Author: a.ferrer

https://auroraferrer51291639.wordpress.com/

Nereida Ferrer describes what it is like to travel from her home in Brooklyn to work in a cafe in Manhattan during the COVID19 crisis.

The lavalier mic has no sound, I suspect this may be due to dead batteries.

Also, I only have an iPad Pro at home, so I cannot download any audio from the Tascam or Canon camera.

Extremis, a documentary about the ecosystem of end-of-life decisions focusing on patients, their families, and the doctors who treat them, uses elements including music, story structure, and visual techniques to create its narrative. Some observations:

-The doc opens with just the sound of heartbeat beeps on a heart monitoring machine. This lasts for just three beats, and then the next shot is of a doctor staring into an unseen patient’s face and then cuts to her blue rubber-gloved hand gently clutching the weakened hand of the patient. The shots continue to cut between the doctor speaking to the patient and hands held, hands resting on the bed, a shot of the weakened hand trying to write on paper, the weakened hand trying form letters in the air. All contrasted with the stronger hands of the doctor.  Excellent use of hand shots.

-The doc uses excellent economy of storytelling without interviews.  A nutgraf is established just between the opening credits: various medical issues that lead to end of life decisions are named, the debate between doctors about what approach to take given a patient’s circumstances, and how doctors help patients make decisions about end of life decisions.

-Natural sounds are used well. There is the sound of air from breathing tubes, beeps from a variety of machines, and the creaking of chairs. There’s also the contrast of the silent background of the patients’ rooms compared with the emergency room where every nook is filled with noise.

-The color of this doc was very unsaturated—playing up the neutral, plain tones of the hospital like tan, white, light teal, and gray.

-Emotional resonance: The scenes with the doctor discussing end of life decisions with members of the various families featured in the doc was incredibly moving. Each family is distinctive from one other and experiencing their loved one’s illness differently. The contrast between those families and the homeless man who had no one to advocate for him and couldn’t advocate for himself was sharp. The shot of the doctor breaking down after speaking with a dying 38-year-old woman, who was begging to live, was a good way of humanizing her as a physician.

-Ambient music accents poignant moments throughout the doc.

 

https://vimeo.com/396737545

 

 

My visual poem would weave a narrative about the busy natural world within the city. Visuals would include land, water, trees, and animals. The focus would be about how city life encroaches on the day to day existence of nature. I would film in parks and around neighborhoods. Natural sounds as well as music would be included.