Voiceover and over again

     Thanksgiving back in Miami was exactly the kind of recharge I needed to myself back focused on the documentary. After building my portfolio for capstone, playing producer for News20, working crazy hours and more school… I was about to completely lose my mind. While I was home I was able to get a lot of the busy work done like logging my footage from the night before and building a script. Before I left, I asked one of the journalism students to do the voiceovers. I chose my friend Sasha because I felt she had great clarity, a nice tone, and great pacing with her words.

     When I finally made it back to Tallahassee, we met up and laid down the voiceovers. I was really excited to have completed all the elements needed… or so I thought. Later that night when I was capturing the audio, I discovered this static sound all over the voiceovers… my heart sunk. I sat looking at the screen for 10 minutes… frustrated, angry, a little hurt, but mostly confused. I had to reschedule and redo the voiceovers only one problem I have turn my camera in to the professor. Luckily, Sasha had received her camera so we were able to relay the voiceovers down, and ease my mind.

The Review

     The reviews are in… I need more. Here I thought I shot enough footage but the professor said I needed more. Well… more of Troy rapping at least. He noted that the only B-roll I have of Troy rapping is during the Classic Pep Rally. The only he said that threw was that I needed more effects. I personally don't want a lot crazy effects on the doc, taking people out of the tone I’m trying to set. I quickly made an effort to contact Troy and meet with him later after classes to get some more footage. Since we were both leaving town tomorrow for Thanksgiving it had to be tonight. Especially since the cameras are due Monday. Fortunately, everybody that the introduction was cool, and liked the tone I was trying to set. Everyone else pretty much seconded the professor, saying I needed more of the musical aspect and I agreed. Not that I look back there isn’t much footage of Troy rapping.

     If I can say anything about this experience, I really appreciated Troy’s openness to doing the documentary. He was happy to have me over and get more footage of him relaxing at home with his friends. He was even able to rap a couple of verses of things he had written. 

Picking up the pieces

     I’m still not completely over last week’s smack down but I’m trying my best to continue on like it’s all okay. This weekend is the Classic so Tallahassee is pretty barren. I don’t see the big deal with going to Orlando every year, but apparently people really look forward to it. I took the time to edit whatever footage I have. The class will be reviewing the footage so give each other some advice and criticism. I want to be able to at least have the introduction completely done. So far I’ve just been working in pieces… working on different parts of the doc that came to mind.

     This past Wednesday at the Classis Pep Rally really helped in giving me some great footage of Troy in action at work. He and his friends even started up a rap session. It was really fun seeing Troy rap for the first time. I was able to get his session on tape. Since some of his friends were also rapping, some of the things that rapped about greatly differed what Troy was rapping about. I was a little weird filming them as the talked about the negative things that is portrayed in rap today. 

Everything that could go wrong... is.

     Today’s 11/11/11… I figured there would be fireworks and celebrations for the weird looking date but I got was a healthy spoonful of Murphy’s Law. This has to be the all-time worst moment in making my documentary. I come to find out that my appointment with Christopher Martin was cancelled due to the death of his friend and rapper, Heavy D. My other subject, Ted has been too busy to do anything. During the week isn’t good enough for him. This weekend he’s leaving town to go to a funeral, next weekend is the Classic, and the weekend after that is Thanksgiving.

     The only person who’s been able to keep consistent is Troy. We’ll meet up to shoot some footage at home or school which is good but that’s it…. Ladies and Gentleman welcome to the Troy Harris Show. I’m trying to think of what I can do to make this documentary work. I know I am going to talk hip-hop but with the sole person being Troy, I’m afraid the documentary will stall and become boring.  Then again maybe the doc being short will help the doc from seeming dull. I feel like I’m back to square one… someone help.

Everything's Good

     This week everything just fine, I’ve been getting footage of Troy at home and even conducted one of his interviews. When we were shooting he was saying some really great things, opinionated and strong this that I could use. I did notice that he had a habit of moving a whole lot during the interview so I made a shot a little bigger the expected in case he move out of frame. Another thing I noticed with him is that I tended to state a lot of facts, things that I wasn’t certain were factual or not. So I made a mental note to watch for his random acts of information when I’m editing. I don’t want to use things that might not be all the way true, outdated, or false.

     Before I started filming I decided that I was going to shoot the subjects at work and home to try and give them more dimension. I’m really happy to finally start seeing some concrete evidence of a documentary being made. I’ve already made an appointment to interview to Christopher Martin and I’m looking forward to it. Like I said, everything is pretty steady here. I’m not as confused as I was before but I’m still a little iffy about some things.