archived-videos Stick & Pound - International Documentary Challenge

ItDonnedOnMe

ItDonnedOnMe

My film team just found out that our entry is a finalist in this year's International Documentary Challenge, and will be premiering at Hot Docs in Toronto on May 1st. Unfortunately that means we have to wait until after the festival to post it online, as they require all films to be world premieres. In the meantime I thought I'd post our first Doc Challenge entry, from 2008 - it was also a finalist and we ended up bringing home the Best Directing and Best Cinematography awards in the competition. The topic is 'stick pounding' which is a traditional Gullah art form. Enjoy, and feedback is always welcome:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQlg-UomM8k
 
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I like short doc profiles like this. Nice work. Cool how we only see her face and no one else's, just their feet and pounding sticks. Makes sense.
 
Thanks guys!

It's funny with the feet/sticks thing - we get a ton of positive feedback on that, and I think it might have helped us win the directing award, but in reality it was kind of a fortunate accident.

We had originally discussed the idea of doing the entire film showing nothing but the sticks, but once we met Melanie in person that went out the window - she was too powerful a presence to leave her off screen. So we went ahead and filmed her and the dance rehearsal she was conducting that day. About halfway through the rehearsal though we started getting a sense that maybe we weren't totally welcome - she was choreographing the stick pounding segment, but it was just one part of a much larger dance performance and the dance company director didn't seem too enthusiastic about us being there and potentially distracting her dancers. On top of that they had brought in a group of high school students for the stick pounding segment, meaning we would have to get signed releases for them from their parents to use them on screen. So I told the other camera man to shoot the rest of the rehearsal without showing faces just in case. Sure enough in the end a lot of the dancers refused to sign releases and most of the kid's parents weren't around, so we basically weren't able to show the people's faces. The irony was that when the company directer saw the finished film she really enjoyed it and said she'd be glad to work with us in the future - but if she'd been more agreeable in the beginning it probably wouldn't have turned out as well as it did.
 
That is interesting. I have found that to be true, about production bumps, hurdles and walls. Limitations, for the most part, tend to keep you on your feet creatively and force you to get crafty with what you have as opposed to what you can't have. For Stick & Pound, the face of Melanie became the face of the doc and the face of the feet as it were. Restrictions can lead to revelation. Not always, but enough so that the adage "Less is more" does start to become a mantra for filmmaking.
 
OHHHHEEMMMGEEEE.

Magnificent!!!!

What a charismatic woman, what a great story teller and what a great story to tell! I just want to be in her presence to soak up the energy!

Loved everything about this. You really captured her essence and made me feel like I was one of the "in crowd", like she was talking to ME and nobody else. And I'm selfish...so you got me!

"Now here's the secret" (as she looks about to see if anyone's watching) Classic!

If you don't win something, well...more like everything with this than your competitors are truly genius..and I mean the Einstein/Hawking type genius!
 
@Flicker - I agree completely, it's actually one of the reasons I like doing these timed competitions. They impose limitations which force you to think creatively to get around them, and personally it motivates me to do work that I don't think I'd do otherwise.

@Knightly - thanks! I can't wait to share it, it's one of our most polished films yet. I'll post it here after May 1st, we're planning to try a big coordinated online launch to a bunch of sites to see if we can get some momentum for it.

@Abaci - thank you! And just to be clear - this is an older film of ours, and did win best directing and best cinematography in 2008. We didn't win the overall prize, but the film that beat us was very, very good and actually went on to win an Emmy!
 
You see....I'm like Nostradamus....one of the best "post event" prophets of the millennium!!

Regardless...my comments about the nature of what you guys deserve was the best way I could think of to express my opinion of your film.
 
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