Methods
– Project will be edited on Avid media composer. Version 8.0.
-Researching names and numbers of management and maintenance. Getting to know our tenants and the history of our building.
-Formal interviews with tenants and management will be scheduled and shot in their home or wherever is appropriate.
-This documentary will not be full on verite, it will have elements of a verite documentary. A lot of content will come from capturing raw moments as we live out our lives. I will do this by staying with my characters often and capturing good moments. I will focus on certain characters that can possibly provide content that will drive the story but can also create contrast between ideas. People like Wanda, a tenant and vice president of the committee at the building, one of the regular janitors, some of the newer generation of tenants living here and Palmira, one of my handicapped neighbors who cannot leave the building when the elevators break. It is important that the footage is raw and as real as possible to truly capture the themes and the feel of the piece.
-Because I live in this building, I am constantly shooting and documenting as things happen(elevators breaking, trashed lobby, broken doors, urinated floors, community events, etc.)
-Aside from shooting interviews or events, the content that will be shot around my building will be continuous until the end of March.
Project Deliverables
-Documentation of research made and organization of my thought process
-Research notes (The more I learn about my building through conversation and research, the story is always evolving. I will be creating a method in which I organize and divide all the information acquired in a way that could possibly tell a story)
-Plot summary (every story has a beginning middle and end, I will use my research notes and content to formulate a beginning middle and end which will help during editing)
-Documentation of the building’s prior and recent living conditions through old pictures provided by tenants.
-Acquire permit if needed.
-Poster
-A 7-10 minute documentary, burned into CD’s in order to give out to my tenants which will spread awareness and encourage hope and change
Current Plot
Beginning: Our current living conditions
Middle: Building’s prior living conditions (through storytelling of our senior tenants, aided by cutaways of building. Also told through old pictures of our building provided by old timers who lived here back when the building was a real community and was clean and organized)
End: Change! By the end of filming I hope to encourage our tenants to rebuild and restore our old broken down garden. Or perhaps end with our building community coming together and doing a cleanup. It will be a great way to end the video as a start of something new.
