Travel – Page 6 – Journeys of a Hybrid

September 24, 2011September 24, 2011

It’s All Connected

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve had numerous experiences where things I’ve done in the past have resurfaced in ways I couldn’t have imagined. Last week blues musician Willie “Big Eyes” Smith passed away. He was one of the only two Delta blues musicians still living who had been part of my first short documentary The Delta Bluesmen. That same week, I had a photograph hanging in an exhibit by the Copyright Alliance, Recording Our History: Faces Behind the Camera, in the Senate building rotunda in our nation’s capitol. It was a portrait of blues drummer Sam Carr, who I had photographed and interviewed for that same project, over ten years ago.

I knew if Sam were alive he would have been humbled and honored,

P9224216 — Gail Mooney with her portrait of blues drummer Sam Carr in Senate Rotunda, Washington DC ©Eugene Mopsik

as was I, to have his portrait displayed in such a historic setting. I couldn’t help but “feel” proud at that moment in time. Sure, I felt proud of myself and Sam but I also felt a sense of pride to live in a country where I could still freely walk the halls of the Senate building, past the offices of the powerful of today and the ghosts from yesterday. I didn’t expect to feel that way. I was surprised and comforted that we still have this kind of access to our representatives.

It got me thinking about the trip I took last summer with my daughter when we left the country for 99 days, shooting Opening Our Eyes. We had circled the globe and had visited countries that crossed the spectrum politically, economically and socially. Our journey truly did open our eyes and when we returned to the U.S., it was a big adjustment. What hit me most was that everyone needed to be right, especially in Washington DC. I couldn’t watch TV for months because all I saw was 500 channels of “experts” pontificating and no one was getting anywhere. Worse yet, we all suffer. I remember a time, when I was growing up during the Kennedy era and we asked what we could do for others, instead of what we could “gain” for ourselves.

It’s a year later and I still don’t watch much TV. I’ve found myself absorbed back into the “culture” of America. But as I walked through those venerable halls of the Senate building, I was reminded of my purpose. I’m a storyteller. I voice the stories of people like Sam Carr so that future generations will remember the way things used to be. History gives us perspective and we can learn from it – or not. Without perspective – we can’t remain free.

September 16, 2011

A Sad Day

This is out of the norm for this site, but I post this news to remind everyone to live their life each day as if it were their last. It’s a reminder to us all, to not put off those things you want to do or leave your words unsaid.

I write when I have something on my mind or feel that I have something to say and pass along. Today, I write because I’m heartbroken. I need to share some thoughts and then close out.

Willie “ Big Eyes” Smith – legendary blues musician, passed away – suddenly from a stroke. He was one of the seven Delta blues musicians that I interviewed for one of my first short documentaries back in 2002, The Delta Blues Musicians. They are all gone now – but one.

I’ll always remember the day I sat down to talk to Willie. It was relaxed and we had the most wonderful conversation, sitting on the porch of an old sharecropper shack at Hopson’s Plantation in Clarksdale, MS. I feel good that I captured his thoughts and words that day and preserved them for future generations. I feel that my purpose in life is to do just that – to document, record and capture the peoples and cultures of our times. I feel that is what I am here to do. When I stay on that course, I have peace inside. When I drift from that – I don’t feel right. I think I’ve always known that – but nowadays I try to stay focused on that path.

Willie’s passing reminds me yet again, how precious life is and to appreciate the now. For the most part, I do live in the now. I try to live my life as if this may be my last day on earth. It frees me from a lot of needless fears that stops lots of people from “doing”. It reminds me to tell my people that I love them because I may not get that chance again.

We all put things off or leave things left unsaid. Seven years ago, mom died suddenly, without warning. It seems like yesterday because the pain is still real and there is a hole left in my heart. I remember quite clearly the week before she died. It was a busy week and I had planned to give my mom a call because it had been awhile. I never did get that chance – and those words will go unsaid – forever.

We lost another blues legend earlier this year, Pinetop Perkins. Pinetop and Willie had just won a Grammy for the album “Joined at the Hip” that they worked on together. I had been meaning to head down to the Delta next month to the Arkansas Blues and Heritage Festival – I had missed the festival last year and I wanted to hear Pinetop and Willie play. Sadly, I won’t get that chance to see and hear them in concert again. But I do have their records and I’ll always have their words, both on tape and tucked away in the recesses of my mind.

We’ll miss you Willie.

June 17, 2011June 17, 2011

The Making of a Movie with a DSLR

It’s been a wild ride since I first began this journey of making a feature film with a DSLR camera – in my case, the Canon Eos 5D Mark II. I had already completed three short documentaries to date – all made with traditional video cameras from my first Canon XL-1 to my current HD Sony EX-1. But this time I was heading out on a 99-day journey around the globe, with my 23 year old daughter in search of ordinary people on six continents, who were making a difference in the world, and we had to pack light.

We were “the crew” – the two of us. We had to work efficiently and with gear that would fit into two backpacks and would endure the adventure as we traveled to 17 different countries on 30 flights. I also wanted to shoot both still images and motion, so I opted for the DSLR solution. Of course, I was enchanted by the “big chip” and the cinematic look of these cameras, but I was also thinking of my gear in practical terms – how I was traveling – how I would be shooting – and of course the desired outcome.

So with my daughter “running sound”, doing the interviews with our subjects, shooting still images, and navigating us through the subway systems in Moscow and Buenos Aires, and me taking care of all the logistics and shooting both video and stills, we came back 99 days later with almost 3000 gigabytes of content – that’s approx. 150 hours of footage and 5000 still image captures!

I wasn’t mentally prepared for what came next and that was 2 intensive months on my part ingesting all the content into my editing system, transcoding and adding metadata to the files and culling through hours of interview soundbites until I had cut it down to three . It was grueling and my winter months were spent putting in 14 hour days – 7 days a week. I was overwhelmed, yet somehow driven by some force. It was a lot of work, it was tedious and it was daunting – but yet it was my passion and somehow this inexplicable “force” got me through it.

I raised money along the way through crowd funding on Kickstarter and with that, I hired an editor. After I handed the project off to my editor, Erik Freeland of Springhouse Films, there was a huge sigh of relief on my part. I knew the post production had a long way to go but, I also knew that I had to let it go for a while and step back. Working with Erik has been amazing in itself and he has brought enormous value to this project and film. I have learned a lot from his insights and his talents in knowing how to” tell a story”, and we are finally coming to the completion of this film. Or at least in getting the “first cut” done for a sneak preview on July 17th, at the State Theater in Traverse City, Michigan. The screening is by invitation only and if you would like to attend, just drop me an email at gail@openingoureyes.net and tell me how many people would like to attend.

Since I first dreamed up this project in the final days of 2009, to the departure of our trip in the Spring of 2010, to where we are now, it has been a continual journey on every level imaginable. And I have had many angels working on my behalf – my husband Tom Kelly who has been the “wind beneath my wings” and without his support none of this would have been possible, my extended family who have been amused over the years with my schemes and dreams, my dear friends Angel Burns and Ally Raye who have believed in me and this project and have made incredibly exciting things happen for this film. (I’m not quite ready to divulge some of those exciting things publicly, just yet), Maria Grillo and Jason Harvey at The Grillo Group who have been so giving with their time and talents and created all the graphic design for the film’s release, and so many other “angels” who have helped me with foreign translations, been financial backers, helped me spread the word globally, and every person who was there for me when I needed support and encouragement. I am deeply grateful to have all these people in my life.

We live in an empowering time. When I began my career as a still photographer, over 30 years ago, I never would have imagined doing any of this. In fact just two years ago, none of this would have been possible. Our dreams are as big as we want them to be. I have seen this dream clearly from the start and each day I get closer and closer to seeing it become a reality.

Watch the Trailer

May 25, 2011

A Year Ago Today – The Beginning of Our Documentary and the DSLR

It was exactly a year ago today that I left with my daughter on a 99-day journey around the world to create a documentary about people on six continents who were making a difference in the world. I was not new to video or documentaries, having shot motion for over twelve years and completing three short films. But this was big – not in the sense of “big production” or “big crew” or certainly not “big budget” – it wasn’t any of those things but it was indeed BIG.

I had no idea how big it turned out to be. The trip in itself was almost the easy part, although don’t get me wrong – it was arduous on every level. What was overwhelming was taking the project from idea to completion. Had I known how overwhelming it has been at times, I may have reconsidered – or at the very least had a bigger crew.

The crew was my daughter and myself. I shot video. She shot stills. She interviewed the subjects and ran sound. I operated the camera and shot B-Roll. She research, scheduled and pre-interviewed the subjects and I worked on all the logistics – travel, travel needs and gear. I thought about gear long and hard and decided to go with the hybrid cameras, in my case the Canon 5D Mark II and the Canon 7D. I wanted to capture both stills and video, but I didn’t want to bring two separate camera systems, so I chose the hybrids. I have written a lot about the gear but the all time most popular post I wrote was about my gear for this 99-day journey.

We returned in September with over 150 hours of footage and over 5000 still images. Wow! Talk about overwhelming. I spent 2 solid months of my winter getting the footage into a manageable rough timeline – or at least the sound bites. I handed it off to my editor Erik Freeland of Springhouse Films and he hopes to get me his rough cut this weekend. I’ve had many conversations with Erik over the past month or so about the story(s) and the arc of the film and he truly understands how to tell a story. I am extremely grateful that I was able to hire a professional editor and it never would have been possible, without my successful run with Kickstarter.

I have been working a lot in the back scenes with distribution options and I am thrilled with what I am finding. This is the time for “the documentary”. It’s possible with small budgets and crews to make a powerful film that can be seen in hundreds of various venues well past the big screen movie houses and film festivals. It’s an amazing time for “the individual” and what can be accomplished because of technology. That’s another blog for another time though.

I’m headed to California this afternoon to speak at Cal Poly tomorrow evening. Join me if you’re in the area. For old time’s sake, I took my Eagle Creek bag – which I had circumvented the globe with. It seemed like the right thing to do.

April 21, 2011May 4, 2011

Commitment

I was stunned yet not surprised yesterday when I heard the tragic news that Tim Hetherington had been killed in Libya. I’m grateful that I had seen Hetherington speak and present his work at Photo Plus in 2009. I remember being awed by the intimacy of his photographs and motion. The viewer felt that they were right there in the action because Hetherington had been – and relayed that story to us.

We know about Hetherington and his work mostly because his documentary Restrepo had been nominated for an Oscar last year. But how many other men and women who document the wars and the natural disasters, putting themselves in harms way on a daily basis, do we ever even hear about? That’s because it is not about them, it’s about what they are photographing or filming or writing about. It’s about making others aware.

I once thought that I wanted to be a hard news photojournalist because there is a big part of me that loves to be where the action is. But I also know that living that kind of life takes its toll especially on ones personal life. I didn’t know if I could achieve the kind of balance in my life that I felt was important, pursuing that type of photography. So I went the way of shooting more editorial feature pieces with a focus on people. I also thought that I might be the type of person who would become overly emotionally invested when on site and perhaps not able to fulfill my journalistic responsibilities.

I will always have the utmost respect and admiration for all the working journalists, photojournalists and video journalists out there who give us these incredibly intimate stories, risking their own safety over and over again. They do it for precious little financial reward. They do it because good journalism is necessary for a healthy society. I’m forever grateful.

March 28, 2011

Editing a Trailer – Part II

First let me thank everyone for his or her comments and suggestions. It’s very difficult to cut a short trailer because I’m so close to the story(s) that it’s hard not to make assumptions or see the obvious. I’ve always found that getting feedback from people is important at a certain point in the process. I want to be far enough along in the edit that it’s “almost” there but not so far that I’m reluctant to change things.

My first impulse after reading everyone’s comments was to take all the suggestions to heart and I started implementing the changes. I quickly realized it was starting to feel like a corporate job that had been designed by committee and it was somehow missing the mark. I was trying to cover all bases, trying to please everyone and I was losing sight of my own insights.

I took the weekend to revisit the trailer every now and then, in between socializing with my brothers and sister and their families. It was the first time we had all been together since my mother died, over 7 years ago. My brother was up from Florida and it was his kids first time seeing snow. It brought out the kid in all of us – throwing snowballs and sledding down our front yard, which is pretty steep, and not for the timid.

As usual, taking a break from the technology brought everything back into perspective. This morning I knew what I needed to do. I shuffled some things around, cut 20% out, adjusted the sound and the text and came up with something I think that I can live with. It’s not perfect but like Maggie says in the trailer “If I waited for things to be perfect, I never would have done it”. So I’m throwing this out to the universe and see what transpires.

http://www.vimeo.com/21598761

Thanks again to all who took the time to watch and comment on my previous renditions. I appreciate your comments more than you know. Occasionally, when I’m at a conference or another professional event, someone will come up to me and thank me for what I share in my blog or tell me that something I said inspired them. The truth is it works both ways because I get so much in return.

<!–

March 21, 2011

Some Useful Information for Workflow

I made a few new discoveries this past week. Forgive me if these items aren’t new but they’re new to me.

One item I discovered was Drop Box and the timing was perfect. Drop Box is a sharing and storage site. I can upload files and documents to their server and share those files with anyone who has Drop Box installed on their computer. For instance, I am able to share project files and updates with the editor that I am working with on Opening Our Eyes. This past week, I was working on a new trailer for my film and I was able to share that updated project file with him, along with the RF music that I licensed for it.

The other thing that I love about Drop Box is that I can share files and info with the various computers that I work on. No more emailing docs or copying media to a DVD so that I can transfer files over to my laptop. With Drop Box installed, I can share files, media and calendars with any and all of my computers. As a bonus, Drop Box acts as an off site storage solution as well.

My other discovery was a royalty free music site called Neosounds. I’ve been searching through hundreds of royalty free music libraries over the years and Neosounds is definitely the best source for high quality music that I’ve found. It stands out amongst the rest because their music doesn’t sound like royalty free music. Recently, I needed music for a new trailer that I was making for OOE and I was googling around for some cinematic sounds. I found the perfect background music for my film’s trailer. I’m still tweaking the trailer a bit, but you can listen to a clip of music from Neosounds that I used in a short video I made that appeared on a recent blog post.

One last item that I’ll mention is a great source for travel guides – the unconventional type. They are called Unconventional Guides and are brought to you by Chris Guillebeau. Since discovering Chris Guillebeau’s blog The Art of Non-Conformity, I’ve become a huge fan of Chris and his writings. If you haven’t discovered Chris’s blog , then do so. He has an amazing outlook on life and he articulates his thoughts so beautifully in his blog. His global view of the world and how to live life is truly an inspiration to me. He’s definitely, a kindred spirit.

Back to tweaking. Stay tuned for my next blog with links to some new samples.

February 24, 2011February 24, 2011

Revisiting the Frozen Waves

There they were again, exactly a year ago but in another part of the state. Frozen waves. We had taken a quick drive up to Grosse Pointe, MI, just outside Detroit and were driving by the frozen waves on Lake Huron. Last year about this time, I wrote a blog entitled Standing on a 10 Foot Frozen Wave. I had been shooting up at Whitefish Point on the Upper Peninsula in Michigan. It was February and I was in one of the most remote places in the United States and I was standing on a 10 foot frozen wave on Lake Superior at sunset. It was an amazing – almost spiritual experience. I had never heard silence like that before in my life – nor since. No sounds at all – but even silence has its own sound.

Last Sunday I arrived back in Michigan during the height of a big snow storm. This time I was in the city of
Detroit. I was there to film the last subject(s) of my documentary – two African American women fighting for the rights of the disadvantaged. God knows that Detroit has its share of disadvantaged people.

Because of the storm and the fact that Monday was a holiday, the next morning the streets were deserted in downtown Detroit. Not only were they deserted but they weren’t plowed. My subjects couldn’t get plowed out until early afternoon so that left me with the morning free. So, my daughter, husband and I decided to take a tour and do some b-roll shooting at the same time. We had the streets to ourselves, sometimes going the wrong way down one way streets or cruising very slowly, shooting out the window, but we handled it just fine in our 4 wheel drive. As we drove out of downtown, away from the glitz of the GM building and crossed over the highway, the landscape changed to vacant lots and abandoned buildings. Urban blight. I felt like I was shooting a winter version of the new Eminem commercial.

We eventually, rendezvoused with our subjects, shot interviews and b-roll at their offices and then planned to shoot a big demonstration in Lansing. This morning, six busloads of protesters headed to Lansing from Detroit to speak up against the city of Detroit selling off their water assets to private companies. It was cold, but sunny and energizing as various speakers came up to the podium, our subjects among them. Hundreds of students, teachers, mothers, fathers, children, seniors, gathered on the steps of the capitol with signs of protest just like in Wisconsin. Just like in Egypt. These people were here to make a difference and it was energizing.

So, now we’re facing that long 10 hour drive back to New Jersey, but I’m energized and I’m feeling very satisfied with finishing the shoot part of our film. I’m grateful I got to spend time with my daughter. This trip to Michigan was vastly different from when I was standing on those frozen waves surrounded by silence. This time I was surrounded by people fighting for their rights. It made me feel young again. I’m not sure which experience was best for my soul – perhaps both equally.

February 21, 2011

Editing 150 Hours of Footage From a DSLR

As I roll away the miles, driving the ten hour trip to Michigan to rendezvous with my daughter Erin to film the last of our subjects for our documentary Opening Our Eyes, I realize how desperately I needed a long road trip – just cruising down the highway. I have been in utter isolation for the past month, editing over 150 hours of footage that we had shot over our ultimate road trip around the world this past summer. Little did I know that the 99-day journey would be the easy part of this project.

This past month there have been many times that I became so overwhelmed with the process of editing that I wanted to throw my hands up in surrender and just give up. But somehow I plowed through it, many days putting in 14 plus hours. I was on a mission and listening to the words of my subjects got me through it. After all these were some of the most inspirational people I had every met, so revisiting them through their interviews was a constant reminder of the goal of this film which is to create awareness and inspire and motivate others to make a difference and create change.

Ultimately, my challenge is to take ten (soon to be eleven) different stories of people across the globe who are making a positive difference in the world. After finally getting the tedious tasks finished, of transcoding files and sorting through the good from the bad clips, I arrived at a point where I needed to start telling “THE” story. Meaning I needed to determine how I could best structure the film to convey the common themes between my subjects.

In order to see the story clearly – I needed to get away from the technology. So as the miles roll by, the story becomes more vivid in my head. I see the hero(s), the themes, the commonality and the arc of the story as the stories intertwine. I won’t give away too much information other than to say that the solution is simple. They aren’t eleven different stories after all. It’s really a global story about the power of one. How one individual can create positive change and not only effect generations to come but change themselves as well. It’s a basic human story that resonates with all of us.

When I started writing this blog I was going to talk about editing tech tips. Somehow as the miles rolled by and my head became clear of the intense electronic input from the past month, I not only saw the story, but I felt it. I had gotten back on track and gotten to the heart of the story.

February 2, 2011

Telling the Story with the DSLR

The sub-title should read…”or with any camera for that matter”. For those of you not new to this blog, you know that my mantra is “it’s not about the tool”. And my other mantra is “embrace collaboration”.

But back to the thought behind this blog entry and that is “telling the story”. I recently read a great book that a dear friend had given me about screenwriting called “Save the Cat” by Blake Snyder. Snyder’s book is geared more toward writing a fictional screenplay, as opposed to writing a narrative for a documentary, but I thought it would be helpful for me as far as learning more about the dynamics of story telling – and indeed it was.

Snyder talks about the different genres that most movies fall into. The category that my documentary came closest to if I was writing a fictional piece was what he referred to as The Golden Fleece. Blake writes:

“The name comes from the myth of Jason and the Argonauts and yet it’s always about the same thing: A hero goes “on the road” in search of one thing and winds up discovering something else – himself.”

“Like the twists of any story, the milestones of The Golden Fleece are the people and incidents that our hero or heroes encounter along the way. The theme of every Golden Fleece movie is internal growth, how the incidents affect the hero is, in fact, the plot.

“It’s not the mileage we’re racking up that makes a good Golden Fleece, it’s the way the hero changes as he goes”.

Wow, I thought as Snyder’s words resonated with me and how I “saw” the documentary that I was in the midst of editing. In my case, I had many heroes who in setting out to make a positive difference in the world had also experienced intense and rewarding personal growth. I too had changed and grown, along with my daughter who journeyed with me to tell our subjects’ stories.

As I read more of Snyder’s book, my vision of our film became much clearer in my head. This week, I had a meeting with the editor who will be collaborating with me on this film. I’m thankful that I was able to have a face to face meeting with him where we could both get a better feel for each other and more importantly – the story. We had a wonderful conversation about the story that I wanted to tell – the heroes – the conflicts – all those things that are part of a good story. I knew we were on the same page when he said: “It’s not about the trip – it’s about the journey”.

Or as Snyder writes:
“It’s not the incidents encountered. It’s what the hero(es) learn about himself from the incidents that make the story work.”

We’ll see if I can do my heroes justice in telling their stories, but I’m not alone in this task. I’ll be collaborating with an editor who not only has an understanding of “the story” but the skills and ability to make it come to life. What joy.