IndieVisible: Maintaining independence.

Here is a video I shot of a good friend of mine.  I hardly see him anymore, but I used to work with his wife at Macky*s.  They're a very nice couple.

One day I needed to shoot a video portrait, and we went to this guy who owns a video store.  We interviewed him and took some B-roll.  But once we got - or, once I got - to the editing room, I found that the sound was messed up (which is what happens when you use on-camera microphone).

We tried going back to the video guy, but he was not cooperative.  He seemed annoyed, and we seemed to be getting in the way of his business.  It was not my idea to come to him, by the way, but I won't go into all that, except to say that I originally wanted to profile the mailman at school, who I call Danny the Champion of the World.



Originally, I had heavy metal music to go with it.  I didn't have a specific reason why.  I just thought you never hear enough heavy metal in movies, shows, etc.  But when I showed it to the class, it kind of threw them off,  and they wondered whether he was into that kind of music.  I said no, and they just kind of scratched their heads. So after a while, I found this song by Yano, a Filipino group, called "State U".  It seemed to fit, so I kept it, although I had to loop the song a little bit.

I wanted to do more of these, focusing on Filipino figures around the area.  I wanted to also profile the lady who owns a Filipino restaurnat called Rowena's Delight.  I wanted to make a piece featuring some of my old friends from a wedding band called UltraSonic.  These never happened, of course.

I also planned on profiling other figures in the neighborhood who were not Filipino.  There was this Indian guy who worked at this video store (not the same guy mentioned above), and his son would come to work with him in the summer.  Years passed, and the son grew up and with the rental business going down, half of the store is now groceries.  I wish I shot the video years ago, and then come back later on to see how things have changed.
 
I also wanted to shoot these little girls at a Chinese restaurant, who have been working there since they were around ten.  They would do their homework during downtime.  They started out just taking orders, and as they grew they would cook some of the food.  But then years passed and I don't see them there anymore.  Now their little sister is doing the same thing.  As with the above, I wish I profiled them also and came back for an update.

Now I'm thinking about doing a profile about the ladies at my son's daycare.  One of the concerns would be whether the other parents wouldn't mind videotaping their kids.  I can always blur out their faces, of course, but I would still need to convince them.  I'm not good at that, involving people.

O-welles.
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