that the sound knob on the projector was turned up too high. That gets rid of the crackle. 

I view a very amusing Saul Bass short called Why Man Creates. Then I go to re-screen Report. Kennedy has been shot, and I'm in the sequence in which the motorcade is going by with short sections being played back repeatedly, while the start of each repeated shot is advanced methodically a few frames forward each time when suddenly, a calamitous crash comes from behind me. I nearly jump out of my skin and bolt from my seat to the projection booth to find the take up reel flapping and the rest of the film severed from it now on the floor. I shut off the projector and dejectedly inspect the damage. A jagged tear right through Jackie. A repair will be necessary. A frame or two will be lost. I suppose that ironically, this is one film that a few frames could go and no one would actually notice. 

I attend to this and then with some trepidation trudge on with Gasoline: More Run for Your Money. I'm hopeful for some useful moments or at least a shot or two that might work in a compilation film, but mostly it's just bad acting and some useful facts on how to get better gas mileage. I take notes on that and move on. Now for the curiously titled, Tumbles, Mumbles and Bumbles. I should have known better. A poorly produced sports blooper reel, complete with a mind numbing music soundtrack and a goofy voiceover track. I stick with it through the third ski jump fall and nix that selection. The afternoon is nearly a bust when I head back to the vault for one last try. A shiny can with a small reel marked "Lindbergh". Turns out to be some silent footage from Charles Lindbergh's original trans-Atlantic flight, and subsequent Mexican voyage. This at least holds some interest for me and brings about some ideas. So the day was not a total loss. Despite all this, it truly is a joy to have the screening room to myself and have the opportunity to blindly sift through what might amount to something truly worth searching for. 

After last night's showing of Persistence, I attended the workshop given by Daniel Eisenberg at the U of R this afternoon. I must say that I normally am less apt to sit through an afternoon of experimental film than most any other genre, though Eisenberg's work certainly defies that pure delineation. There is so much work out there that passes itself off as experimental, and not in a good way. After viewing the film last night however, and having had the opportunity to hear some explanation of the thinking behind the work from the artist himself, I was much more willing to further explore his work and hear more about his methods.

It was interesting to hear his perspective on source material, his utter reverence for the subject matter, above his own personal concerns. I have embarked on the process of my thesis in a very different way, moving from a method in which I attempted to remove myself from the work, quite literally, to a storyline in which I play a central role. I am still sorting this out, but having listened to Eisenberg's perspective, I think there is validity in both.

One of the more salient points in the discussion stemmed from Eisenberg's introduction of the oral history vs. the traditional historical documentation. His films hinge on this principle of using the oral history to find the story, giving, as he puts it, "a real place" to the mind's image. The use of archival material reflects this in a different way than it perhaps was intended to originally, whether taken from documentary, newsreel or military footage for instance, he provides new context, finding and preserving moments of humanity that might otherwise be lost. This is paramount to his own personal feelings of the subject matter at times, allowing his audience the freedom to draw their own conclusions, not hemmed in by an overarching agenda set forth by the maker.

At the same time, the voice of the maker is always present, which is evident in the way that the material is assembled, and certainly in the choice of the materials that are drawn from. Eisenberg spoke of using materials in such a way that the generational aspect is present, in the sense that when the material is reproduced, there is evidence of that reproduction. The archival footage is re-shot, re-cropped, optically printed repeatedly, changing the look and thereby leaving the makers imprint.

I'll leave this post with perhaps the most important point that was made during today's session. Mr. Eisenberg posed the question that is on the mind of most, if not all artists, and that is "by what authority do I have to speak?" And isn't it true that we all question at one point or another whether or not what we have to say is valid? As he also mentioned, it is a lucky few who could claim not to have pondered that query. But it is by making work that each of us have elected to answer that call, whether the work is highly regarded and lauded for its poignancy, or maligned as a failure, it is our purpose as artists to find a way to communicate whatever it is that drives us to create.

Last night I attended the screening of Persistance, the Daniel Eisenberg film, which he worked on during the '90's while living in Berlin, right around the end of the Cold War. It's a striking film on many levels, more than I could write about in one sitting, however, I wanted to record a few of my initial thoughts.

The film begins with three memorable images, each pulled from archival footage, as much of the film's imagery is. The first is the silhouette of an angel, which appears superimposed over a backdrop of the washed out sky and the blur of tree branches flying past, at times obscuring the view of our subject. The statuesque figure rises from the left side of the frame, shaken by the jitteriness of the handheld frame, apparently captured from the window of a moving car or a train perhaps, and yet it remains relatively fixed in its resolve, defiantly remaining unmoved from our view. It seems at first to be mounted to the moving vehicle, as if a hood ornament might appear, but its recurrence throughout the film later reveals it in a slightly wider shot to rise above the landscape on a pedestal, as a monument, for the purpose of the film to symbolize a salvation of some sort.

The second image is an aerial shot taken presumably from a military plane just after the end of WWII, showing the bombed out ruins of the German landscape. It is eery both from the perspective of the abject destructiveness that results from war, but also for the signs of life below, mainly in the trucks that continue along the roads that wind through the shell of a once vibrant place. Various shots similar to this one are shown throughout the film with people, both soldiers and civilians wandering amongst the wreckage, reminding the audience less of the acts of war that created the devastation we see, but more of the fact that life continues on despite it. Mr. Eisenberg shed light on one such moment that occurs later in the film in which two German women attempt to navigate the rubble of their town by wobbling their way across long, cylindrical, steel supports that once served as the structural elements of a bridge, but had been toppled to the rocky substrate that now covered the ground. As they climbed upon this unwieldy foundation, they swayed, as if novices attempting some sort of balance beam routine. Two passing Russian soldiers observed their struggle, and rather than passing by oblivious to the effort, one of them stopped to offer a hand, assisting one of the women on her journey. As Eisenberg pointed out, this rather foreign gesture of kindness between these people on opposite sides of political upheaval was captured by an American soldier, and in a way, these characters, each from a disparate social strata shared in this moment of humanity amongst the insanity that lay all about them.

The third shot, which is another of the recurring images, introduces a more familiar cinematic character, that of Edmund, the child protagonist of Roberto Rosellini's classic Italian Neo-Realist portrait of post-war Berlin, Germany Year Zero. For those who are not familiar with that film, his character appears as just another lost soul, wandering playfully amongst the wasteland that remains of his former city. For those who know the endearing and tragic story of this character, it takes on a new life, outside its original context, though it elicits a similar emotional connection as existed for audiences of the original film.

The mixture of new and found footage is used effectively in Persistence. The old 16mm, particularly the color footage, has that tactile quality to it, filled with a vibrancy that breathes through the frame with its distinctive earthen palette characteristic of the color stock of that era. It is visceral in its visual impact, reinforcing the bitter reminders of a society lost to the long, unrelenting Allied bombing campaigns. Even in the new footage, shot in the early 1990's, we still see remnants of conflict through building facades still crumbling, half demolished, or pock marked by the bullets that were strewn across their surface decades earlier.

One church in particular that Eisenberg focuses the lingering lens of his camera upon is one that has been nearly destroyed, but is finally being rebuilt. We discover that the church had been in disrepair even in its pre-war years and that the congregation, who had fervently supported the rise of Hitler, had hung a banner on its front that read "the Fuhrer will rebuild our church". After the church had been all but destroyed during the war and the Third Reich fell, the banner was replaced with a new one that read, "this is how the Fuhrer rebuilt our church".

We see these symbols of destruction and later, signs of rebuilding as Eisenberg comes to terms with his own oral histories of his Jewish heritage. Having been born in Israel, the descendent of victims of the Holocaust, he returned to the place of this horror, finding common ground with descendants of the perpetrators of these events and through it, finding reconciliation.

As we see the mammoth statue depicting Lenin being prepared for dismantling, while evidence of the churches, synagogues and the rest of the crippled infrastructure in East Berlin is being prepared for rebuilding following the end of the Cold War, we never actually see the actual work of addition or subtraction. We see only the laborious effort of assembling scaffolding, but never a block of masonry being laid or a sledgehammer striking stone, as with those iconic images of the Berlin Wall being toppled. The significance of this fact is up for interpretation, as is much of the film, and that is Eisenberg's intention. I suppose that for a city that for so many years lay in such a depressed state, the actual process of rebuilding is immaterial. That part is far less interesting, and far more predictable. Eisenberg points out that in more recent trips back to Berlin, the schism of East and West has been largely eradicated and that there is no longer any real visible evidence of the years of disarray. The buildings have been rebuilt, roads repaved, and life has moved on. This film does not seem to be about that process of laying new mortar and brick. To me, it is much more about the people, and the remarkable fact that even in the wake of such devastation, life somehow will persist.

I spent some time in the film vault at VSW yesterday, perusing the oddities of the collection. There is quite a bit of odd, which is mainly what I'm looking for right now. Having just entered my third year in the program, there has been precious little time to spend amongst the rather sizable collection of 16mm. To satisfy the practicum requirement for the program, last fall, several of us decided to organize and catalog the titles in the vault into a searchable database, which is nearly complete, and will be a useful resource for anyone looking to access materials. Having worked many hours on that project, I decided as I near the end of my time here, I needed to spend some time bringing some of that celluloid gold to the light of day. So I am working on compiling some found elements into a new film, taking pieces, and creating a new context for them. The technique is certainly not new. In fact, this week is a great opportunity to see and hear about the work of Daniel Eisenberg from the filmmaker himself. He is someone who has worked extensively in this mode, so I look forward to seeing his approach since I have not explored this method much in my own film work.

At this point, I am looking for the obscure; whether it is from science and educational films, or lesser known documentary and news footage, basically anything off the beaten path. I'm drawn to certain titles like "The Golden Age of the Automobile", or along similar lines "Gasoline: More Run for Your Money". Perhaps "The Skeleton: Our Fantastic Framework" will hold promise, or "Is Everybody Happy But Me?". How could I avoid at least viewing the ever enticing "Tumbles, Mumbles and Bumbles"?

I must begin by returning to a film that, at least in part brought me to this project: Bruce Conner's 1967 film "Report", which employs various footage of the JFK assassination in very interesting and unorthodox ways, along with running commentary from a radio report of the incident.

The film produces a fascinating reflection of our societal impulse to revel in, as we are simultaneously repelled by (or at least feign to be), the graphic violence of such an event. It also provides a fascinating commentary on the inane minutiae that at times envelopes the world of broadcast news, as I am all too aware, particularly now in the age of 24 hour news cycles, where reporters and anchors are left to blather on incessantly over layers of graphics and recycled video footage, whether it has relevance or not.

It reminds me of a very intriguing piece by German video artist Bjorn Melhus that I saw at the Denver Art Museum entitled "Deadly Storms".

You can view a short clip of the piece here: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/videos/detail/bjorn-melhus-video-installation-dam/

The piece was both a humorous and astute criticism of the frequent absurdity of the modern formula that television news broadcasts have adopted. It used a far different method than Conner did, and the different eras they were done in also separates the tone of the two works, however they share the critical viewpoint, lingering on the conceptual nature of the imagery, nearly to the point of monotony. And of course, each owes its material directly to very medium that it critiques. In the case of "Report", the use is even more direct than in the Melhus piece, however both attempt to mimic something, even mock it in a way. My approach, and my outcome, will likely be very different, though looking at these types of works is always useful in consideration of how to make use of archival materials.

Just saw an interesting film the other day on P.O.V called "Calavera Highway". It documents the trip of two brothers as they travel with their mother's ashes back to Texas, where they grew up, near the Mexican border. Along the way, they visit with their five other brothers and trace their Mexican roots, at one point crossing the border to uncover some of their father's past. It was interesting to see the perspective of another filmmaker on a story similar in theme to the one I am working on. Check out the link to view a clip, or read more about it at the website.

http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2008/calaverahighway/

On my thesis, I have finished shooting what will most likely be the first half of the film, which all takes place here in Rochester. Now begins the fun of logging all that tape and beginning to develop an editing script as I try to put together what I have before we embark on our trip to PR in December to shoot what will amount to the second half of the film (roughly). It has been difficult to find time to keep up with blogging while shooting these elements, so perhaps as I log these elements, I can recount some of those events.

It's strange how I often don't really know what I have until I go back and look at it later. I have ideas for things that I know I want, but with documentary, you never know exactly what you are going to get, and how it is going to fit into the final film. 

I knew I wanted to get everyone into the car to take a trip back to the neighborhood where my wife's parents grew up here in Rochester, as they used to do when my wife and her sister were younger. I had an idea that this could be a fruitful trip in terms of learning more about the family history and seeing where they came from, but it's impossible to plan for the moments that occur. I can only be prepared to react to the situation and capture it as it happens and then sort out later how it will fit into the narrative.

Similarly, I spent months restoring some old photos of my father in law's family, that had been recovered, unbeknownst to him, from their garage. They were severely damaged by water, but I managed to salvage and reprint many of them so that my wife and her sister could put together an album. I knew that it would be emotional for them, but also and important piece of their family narrative, so I wanted to document them giving the album to him. It was indeed emotional for everyone and though, it is difficult to separate myself from that situation in the capacity that I must while capturing it on video, I knew it could be a potentially important moment to help interweave his story into the overall narrative in the film.

Being so close to a story makes it that much harder to step back and be objective enough to know when something is working or not, but it will be even more of a challenge as I begin to edit the film over the next few months. At the same time, I cannot completely remove myself from the process, because I am a part of the story, and I have to use care as I consider how my voice will play a part in guiding the viewer's experience of the story.

A new academic year dawns and it's as good a time as any to return to blogging about the progress of my thesis work. It has been a busy summer, continuing to shoot material, as well as logging tape and planning for our tip to Puerto Rico in December. I am also working on getting a website online with more content, which should hopefully be forthcoming.

I just returned from Denver the week before last, covering the DNC for NY1. I'm finally getting back to normal, or at least trying to. Thought I might share a few pics from the trip.

You can view more at www.kodakgallery.com/mpmann_photos.

I spent the past weekend back home in Newark, NY where I grew up, helping my parents get some work done on their house, since they are soon looking to downsize. My oldest brother, John, was in town from Orlando to offer a hand as well. I took the opportunity to spend some time documenting the gathering, in order to contrast the confluence of my wife's family, which I have spent a good deal of time documenting over the last few months. I had the opportunity to discuss with my parents some of their knowledge of our family history, while thumbing through some old photos. My brother John, who spent fours years in the Marine Corps out of high school, spoke of his experience stationed in Scotland, researching that line of our family's ancestry. I have spent quite a bit of time considering how to include my own story into this project, which was the impetus for this project, though not the focus. It is my own line of inquiry that will drive the story, and I think that it is my lack of connection and knowledge about my family history that has driven me to want to understand how and why my wife's family has managed to keep their mixture of cultures so vital and integral to their own traditions.

As a side note, I found this link to offer a good explanation of Scottish clans and a listing of the different clan names, including Gunn of Kilernan, which is where my brother was able to trace our roots back  to:  www.motherbedford.com/scottishclans.htm.