Anybody else taking the doc challenge?

ItDonnedOnMe said:
Sorry about that, somehow I added an extra character to the url, fixed it now and here's the link again: http://vimeo.com/5645639
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Man that was great!!

But I'll tell you what though. It left me wanting more. I was so looking for a complete stick pounding session by the group. I wanted the end credits to be a rhythm of stick and pound and vibrations... :(... so you better make part 2

Great job.
 
Okay, so I've narrowed it down to the following genres, that I would prefer over others:

Experimental
Social/Political
Science/Technology
1st Person
Biography/Character Study

I crunched some numbers, and it seems as though I have a 5/6 chance of drawing at least one of those genres.

My first choice is either Science/Technology, or 1st Person. If either of those is drawn, my doc will be on the rise of DSLR in the filmmaking world, and what (if any) impact it might have on the future of cinema. There is a 5/12 chance that I draw either one of those genres.

If that happens, I'll be seeking for contributors from the indietalk community! I'll know which genre I draw, in less than 12 hours, and if I'm lucky, I'll start a new thread asking for interviewees, with details on how the interviews would work (you film the footage, interview is conducted over Skype, you send footage to me).

Nick, are you in? Dima, you have your priority list in line? Good luck, getting any genre you might want.
 
Nice list you've got there, Joe!

Hmm.. experimental would be interesting, because i think anything would go. I'd take an interview with a goldfish.. Or maybe draw a face on my hand and call it "Insulting Mr. Biggings" and go after weird people.

Social/Political would work, since there are lot of strongly opinionated youth around here. But I'm not that interested in politics, so I'd be pretty bored with it. I'd try to find some sort of weird anarchy group!

Science/Technology would work for me the best, I think. Maybe do some sort of Apple vs Android deal or find a conspiracy theorist and push his buttons.. I'd have to be careful with this topic because major population could find these topics pretty boring.

1st Person - That just sounds weird. And I want to make it super weird as well. Maybe me talking about vegetarians, while i'm devouring ribs. Or dangers of drinking as I'm sipping on beer and taking shots.

Biography - I might have some fun with it and maybe bring some crazy Star Wars fan dressed as Darth Vader or one of those fake young homeless dudes who dressed in new Jordans and hold sign "Need Money for Gas" and make fun of them..

So no, I don't think I have a priority list, but I have some ideas on what I'm going to do with each genre..
I'm sure our documentary is going to turn weird, but oh well. Don't care much about winning the competition but going out with my friends and shooting the damn thing!


but tell you what, I'll be posting updates on twitter @dlevanchuk, so whoever wants to follow this weird project of ours - feel free to add me ;)
 
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You know what actually, as it draws nearer, I'm beginning to feel a little more comfortable with the idea of not having a set priority-list, and just playing it by ear, tomorrow. I'm kind of open to anything right now.
 
We're signed up for it again, although naturally things have started getting really busy this week so it may limit the time we have to spend on it... may have to try and find a subject that doesn't take too long to shoot, although we don't have any real possibilites lined up yet. Just winging it again...

In any case, good luck everybody! I'll check in here over the weekend with progress updates...

Cracker Funk said:
The first step is to log your footage. This step is usually boring as hell (and time-consuming), but oh so necessary. It must be done, and you need to be thorough. Basically, you just watch your footage, in it's entirety, and take detailed notes. You should have a written transcript of every spoken word, in addition to any important visuals.
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I've heard this is the responsible way to go about make a documentary, but... I've never done it, and certainly not in the five days of the doc challenge! My approach is to simply watch through all the footage, pulling selects as I go and dumping them into a new sequence, sometimes roughly grouped by theme/topic. Then I jump into that sequence and start trimming, shuffling, rearranging, and building a story. From there I just hack away at it until there's nothing more that can be taken away...
 
Wow, I got what I wanted! I'm not quite sure I want to stick to my original plan, though. Depends on how many people I get for interviews. I drew Science/Tech, and if I do that, I want a ton of interviews. Of course I'm gonna check with friends, locally, but I'm also going to ask for interviews from all of ya'll!

I'm considering taking Art, however. I hate to say it, but this one would just be logistically easier, as I'd be focusing on just one person, and the entire shoot would take place in his house. Decisions, decisions...
 
We drew '1st person' or 'political/social'. We've done political/social before, and avoided 1st person a couple of times, so we figured it was time to give it a shot. One of our key team members has a really unique personal story over the past couple years, so we're basically letting him tell his story - but trying to put it together in a very cool and stylized way. The shooting part will be pretty easy for us this time around, it's the post that will kill us...
 
Cool, that sounds great. I've been watching Levanchuk's progress, on FB, and he really hit the ground running.

Just the opposite experience for me. Here it is, 5AM on day 2, and I haven't shot one thing. I haven't even scheduled any interview appointments!

My original ideas for my two genres didn't pan-out, one of them because my plan was unreasonable, and the other because the more I thought about it, it was going to be boring. So, I've been stressing all day, trying to think of a worthy idea.

Finally settled on one a couple hours ago. I'm sticking with science/technology, but my film could easily end up fitting into the experimental category, as it's basically going to be one long musical montage, with social commentary underneath, profided by audio interviews. That's if it goes according to plan. If it doesn't go according to plan, it's going to be one major flop!
 
Well, so much for the shoot going easy. I got up at 5:30am this morning to head out, and it's 3am now - I just started converting today's footage. And somebody broke into one of our crew's cars just before we wrapped. At least the rough cut should go easy in the morning, this one's very different from the docs we've done in the past - it's essentially scripted, in a sense, so I don't have to try and find the story in the editing process. After that though we've got a lot of post work so I expect it'll be a busy day... we've been posting a lot today on our facebook page if you want to follow along:

http://www.facebook.com/ItDonnedOnMe

Time to get some sleep... hope everyone else is making progress!
 
Wohoo! Final render. What a blast :)
Never thought about making a documentary - but bam! Got one in 4 days (written/shot/edited from march 1st to march 4th). Quick and dirty!

"Queen of the Lava Beds" - a short documentary about a forbidden slutty side of Seattle.

I think we pulled it off quite nicely, without any experience in the documentary field :)

Thank you CF for letting us know about this wonderful competition!



And now, I'm back into preproduction of my own project. Shooting my next short for next two weekends! BATTLE OF THE PACIFIC, here I come!!
 
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Congrats on finishing! Sounds like a fun topic. We locked the edit today, and I just finished color correction, but we've got a lot of motion graphics to produce tomorrow to finish ours up.
 
I'm pretty sure I'm gonna be disqualified, for lack of paperwork. I have over 300 people in my movie, and only 6 release forms. :lol:

Also, iTunes never sent me a receipt for that royalty-free song that I bought, so I have no way of proving to Doc Challenge that I own the rights. Those iBastards!

Whatever. I had fun, made a movie I'm proud of, and I learned some stuff in the process (and I like the movie enough to send it to other fests).

Big thanks to Ernest and Zensteve, both of whom sent some additional footage! Though their footage doesn't constitute a large bulk of the film, it does add some nice variety to the overall look (which is exactly what I wanted).

A campus police officer detained me for about half an hour and threatened slapping me with tresspassing, earlier today. Let that be a lesson to you, kids -- no shooting without permits (though I did get the footage I needed). :P
 
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