Progression in Capstone, blog, shooting and script!

Since I last submitted my timeline and proposal there has been a lot of progress with my capstone project. This is a blog that I started that covers a little about the filming part of our project.

http://unifiedbyclimbing.blogspot.com/

We have already shot most of the climbing portion of the documentary. This is huge because I had to use many techniques and unknown methods to be able to hang at heights of 100 feet upside down while shooting with a camera. I was dubious if I was going to have enough equipment to be able to do this. Not only did I already shoot most of the climbing portion but I also went ahead and did most of the editing work with it. I did this so Jacob who is working with me could go ahead and start creating the music that will accompany the climbing. That was done a couple of months ago and ever since I have been developing what I call the back bone structure of the documentary. I have created a very general and basic script for the documentary as well as possible interview questions. This is a copy of a very rough script that we came up with.

Muir Valley

Prologue:

The why of this video – Capstone

Why make a climbing video- Everything that involves, introduce the sport and the community?

What is the muir valley? A history animation of Muir Valley?

Interview of Jacob and I, the why of the muir valley…….. talk about the progress of our view of the muir valley. Because muir valley is a great example is a great example of how a climbing crag works. It’s a perfect example of a microcosms of all that a climbing involves including community, the physical place and the sport itself. By showing this to the viewer we allow them to have a say into the future of the muir and ultimately the sport of climbing.

 Title of a day in the Muir goes here

 How does the muir work, (montage of me and Jacob going around the muir in a day to climb) we have to sign waivers…. What is up with the waivers? (stop) why is there so much paperwork involved with climbing…

---- Interview with Rich Weber??? Ask him about all of the paperwork, about security, rules?!

After the paperwork we go ahead and start walking down the valley, we find the money boxes (donations)

DONATIONS INTERVIEW WITH ROGER VANDAM.

 How do the donations work? Whats the money for? What is the status as far as people donating money?

 Getting to the crag we see environmental impact signs, carry your trash out signs.

 TRASH, SUSTAINABILITY INTERVIEW WITH LISS WEBER.

What are some of the signals of deteoraration that you are starting to see from climbers impact to the zone.

How much of this is it avoidable or not.

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT WITH ANNE ALTOR

-Trash, where does all of the trash go?

-Are things like throwing apple cores ecologically friendly?

-Animals, exotic species and invasive species.

THE ROUTES IN THE MUIR VALLEY

The routes…… What is so special about the routes in the muir valley? What kind of rock? Moves? Bla blah.

INTERVIEW WITH DEVELOPERS OF THE MUIR – Porter Jerard,

Dave

Your first impression when you saw the Muir?

JJ: Your favorite route? History of a route or a crag?

FILMING:

Eric Yates found the midnight surf on one afternoon… interview with him of the story.

Inequity:

Cell Block Six: Drew climbing

Tape worm: d

Miguel casar : Shiva 5.13B, silence and profoundness with the route…I walked to the crag one day very early in the morning, it was silent, and the conditions were perfect.

7 OR 8 ROUTES WITH A HISTORY AND MOTIF…. Introducing the climber and the route..

 

 Now we have seen the history and the whereabouts of the muir valley and all its inclusions. The next for all of us is to ask about the future and our responsibility to the Muir and climbing. 

I think that this rough draft of the script has been a huge milestone that started me heading to the next step of my capstone documentary video which is developing the interviews. I have realized of the importance that interviews have in a documentary film. They are the ones that drive the plot and reflection of the documentary itself.

Jacob and I have been in contact with our mentor Thomas Lewis. He gave us a lot of ideas for how to shoot the climbing part of our video. He told us we should explore creative angles and shots. Instead of making it only the body of the climber going up he suggested getting close ups of their hands and feet. We have been talking to him a lot about the interviews themselves and he helped us come up with a great idea about how to shoot them. We will do them in a green screen and then applying an abstract climbing related background, or maybe even images of the muir valley on the background.

I think our timeline has changed a little bit specially because we did not account for the cold weather not permitting us to shoot any more climbing. Also we had to push some of the interviews back because our interviewees had to go out of the country for a couple of months. And lastly the audio equipment for rental has been booked for most of the year so we might just have to buy our own. All of these things have made us change our schedule slightly. This is just a creative exercise to adapt and do what we can with what we have. Clearly we have already actually started working on our capstone so needless to say we are ready for it. We know that many things will start coming up that require great portions of hard work. This is something very important we have to acknowledge and be prepared for so we don't despair. Honestly there have not been a lot of drastic changes that we've made to our project since we started. One thing that is up in the air at the moment is if we are doing all of our own original music or not. The plot of our documentary is still the same, the only thing we changed is how we are going to be telling the story.