Old and New

[fuzzynormal]

tl/dr:  Made a small and simple doc film years and years ago with my first 'hybrid' camera. The process was inspiring and changed my outlook about working with motion pictures:

A bit of online chatter here about cameras that are older and it got me thinking because I recently posted a doc my wife and I are currently working on.  It was made with recent camera gear and fancy new computers and software. 

Something old.  Something new.

Well, as a retrospect, here's a look at the very first film we attempted.  This was in 2011.  My entire career at that time had been broadcasting and corporate.  Didactic stuff.  That was my reality and vocational training.  

If making a film was compared being an architect designing a building, my education was basically akin to being an electrician.  Installing wires and cables I could do -- and that was kind of it, y'know? 

So when we set out to shoot this 'Camino' flick, our assumption was that we were going to do what was typical for us:  Subject-matter-experts-interviews, b-roll, maybe even having a presenter doing stand ups and narration.  That type of thing.

Interestingly, this upcoming shoot was immediately preceded by a corporate assignment in southern Spain.  The experience of filming some pretty incredible scenery footage only to know that it was going to be handed off to my client who would hammer it into a dry travelogue video was disheartening.  Also, a year before we had also made a standard travelogue video ourselves in Japan.  We were underwhelmed by the results we created there too.

My wife saw my frustration with all this and started asking "why".  Why were we doing things a certain way.  What exactly would we be offering the world with another video that was a parade of talking heads telling the viewer what to think/feel?  No acceptable answers were readily available. 

So, the day before this journey we decided to ditch all the audio gear, the Sachtler tripod, and the HD video camera with multiple lenses.  Into the backback went a used 5DII and a nikkor 50mm prime.  That was it.  Felt a bit naked, tbh.  But that was the first day we set off into the world as filmmakers rather than as a cameraman or a broadcast ENG person.

We wanted to make something completely impressionistic and opposite of what was typical for us.  We'd only use 1 small cam, 1 small lens, a walking staff as a makeshift monopod.

This epiphany came about not only from the conversation with my wife, but also the realization that a really simple camera rig was not only going to give me an opportunity to run and gun cinematically; but to do it better than with the extensive gak I normally carried around.  Cinematic shooting was something that I never really felt the freedom to explore --until that moment.  And so we went to make a humble unassuming little film.  

The simplicity became it's value.  Less was more we reasoned.  Create a vibe rather than an info dump.

Our modest film might not seem like much, and there's so many mistakes I made first time out of the gate I still cringe at, but it changed our view about our careers.  From there we started to be interested in what it took to be better storytellers. Could we actually do that?  Really?

All of this to say that perspective really matters.  And that the gear we talk about here can actually offer new perspectives.  But it was the attitude first and foremost that needed a shift.  Cheers.

[kye]

Absolutely wonderful!

Without dialogue this is pure visual storytelling, not an easy challenge at the best of times, and your edit held my attention the whole time, which is something that very few non-professional productions do these days.

Various technical aspects did pull me out of the experience from time to time, but as an early effort and with minimal equipment this has got to be top 1% of what people were doing in 2011 for sure.  Wasn't it 2014 or so that the "my camera fell into a washing machine" style travel edits got popular?  Yet, yours from years before is infinitely more restrained, mature, and layered.

I'm always trying to tell little stories with my edits.  Even simple sequences where I join two or three shots together to tell a little story or to make a comment or raise a question, and this edit was brimming with silent commentary amongst the ebbs and flows you created.

[fuzzynormal]

13 hours ago, kye said:

yours from years before is infinitely more restrained, mature, and layered.

Perhaps that's accidental as the nature of my client shooting back then demanded such practices.  The other thing was that we wanted the piece to hold onto a timeless quality even though we knew it would be of its era.  Therefore we really didn't want to do anything stylistic.  A jump cut sequence was as far as we wanted to go editing-wise.  Thanks for watching.  Really appreciate your input.

[zlfan]

The video is very cool. On iPad it is clear enough. 5d2 not bad. Ml raw on 5d3 will make you smile. What is the point of a new cam. I bought a brand new OM1 only for its improved ibis for my mf lenses. 

[kye]

On 3/22/2025 at 3:13 AM, fuzzynormal said:

Perhaps that's accidental as the nature of my client shooting back then demanded such practices.  The other thing was that we wanted the piece to hold onto a timeless quality even though we knew it would be of its era.  Therefore we really didn't want to do anything stylistic.  A jump cut sequence was as far as we wanted to go editing-wise.  Thanks for watching.  Really appreciate your input.

Accidental perhaps, but very welcome!

A very significant part of me deprogramming myself from the bubble of social-media film-making was looking at professional work.

After my analyses I concluded that any shot-on-location TV doc piece that was above average would have the equivalent quality of the top 20% of social media content.  The pieces winning Vimeo Staff Picks would only translate to good-but-not-great in TV land.  

So your instincts from client work put you in very good stead in comparison to the very shallow pool of talent in online travel film-making.  I think when you have any professional level as your reference point then it's difficult to see how much extra there is going on!

[fuzzynormal]

10 hours ago, kye said:

Difficult to see how much extra there is going on

Persig gets into this with his theory of quality in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Matinence.

The idea, of which I'll poorly explain here, is that exceptional craft is not seen, but inherently felt, even by those ignorant of the skill set needed to accomplish it. 

This short film is not exceptional craft, but it was an initial attempt at something aiming in that direction.

Full disclosure: I'm not good at motorcycle maintenance.

But, honestly, we could watch 2 or 3 minutes of reels while doom scrolling and see younger more vibrant craft of video these days.  But, yeah, "what do you want to build with that skill" becomes the important question.

[kye]

14 hours ago, fuzzynormal said:

Persig gets into this with his theory of quality in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Matinence.

The idea, of which I'll poorly explain here, is that exceptional craft is not seen, but inherently felt, even by those ignorant of the skill set needed to accomplish it. 

This short film is not exceptional craft, but it was an initial attempt at something aiming in that direction.

Full disclosure: I'm not good at motorcycle maintenance.

But, honestly, we could watch 2 or 3 minutes of reels while doom scrolling and see younger more vibrant craft of video these days.  But, yeah, "what do you want to build with that skill" becomes the important question.

I loved that book!  I should re-read it..

I definitely agree that exceptional craft is not seen but is felt.  Perhaps my whole film-making journey has been gradually learning to see what makes the great things great, as at first I knew they were great but couldn't tell you why.

When thinking about your video, and visual storytelling in general, I keep thinking of poetry.  In poetry you have things like alliteration, rhythms, rhyming, as well as metaphor, etc.  
For example, having a sequence of walking which ends with a mile-marker sets up the pattern that lots of walking happens to get to a mile-marker, and then you can give a short burst of shots of mile-markers and we know that lots of walking was implied.  Having two sequences where the structure was similar but subject matter was different is a way to draw parallels between different subjects.  Having a theme throughout the edit, perhaps from the editing style, perhaps from the compositions or other choices during filming, can 'rhyme' through an edit.  There are lots of other examples possible.

I watched an analysis of the first Nolan film, Tarantella, and a theme was that the non-linear sequences seem random at first, but as the film progresses, patterns begin to emerge and as links form between new shots/sequences and previous shots/sequences, your brain becomes aware of more and more patterns, making the experience richer.

I think this richness of patterns is how I experience craft.  Potentially I'm becoming more consciously aware of emerging patterns and themes (which can seem to me like comments or questions or both) and potentially the feeling is building up (which I interpret as there being patterns but I'm not registering them consciously), but mostly likely both.

There are gems in the doom-scrolling which show examples of vibrant craft, but I think the quadrant I don't see that much is of gentle / relaxed / understated craft, rather than hype craft.  Perhaps this is just that attention editing is perceived as being the only path to success on social media (it's not, but it's often perceived that way), or it might be that those capable of such craft are trying to make a career from it and so everything is a showreel of-sorts.

As someone who has more than enough excitement/stress in my life without needing to find more of it online in my spare time, I really appreciate something that is relaxed, but is also intellectually stimulating and emotionally communicative.  Filming subjects that contain stillness and space, and communicating that feeling (that emotional reality) within the edit without losing the attention of the viewer is a more significant challenge than retention through frenetic hype edits set to music written for the club at 2am.