American Bisque - found footage no narration 3 hr political documentary

  On 7/12/2013 at 10:58 PM, mcbpete said:

 

  On 7/12/2013 at 8:54 PM, AdieuErsatzEnnui said:

Personally I think using SAW tracks as background music is sort of overdone.

Yes I absolutely agree, I was just suggesting it as an example of tone. I think the first and last doc to get away with it was this (though RDJ personally hates it)

 

 

  On 7/12/2013 at 8:35 PM, John Ehrlichman said:

There are 2 parts in this that are entirely set to ambient, maybe you could check out those and see if they work vs the more jarring beat driven stuff. 8:22 - 12:23 & 25:45 - 29:29

Yeah IMO those ones work perfectly. They're a little loud - well actually it's not that they're too loud it's just that some of the dialogue is a bit too quiet, maybe try a bit of compression to boost the volume/give more consistency in the levels of the clips used.

 

 

I loved when that track would come on in GTA 4. It was a wonderful juxtaposition of me flying down the highway at 150 mph.

i really do appreciate all the feedback. I think i'm going to make an alternate version of the whole thing once it's all finalized with only soundtrack or ambient music. The only other concept running through this that I wanted to stick by was utilizing only electronic-related music from each era being reflected. So for example I have a lot of Wendy Carlos stuff playing during Nixon and Ford and some Throbbing Gristle stuff for Reagan and Carter. When it gets into the 90s i sort of wanted to convey the evolution of electronic music according to the timeline. Since i'm very out of the loop when it comes to any notable post 2000's ambient besides the occasional Oval, Tetsu or Zoviet record I'm going to need to really seek out stuff that not only fits but resonates with me.

  On 7/12/2013 at 8:55 PM, Friendly Foil said:

You should use some Thomas Köner.

 

 

and Tod Dockstader

 

p.s.

maybe Mark Stewart could find a way in?

Edited July 13, 2013 by Godwin Austen

LOL at 15:44, the music and the images dont make sense at all, it doesn't even sync.

 

This doc reminds me of those videos made by 15 year old asian kids on how to transfer music to your PSP.

 

Death Fuck was playing when some bore of a journalist was asking a question, lol.

 

I dont think the message will be send when 90 percent of the comments are all about the music.

 

The music should be secondary, hell it shouldn't even cross the viewers mind.

Edited July 13, 2013 by Deer

  On 7/13/2013 at 12:15 AM, Deer said:

 

 

This doc reminds me of those videos made by 15 year old asian kids on how to transfer music to your PSP.

haha, i've not seen one of those but i'll assume it's not a compliment

 

music aside ( and i Know it's hard to judge since many are finding it so problematic). let's assume that I've made the exact same series of video edits but set it to music that isn't distracting. Is the content understandable? Meaning: is it confusing to someone who isn't very familiar with each subject being shown.

 

 

Edited July 13, 2013 by John Ehrlichman

the only way to make this more effective is to open with yakety sax blaring over the daniel pearl beheading video

i think you're mis-remembering/confusing it with the part where i play crying in your face by aphex while american soldiers kill like 4 dogs. The yakity sax idea might match how over the top that part already is.

but i get your point, playing up-beat or dancey music while actual footage is shown where people are being killed is uh how do i put it, off putting? tasteless? I mean I did it, it's done, but it's interesting to hear people reactions.

Edited July 13, 2013 by John Ehrlichman

  On 7/12/2013 at 8:52 PM, Bread said:

Do you discuss any solutions in the film?

 

The solution is obvious, full stateless communism.

As for the video, I'd agree about the music. I think a related problem is the fact that it cuts around a lot, there are a lot of soundbytes, quotations taken out of context, there's no obvious argument being built up or case being made. Don't take this the wrong way cause I know you come from this background, but basically it reminds me of a lot of really superficial icke/jones fan videos - except rather than being ten minutes long it's some three hours. This is based on just watching ten minutes of this one here and there, though.

 

As what it is, as a form of self-expression, it's not bad. But if you're trying to open a debate (how I hate that word, though) or make a case then I don't think you're going to persuade anybody.

what's up with watmm moderation these days ? this is clearly a mix so it belongs to WATMMixes subforum.

mods, please move this to appropriate sub, thanks.

I'll bury you.

if anyone is interested in seeing the whole rough cut (over 3 hrs) pm me

  On 7/13/2013 at 8:55 PM, Iain C said:

As for the video, I'd agree about the music. I think a related problem is the fact that it cuts around a lot, there are a lot of soundbytes, quotations taken out of context, there's no obvious argument being built up or case being made. Don't take this the wrong way cause I know you come from this background, but basically it reminds me of a lot of really superficial icke/jones fan videos - except rather than being ten minutes long it's some three hours. This is based on just watching ten minutes of this one here and there, though.

 

As what it is, as a form of self-expression, it's not bad. But if you're trying to open a debate (how I hate that word, though) or make a case then I don't think you're going to persuade anybody.

good points. I'll address them individually

 

'taken out of context' - specifically which parts did you feel were out of context? There are only 2 scenes where i took anything out of context, the one where he's dancing with Ellen innercut with Pakistan drone footage and I cut out one sentence of his nobel peace prize speech. Contextually it's pretty accurate since everything is portrayed in the same order in which it happened. It could be argued that I'm omitting a lot of stuff, which is true. This is only designed to focus on American policy that kills other human beings, not 'Obamacare' or stuff like that.

 

'opening a debate' - It wasn't my intention to convince anybody who's still in the bag for Obama. No matter how bad things get there will always be plenty of people who will defend him to the end, just like there was with Bush even during the financial crisis. People will always go down with a sinking ship.

The only thing I was hoping to accomplish besides just dumping my own brain into this was riding the coattails of what I see right now as a potential tipping point, mostly because of this Snowden NSA leak. If i can contribute to this in any way, especially a way that hasn't quite been done before (i've never really seen any Obama movie which attacks him from the 'left') I'm fine with whatever tiny drop in the bucket contribution it may have.

 

'superficial icke/jones-ish' - I disagree with this, My style was at least intentionally trying to be more like Adam Curtis or Michael Moore's older stuff. There isn't really anything in here that's not factual. If that's not what you're talking about I'm curious what makes you feel it's more in the Jones territory than the Moore style.

Edited July 14, 2013 by John Ehrlichman

i'm pretty confused as to what the point of this is. it seems so biased and one sided. i guess it isn't really a documentary so much as a 3 hour music video? like shit that would play behind a dj doing a set? even then, i feel like i've seen it before. i don't really think the novelty of attacking obama "from the left" is worth the energy, honestly. there's plenty to criticize, i just wonder if this is the most lucid way to present it. feels very surface and heavy handed. "monolithic political entities are bad and obama is part of the same system as bush" seems like a tired statement to be making, especially without narrative context, contrary arguments or solutions. plus the music really is a lol. feels like something nathan barley would have running on trashbat.co.ck

Because I automatically look like a complete dick when posting in your thread ( seeing our recent "exchanges") , I 'm posting this as some disclaimer of sorts. See it as an attempt to try to create some space to have a voice in this as well.

 

My main point is that editing a long string from clips which are already in the media is hardly "factual". Media clips are highly contextual, filterd and biased. Most importantly, because the media never tells you what they don't show you. And there's simply a lot more which journalists know, but leave out their narrative. And even more which journalists don't even know.

 

Joris Luyendijk wrote a pretty good book about this. If you're fluent in Dutch, there's also an interview online giving a 40 mins summary.

http://www.amazon.com/People-Like-Us-Misrepresenting-Middle/dp/1593762569

  Quote

Starred Review. In his commanding debut, Dutch journalist Luyendijk describes the curious five years he spent as a correspondent in the Middle East, stationed out of Cairo. Sent traipsing around the Middle East, Luyendijk struggles to find newsworthy (and trustworthy) stories, usually involving bribery and less-than-honest people. Luyendijk also delivers example after example of oppression and brainwashing techniques used by dictatorships on their citizens, which comes through clearly in his conversations with ordinary people like cab drivers, as well as with high-profile public figures. Sent to the Middle East not for his journalism skills but for his ability to speak Arabic, Luyendijk had to learn on the job, an all-too-literal trial by fire. He takes advantage of his outsider position to break down the myths of war journalism and the very real limitations reporters face outside the Western bubble of free speech. The author also weighs in on 9/11 and Saddam Hussein's regime, making this an eye-opening account with special relevance for American readers.

So, if you want to make some point with your documentairy, I can only advize you to grab someone like Cornel West in front of a camera and let him speak his mind. I'm sure you saw the last episode of Bill Maher, but if you haven't you might want to check it out as well. He was basically arguing Obama is a warcriminal, so he's right up your ally.

 

If you want to cut up media clips and put some cool music underneath, by all means do so. But don't call it factual. The media don't give facts. It gives a narrative. So the only thing you're doing, is making another narrative built on narratives.

you should definitely use this track in there somewhere, if not throughout the entire documentary:

 

[youtubehd]MK6TXMsvgQg[/youtubehd]

I'd say keep Death Fuck where it is. It seems to me that the problem is the songs coming before and after it, but also the volume of Death Fuck itself, which is sometimes intrusive, because it doesn't dynamically shift with the volume of people's voices. I think that Death Fuck works great there though, good timing, etc.

Edited July 16, 2013 by drukqs

thanks, i thought the song worked well too. I guess I am somewhat surprised that simply having an unconventional musical score in this type of documentary would make it so hard for people to watch. Which songs did you find problematic? I still have a lot of fine tuning and audio work to do on this project. Much harder than I anticipated to master and mix a 3 hour film with talking + music

put a raw 3,5h version without music and i'll watch it

musical choices are a little more low key and 'appropriate' in the longer rough cut (except arguably when I sync the world trade center collapsing to a squarepusher track), which starts with Nixon and Vietnam

if anybody wants to sit through a very depressing 3 hr political documentary with no narration, please share your thoughts
I tried very hard to pull obscure or mostly unseen clips during the Bush administration since I felt plenty of others have covered that ground many times before. I pooled together a lot of Afghanistan war run-up footage, which usually gets forgotten and brushed under the rug in favor of the more memorable Iraq war propaganda. Also don't feel bad about laughing at certain scenes, it may seem odd but I throw in comedy right after showing some horrifying stuff. This is not meant to be a sternly serious documentary.


Edited July 18, 2013 by John Ehrlichman

warning 3:00 - 5:00 and 1:56:50 - 2:01:02 has footage that is pretty universally disturbing, including a scene where a group of american soldiers beats to death a goat with a baseball bat.

Edited July 18, 2013 by John Ehrlichman

hadn't ever seen the footage at 2:00:10 with the guys talking about "fucking people all to shit" in a white car. pretty disgusting. are there any people on watmm who have served in the military and seen action that could even attempt to explain the psychology behind that? seems psychotic to me.

after combing through literally hundreds of videos in a similar vein as well as comparing that mentality to the mentality of the young guards at places like Abu Ghraib I feel like the only way to explain it is to look at studies like the Stanford Prison Experiment or literature like Lord of the Flies. That's my only references point to this type of behavior. It's almost like a form of collective psychosis brought on by harsh environments.

Have you seen Standard Operating Procedure Zaphod? Although it focuses mainly on Abu Ghraib the attitude and detached demeanor of the soldiers involved is disturbing.

edit: there are a lot of really disturbing clips I just didn't have the time to put in. there is a clip made by a blackwater employee of him literally just playing Grand Theft auto with a real gun on the freeways of Bagdad, shooting random cars, crashing into random cars, running over people etc. It's almost hard to believe it's real. I found one that was simply too much for me to include, which was of an Iraqi dude lying on the ground dying with both his arms looking like shredded meat, basically blown off. 2 soldiers no more than 20 years old both stand over him taunting him 'does that feel good you pussy?' 'aw i bet that hurts doesnt it haji' etc. Pretty insane

Edited July 18, 2013 by John Ehrlichman

if anybody actually can make it through the whole thing, any advice on which sections or songs can be cut out entirely would be helpful. My goal is to get it under 3 hrs. Hopefully after seeing it all in context it won't seem as one-sided, I portray Bush pretty fucking badly and pretty much every single president I show. So in the sense that I'm entirely negative about the US government is one sided, but oh well

Edited July 18, 2013 by John Ehrlichman

  On 7/13/2013 at 7:22 AM, zaphod said:

the only way to make this more effective is to open with yakety sax blaring over the daniel pearl beheading video

that deserves a lol