Ben's Week 4 Update

I made a major decision today, after three weeks of feeling exhausted. I feel tired all the time and am always behind in my work. Stress (both at UCSC and in my personal life) have been weighing on me. Being so stressed, I've ignored staying healthy, getting sleep and letting negativity cloud my mind. So... that's over with. Nothing but positivity, quality rest and focused work from here on out.

I'm not quite finished logging, but am very close. Working there transcriptions too, but I am at a good pace. The task for this week is to start cutting selects. Right now I've cut three from my footage. One scene of setting shots of the prison, one scene of Shun Grier (one of my characters) and one scene following Renelle (another character) in the cotton fields. I have quite a bit of footage from both characters and feel like the selects I have cut so far are lacking a bit in story arc. However, I am taking this assignment as a run through and just starting to cut up scenes to make some sort of logical sense.

For my Shun interview, I follow him around, for what seems like a day, around town. He talks about being a kid working in the fields and living in Tutwiler. Out of everyone I talked to, I spent the most amount of time with Shun. He actually still calls me about every couple of weeks, just to talk. Which at times makes me feel a little uncomfortable... However, I am not sure if I am going to use his footage in my final film. I am not sure if there is enough there. At least when you compare him to Renelle. Just in this weeks cut he takes you on a days work in the fields, waking up at 4 and sweating in the hot sun. There is much more tension with him. The only problem is that these two individuals are difficult to understand.

I think that it is going to be inevitable to have to use subtitles for this film. Which is an extra task I didn't really forsee, but feel it is necessary. However, I won't have to translate from another language, so that's a bonus.

I've also decided to use our writing course with Karen to help develop my major characters. I am going to right narrative fiction short stories for each of them. This way I will be able to develop a conflict or drama for each character, who will be the protagonist for every short story. I'll have about 4 stories at the end of the project, which tells their story from their perspective. I hope to develop a deeper understanding as to how I want to capture the spirit of my characters.