SocDoc 294A
Blog 1- Field Report
October 7, 2014
The proposal
writing and research process of the spring quarter led me to asking two
essential questions: “what does it mean to be Black and Queer in 2014, in
Oakland, California?” and “what are the different ways that creative world
making is manifested in the Oakland, Black, queer community?”. These questions
guided every conversation, every interview, and my overall experience in the
field this summer. My initial thoughts around visually representing Black, queer
identities were to find several main participants and follow them, documenting
the ways that they lived their lives and identities. What I found, however, was
that it was a lot harder to focus on single characters, as the momentum of
production and my ethnographic experiences brought me to see that there is
something larger taking place in the Black, queer community of Oakland,
California. There are so many different parts of Oakland and therefore, so many
different experiences of one’s identities. I found myself drawn to downtown Oakland,
as this is where a lot of events took place and also exhibited a vibrant social
and cultural scene. My first meetings were with community organizers whose
passions are located in creating inclusive social spaces rooted in Black, queer
energy. Among others, social spaces included Sunday day parties, pride parties
(after all, it was summer and the season for gay prides), weekly events at bars
and specialty clothing boutiques, and even a budding magazine marketed towards
masculine of centered queer women. Some people I met migrated to Oakland, while
others were born and raised there. For those that had spent any significant
time in the city, it was interesting to hear their stories and assessments
around the changes that have taken place. It was also these individuals that
were able to speak to some of the politics and social undercurrents that inform
a lot of interactions.
At the beginning of the summer, I
was also introduced to several nonprofit organizational leaders who have a more
activist and political charge to their work. One of the most valuable assets to
me as a documentarian was simply showing up in spaces, whether or not I could
bring my camera or whether or not I could readily identify the purpose of me
being there. In so many cases, I literally just followed my intuition, knowing
that at least being fully present would lead me to some step in the journey.
After recognizing
that the majority of people I met were deliberately creating spaces that
affirmed Black, queerness and/or radically resituated one’s definition of self,
I excitedly saw that much of what I researched was unfolding before my very
eyes. Due to a social marginalized position, people are feeling activated to
live their lives in ways that fed their personal and communal visions for
freedom. It did not take long to realize that I had to change my expectations
for a character driven film and consider the possibilities for a survey film
where multiple voices speak to one common interest.
About mid summer,
I mapped out a basic list of city events and social spaces that I should attend
for the remaining of production time. I also identified a substantial list of
artists, small business owners, media makers, musicians, performers, activists,
and community organizers that I could interview to provide substantive
information to much of the queer spaces that I was documenting. All of these
individuals represent the current movement at large; they all hold a piece of
the energy and work that collectively speaks to the social, cultural image that
I was invested in documenting. The more I observed community spaces and
gathered individual stories, the more I realized that what is happening
resembled some aspect of what I remember learning at the beginning of my
journey as a student in higher education. This “happening” not only answered my
two guiding project questions, but also, strongly paralleled what can be seen
in the archival material of the New Negro Movement and Négritude Movement of
the past.
To provide a quick
context, The New Negro Movement (also know as the Harlem Renaissance) primarily
took place in northeastern United States during the 1920’s and 1930’s. Also in
the 1930’s, the Négritude Movement took place in France. These cultural and
ideological movements were characterized by a creative influx of music, dance,
literary and visual arts, dress, sexuality, and social justice work driven by
an African Diasporic, queer energy. Based on my research on the historical
intersectionality between Black and queer, I saw a profound parallel between
the Africa Diasporic Renaissance movements of the past and what is taking place
in Oakland today, nearly one century later. Social science shows us that
history repeats itself. A very excited Taryn, I saw the direction my film
needed to take.
This was the
biggest change for me, as I did not anticipate this in my proposal. I knew that
my film would have a strong community base, but I never suspected that I could
draw upon previous social and cultural movements as a basic lens for
understanding what I was seeing. My project proposal initially spoke of finding
Black, queer identified individuals and exploring the marginalities within
Black, gender nonconformity, and queer sexualities. While an intersectional
approach still remains at the heart of my current endeavors, as it is the heart
of my research, I found it useful to shift my documentary focus to the actual
synergy of the community at large. Rather than a single character based
documentary, the cultural movement itself is the main character of this
twenty-minute film. A testimony to the lineage of time, this film is a
chronicle of what could be considered a “neo-Renaissance” movement. For this
reason and to help give a tangible title and basic understanding, I am invoking
the term “Neo-Renaissance” in my new logline and explanation. It is also
through this mechanism of naming that I am deliberately referencing Black,
queer movements of the past and plan on possibly beginning my film with some
archival footage of the Harlem Renaissance.
Other on the spot
changes that took place consisted of dealing with participants who had
solidarity in my project, but unbeknownst to me, were not ready to be on
camera. I followed one participant and organization to Los Angeles to film an
all weekend retreat. They knew I was coming, but due to miscommunication, did
not know that I was filming. This was a huge lesson for me, as I try to be an
efficient communicator with my work and always do my best to be on the same
page with all those involved. The director ended up giving me the green light
to shoot, but only after a sincere moment of humility on my end. It was also a
lesson in filming spaces where identity, and particularly marginalized
identities, are of emphasis, which is what this retreat was. Access to the
deep, emotional, psychological parts to people is significantly difficult and
is one reason why I believe that a character-based documentary is not
advantageous for this project. It takes finding a particular person, with the
ability and interest to share those intimate, vulnerable parts of themselves,
for which I did not find and therefore, could not follow.
The main technical
and logistical issue during production was when my camera kit shotgun mic got
stolen. Oh no! It was such a terrible moment. I was in the middle of shooting
Oakland Pride and literally had to calm my anger and kick into damage control
mode, as this has never happened to me before. The first thing I did, actually,
was call one of my cohort members, John Beatty. He helped settle my mind and
calm my nerves around blaming myself. With a level head, I began frantically
trying to find camera rental places in Oakland and Berkeley. Not finding the
specific shotgun mic that I need, I ended up contacting Sammy’s Camera in San
Francisco. The day was saved and due to a weekend special, it was only $25 for
three days of rental.
Additional
technical and logistical considerations included shooting with a DSLR. At the
end of spring quarter, I intuited that I might want to have a DSLR for easier
access into social spaces, but did not reserve one with our department. When
production began, I saw that this initial idea was spot on. I ended up actually
shooting most of my observational footage of events with a DSLR. Though the
camera was better fit for the spaces that I was in, I was still worried as to
how the footage would come out as I had not worked with the Nikon D610 before
and was particularly worried about the audio as there are no sound gauges on
the camera, like with the FS100 I used for all my interviews. It was also
interesting shooting at night with the DSLR. I did not have enough time to
really test out the camera before I took it into the field and literally shot
sort of blindly, which was certainly not preferable. However, since everything
was happening so fast, my greater fear was that I would miss something at least
visually essential to the doc itself. I just dove in and tried to monitor sound
with headphones as best as I could. Regardless of my fears, using the DSLR to
shoot ended up magnifying my experience behind the camera. People responded
differently when I had the DSLR out in public versus the FS100. It was also
lighter and easier to maneuver in moments when I had to move with whatever it
was that I was filming.
The
footage that I am most excited about is the verite shots, in public, during
city events. I feel as if certain rawness came to light in these moments that
my scheduled sit down interviews were not able to produce. Many of my
participants seemed to over think their interviews and in many cases, the
personality that they had off camera did not fully translate on camera. The
footage that is most disappointing, in large part, are the moments that I tried
to capture more than what I needed to and just should have kept the camera and
focus completely still. There are a few shots that would have been wonderful to
include in a rough cut, but I changed the focus too quickly, making me feel as
though I lost the visual message all together. One main technical issue that
came up that I know I will have to address in the editing room is around white
balance. I shot with all natural lighting for everything. In some cases, it was
particularly difficult to adjust the camera accordingly to light, background,
and the person’s skin tones. I am very mindful of filming people of color, as I
know it is easy to under or over expose darker skin tones.
Regarding
nuts and bolts, I have yet to calculate the total number of hours shot. Though
I have backed up everything on three hard drives, I am honestly at the
beginning of my viewing and logging process. In addition, I know that I need
pickup shots and a few additional interviews of key people that I have
identified as not only important story tellers, but anticipate having a strong
on-camera presence. I am extremely grateful that Oakland is local and factored
in gathering what I need during this fall quarter. Thanks for reading my
debrief and thoughts!
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