THE UNFORSEEN —– Lauren Greenfield

The Unforseen

This is the story of the development of the Barton Springs green belt that may have contributed to the clouding of the waters as demonstrated by underwater footage shot in 1996 and then in 2006. Laura Dunn had the support of Terrence Malick who proposed this film to her and rallied his friend Robert Redford to the cause. With a backing and Lee Daniel at her side she proceeded to tell a compelling story of partisan politics and the defeat of the Earth First community by the administration of Gov. Bush. At the same time there is the story of a muscular mustached developer who lost it all and eventually cries for the camera. After the movie she noted how Terence Malick gave her daily advise on the editing, yet oddly did not want to be mentioned in the credits. The movie was driven by talking heads, but big one like Robert Redford and Ann Richards and left the room stale for a good bit of the run time. There issues are big but this needed to be 20-30min. The poorly crafted filler scenes in this movie take away form the fragmented story of the developer and leave us wondering if Barton Springs was actually ruined by the development. We know George Bush is the Son of Sam. For all the hype this did not go far.

Lauren Greenfield at the blanton
This was eye opening. She showed her girl culture slide show as well her THIN work. This is the authoritative body of visual work on the struggles and entrapment of young women. This is true advocacy for redefining to value we assign to the bodies of young women. The work addresses reality while the solutions require the complete destruction of the social construction of women.

I watched HOOP DREAMs again as well which I is on my list as the greatest example of the craft of documentary. All documentary should be judged against this work.

DIG

I tried to get through this but, as docs can do, the reality of how sick the people in the movie are (The Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Dandy Warhols) make it quite hard to view. “We Live in Public” got me excited about the directors work and I felt that I needed to see Dig beusause it also spanned 7 years and many differnt cameras that she would have to develop a style to create a flow. Early footage feels like she is holding the camera at her chest and making eye contact with the subjects while in later footage she shoots more traditionally. She is able to get the camera into dark drug romps and shoot freely. In both movies she does not shy away from showing the reality of the not so glam semi- fame of adult children dressed as teen rockers, wanna be artists and hipsters. She engages these cultures and shows the audience how sad and perverse the backstage reality is. She is able to get so deep that you feel the lines of coke and crying fits of these not ready for the ready for the world child stars. She is able to make the older footage work through effects and rapid edits. It is a dizzying movie that I could not make it through because I got the message early on and these characters would have had to become born again Christians to make it interesting. Alan Berliner was much more entertaining and methodic. DIG took me into the late world of 1990′s MTV and made me even more scarred to own a TV or join facebook. I actually think I will live in a cabin in the woods and look for UFO’s before I watch this again. Andi is onto something and I respect her for following through on both DIG and WE LIVE IN PUBLIC.

EAST AUSTIN STORIES – POPCORN – Well done!

POPCORN
I am writing a proposal to shoot a feature documentary about the Alley Flat Initiative for my architecture thesis project and decided to watch Andrew Garrison’s equivalent studio called East Austin Stories. Both projects involve students learning their craft through humble interaction with the rapidly changing and historically segregated people of East Austin. I am proposing a hybrid of the programs to incorporate the efforts of the architecture school to build affordable back housing units for the community into the framework of a documentary movie. Most notable about the East Austin Stories are the young filmmakers courage to embrace, listen to and give a voice to the people who once again are being moved out of their community by political and economic forces. As minority lands in West Austin were once desired and gathered by city planners and developers now to the East Austin community faces the same battle to retain a community and it’s land.
My project will be a feature that documents the architecture students collectivizing, designing and building a secondary house for the members of the East Austin community. The houses are designed for the purpose of sustaining the community through higher density. The flats allow elderly community members to remain with their family, to serve as rental unit so that homeowners can pay their higher property taxes but most importantly to provide affordable housing options to keep the community strong by keeping them together. The documentary will test the hypothesis that community based situated learning can reframe the practice of architecture for students.
There has not been a film that documents urban revitalization by architecture students and this work will look to explore educational methods through community-based practice.

LEARNED About Lighting

Helped out for a few days on a music video shoot which created environments out of the sound stage at 501 studios. I learned about lighting scenes and how filters translate different moods in the viewfinder and on the subjects. The most interesting part was how the director created 4 scenes within the confines of the studio space. Using lighting and props each scene felt radically different. This allowed the director to create the illusion of a high budget video within the constraints of a single environment. I shot still and moved lights around. It was also informative to see a director evaluate and make suggestions to the performers. Here are some of the pg-13 images.
http://web.me.com/patrickxavier/Site_6/Video_Shoot.html

MLF Short Test

SLAMMED

Still shooting homelessness project and Johnny is kicking. Saw Garbage Warrior about the building and struggles of the earthship community in Taos.

Still no folks interested in the Johnny Movie. Did not hear back from Travis and still in need or editing help.

Vietnam Project is still rolling. http://web.me.com/patrickxavier/vietnam/221st.html

JUST NOW SEEING BLUE VINYL

Blue Vinyl proves that a film can be research and that women have a powerful voice against unregulated science. Research as I am learning is the creation of new publishable knowledge, which Judith and Daniel Gold pursues and document thought the measuring of air quality around the vinyl plant. With Judith at the helm the audience feels that nothing will stop the film from unearthing the truth. Judith having lost her reproductive system to cancer embodies human resilience and the drive to get revenge on the technocratic system that disregards human wellbeing. Judith being a woman and having suffered through cancer offers a very personal inside to Blue Vinyl that I feel is missing in Michael Moore’s film. Judith allows the vinyl lobby to speak without overpowering them and making the audience uncomfortable. Instead of trying to arrest CEO’s and taking boats of people to Cuba she goes to Italy to find scientific answers, and to listen and consol the families of that have lost loved ones from PVC manufacturing. She researches and looks for solutions instead of just flashing CEO’s and George Bush to get the audience worked up. The movie has a positive Less Blank like folk appeal to it. It is an environmental roots movie that deals with real people trying to figure out how to take control of their lives. The films success is it’s ability to produce results (great cinematography as well); Judith never hits dead ends in film’s travels and quests for answers. She does not need to chase Charlton Heston, she just needs to get that damn vinyl off the house no madder what and she does it. Success.

DAN RATHER at UT holly ###t!

The future of media. This should be amazing.
http://www.utexas.edu/oncampus/calendar/politics/e9183

WALMART CEO SPEAKS AT UT

I made the UT events my home page http://www.utexas.edu/oncampus/ and stumbled into this herculean free event. I sat front and center and wanted to be the Michael Moore of the event but actually liked this guy and was able to ask him a question “What is the future of consumption.” He replied that the 5000 square ft house is a thing of the past. People have such little time to shop and are a more educated shopper then at anytime in history. So, walmart will become specialized in FOOD, dealing directly with farmers to lower the prices and dictate what the farmers grow. He said that shopper did not buy lawn mowers this year but spark plugs. He said that walmart stores will get smaller and produce their own energy. There was a lot useful information to architecture and film in his talk, but the point is that the crowd was all business students and the trends that Walmart measures through it sales effect us all. Unfortunately Walmart is the present and our future and this was the guy that invited all of the environmental activists into the company and made sustainability cool for corporate boogiemen. Check out events becasue there are tons of doc ideas that you can make out of these guests.

WE LIVE IN PUBLIC

Classmates withe the director. Our new friend Ondi put us on her twitter. It is my 1st time to the twitter site. I was curious to see twitter as a marketing device for a movie tour. “We Live in Public” is relevant on many levels. It is inspiring to know that this project took place over a 10 year period and the director had to process 5000 hours of footage. This movie is Orwellian (It connotes an attitude and a policy of control by propaganda, surveillance, misinformation, denial of truth, and manipulation of the past) in it subject and it’s warning to society. Do we as a society have any say in the shaping of technology. We look to technology for answers. In many ways it acts as our protector our crystal ball. It is godlike. If it needs to watch and record us it must be to protect us.
We live in public makes it clear that we must define our relationship to technology, reengage society in the shaping of technology. We are nearly a society of cyborgs hooked up to iphones, computers and the internet. We appear void of the healing powers of nature. The documentary gives us a vision of the future through the compellin life of a man who was raised by television without the nurturing of his mother.