Feedback #3

After following through with shooting my storyboards last weekend, I met with Shawn to show him what I did and to get direction on what to do next. He said that what I had shot were good starting points for this film, but I needed to be less literal and think laterally, including feelings, atmosphere and metaphors; and to include things around the shooting lifestyle such as landscapes, pets, pet accessories, and other human foods. The visuals need to be more associative, not direct.

Here are some other notes from this session:

• Talk to Liz
• The project is about things that can cause conflict (difference of beliefs/opinion), but the deeper relationships transcend that - it is not about a vegetarian and a hunter - unity through tension
• Use archive footage and stills - images of conflict and resolution (Bible, history, etc)
• It will be an essay film
• The themes include separation and togetherness, conflict and resolution
• Look at headlines on conflict and resolution
• Famous examples of parent/child conflict
• Vary the audio - atmos, my voice, my dad's voice
• No happily-ever-after ending, it will be  too cheesy 

Practitioners to research:

• John Akromfrah (Stuart Hall Project, The Unfinished Conversation, Handsworth Songs)
• Adam Curtis (All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace - use of different visuals)

We then began talking about my previous shooting project. I spoke about how I understood individual reasons why some people shoot (nostalgia, socialising, etc), but I didn't understand how they can appreciate that the pheasants are beautiful animals and yet kill them anyway. In one scene from New Girl, one of my favourite TV shows, the protagonist and her roommate go to her boyfriend's house, and the roommate finds a taxidermy duck in the boyfriend's study; he pick it up and studies it, telling it "I want to kill you, because I respect you. HEY, JESS, I THINK I UNDERSTAND HUNTING!" 

It was here that Shawn suggested that my film could be about me trying to understand hunting - reaching to an ideology that I don't understand. It could include theories from Buddhism and Hinduism, as part of their culture is not to harm any, or specific, animals. I would still be using archive footage to illustrate my argument, as many documentaries are comprised of archival footage and rarely use original footage.

Here are more notes following this change in direction:

• Guerrilla activist-style film - justify use of archive footage
• People that respect animals but don't kill them etc vs people that do
• Slaughterhouse footage, circus animals, human circus freaks
• Shots of dead flies
• Karma?
• Do what feels natural
• Think about details
• Include my animal-based dreams, whale-watching footage?