skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Greetings,I decided to post a publicity still that I am considering using to well, publicize my documentary, "Half of Anything."
Top left: Christina Entrekin, top right: Sherman Alexie, bottom left: John Trudell, bottom right: Deborah Bassett 
What is interesting is that these images really do not do the quality of what was shot justice. The only work I've done on them is to give them more contrast so that they show up a bit better on the web.Peace,Jon
Greetings,Today I decided to look at the calendar to see how much time I have left before I need to present my project for approval and well, it is 19 days! Or, 456 hours. Now, let's figure out that I need at least, let's say 6 hours of sleep a day, that's 114 hours. Next is work, and that is 56 hours for a running total of 166 hours, 456 - 116 = 340 hours. Next is travel, eating among other things, let's say that takes 5 hours a day, for a total of 95 hours, so 340 - 95 = 245 hours. Now, lets subtract 38 hours just for well, just being lost (and that is a conserative number) for 245 - 38 = 207. Ok, let's take 207 and divide that by 19, 207 / 19 = approximately 10.9 hours a day. Now that does sound like a lot, but it really isn't. I guess I better get on it!Peace,Jon
Greetings,Just to keep things straight I've decided to create two new email accounts. The first one, halfofanything@yahoo.com is just for people who want to know more about the movie, make comments about it, and establish discourse with me regarding it. The other email address I created, forndnz@yahoo.com is more for when I need to do some casting calls for my projects. Now, my projects are done as a graduate student so I have very little in regards to money, making a video is expensive! I'm just a little curious if either email account will receive any email...Peace,Jon
Greetings,I've been spending the last few days in high definition HD editing hell. Mind you, I'm not complaining about working in HD, it's good for my career and it is a hell of a lot of fun. The problem is, that I'm having to reinvent the wheel so to speak. What I mean by this is that much of what I am interested in doing for this little documentary is unexplored territory for me. Not that I haven't done something similar in SD (standard definition), it's like I think I've said before, the interface is different, the terminology is different, and now this isn't a complaint, except I wish I had more time to experiment with it, is that the HD editor gives you a lot of freedom, which if not put into perspective, can be overwhelming.To give you an example of what I'm talking about, there are certain areas in the documentary that need some form of narrative explanation, an example of this is when Christina discusses the notion of tribal enrollment. For most people, this notion might be foreign, so I decided that I needed to find a point in her narrative when she brings this up, plus a few other concepts, like blood quantum, and trust relationships that I'm sure will need a short explanation to keep the viewer up to speed with what's happening. The notion of freeze framing was brought up by a professor friend of mine (David Silver) that I wanted to watch the documentary because he's not familiar with all of the concepts brought up and I needed someone who could watch it and give me feedback on what needs explanation. Anyway, David brought up the notion of perhaps using freeze frames, and the movie, "Lock, stock, and two smoking barrels" came to mind. Sure, there are a lot of films that have used freeze frames, in fact, "Office Space" has one scene that really works, but I am digressing and I figured that it has the potential to be a good device to take a step back from the narrative without being too distracting.Well, the AVID systems that I have worked on before, you can just click an option on a menu and pull frames that can be exported. The AVID HD doesn't work that way. Without getting too involved in it, I spent the better part of 3 hours last night, 9:00-Midnight finding the right spot in the timecode, pulling a frame, copying it to mini drive, burning it to a CD-R, transferring it to a G4 with After Affects, resizing it to fit the frame, adding the most basic of animation, i.e. Deborah's name and her profession coming on screen, creating a Quicktime file, burning that to a CD-R, taking that back to the HD system, loading that onto a test timeline, matchframing the clip, creating two subclips, slipping the Quicktime between the two subclips, playing it, and being relieved that it worked.Now, I just need to replicate this I figure about a dozen times. Nevertheless, I have to admit although this project is stressing me out somewhat it is also incredibly cool having to figure out this stuff.Well, it's time to go, need to meet with one of the people in my film and look to see what type of images she has for cutaways and such.Peace,Jon
Greetings,Today I was able to trim approximately 00:02:10;15 from my piece today. I'm plugging along quite well and now I am entering into the color correction, etc. phase. But now I'm tired and need to watch some mindless comedy.Peace,Jon
Greetings, Today I spent sometime working on the doc. The rhythm is there and the images and cutaways needed are becoming much more clearer. Unfortunately I cannot get into it still (need to figure out clearance issues) but it is coming together and will be signed off before the end of the Summer quarter. All in all, I'm feeling really good about it and soon it will be seen. Peace, Jon
Greetings, My name is Jonathan S. Tomhave (call me Jon) and I am a graduate student at the University of Washington in Seattle and I am a recent graduate of the Native Voices Program in Documentary Filmmaking. If you want to check out the programs web site go to: http://depts.washington.edu/nvoices The reason for this blog is that I am currently working on completing my thesis work and it is a documentary titled, "Half of Anything." Just what is, "Half of Anything" anyway? Half of Anything is an exploratory documentary that looks at the formation of native identity in the United States through four personal narratives. Without getting too much into it just yet I feel that it must be understood that the opinions of the interview subjects and of how I am editing it are just that, opinions. They are prespectives of native identity in the United States, which I hope challenge notions of identity (not just for natives) but for everyone who's identity has been shaped by the formation of this country. I also hope that this documentary will give all of us cause to pause, think, and discuss what is presented. Eventually, this blog will be attached to my personal web site here at UW, and if you want to start watching for it please feel free to go and check it out, http://students.washington.edu/jst1066 (athough at the time this posts there is nothing online right now because I can never figure out what to put up until now) and if you like, feel free to email me at jst1066@u.washington.edu and ask me questions about the project. I do ask though that before you do so, please check my blog as I am going to try and answer any questions that may come up here first. Oh, I almost forgot, I guess I should give the names of the individuals who are in my documentary and either their professional web sites or web sites that they are affiliated with: Christina Entrekin (Lawyer) http://www.nwjustice.org/Sherman Alexie (Poet, Filmmaker) http://www.fallsapart.comDeborah Bassett (Ph.D. Student) http://www.com.washington.eduJohn Trudell (Poet, Activist) http://www.johntrudell.com/ I guess the next thing that I'll post is a basic history of how the project developed and where it is right now. Peace, Jon
