Advanced Multimedia Reporting 2019

Author: s.burchell

Minding the Gap

 

This documentary follows the lives of three friends over the span of a 12 year period who bonded through skateboarding as an escape from their fraught home life in Rockford, IL.  Throughout the movie we watch the young men transition from adolescents to adults and all the responsibilities that come with that.  What seems to be a documentary about skateboarding youths turns into a deeper message of abuse.  Unbeknownst to each other, all three leads had suffered abuse from their fathers/step-fathers growing up and skateboarding was their escape.  Further into the documentary we learn that one of the young men was abusing his girlfriend/baby’s mother, which was a shock to the other two.  The title “Minding the Gap”alludes to the exploration of the crossover from adolescents to adulthood.

This documentary is was filmed in an interesting way.  Not only did Bing Lui direct, film and produce this Minding the Gap, he is also one of the three young men.   What I liked about some of the filming is that a lot of the early footage was used from skate videos Bing used to film when they were kids.   The movie mainly focuses on the the other two, Keire and Zack, and then Bing does something journalist/documentarist don’t normally do and comes out from behind the camera and shares his own story of abuse.  This documentary had a wide positive reception and many thought it should have received an Oscar and was also on Obama’s favorite movie list from 2018.

One interesting thing I read in an interview with Bing Lui is that in 2016 one of the main characters Zack, Bing’s friend, became a Trump supporter and he wanted to build that into the arc.  He thought it was interesting that Zack left home when he was young because his dad was becoming more conservative and ironically, Zack does the same in adulthood.  Another filmmaker talked Bing out of building that arc because he said it would take away from the freshness and be a disservice to the film. I’m happy Bing was talked out of that arc because I do think it would have been a disservice and not as widely received since Trump is so polarizing.

Documentary Pitch

Still toying with a few ideas, but my first idea for the documentary will be to follow Vince Bracy, a professional event host.  His ultimate goal in life is to a be Steve Harvey-scale host.  He used to be the emcee for the Harlem Wizards and now is the in-arena emcee for a New Jersey Basketball team the Seton Hall Pirates.  He also has his own podcast,  a radio show on StationHead, and the host of a show called MVNT Mondays that gives budding artists a platform to perform.  I think he is involved in charities as well.  He has a lot going on and is a big personality, so I think he may be a good subject for the doc.

Getting access shouldn’t be a problem.  I would follow him to his different events, find out his goals, why is hosting his passion, maybe sit in the car while we travel to one of his events.  Not sure how long this is supposed to be, but maybe interview a few people around him to get an outsider perspective on his drive to the top.

Visual Poem Pitch-Sarah Burchell

For my visual poem I plan to shoot a duel story comparing aquatic life to city life with humans.  I want to get shots of families walking on the street and compare with schools of fish if possible, shots of the fish doing something interesting (not sure yet) compared to a human doing something weird or interesting and so forth showing comparisons between the two. I plan of shooting at the aquarium in Coney Island and the streets of NYC.  I checked on the aquarium website and non-commercial video use is allowed at the aquarium and NYC streets shouldn’t pose too many problems. I’d don’t have exact shots planned out yet because I want to see happens at the aquatic exhibits and once I get those shots I’ll have a better plan for the rest of the video. I want to go back and forth with aquatic life and city life going tit for tat with similar moves and take long shots so they can be sped up in post production. I plan on using natural sounds, but playing human sound when aquatic life is on the screen and vice versa. My visual poem is purpose is to compare and show the similarities between two ecosystems: city life and aquatic.

Minority Report

https://video.vice.com/en_us/video/minority-reports-black-bull-rider-cowboy-texas/5adf50e4f1cdb31e03126cc2

I chose this video from Vice because it straight and the point and relies on the story rather than video technique.  The footage seems real, with no special effects, which makes the people’s stories in the video more real to me.  Vice’s Minority Report focuses on underrepresented people in unexpected places like this video here where we learn about what it’s like being a black bull riders in a majority white sport.  I think stories like these are done best through video because the viewer doesn’t have to visualize the disparities like in a written piece, but can see it rather.