Blog #3 - Grace Lee

This past Saturday, I led a documentary workshop at Objectifs. A group of 10 people came together.. ranging from a road engineer from Kuala Lumpur, a former photo editor from Time-Asia recently relocated from Hong Kong, a couple of media arts students, an administrative assistant, a professional photographer, a PhD candidate in history, an English as a Second Language instructor and a publicist from a film/entertainment company. Of course these are the labels people use to describe “what they do” for a living or how they spend most of their days.. but at heart, everyone who came on Saturday is a storyteller with things they want to say and put into the moving image + sound form. What’s exciting about documentaries for me is just how broad and expansive the medium is, and when people start talking about their ideas for the stories they want to tell, I get really excited.

Because there are so many classes focusing on the technical aspects of film production –I chose to focus on different approaches to documentary filmmaking by showing a lot of examples from filmmakers who have inspired me. These are artists who have tried to incorporate something other than the News/ “Voice of God” narrator approach to documentaries, which seems pretty obvious, but when you’re starting out, it’s easier to follow the models of what is constantly around us. I also emphasized the importance of putting together some sort of written treatment as a way to synthesize and organize one’s thoughts about the film they want to make.

At some point, a filmmaker, no matter what level, has to express this film idea to another person – whether it is a potential funder or sponsor, a subject whom they actually want to participate in the film, or a crew member. This treatment can also be an excellent reference, months or years down the line, when one inevitably gets lost amongst all the footage and all the twists and turns that have happened along the filmmaking process, to remember exactly why they wanted to make this film in the first place. The treatment is a kind of “note to oneself” in a way, as well or a kind of time capsule. It’s always fascinating for me to go back and look at these treatments I’ve written, before I’ve even shot a second of tape to see exactly what my intial motivation was to make the film. It’s that first little spark or inspiration that you hope a viewer down the line will experience in the same way that you did once before.

Anyway, I just wanted to thank everyone who participated in the workshop for spending their Saturday afternoon with me. I look forward to seeing the fruits of your labor! I will also post or email to you the information regarding the call for entries for The Chinatown Project soon.

Grace