Since we didn’t have class today due to Typhoon Hagupit, I thought I’d take a moment to post a reminder about your projects for the 4th year video production course. As I introduced on week one, I am very interested in the connections between documentary and fiction film traditions. These traditions overlap and inform one another all of the time. Showing clips from the early examples of King Kong through to the recent Mtv reality show “The Hills,” I’ve tried to highlight the ways we can combine these traditions in our own work.
In both fiction and documentary work, you’re telling a story, if you’re not telling your own story, then you need to be telling someone else’s. But remember stories can be about a place or thing just as easily as they can be about a person or a particular group of people. A building has a story, an umbrella has a story too. If you know a story, or the story you want to tell, producing a film about it is a matter of getting together all the pieces you need to tell that story. Maybe you need an actor or actress to play this or that part. Maybe you need a living room and a a kitchen to recreate the environments you need. But if you don’t yet have a story you want to tell, which is often the case, you can find someone or something and learn their story. So in other words, you can learn their story by making a video about them and spending time with them.
In addition to these reminders, to help you with your project proposals, I’ve written below an example project idea or proposal:
Project title: Nova City
Synopsis: Nova City is the story of new residents in an apartment complex called “Nova City” in Taipa, Macau. It follows the lives and stories of three recent immigrants as they get used to living in the shadow of Macau’s booming casino industry. During the video we learn what brought these people to Macau, the difficulties of adjusting, and the pleasures of life in Nova City.
So a proposal or project idea can be that simple. This proposal is good because it is doable, as a I know residents at Nova City, interesting, as it provides viewers with a window into the lives of the new immigrants to Macau, and ultimately it is a subject I can relate to because I am also a recent immigrant to Macau.
In short, try to think of projects that you can do because you have access to the subjects, whether it be about friends, family, or co-workers. Or think of a subject that you would like to learn more about and use the project as a way of both learning and telling their stories.
