Last week Paste declared their 25 Documentaries of the Decade. To be honest it was a bit of a disappointingly obvious list, in terms of safely including most of the biggest docs of the decade. Every film on their list is a great documentary but there were also a great amount of other films that possibly should have seen a mention.
I tried to limit to 25 but it's just impossible. This isn't necessarily in any order, I hate the idea of saying one is better than the other, especially when you're talking 10 years of filmmaking and also the sheer ...
Top 15 Documentaries of 2009
1. Antoine
(Laura Bari, Canada, 2009) - website - trailer
As usual I couldn't stick to convention and pick 10 or 20, but this is the list that just appeared when I began writing down the documentaries I've loved most this year. I know there are some big films missing but there are a few that I haven't had a chance to see (Collapse, Objectified and Best Worst Movie being three in particular that I'm itching to get hold of.)
As with the decade list this isn't in any order, I still can't bring myself to do that. All of these films I ...
Research Process: Clip – Encounters at the End of the World
My friend, and filmmaking partner, Jemma has set me the task of showing her documentaries she hasn't seen so that we can look at visuals and filming techniques for a documentary we are currently in the research stage for. Jemma has largely always focused on current affairs TV docs, as that is her main area of interest, and has little knowledge when it comes to feature documentaries. I don't see this as a bad thing and it means I get a chance to re-watch a lot of films I love, so I've begun trying to think of particular films or ...
Remembering Dennis Stock
Magnum Photographer Dennis Stock sadly died today.
Stock started his career as an apprentice to Life magazine photographer Gjon Mili and joined Magnum in 1951. Although best known for his intimate portraits of James Dean he was also a prolific Jazz photographer taking some of the most iconic Jazz portraits in history for his book Jazz Street. in 1968 he founded the production company Visual Objectives and shot several documentaries but returned to Magnum to serve as president of Magnum's film and new media division in 1969 and 1970. Stock generated a book or an exhibition almost every year since the ...
Magnum Photographer Dennis Stock sadly died today.
Stock started his career as an apprentice to Life magazine photographer Gjon Mili and joined Magnum in 1951. Although best known for his intimate portraits of James Dean he was also a prolific Jazz photographer taking some of the most iconic Jazz portraits in history for his book Jazz Street. in 1968 he founded the production company Visual Objectives and shot several documentaries but returned to Magnum to serve as president of Magnum’s film and new media division in 1969 and 1970. Stock generated a book or an exhibition almost every year since the 1950s.
“Art is a well-articulated manifestation of an aspect of life. I have been privileged to view much of life through my cameras, making the journey an enlightened experience. My emphasis has mainly been on affirmative reactions to human behavior and a strong attraction to the beauty in nature.”
I’m really proud to be able to announce the Frontline Club’s Capturing Conflict Film Festival. The festival is something I have been working on for months and I really hope the lineup showcases a selection of the most important films about the risks journalists and filmmakers take in order to get their stories out.
The festival begins on the 7th September and the listings are below, for a more in-depth description of the films please visit the club’s main listings page here:
Tortured Truths – September 4, 7pm – book
Followed by a Q&A with Director and Producer Christine Garabedian
Cry Freetown – September 25, 7pm – book
Followed by a Q&A with Writer, Reporter and Cameraman Sorious Samura and Director Ron McCullagh
Mo & Me – September 28, 7pm – book
Followed by a Q&A with Salim Amin
I would be incredibly grateful if you could help us promote the film festival on your website or blog. Please use the code below to add the festival banner to your site.
I have to say I was a little apprehensive about going to a festival on my own, I envisaged myself standing in amongst thousands of people and taking to no-one for three days. Luckily my pessimism was proved wrong and I had the best festival experience I have ever had.
Pitchfork is a fairly small festival but it just gets it right in every way (I am told the only downside was the drinks queue, but I managed to avoid that). Within 10 minutes of arriving I had befriended an incredibly cool photographer from Yahoo Music called Taleen. After seeing her disappear into the photo pit for Yo La Tengo I knew I should probably get my press pass sorted, which luckily I did.
The next morning I dashed to a photography wholesalers and persuaded them to lend me a lens, which was tricky as I didn’t have the required $2000 spare on my credit card as a deposit… gulp, but they were kind and let me loose with one. Photographing a festival was one of the toughest things I have ever had to photograph. You are limited to the first three songs, and combined with ever changing light and the scrum of the other photographers, if you aren’t used to photographing fast you will be after.
Seeing bands from the photo pit was incredible, you are obviously closer than anyone else, but with a zoom lens you view the band from an almost intimate perspective. I tried to photograph everything, and although that meant missing the rest of a set, I saw many more bands than I would have done.
My partner in crime, Taleen
For some reason Taleen and I had also been given VIP passes and so we got to spend our time backstage. It was very different to what I was expecting. Obviously better toilets and free booze (although I do not recommend Sparks, alcoholic-lucozade certainly keeps you going, but you feel very strange in the morning). Taleen loved approaching people in bands and set about talking to anyone and everyone, I’m awful at remembering who people are and this worked in my favour as I didn’t become a blithering idiot. I did manage to maintain my ability to say daft things at the worst times but I think (hope) my accent allowed me to get away with it.
There were a few bands that I was more excited about getting to see so close, rather than taking their picture, and Grizzly Bear were definitely one of those. There was a brief panic when my camera ran out of battery (amateur, I know) but I had also taken my Pentax film camera and bizarrely those ended up being the photos I like the most.
Flaming Lips was certainly an experience.We knew they would be the hardest to photograph as the scrum would be the most competitive. Taleen wasn’t really up for it but I was too curious to miss it and dragged her over. The first set of photographers had been let and and there were hundreds of them squished into the few metres the photographers get. We were held back and told that everyone was only getting one song. We obviously missed the ‘one song’ that included Wayne Coyne coming out onto the stage through a backdrop of a woman with her legs open in his trademark bouncy ball and out onto the crowd. However it was a great sight to see and when we finally got in I was thankful that we only had the one song as the previously courteous photo pit had turned into a feeding frenzy with elbows being thrown left, right and centre. Although I am not a huge Flaming Lips fan, they certainly put on a show and the atmosphere they created was the perfect way to end the festival.
If you are more interested in reading about the bands than my daft experience see below:
It was wonderful being back in Chicago, I managed to have nearly two days either side of the festival and was taken to the most amazing places to eat by my Chicago-an friend Kevin. Hopefully the line-up for Pitchfork will be as good next year and I can hotfoot it over there again.
The rest of my photos are in this fancy slideshow below:
It took a while to get all the photos I took in Cuba online and I had to wait to get back to have the black and white rolls developed. At the time it seemed highly inappropriate to take black and white photos of a country so rich in colour, but I took so many rolls of film that I felt I ought to use them.
I didn’t think that they would do Havana justice in any way and so I was fairly ambivalent when I was taking them. That attitude may have worked in my favour as they turned out to be my favourite. They seem to show a lot more of the decrepitude that the vibrancy of the colour photos seem to hide.
Welcome to In One Eye, Out the Other! My name is Charlotte and this is my blog for anything and everything that I love/like and an ongoing portfolio of my work.
I'm 26 and have spent 20 of those years in education, studying a large range of things from Media Technology to Graphic Design, Photography, Motion Graphics, Web Design, New Media and most recently an MA in Documentary.
I'm a filmmaker and photographer and I watch, write about and programme documentaries.
I live in London with a very large old cat, Henry, who is quite partial to ham sandwiches.
My First Film
I've finally had the time to start re-editing the film so a new version will be up again soon. The film is a portrait of Hunstville, Texas which is home to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and the state execution chamber. It looks at the love/hate relationship the residents have with their greatest employer and the stigma of the executions.
The production diary here
and stills from the shoot are here
My partner in crime, Taleen
