Documentary Film, Radio, Photography | Presentation + Production | Williamsburg, Brooklyn » Collaborative Projects Blog

Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective at UnionDocs

Ashley Panzera — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 14:46:04 +0000

UnionDocs welcomes back the Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective for their regular meetings starting next week. From the BFC mission:

The Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective is a tight-knit community of professional filmmakers in Brooklyn, NY who are dedicated to innovative approaches to filmmaking. The collective comes together through weekly peer workshops to provide sustained feedback and critiques throughout the life of its members’ projects. It is the mission of the BFC to inspire groundbreaking films, create an active filmmaking community, and maximize exposure of the best work from Brooklyn-based filmmakers.

I’m happy to be participating in the BFC for my 3rd season and that it’s being held at UnionDocs, the space that I also call home as a resident participant in the UD Collaborative Program. Both organizations are helping foster and critique my work, which as a filmmaker in NYC is invaluable. This New Year BFC will be participating in more screenings in the NYC area, so look out for events that feature artists in the Brooklyn Filmmaker Collective.

To find out more about BFC check out our website at brooklynfilmmakerscollective.com/

Lorimer/Grand Street and Mental Life

Andrew Parsons — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 18:04:03 +0000

As I cross the street to go to Key Foods, my legs immediately react to the glowing man made of several white dots in the near distance. As I stare at him, three passing pedestrians in various grey, orange and brown clothing flank my right side and blend with the colors of Manna. Bikes, cars, lights and signs speed around me – some in flashes and some more like a crawling turtle in comparison. The long, unmoving wall of Key Foods stretches down towards the entrance and makes the world of colors, people, trees, chained bikes, various machines and even stationary buildings on the opposite side of the street move quicker towards me. I approach the green of stationed tables at the entrance of the store which is in stark contrast to the grays of the parking lot, fencing and food drive cans. As I squeeze between the bars, the automatic door opens and the store is before me.

I would tell you “rapid crowding of changing images” that is Key Food, but I took up all my mental space just crossing the street and getting there.

Manhattan and Mental Life – commuting with Georg Simmel

Annie Berman — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 16:36:43 +0000

Exiting my apartment building, the city greets me – by the sounds of traffic, heels on concrete, screeching bus brakes, and by the blank stares of nameless faces with souls locked behind stopped-down irises. I, also wearing my ‘stranger face’, dash forward into the onslaught of grey pedestrians with brisk, purposeful strides towards the subway entrance. Making unmotivated eye contact with anonymous familiar faces, they stare back blankly or glance behind them, seeking, themselves, the object of this unexpected contact. The great blur of Walk, Don’t Walk, curb, puddle, NARS ad with the red lips, excuse me, baby carriage, sorry, no thank you, merge, pass, construction passageway, Metro newspaper lady whose shrill vocal chords found an unfortunate vocation, dodge disembodied text messenger, sorry, smeared poop, Walk, Don’t walk, Dan Smith Will Teach You Guitar flapping on a pole, a pigeon bearing signs of stress disorders, snippets of conversation including ‘I don’t mind being touched’ and ‘I don’t think I’m bipolar, do you?’, Walk, Don’t Walk, Taxi horns, beep, click, turnstyles, sorry, salmon upstream, descend, and disappear into book.

The Camera’s Position and Place in Los Sures and in Metropolitan Ave.

Will Martin — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 19:00:02 +0000

The introduction sequences of both Los Sures (LS) and Metropolitan Ave. (MA) start with a aerial reference shot of Williamsburg looking towards the East River and Manhattan with a voice over narration which state the intent of the film. In the case of LS the stated intent is a portrait. In MA the stated intent is a projection of the purposes of a diverse group of women. After the introduction of LS, the camera remain more intimate and close to its characters. We see few wide shots of the neighborhood and none of Manhattan. We see the characters more as if they don’t see the camera. We the characters as they see themselves, each other. The camera is more present in MA, as is the built environment of the neighborhood itself. In MA we see more wide-angle shots of streetscapes and cityscapes. We see public spaces. In LS, by contrast, we find the camera, and ourselves, inhabiting intimate places of love and spirituality, on a bed, in a car. In LS, there is a sense that the view participates in the private moments of the people. The camera never finds such a perspective in MA. There is a distance. LS tries to defines place in terms of people, relative to themselves. MA tries to define the place in terms of position (in this case opposition) relative the built and political environment.

Understanding cities… and ourselves

Andrew Parsons — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 14:01:17 +0000

Venkatesh and Andersen both offer up lengthy critiques of myths that Hollywood filmmakers and sociologists build around cities that they seek to portray or understand. However, in many ways I feel like our roles as documentarians can lead us to the same traps that the critiqued subjects of the film and paper left behind for others to sort through.

Even though our goal is much less comprehensive than the 1920s professors at the University of Chicago, we are essentially doing the same thing. We seek to gather snapshots and document parts of a whole and with those parts, we will represent a larger whole. Our biases for what those parts should look like might inevitably shift the truth that we find because we might lend less importance to one subject or another. Also, in our quest to build narrative and make our documentaries captivating and recognizable, we might find ourselves falling into Brooklyn-based cliches that we saw throughout all the LA-based movies. We’ll probably rely too much of shots of the Williamsburg bridge and the Empire State Building shot across the river to add context and place.

I interpret this week’s media as a cautionary tale. We can be aware of our inclinations to construct realities and thus lessen their presence in our documentaries. I say ‘lessen’ because some of it is inevitable. Both authors set up lengthy critiques without giving us much insight in to what they might do differently. This is because what their subjects do – and what we are doing – is an impossible task and the bias and cliches they point out are at times unavoidable. We can’t accurately portray anything without bias. What we can do, is unpack and understand our role in the final product.

UDC 2011 Group Shot

UnionDocs — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 22:01:37 +0000

From the first meeting.

Front: Annie Berman, Laura Mayer, Daniel Terna, Emma Brenner-Malin, Joshua Gen Solondz,Laurie Sumiye. Middle: Christopher Allen, Ashley Panzera, Andrew Parsons, Rosa White, Kara Oehler, Stephanie Chang Back: Matthew Yoka, Michael Kugler, Will Martin, Steve Holmgren, Jesse Shapins

Photo by Lexi Henigman

Serial Time/Place in Database Documentary

Jesse Shapins — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 14:21:40 +0000

Yesterday, we didn’t get to discussing two relevant references to our conversation around database documentary. One database-driven approach that might be relevant to our project is the repeated recording of the same location over time. This method is demonstrated in this clip from Smoke (199o).

Click here to view the embedded video.

As well as in Camilo José Vergara’s project “Invincible Cities.”

An Image of a City

Will Martin — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 17:58:17 +0000

“The speaker produces an utterance by stringing together the elements, one after another, in a linear sequence.” The private spaces of a city-the spaces inhabited by lovers- act as the paradigm of a city. As Saussure puts it, “the units which have something in common are associated in theory and thus form groups within which various relationships can be found”. The syntagm as defined by Barthes “is a combination of signs, which has space as a support,” these are found in the city’s public spaces, which can be understood as the traditional images found in syntax of the city’s legibility as discussed by Kevin Lynch, namely ” paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks.”

Los Sures + Man with a Movie Camera

Annie Berman — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 17:48:47 +0000

There is so much to say about both of these films, but to start, I wanted to talk about this image of birds perched above the city caught flying off above it that occurs in the beginning of both films (Los Sures – the opening shot, Man with a Movie camera- 9 minutes in, among the opening external shots of the city). This made me think of, 1) the ‘database’ of images from which we draw, 2) other films such as Wings of Desire and that godlike view above the city, 3) perspective, point of view, man/nature/distance, 4) From ‘Walking the City’ – how “elevation .. transforms the bewitching world into a text. allows one to read it. a solar eye, looking down like god.”

Wish I could be there today to discuss this and much more with you all!

Los Sures & Man With A Movie Camera

Emma Brenner-Malin — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 03:31:54 +0000

1. I chose this still because it represents survival. It is here that we, the viewer, recognize the struggle to live and make ends meet in Los Sures. I was struck by the lines “Cars bring me money…when you’re high you just do shit.”

2. I love the sense of mess and motion in this still. Also, how Dziga Vertov chose to include the camera and the filming process in the final cut of Man With a Movie Camera. He includes all aspects of life: technology, birth, divorce, leisure, and here recognizes that the camera is never actually removed from society.