F.R. "Fritz" Nordengren, MPH

My colleague, Donald Winslow brought this documentary trailer to my attention:

BURN Trailer from Tremolo Productions on Vimeo.

The production team, Jeff Malmberg Morgan Nevile, Tom Putnam and Brenna Sanchez have a strong background punctuated with cultural and music documentaries.

According to Putnam on the documentary’s Facebook profile, PBS funded the production of the trailer.  The team, rather than wait for another angel to fund the year long project, has turned to viewers and fans to fund completion, using the non profit 501(c)3 website documentary.org.

While the images are striking, it is compelling storytelling as multiple narrators are woven together through careful interviewing skills and precise editing so the multiple voices blend to tell the story.  Detroit is burning and has been in an amazing decline for 30+ years.

Savvy shooters and producers may recognize some of the tools used to capture the images, in the comments about the trailer, the team shares they put the trailer together in five days, and spend only two-24 hour shits with the fire company….the cinemative camera moves and artful imagine making, clearly small, light, and agile gear opens new horizons in visual storytelling.

My friend, and collaborator on “Behind the Viewfinder” Tom Burton  once shared a joke with me:

What’s the difference between painters and photojournalists?

Painters don’t stand around talking about brushes.

And I typically don’t talk much about tools — my camera is bigger/better/faster than your camera.

Recently, Canon introduced a digital SLR form factor camera that can also shoot HD video.  At first glance, the camera, which looks like any other digital SLR, looks like a poor compromise video camera.  But beyond the glance, it offers two new elements to storytelling.  First, the size allows it to be used in ways a traditional video camera can not.  Second, the chip set renders colors that are truly unique.

Sure, there are lots of small form factor video cameras, for example I’ve blogged about  the FLIP, is a great small camera.  This camera makes a new approach possible by adding traditional SLR 35 mm lenses, suddenly depth of field can be used  to tell a visual story than previously was not possible.  Canon’s larger prosumer grade cameras also accept their SLR lenses, but with a larger form factor and different electronics.

The key to success with this camera, is using it for visual story capture.  In a sense, I’m implying a slight step backwards in how we shoot.  High quality audio might be best captured with separate equipment. Yes, this caerma can campure some audio, bu to use pro audio gear requires adapter boxes.  You can turn this into a larer form factor camera, but doing so changes one of its unique advantages. It’s a tool, part of a story teller’s kit.  Not a one size fits all for everything.

Director Po Chan used this new camera with Shane Hurlbut, ASC.  The results speak for themselves.  H/T to Donald Winslow to this clip.

“The Last 3 Minutes” From Shane Hurlbut, ASC from Shane Hurlbut, ASC on Vimeo.

If you want the behind the scenes story, http://www.usa.canon.com/dlc/controller?act=GetArticleAct&articleID=3410

I stumbled upon Pomplamoose Music by accident on YouTube – if you’re like me, you watch a video, then see a related video, then see a related video and before long, you are clicks away from your original search, both in genre and idea.

The vocal and instrumental duo of Jack Conte and Nataly Dawn are featured on today’s  All Things Considered on NPR.

What storytellers can borrow from the Pomplamoose artists is best summed up in the comment by Jack Conte on the MySpace page featuring the song “Push”

This is called a VideoSong. It’s the recording of a song, start to finish. There are two main rules:

1. What you see is what you hear (no lip-syncing for instruments or voice).
2. If you hear it, you see it at some point (no hidden sounds).

The music videos made by this duo understand the medium of the web — these are intimate close-ups, often with picture in picture, with short shot length.  Vocalist Nataly Dawn is most often shown in facial close up — leaving her face to tell the story alone — for example, in the cover of Beyonce’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On it)”

The video, shot is close quarters, is a very intimate 1 to 1 performance.  It creates the feeling that this is personal that these are our friends.  As storytellers looking to create video stories for the Web, it is much better to do as they do, and create the intimate feeling of the video.

Contrast their use of video the Beyonce’s video of her hit.  The Beyonce video is great. But not intimate.  And at the end of both, I feel like I know Jack and Nataly — but not Beyonce.

Producing video for the Web — and now the iTouch / iPhone / iPad or any of the other personal devices, means the emphasis is on the close up and intimate.  And while it would be awesome to shoot a 70 mm landscape scenic like the desert scenes in Lawrence of Arabia, today’s storytelling is about intimacy…and that means…..close ups.