Shot List for Ethnographic Film Project v 1.01 (Work in Progress)

Going Out for Dinner (Working Title)

Scene One:

Fade opening. Camera is placed in the front passenger seat of a car which is driving up a Forest Service Road. Music is playing and background voices are heard. Movie title fades in.

Cut to shot of car dragging tree which has fallen and is blocking the road. Voice over of Khoi (main participant number one) talking about what they’re doing and where they’re going begins.

Cut to car being pushed out of the snow. Khoi is still speaking.

Scene Two (Flexible):

Option 1: Cut to lunch scene. Car is no longer moving. people are relaxing while Khoi and Tim (second main participant) are scouting ahead with binoculars and talking about what comes next.

Cut to scene of participants hiking through the woods

Option 2: Cut to scene of participants hiking through the tree, interspersed with quick cuts to Tim and Khoi overlooking terrain they wish to hike through.

Quickly cut to signs of deer tracks, and footage of deer

Scene Three:

Cut to Jess (or Tim) walking around their household garden, explaining what each vegetable is, the kind of soil it needs, how often they water it, what the optimal growing season is, and why they’ve decided to grow their own vegetables. I also want to ask about yield for each vegetable

This scene will require a Lavellier Mic which will be wired to whomever is doing the most speaking. If both participants want to speak, I may decide against the Lavellier because it will only amplify one person’s voice.

Cut to Jess (or Tim) preparing a meal using vegetables that grow in their garden (Probably will have to be bought, because their garden is too new and nothing has grown yet).

Scene Four:

Tim (or Khoi) and I are going out fishing. We catch some fish and I gather shots of Tim cleaning and preparing the fish for consumption. A voice over of Tim plays and walks us through the process of catching, cleaning, and preparing the fish, and learn his motivations for producing his own food.

Scene Five:

Emily walks us through the bread making process. I gather footage of her feeding and taking care of her sourdough starter, and then using it to make both sourdough pancakes and a loaf of bread. I especially want a shot of the loaf of bread coming out of the oven.

Scene Six:

A tracking shot along a table with all the food that has been harvested during the course of this film. On the table there is: venison (will have to be bought), Salmon, vegetables harvested from the garden, and a loaf of sourdough bread.

Film Treatment

For my Ethnographic Film course I am required to create a film treatment. A treatment is essentially a proposal that outlines the subject matter, audience, and style of my film.

For my film, I wanted to explore various ways people in Vancouver have taken food production into their own hands. This could mean baking bread at home, growing your own vegetables, hunting & fishing, or harvesting wild foods. The central question I’m asking is what kind of knowledge goes into procuring those kinds of foods. What kind of knowledge does one need in order to say, bake their own bread or grow their own vegetables? What kind of knowledge does one need in order to hunt successfully?

So far, I have shot a few scenes which I think will make to the final cut of my film, however as I gather more footage I’ll have to be selective about which scenes I choose to include. Some of the scenes I have in mind for the film are:

a scene of getting into the bush where my participants are looking for signs of animals, with a voice over about what they’re doing and why.
a scene of the bread making process from start to finish
a scene of a participant caring for the vegetables they’re growing followed by a sit down interview explaining why they decided to grow their own food.
a scene on a boat of a participant catching fish

These scenes are of course, very roughly outlined. I can only control the narrative so much as I move through the filming process.

For the style of the film, I really would like to rely on ambient sound which I recorded during the filming, and follow it up with voice overs and sit down interviews. I may include some initial narration to get the narrative ball rolling, but because the film is only a few minutes long, any spoken information needs to be short and concise.

When I was filming over this past weekend, I had a lot of trouble controlling the action of the shots because there were so many people talking and moving in and out of the shots. As I continue to gather film for this project, I’ll need to pay more attention to the background noise, and people, who may make an appearance in the shot.

Here is a more formal film treatment document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VNkVN45teKcoVfTYztmRB7V8-y7Tr0el6rA673liUh4/edit?usp=sharing

Email to Zainab Rauf Tramboo

From: zdavgoldman@gmail.com

To: znbtrmb@gmail.com

Subject: Invitation to form an ENGL 301 Writing Team

Dear Zainab,

Having reviewed both your application and blog more generally, I would like to formally invite you to join a writing team for the remainder of our course.

I was struck by your dedication to your craft, by your dedication to community, and found that we have similar interests regarding the power dynamics of nation states under global capitalism.

Your writing skills and interests reflect what I’m looking for in a team member for this course. I’d like to invite you to visit my blog https://blogs.ubc.ca/zdavgoldman/ and to review my letter of application to see if we might be good partners for the upcoming assignments in this course.

My Letter of Application: Zachary Goldman’s Technical Writing Letter of Application

Thank you for your time,

Zachary Goldman

Email to Sydney Storie

From: Zdavgoldman@gmail.com

To: S.storie@alumni.ubc.ca

Subject: Invitation to join an ENGL 301 Writing Team

Dear Sydney,

After reviewing your application letter and your blog, I would like to invite you to form a writing team for the remainder of our Technical Writing course.

Your academic achievements and work history are impressive, and as someone who was also hoping to attend UC Berkeley this summer, I feel a sense of camaraderie over our mutual loss of programming.

I also enjoyed reading about your love of traveling, and find that we have many similar experiences and interests which include a love of travel.

I invite you to take a look at my blog https://blogs.ubc.ca/zdavgoldman/ and review my letter of application to see if we might make a good team for the remainder of our course.

My Letter of Application: Zachary Goldman’s Technical Writing Letter of Application

Thank you for your time,

Zachary Goldman

How to make a Cup of Coffee (Video)

This is a short film that I shot over the weekend while camping. I was trying to create a narrative without dialogue, and incorporate some of the video editing techniques I learned in my last video (see previous project log post).

I shot a sequence where an actor (in this case, me) goes about making a morning cup of coffee with the items available to them. The film successfully illustrates the process, and although I wish I had better camera placement (I propped my camera on various things because I don’t have a tripod), the shots themselves turned out ok.

As far as sound goes, when I was filming I wasn’t thinking about sound at all which was a mistake. I got lucky because I introduced the location and sequence with the sound of the river, which was present throughout the entire film. This continuity of sound meant that I didn’t need to rely on gratuitous fading techniques between shots, which was nice.

One major thing I noticed in the editing process is all the assorted stuff that’s in the shots. The beer cans, the random objects, and the other things which I should’ve removed prior to filming. While they do add some hilarity to the ‘home video’ quality of the film, it would’ve been better to remove those items.

Here’s the film: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1QOyFVxjXsQ4vgE0LxPQRFNEKwPeeMDc1

First Time with Digital Film

As part of my ANTH478 course for the Summer 2020 Term, I am required to keep a project log. Essentially, the project log is a journal of my progress using film in ethnographic and documentary contexts.

I have never used video before, and so the learning curve is particularly steep.

For this video, I went around my neighborhood with the intent of establishing a setting, and using cross fades and blurs to transition between shots. I wanted to capture the peaceful feeling of walking around my neighborhood on a sunny day, and I think it turned out alright. Mostly I was excited by the fading techniques I used, because prior to that I was just using hard cuts, which undercut the peacefulness I was trying to capture.

Anyways, here’s the video.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1l0CNLbgzVuInXsvEcxs8CosX2HZEANyt

Memorandum

To: Dr. Erika Paterson

From: Zachary Goldman, Technical Writing Student

Date: May 26th, 2020

Subject: Letter of Application

Below you’ll find my application letter to join a professional writing team as required by the course outline. I definitely valued the structural elements set out for us by the textbook but found myself struggling with stylistic elements, and the self-congratulatory nature of writing this type of letter.

The Letter of Application reviews my:

Academic history at the University of British Columbia
Work history as an Editor for The Ethnograph
Approaches to research methodologies with at-risk populations
Strengths as a writer and researcher

Please review the document below and offer up and critiques you may have. Constructive criticism is a vital aspect of becoming a skilled writer and greatly appreciate any feedback you may have.

Yours,

Zachary Goldman

Link Technical Writing Application Letter

Welcome to my ENGL 301 Blog!

Hello!

This blog is intended for my professor and fellow students in English 301: Technical Writing. Within you’ll find information about me and representations of my work for both this course and others which I have taken at UBC. All the opinions stated herein are my own and do not represent the University or any other institutional body. All photographs herein are subsequently my own unless otherwise stated.

I will be regularly updating the blog in accordance with the course outline in order to improve my technical writing skills. Posts will include projects I’m currently working on, my thoughts regrading current events, and my interests more broadly as the blog moves beyond the audience of ENGL 301.

English 301 is a course dedicated to writing techniques in a professional landscape. The major objectives of this course are outlined on the Instructor’s Blog as:

to introduce you through course readings and activities to the distinctive elements of writing in business, professional, and technical contexts;
to provide you with opportunities to practice and perfect in a series of shorter assignments and longer projects the strategies and techniques particular to writing in these contexts;
to engage you with your classmates in online discussion, peer review, and analysis of documents produced for business, professional, and technical contexts;
to direct you to the considerable resources available to you through UBC’s Career Services unit;
to involve you in developing and designing an online portfolio in two forms: a Linked in profile with accompanying references and a professionally designed website that also presents your resume;
to encourage and assist you in reflecting on your writing and developing self-editing skills.

My expectations for this course are that I meet those objectives, and that I develop the skills necessary to succeed in an increasingly online professional environment.