Don’t get us wrong, we appreciate tasty eye candy like Avatar. But documentaries tend to be the films that really amaze us. The impact of the right story told by an artist compelled to share it tends to stay alive in our hearts and heads long after we’ve forgotten whatever passed for a plot in the big blockbuster productions.
And our fondness for documentaries and independent film makers was deepened this year when we found out that nine of the ten Oscar nominated documentaries in both the "Documentary Feature" and "Documentary Short" categories were made using Apple’s Final Cut Pro software.
Some of the 2010 documentary nominees kindly took time out of their busy Oscar weekend to talk to us about their films and how they made them.
Credit: Errol Webber
Music by Prudence
Director: Roger Ross Williams
The story of Zimbabwean singer-songwriter Prudence Mabhena, 21, who was born severely disabled and has struggled to overcome poverty and discrimination
What made you want to make this film?
Roger Williams: I was very interested in making a film in Africa, yet I didn't want to make a film about struggle, war, or aids. I wanted to tell a story of hope. My producer lives part-time in Zimbabwe, and she told me she saw this amazing singer that she thought would make a great story. Prudence is a disabled girl in Zimbabwe, abandoned and seen as a curse by her family, who conquered so much and offers the world so much with her beautiful music.
Credit: Errol Webber
What was the most challenging part of creating the film?
RW: The hardest part of shooting the film was really the actual shooting of it in Zimbabwe. It's the country with the highest rate of inflation, the supermarkets don’t have food, so you have to buy it on the black market. You literally need a wheelbarrow of money to buy a loaf of bread. There's a shortage of water, food, electricity. Also, we shot during a year of violent elections. It was tough.
What did you learn about the story while making the film that surprised you?
RW: Though the film focuses on a band of disabled kids, and the school they're in, I knew even before I went there, that the film had to have a central character, and it was obvious it’d be Prudence. It became more obvious when I met her. Oh my God, I thought, she’s charismatic and brilliant, and engaging. She’s a very independent person, and she prides herself in doing what she can. But there are limitations. She gets frustrated by her challenges: going to the bathroom, eating, rolling down roads marked by potholes.
During our first interview Prudence told me about her childhood, her suicide attempts. She’d never told anyone before. She cried, and I cried. The process of being interviewed: you become self-reflective; it’s like being in therapy. She couldn’t wait to tell her story. Nobody had ever heard her story before--or asked. Afterwards, I went to the place where I was staying. I cried and cried and cried. I was just devastated. I was so moved by her strength--her ability to get beyond the moment when she was at her lowest. I was determined to get her story out there, and tell it to the world.
Credit: Errol Webber
How long have you been working with Final Cut Pro? What does it enable you to do that you couldn't have done without the application?
RW: This film project was the first time I worked hands on with Final Cut Pro. My background is in TV news, and this was the first film I made independently. When I started this project I flew to Africa with a budget of $6000. Coming back with my first material, having an editing program that can do anything you'd want for your documentary, at such ease and at such a reasonable price, is really a blessing for current documentary filmmakers. That, and in my case, having a wonderful editor, Geeta Gandbhir.
Anything else you’d like to tell us about?
RW: Being nominated for an Oscar really is a wonderful experience. Getting this huge platform for a film that started out on such a small scale, always having believed in the strong story it could tell, is just so rewarding. It opens doors.
Food, Inc.
Director: Robert Kenner
Food, Inc lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government regulatory agencies, the USDA and FDA.
What made you want to make this film?
Robert Kenner: I read Eric Schlosser's book, Fast Food Nation, and was surprised that the world of food had become vastly industrialized. I wanted to understand how food gets to our table and look at the growing problem of how we're going to feed the world.
What was the most challenging part of creating the film?
RK: I was amazed at how off-limits the industrial food world is. Food production has changed drastically in the last 40-50 years, but the major companies don't want consumers thinking about that. It was very challenging to make a fair and balanced film when the vast majority of the industrial food companies wouldn't talk to us.
What did you learn about the story while making the film that surprised you?
RK: We filmed a California State Legislature hearing on SB63 - a "consumer right to know" Measure which requires that all foods that are cloned must be labeled as such. I was shocked when a representative from the California Farm Bureau stated that labeling would confuse the consumer. We live in a free society with a free market and yet we are being denied information. It struck me as very un-American. I always believed that a company with a good product would want to advertise it, not hide information.
How long have you been working with Final Cut Pro? What does it enable you to do that you couldn't have done without the application?
Kim Roberts, Food, Inc editor: Almost all the films I cut now are on Final Cut Pro. For a documentary like Food, Inc. with hundreds of hours of material, I really like the Find capabilities of Final Cut Pro. It's also very easy to set up mirrored projects on two different computers, so my assistant could find shots for me and send the project files across a simple Ethernet. I find Final Cut very intuitive, and use the color correction tools to mock up looks, as well as doing all my photo moves.
We also did our online on Final Cut. It was a huge challenge bringing in all kinds of different archival into an HD sequence. Every shot had to be assessed and processed differently, using various applications and techniques.
Dan Wilken, Online Editor: I’d also like to mention Apple's seamless integration of workflow, from offline through the DI (Editor’s note: DI = Digital Intermediate, the stage between editing and release).
With Apple's Mac Pros, we set up two offline edit systems, each with a 4TB Raided internal volume, which allowed for a fast, cheap, and most importantly a simple storage solution that could easily be mirrored for the Editor and Assistant Editor to work in tandem.
I brought in a very similar system for the DI, with the additional AJA KONA 3 card and an HD LCD TV, we were able to bring the DI into Robert Kenner's studio. Here we would monitor our online, knowing exactly what our 24p product was going to look like and how our footage was going to hold up on the big screen.
The only tasks that were done outside of Final Cut were a little Photoshop work and some Magic Bullet frame rate conversions. Every year, a greater percentage of the online is addressed without leaving Final Cut, a great savings in time and media management. In fact, it was as we wrapped Food Inc. that Red Giant announced Magic Bullet Frames, one more tool to simplify a film's workflow.
What else would you like to tell us about?
RK: The film is about more than food: it's about sustainability, our environment, social justice for animals and workers, and ultimately about our rights as individuals. It's exciting to be part of an exploding food movement and to witness the film's impact. My website has links to further reading and ways to take action
The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant
Directors: Steven Bognar and Julia Reicher
Steve Bognar and Julia Reicher on the left
The inside story of the last days of a General Motors plant in Moraine, Ohio, as lived by the people who worked the line.
What made you want to make this film?
Steven Bognar: We're documentary filmmakers based in Dayton, Ohio. When General Motors announced they were closing their huge truck plant in Dayton, we thought, how can we respond to this? We knew it was a bomb about to go off in our community, and we figured, we are 'citizens with cameras.' We can start to document. As time went on, we felt it was a story the world should know. Specifically, how would this impact the generations of auto workers who had worked in that plant.
What was the most challenging part of creating the film?
SB: This film had several very challenging aspects to it. First, earning the trust of the auto workers in the film. They've been maligned in the media over the years, and here they are dealing with the pain of having to shut down their own plant. So having cameras around wasn't welcomed. We kept showing up, week after week. The workers tested us, and eventually many of them really opened their hearts to us.
The filming process required us to work outdoors in freezing temperatures, day after day, that was hard on us and our deeply dedicated crew. We're so grateful to our crew for their endurance!
What did you learn about the story while making the film that surprised you?
SB: Like many people, we started this film with certain assumptions about auto workers. That they were in it only for the money, that they didn't particularly love their job. These assumptions were so wrong. The people in the plant worked incredibly hard, they were very proud of the cars they made, and they loved the community that they and in many cases their parents had built over the years. Their true grief was not about the loss of their jobs, it was about the loss of their community.
How long have you been working with Final Cut Pro? What does FCP enable you to do that you couldn't have done without the application?
SB: Maybe the hardest thing with this documentary, as it is with most documentaries, is finding the story in the editing. We've been using FCP since 2000, back in version FCP 2.0. It's been great to see the program evolve and grow over the years. One great feature that was crucial for this film was FCP's ability to mix formats on one timeline. We shot THE LAST TRUCK on multiple high-def formats, including DVCPRO HD, XDCAM and HDV. Integrating different scenes shot on different cameras was critical to our editing process.
What else would you like to tell us about?
SB: We're so grateful to the people from the GM plant in Dayton for sharing their stories with such courage, amidst such heartbreak. The film would be nothing without their generosity in sharing their stories with the world. There are a lot of great folks in Dayton, Ohio - hard working people, talented skill trades folks, hungry for work.
The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner
Director: Daniel Junge
Producer: Henry Ansbacher
Left to right, Henry Ansbacher, Dan Junge, Davis Coombe at the Oscar nominees' luncheon
While dealing with the devastating effects of Parkinson's disease, Washington's former governor Booth Gardner leads a campaign to legalize assisted suicide in the state.
What made you want to make this film?
Henry Ansbacher: When we heard about Washington's former Governor's struggle with Parkinson's and his decision to try and get physician's assisted suicide legalized in the state we knew that there was a great story there. Booth was a very popular two-term Governor, and we wanted to know what it was like to go from there to having to struggle to walk and even speak. His effort to give the citizens of Washington a choice about how to end their lives was a controversial issue, but he saw it as a right that everyone should have. We also knew that lots of people would be opposed to the law, so getting in with the other side and telling their story was important to us as well.
What was the most challenging part of creating the film?
HA: The most challenging aspect of the production was balancing both sides of the issue while maintaining access and trust from both campaigns. We were lucky to eventually get the cooperation of Booth's campaign staff, his personal assistants and also the campaign opposed to the Initiative. It was a political chess game, and both sides wanted to get the drop on the other side so staying in the know was a bit of a challenge. It was also difficult to watch the Governor's health deteriorate, but at the same time his determination was inspiring.
What did you learn about the story while making the film that surprised you?
HA: We learned a lot about both sides of a complex issue, and most importantly, that this is an issue that most people don't think about until it's too late. I think a lot of end-of-life issues are that way so we hope the film helps to start conversations about these things. As filmmakers, we learn more on every film and this one was no different. That's what's great about making documentaries: you continue to hone your craft but are immersed in a new world with every project.
How long have you been working with Final Cut Pro? What does FCP enable you to do that you couldn't have done without the application?
Daniel Junge: I switched from Avid to Final Cut 5 years ago, and I'm never going back. The entire picture was edited and color-corrected using Final Cut Pro and Color, and the workflow between the two applications meant that we were flexible all the way to the finish line. The flexibility of Final Cut with the different Apple computers we used was also key to keeping things moving. We were able to cut rough sequences on smaller workstations and move them to our main editor for polish without losing a beat, and Apple ProRes 422 made it easier to output beautiful video at full 1080 resolution at every stage of post production. We've come a long way from the old off-line resolutions I started working with years ago. Since we finished the film the workflow with using XDCAM EX has only gotten easier, so we look forward to cutting our next film on Final Cut Pro.
What else would you like to tell us about?
DJ: We are happy to say that Governor Booth Gardner will be attending the Oscars with us!
