Speaking of cinematography - and since we're on the verge of the next Toronto Film Festival - let's take a look back to 2006 and a conversation that my DP Wyatt Troll and I had about the making of About A Son. Here's the piece, which still lives over at the Toronto Fest's most excellent Doc Blog.
A sampling:
AJ: (W)e knew it was going to be this new way of working. It wasn’t a traditional documentary shoot at all, in terms of interviews or verite shooting style. It was more structured, but yet we also had, I think, a real freedom to discover as we were going.
Wyatt: I have to say you may be right (which, by the way, is what WC Fields said to all his fan letters, good or bad) but really some of the most exciting things are things that happened because we were there and open, but the structure got us there and allowed us that leniency.
Was there something that happened that was unexpected (camera wise) that changed your perspective of lensing or even your process?
AJ: I’m really glad that we had the chance to go up and shoot for a few days last September in a non-pressure environment. [Note: This was a scout/test shoot with Wyatt and my producer Shirley Moyers.] I really think that that experience gave me a good idea what was working and what could change. For example, just trying out different film stocks on that trip made me realize that each city really needed its own look. But even when we got into shooting, I felt that it only took until the 2nd or 3rd day for us - both you and I and the rest of the crew - to get a handle on how we were working. From then on, I felt like we were operating in a really comfortable place.
I have to say, that it was one of the happiest work experiences I ever had. I was describing it recently to someone and they interupted me and said, “wow, you really love what you do.” And while that’s true, I also feel that it was part of how everything worked from both from a production and also a shooting perspective. Our crew really bought into this “structured guerilla” form of working. The overall experience completely changed how I want to approach nonfiction filmmaking in the future.
Wyatt: I was constructively nervous before we went up the first time as to what overall perspective to take. As I read Michael (Azerrad)’s book I came to this realization that Kurt never solidified the lyrics to a song until 5 minutes before recording them. FUCK! Thats amazing. I thought, what if I took this total zen/anarchist will to create and just let it happen...so I approached the shoot in this manner. In a way it’s so ballsy, but it seemed the way to approach it. Really, you gave such an open view into this world to give us the opportunity to go out on this raw limb. It truly was a rad open creative time, maybe we can do some re-shoots....
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cool! that was an awesome experience. what a great conversation, i learned from your conversation. thanks
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