Blog 7 - Sous les pavés, la plage!

How does the beach have a social context? That's something I aim to find out. This doc will be reflexive as well as poetic. I want the audience to come along with the process.

The title: Under the Paving Stones, comes from a translation of: Sous les pavés, la plage! Which comes from graffiti during the May 1968 period of unrest in France. The idea of this is that beneath all of the constructs of daily life, there lies a more peaceful life.

The idea of the doc is simple. The beach and what that entails. I aim to narrow this view down over the course of shooting and piece together a film complete with a good deal of voice over and shots. With not much time, this actually helps because the idea is limited and clear and with a shorter run time I can focus more on the subject.

The idea was also posed to have the doc shot in one continuous shot and to have the subject this big set. This is a good idea and I may pursue it. Potential problems with this would be the practicality of shooting ten minutes straight with no interruptions. I think the idea is worth a shot and I will attempt to do this first before pursuing other options.

My plan is to shoot today after class out at fairy meadow beach. What I am going to do is map out my shots when I get to the beach and then shoot. If everything goes according to plan I will have all the shots I need and then I can get to editing.

After this comes the voice over, which has to be poetic. I am working on several things to read for the voice over. I think I will open with a literal poem and then speak more about the subjects as the film continues.

Blog 6 - Production Ideas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5Iny61GVw8
I want to focus my project on nature in some way, as well as incorporating poetic elements into the documentary. My ideas all focus around the way people interact with nature.

My first idea is to shoot all of my footage at the beach. The reason for this is that I think it will offer an interesting image of daily life. I think the beach is a special place for a lot of people because the focus is mostly on leisure. Beaches and enjoyment often go hand in hand and so taking a look at the literal and philosophical nature of the beach. This would include shots of people interacting with the environment.

Another idea would be to document my trip to Uluru over spring break. This would have to be done without a lot of equipment and possibly shot with a smart phone camera. That being said I think this would also provide a great deal of good shots and nice imagery as well as a very participatory mode of filmmaking.

I think this might be a good idea and I am going to look into both of these different film, probably shooting a lot of both of them just to be safe and then I will come back to this at a later point to decide which I like and which I want to pursue more I the coming months. I think in total I will just try to make a film that I can enjoy making as well as cultivate an interest.

I will have to see where all of this takes me because I am new to the craft but I have some exciting ideas and I think with a little bit of thought, I can make them work pretty well in the end. I will just have to keep my eyes open.