Blog 4: Kirsten Johnson, Camerawoman

Ironically, upon seeing Kirsten I was already studying her, her movements, her outfit and the way she spoke but that was her plan all along. She wanted people to pay attention to her, to study her, to critique her, and to ask her questions. I'm not sure if that's why she irritated me but in a way, I was both intrigued and annoyed by her presence. The way she forced the entire lecture room to turn their bodies for her attention and the way she invaded the spaces she sat or stood in. In a lot of ways, that's what makes her a great filmmaker because her point is that she was becoming the camera. She was studying angles and judging the subject of her work with critical eyes but also aware of the way she was being perceived and how it might be interpreted differently from what she expects. She is one of those people that you would describe as an open vessel, aware of her large presence and interested in how it is perceived in different audiences.

As much as she is someone who likes to be inquisitory, I felt like the questions didn't go anywhere. I didn't truly grasp her mission for filmmaking and why she got into it. I didn't hear anything about her personal struggles of getting into filmmaking as an indie filmmaker. I felt the lecture as distracting because I wanted her insight into what she has learned from filmmaking related to our lecture. But instead, it felt like more of a philosophy or sociology course on the ways human work which is an interesting topic but didn't feel right for our class. I understood her metaphors for the camera but I just wish she was more relatable to me. I didn't see myself in her work or anything she was saying, I felt left out of the conversation even though I was listening to everything she was saying. She is a great and open speaker and I enjoyed "looking into each other's eyes" bit because it made me feel closer to my classmate Jeremy even though we've been sitting next to each other the entire semester. In those two minutes, we became friends cause we bonded over a common experience. So at least I walked away from the lecture with a new friend.

Movement Through Space: Final Project

"Sequence Analysis"

For this sequence analysis blog, I will be analyzing shot-by-shot the opening scene of "The Last Black Man in San Francisco." This film is arguably the most beautifully shot film of this year and should be getting more recognition for Joe Talbot's directorial feature debut. The full opening scene is a little over three minutes but I will be analyzing the first minute from 0:00 to 1:05.

We first open with a wide/long tracking shot of our main character Jimmie Fails skateboarding against a city view as our establishing shot This shot becomes an open frame when his best friend, Montgomery, runs in from frame right. We hear an off-screen non-diagetic voice-over narration from the preacher who we meet at the end of this montage where we get a face to the voice. The orchestral music keeps building and building and building. The preacher’s voice keeps yelling over the soundtrack: “This is our home! This is our home!” Almost symbolizing or personifying the voice of the city come to life as the very first "character" we meet in the film, the city of San Francisco, which I would say is alive in a way that it is the central backdrop to the entire film and the voices and peoples that inhabit it are speaking for it and therefore making it an omnipresent character in it sort of like in the Great Gatsby, the bespectacled eyes painted on an old advertising billboard, served to symbolize the eyes of God watching the events unfold in the novel. We have a deep focus on everything in the foreground, middle ground, and background as we have everything we need to know to establish who's important, where they are, and the relationship between the where and the who. From the voice-over narration, we figure out that this is home and home is a radical thing to defend when a home is being taken away from you.  


We next cut to a medium shot of the two characters in a slightly low angle view. We are still tracking these characters as they haven't moved out of the frame. This low angle view signifies a kind of ownership and sense of pride for the place that they come from, for San Francisco. 
We move out again to our establishing long shot but a shot of an industrial area with telephone wires and machinery has entered the frame contrasting against the sunrise coming over the bay. Along with the voice-over narration, this machinery or maybe the presence of the machinery and construction has poisoned the waters and is establishes the imposing problem in the future of San Francisco. 
We cut to a steady crane shot maybe or just a steady camera shot with a long lens of the two men skating across the frame as they move through their city with ease. I think the deep focus of the frames in these shots is important in showing the digression of the state of San Francisco and the imposing force that is coming into the bay. We have two large ships in the background and those ships with the exhaust and waste that it releases poisons the air quality and water quality which matches the story of the preacher narration. 
Now we have a series of slow-motion tracking shots of the people of San Francisco. This shows the movement and life that exists in the city and the types of people that live there before the presence of gentrification. We have a shallow focus on each frame of these shots of the people of SF because this isn't about the city in this montage, it's about the people that live there and have lived there for many years. 


After the montage of the people in SF, we cut to Jimmie and Montgomery on the skateboard. We start of in a wide shot and then dolly in or maybe with the use of a crane because that is better for tracking with movement, it becomes a medium shot. We move to deep focus again to get a sense of the background and the construction workers building new homes in the background behind them. All of this movement is almost being used as a time-lapse of the stillness and untouched stillness of the bay to the presence of builders and construction crowding each frame that comes next.

We cut to a crane shot moving from the right side of the frame where we have the homes that are already been lived on to the left side of the frame where the new homes are being built. We have Jimmie and Montgomery skating towards the camera and before we cut to the next frame, they are in the middle between the past and the present of SF.

We have a soft focus of the background of SF almost like a haze that could signify pollution or the soft-focus could also have a romantic element to it as this movie is very much a love letter to San Francisco. It is a wide shot of Jimmie and Montgomery climbing the mountain that the camera is perched on with the presence of industrialism behind them. Then it cuts to tracking shot with a very low angle following the two characters from behind them up the mountain with the city skyline of San Francisco peaking in between them. The camera moves in between them and becomes a subjective view of the city through the eyes of Jimmie and Montgomery as well as an establishing shot of where this story takes place, the city of San Francisco.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Oy_HiDFfVo

Project #2: Audio Portrait

"What I Hear"

I was walking around the East Village area specifically Astor Place off the 6 train stop with the goal in mind to eventually make it to my friend's house in Alphabet City. I'm familiar with this area because it is where I do a lot of my thrift shopping and vintage shopping for unique pieces of clothing. It was at night around 8 PM that I was listening to the symphony of honking cars trying to make the green light as hasty city-goers walk against the rules. It is busy for a Friday night and you can hear it all around, different conversations going all at once, different layers of pitches and the occasional abrupt laughter that breaks the sound of talking. I guess because I've grown up in New York that the sound of ten different conversations going at once is less distracting than the sound of hospital siren that makes everything go quiet. I can hear the sound of the pavement meeting with the sound of women's heels and men's heeled boots. I'm walking closer to the East Side and more and more bars are coming up so I can hear the sound of clinking champagne and wine glasses and the sharp sound of forks, knives, and spoons hitting plates of food. I hear the sounds of squeaky doors opening for restaurants that have survived the high New York rents. I think all of these sounds represent the buzzing energy of New York City nightlife. All of these sounds are meaningful to me because I was rarely allowed out as a teen in high school. A lot of my other friends were from families that were more lenient in their rules and in safer neighborhoods. I, on the other hand, am born and raised in the Bronx in a not so safe neighborhood far away from the parties in Brooklyn and Manhattan that my friends would through. Nightlife had a beautiful unattainability that I always yearn to be apart of and it has an energy to it that is unmatched to New York City life in the daytime.

Define A Space

Artist Statement

Throughout my life, I have been inspired by the little things. The way light moves, the way color bleeds into one another, and how ugly can be beautiful. I dare my audience to look into themselves when they view my work like a mirror into what makes them uncomfortable, what makes them laugh, and what scares them. I hope to capture vulnerability on-screen through themes of discovery, breaking down the walls of identity, and defining what love truly means.

When I've watched films in the comfort of a darkly-lit theater, I have felt comfort through film. I want my audience to also feel comforted by my work. Like the missing link on your journey through this life. I want my audience to feel like they can be authentically themselves and feel driven to tears, laughter, rage, or maybe a mixture of emotions.

I'm interested in studying the human condition in its most raw form, the form that you don't want anyone to see, the form that you used to write in your diary as a kid, the form that you are afraid of people seeing the most.

Then I want to break it. I want to break down that rawness and let the light shine through.