Production Journal: Being Mikey

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diary on the production of A DOCUMENTARY ON MIKEY CRICHTON
Wednesday, November 5, 2008 (Pitch)

I'm well aware that I may be starting this journal later than most people. We had less pitches than anticipated this time around, which meant we had people left over without a project or crew. Seven, to be exact; if I remember correctly there are 25 of us in Sections A and B. There were only 5 projects proposed, and with 4 groups of 4 and 1 group of 3 that left seven of us. Four formed a group, leaving Kyle Bruce, Anne Feldman and I as the final group.

By far the worst part of this is that none of us want to be director. This time there are no ambiguous roles: Director, Camera, Sound, Editor. Lighting is irrelevant unless we're shooting outside at night, and it's not very practical with a small documentary crew anyway. We three were left over precisely because we didn't want to direct and produce...and yet here we are, and one of us were going to have to do it. The second problem is that we didn't know who we were going to shoot. Even if we did want to direct, there was no film to direct. Our debates nearly ended with the subject being Kyle's sister, who is currently attending culinary school. We failed to obtain permission to film at George Brown, however, and were back to square one.

Which leads me to today. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but Anne let us know that Heather Cameron had an idea - and better yet, would be willing to direct it in addition to her sound work on another project. We met her at lunch within the editing hall, and she basically pitched it to Kyle and I. Her idea is on a man named Mikey, who sounds like quite an open and engaging character. Mikey works at Public Outreach for street canvassing, basically organizing those who go on the street downtown and ask for donations from passerby. Honestly? I get annoyed at those people, even though I sort of understand why they do it. To see the viewpoint of someone on the other side will be interesting.

Mikey's also a part-time musician at home. And this is the part that's convinced me this can go well - he actually wants to compose the video's soundtrack and has already started on it. It shows an eagerness and dedication that I'm excited about. Got his MySpace link, so I'll go sample his music later.

Jim has yet to formally approve this project, but I'm optimistic for the first time on this project. At this point there's really not much he can do but approve it; we're pretty far behind schedule as is. It's a good concept and we, as the crew, are onboard. There's no jockeying for position - Heather will direct, Anne wants to edit, and Kyle and I don't really care whether we do camera or sound. I don't mind this group. It's not a group we've chosen by choice, but I know them all a bit and I'm pretty sure I can work with these people.

Regarding deadline and actual production dates though: there's a looming strike, and it'll probably start tomorrow. Neither Heather nor Kyle have completed their camera tests. If the strike doesn't happen, we'll be hard-pressed to catch up. In the likely event that it does, shooting during the strike would be ideal - weather's still nice, we'll be able to film weekdays without skipping class, and we'll have a more relaxed working atmosphere. But if we aren't allowed to take out equipment, that's not going to happen.

At this point, however, there's nothing for me to do, so I'll just wait and see.

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Saturday, November 8, 2008

Got a message from Heather, saying that the Jim has approved and the project is a go. The strike did end up happening, but we've also received permission to take out equipment regardless - a wonderful development, since this means we can film during the duration of the strike now. Mikey seems open to the idea of filming next weekend (Friday / Saturday / Sunday) so it looks like things are moving along.

We're currently setting the date of a production meeting coming week - probably Monday, since we want to get this done as soon as possible. The roles are pretty much cemented. I will be taking care of sound, and Kyle will handle camera. I'm quite nervous, to tell the truth. This will be my first time doing sound recording, and of course it would be on a documentary where sound is extremely important.

As a final note, I checked out Mikey's music on his MySpace (NOW YR TAKEN - www.myspace.com/loopscience). It's alternative, and quite nice.

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Monday, November 10, 2008 (Production meeting)

It's Anne's birthday today, so she couldn't make it to the meeting. I bumped into Heather at the equipment room and helped her carry some stuff back; Kyle was already waiting at her apartment, which is just outside of the Village area.

There isn't much to say about today. Heather went into more detail regarding the project, reading the proposal, and let us know what she had in mind. We learned a bit more about Public Outreach, the organization Mikey works for, and went over logistical details such as phone numbers, contact times, and specific equipment we plan to use. Heather said she'd try to get hold of a DAT through her upper year contacts for the soundtrack recording, but we'll see how that goes.

Heather called Mikey to confirm the shooting days, but there's apparently a family gathering for him this weekend; he said he could rearrange if absolutely necessary but would prefer the weekend after. Since we're not exactly in a huge rush (thanks to the strike - mixed blessing), the shooting dates are likely going to be November 22/23rd, next Saturday and Sunday.

To sort of make up for it - and also just to get to know us better - Mikey has invited us over to his house for dinner sometime next week, to go over things and sort of introduce ourselves to each other next week. It would have the added bonus of letting us see one of the locations we'll be filming in. The fact that he extended this invitation on his own is pretty awesome.

As a side note, after finding out the average price of a miniDV tape I bought some in bulk in advance of this project; $39 or so for a pack of 10. Not bad, even if I do say so myself, and it's sure to be enough for this project.

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Tuesday, November 18, 2008 (Meeting the Subject)

The meeting date, time and location ended up being pretty last minute, but we made plans to meet at the streetcar waiting area at Coxwell subway station at 7:00 tonight. It's closer than I thought it'd be; for me, anyway, since I live on the east side of town. I was a bit early, but ended up having to wait for the others for quite some time. Anne arrived about 5 past seven, and we moved further and further into the station to avoid the cold. Heather was delayed but some sort of incident on the Yonge line, and we waited a bit before realizing Kyle had entered the station through another entrance. No one expected him to drive to the station.

We had to circle a bit before we found the house. Long story short, we got there at around 8. Mikey didn't really seem to mind, but he apparently had to leave at around 10 so I felt bad anyway. He's cool - explained a lot more about his job, such as their goal being to gain monthly contributions a little at a time. Public Outreach's goal is twofold - to educate people about issues as well as earn donations. I won't go into the specific workings, since that would take quite a while and is the purpose of the film anyway. Suffice it to say that PO's policy is to not pressure or guilt anyone into donations. The hope is that by being honest with people, they will respond in the same way.

We didn't end up eating, but we did go downstairs to his basement. He's got a lot of guitars, and he can play the drums as well. Along with a looping pedal-thingamajig that I have no expertise in describing, he basically had several guitars going along with the drums, all by himself. In that enclosed area, it sounded absolutely amazing. The music he played is what he envisioned for the film's soundtrack, and it sounds like it'll fit quite well. As Heather put it - this is a film about him anyway, so technically anything would fit.

The best part about this is that Mikey is not only open to us using his time - he's freed up both Saturday and Sunday, and is open to us contacting him again - he's enthusiastic, eager, and from our discussion it seems his vision for the film is almost exactly the same as ours. We couldn't ask for more, even if we wanted to.

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Saturday, November 22, 2008 (Shooting Day)

Met Heather downtown at Spadina station at 11:30; the others were running late and would meet us directly there. A bit of waiting involved, but soon everyone was at the Second Cup across from the Public Outreach office. Kayla showed up with our equipment, since Heather's other project was hers and they'd left all of it at her place downtown.

When we got to the office, we spent some time getting equipment set up. Mikey gave us a short tour, and we mainly used the wireless lav for this one so he could get used to it. Mikey already has some knowhow with audio equipment, it seems, and he actually got the transmitter set up while I was busy with the receiver. The Public Outreach office is quite interesting - complete with pinball machine. Kyle and I spent some time getting bits of ambience and cutaway shots of the wall. As suggested - and really, the only feasible way without a separate sound recorder - we kept to Auto levels for sound. It seemed to hit 0 db the whole time on the monitor, but from workshops with Steve Sangueldolce I was told to trust what I was hearing - and there was no distortion there, even if it was a bit too loud.

Leaving the office, we followed Mikey as he led us to a street canvassing location for Canadian Feed the Children: the only charity that we got permission to film from. Others may have also allowed it, but as a smaller organization there was less duct tape than, say, the Sick Kids Foundation. Randomly decided to visit a guitar shop midway, and after Heather got permission we followed him in. Largely uneventful, so we moved on to the canvasing location. By now I've got the boom and shotgun set up and got some ambience on a second track. It's likely quite poor, though - was still experimenting at this point. We ran into a random cat on the sidewalk, and got a bit of that too.

One of Mikey's frequent tasks is to buy the canvassers coffee when it gets cold - as he puts it, "There's nothing worse than being nice to someone, only to have them be completely mean to you. When you're out there freezing all day and no one's even listening to you...it feels horrible." Kyle and I waited outside since Second Cup probably wouldn't have taken the camera and sound equipment well. Heather and the others went in and got stuff to drink and I think we're just putting that on the budget. In the meantime, Kyle and I tried to get our tangle of cables sorted out. The headphone cable is absurdly wrong since I'm standing right next to him most of the time, and the boom/shotgun one isn't much better for precisely the same reason. In the end, my solution was to just coil them around my left hand and forearm 6, 7 times or so.

Went back to the intersection with the canvassers, where we got some footage of his interaction with his, er, underlings. It must be noted at this point that the sound is quite crappy and dirty - especially later on, when Mikey changed into uniform and joined the canvassers on the street. Out of necessity, we had to film from a distance and zoom in so that passerby wouldn't be intimidated by the camera's presence. The shotgun was impossible to use due to the distance and large amount of ambience - pedestrians, crossing, drive-by cars, cars parking and door slamming, the whole works. We had to rely solely on the wireless Sony lav on Mikey; while that was fine for his voice, the people he was talking to were often soft voices in the background. We also weren't given a windsock, so we also had a disturbing amount of wind noise at times. Thankfully, the wind noise died down and we got some very clear audio once we crossed the street and had Mikey work at a different angle; the wind was buffered since he was standing closer to a tall building. Either way, the audio from this section is hit-and-miss, sometimes good, sometimes bad, mostly adequate.

We had a rather interesting encounter when a random passenger in a van - or was it a chartered bus? - lowered the window and started asking us if we "had a warrant to shoot". She then proceeded to flash us, though (thankfully) the light changed and the vehicle continued before we were subject to much more. It's...quite interesting what some people will do in the presence of a camera.

The workers broke for lunch, and since we weren't hungry we headed to Sonic Boom, a record store. I myself had little interest, but Heather had a fine time looking for a couple of albums while Anne watched the equipment. Kyle and I shot as we wished inside, and followed Mikey around a bit as well. It's apparently a place he frequents to relax - "a good zen spot" was his description. Heather dropped by with the idea to film what he found influential to him as a musician, so we spent a great deal of time capturing that too.

When we left the record store we encountered another weirdo, this one obviously drunk, who held a can of industrial bleach in one hand and the skull of a small animal drenched in fluids in a ziplock bag. He was trying to shock us, and when we didn't give the desired reaction he went on to terrorize some folks in front of a restaurant window.

Went back to meet the Public Outreach people who were back from lunch; got an interview with one of them before his shift started, but since we had to be on the street the audio was not optimal. It wasn't bad - I used the shotgun and boom, and since it was pretty closeup I could get it very close to him. We still got a large amount of background audio, unfortunately, but it only really got in the way twice when a particularly loud bus and car door banging covered up his answer.

Returned to the office after that, and filmed a bit more; had Mikey talk a bit about Public Outreach so that his interview answers didn't have to be all in one place. Then we packed up and took a rather lengthy streetcar ride back to his home. The ride seemed to have a rather lethargic effect on us, since we were all tired. Met his roommate, ordered pizza, and recorded some footage of Mikey playing his music. Simply placed the shotgun on the boom, and held that in the middle of the room. As a bonus, the audio can be used for our soundtrack, though this method of recording is mono and we lose the nice stereo panning that Mikey had going. There's some talk of actually having Mikey come to York to make use of a sound stage, but whether we're doing that is a decision still left to the director (aka Heather).

While Mikey and his roommate went out for a smoke we had the pizza, and took still photos of concert posters that Mikey found for us; each of them were gigs that he had played at. His mother dropped by, and while we all agreed that it would've been good to interview her she was in a hurry and had no time for it. Since she raised him alone, though, they have a rather close relationship - and she's cool on her own, though I'm not sure how to describe it.

When they came back we got an interview with Mikey's roommate in the kitchen - another PO worker, though in a different department. Used the wireless lav for this again, and though he brushed against the mic twice it was generally without incident. Finally finished with getting the interview of Mikey in the basement - no real surprises there though, since we'd about the topic and his life so much that we'd heard all of it already, this simply being a formal recording. The lav again, though this time Anne was also filming with a camcorder Kayla had brought us earlier in the day. It's a nice camera, and the mic doesn't seem so bad either. I couldn't listen to it though, so it's purely backup; we mainly used it as a way to get more visual angles. She'd used it earlier in the music recording session, actually.

The sound in the basement isn't bad - we turned off the furnace, and Mikey's roommate confined on a couch upstairs, and that was pretty much fine. It couldn't be too noisy to start with, since it's Mikey's instrument/play area and the acoustics had to be decent to begin with. Got a bit of footage of Mikey interacting with his cats - twin girls that were picked up in front of the Public Outreach office - and wrapped up there at around 9:00 pm. The others took the equipment home with them, since Anne and Heather live near campus and Kyle was going to go up to York to work on Steve's sound assignment. Being on the opposite side of town, and having already finished, I likely won't be on campus again until the strike ends.

Things have gone very smoothly today, to the point that we all left for home a bit paranoid - film shoots aren't supposed to go well, so we're understandably suspicious. Our original plan to shoot both today and tomorrow is unnecessary now; there's nothing left to shoot tomorrow. We'd basically finished in a day and 5 tapes.

I believe there are plans to film a bit more next week - the PO office was largely empty today, so Mikey said he'd ask permission on Monday to have one of us come in; probably Kyle, with a camera-mounted mic. We'll simply ask people to describe Mikey in one word, and play them in rapid succession for our opening hook. I'm likely unneeded for that so, so all that's left for me to do is upload the still photos taken on my camera during the shoot and send them to Anne for possible use in editing.

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Monday, February 9, 2009 (Post-strike Review)

So it's been roughly two and half months since we shot; a week since we returned from the strike. I finally got to see our footage for the first time today, in the form of a rough cut. Anne and Heather have been the only ones to really keep up, being editor and director respectively, and Kyle got to see the assembly cut last week in class. Being the only one in another section sucks.

There's been remarkably little for me to do. Kyle is cine, which is expected, but the sound design was a simple idea we'd agreed upon together - that is, use Mikey's music and have it come in when we see him jam. In that sense, my job was pretty much done once we had a good recording. Anne said she'd take care of the rest, and since the footage and sound is on her laptop, and meeting up is way more of a hassle. We decided she'd take care of all the post-production.

Well, it looks good. As they've told me in bits and pieces before, the sound came out really well - a great relief for me, since it's my first time recording sound. We do have two issues: the first is that the interview of Mikey's boss is far too quiet. I wondered how I missed that - they realized that I wasn't there. Kyle and Heather had returned for a second shooting day, but I was contacted last-minute (literally the night before) and already had prior engagements. I'm not sure who did sound, but - as selfish and horrible as it sounds - I'm glad I didn't screw up. Because if I did screw up somewhere, it's been 2 and a 1/2 months and I'd never be able to remember just what went wrong. I'd have that hanging over me.

The second problem, however, is one that I can't help but bash myself over the head for. The recording of Mikey's jamming session in the basement turned out great...except that there are sections of the track where I'm talking in the background. ME. The sound recordist sets everything right, only to talk during HIS OWN RECORDING. What a stupid mistake. It's not so noticeable unless you're really listening for it,  but once you do it'll pop right out at you. I, being the worrying sort, can be heard saying something about which cable may be lose and need to be plugged in.

I tried fixing both these problems by sending them to Pro Tools and playing with them. The boss clip is easy enough - keep raising the gain while fiddling with the EQ to cut out the high end and hissing. I couldn't cut out my voice from the music no matter how hard I tried, though; cutting some of the mid-high and boosting the low-end helped, but distorted the music with minimal effect on my voice. It wasn't all that noticeable in the video anyway, and anyone speaking (in this case, Mikey talking) would cover it up anyway, so I think we'll just leave it.

So yeah, work's going well. With the exception of this small issue, I'm just waiting to see the final product. Anne and Heather are working on a final cut.

What worries me now is the paperwork - I hope Heather took care of that. Paperwork really isn't my responsibility, but there's always been a running joke among my close friends that I should be a secretary. I worry about legality and paperwork the whole time to the point of being obsessive-compulsive. I also find it amusing that we still don't have a title for this documentary.

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Saturday, February 14, 2009 (Title Search)

Anne sent us a message over Facebook today - it's nearly done, and we've hit the exact problem I foresaw. We don't have a title.

Anne gave us a list of what she and Heather brainstormed:

• Public Mikey
• Outreach Mikey
• Public Expectations
• Being Mikey
• Now yr taken

None of these really appeal to me. No one would get the last one - it's his myspace account, but we never mention it in the video anyway. "Public Mikey" doesn't really work because it seems like we're talking about how Mikey presents himself to the world - as if he's some secret identity that's complete different in his spare time. "Public Expectations" is even worse in that regard. "Outreach Mikey" is odd, as if he's some sort of TV evangelist, and "Being Mikey" works but doesn't have that nice ring to it.

I asked Anne what she felt was the main focus/theme of our documentary, as it relates to Mikey. Her answer was, quote: "I'd say it's about Mikey using the hardship in his life to better himself and the world."

I thought about it, and "Mikey" is really the best I have to offer. It's a bit plain, but nothing else really fits - they all seem to focus too much on one side of his life. Besides which, it's a portrait doc. I can't think of anything more appropriate than a title named after the person we're focusing on.

Kyle suggested "Hey Mikey" shortly after, which also works. It seems a bit cheerful for me...Mikey is definitely a cheerful guy, but the last cut I saw of the doc. we don't see that part too much. In any case, I like "Hey Mikey" better than the list above.

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Monday, February 16, 2009 (Final Note)

Anne sent out one last message. It seems we can't get the photos of Mikey and his father in time - Mikey himself is out of town in Australia and won't be back for weeks. His roommate's still around, and we were actually told to go there and get the photo album ourselves. Last I heard a week ago the roommate Taylor had no idea which album it was and gave us the wrong one. I'm not sure what's going on now, but the gist of it is that we can't get those pictures.

According to Anne, our documentary is really weak without them. I don't know - to this day I still have only seen the footage and film once. I'm not sure how much the impact of not having them will be, so I'll take her word for it.

She also says we need the correct spelling of Taylor's last name - since we interviewed him, he has to be in the credits. We decided on just calling him, I think. I don't know - I was the only one who replied to that chain of messages. What worries me is that I think we're supposed to have him sign a permission form since we interviewed him - one of 'em live subject experiment forms if I remember correctly. The fact that we don't have his last name suggests that we never got a form done. And that makes me nervous. I have no idea what sort of logs and permission forms we have (or lack thereof). I can only hope Heather knows what she's doing and has all of it together. I would really, really hate losing marks because of *paperwork*. Those are free giveaway marks. It's a stupid way to lose points off our average.

Sometimes I think I should just go ahead and go into admin. or science or something. This kind of obsession with paperwork isn't normal.

Finally, Anne says she needs a miniDV for output. Which, once again, I have no control over. I handed over my stack of tapes (along with the receipt) to Heather way back in November, so she should have them. Which is the other thing. I need to look at the budget, but I think I'm owed some money. And Anne owes me a TTC token from the day we went to visit Mikey before the shoot.

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Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Okay, since I'm going to have a nigh impossible time trying to meet up with the others, Anne posted the next-to-final-cut of our documentary online so I can answer the three questions.

There's a few problems I want to fix, but simply can't by now. I can hear moments where we need ambience, and one instance where Mikey's voice clips off rather abruptly. The music needs to be toned down a bit when Mikey's talking. The Special Thanks page cuts off way too quickly and we need a York Department of Film credit.

I'm pretty sure the last two will be fixed in the final. What I'm annoyed at is that there are sound problems that are obviously fixable to me, if I was simply involved in post-production some more.

How successfully did you accomplish your goals?
The goal was to create a portrait of Mikey - and make him seem like a fun guy who loves his job and music. We didn't have anything more concrete than that to go with, and in that sense I think we did an awesome job. The clips and story that Heather and more importantly Anne came up with work and flow well. The "fun" part seems to be a bit lacking, but it tells his story. It's interesting, because, being on set, I didn't see this coming at all. His father is a focal part of this documentary, which wasn't the feeling I got when I was talking with Mikey. But it makes a lot of sense, and it connects together.

Specifically, what are the strengths and weaknesses of the final version of the film?
http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"> name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12"> name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 12">Strength - what I just mentioned. It paints a good portrait of Mikey, balancing his work and personal life, how important music is to him. Everything connects together. The music itself is a good choice because it's Mikey's music. As for weaknesses...I'll confess it's a bit hard to follow all the speech flying around. There's people talking and talking from beginning to end, with just a short break for the music. Then again, first-time watchers are always able to focus on more - a sort of distorted perception of time - and I remember understanding perfectly the first time through.

What I'm not so sure about is a bunch of new footage at the end - Mikey at the office. It works exceptionally well considering what he's talking about (we see notes from people, he talks about keeping in touch with people) but there's so much visual and audio information it's like it's bombarding me.

There's also the sound problems I mentioned. There's background noise in the boss interview that can be reduced further. There are some gaps in dialogue that need ambience, and a few clips cut rather abruptly. It sounds to me that not all the speech is at the same level, either, and the music needs to be lowered a bit when Mikey starts talking again.

What changes would you make if you had to do this project again?
First, starting with the recording: I wouldn't carry a boom outside. It ended up being a useless weight and distraction, and all the decent audio we got was from the lav on Mikey. I also wouldn't talk during my own recording - I still feel stupid about that, but at least Anne covered that up somehow.

Most of all, I'd demand more post-production time for *me*. Anne and Heather said they'd take care of it, and I trusted them to do just that, leaving them alone for the most part with just a reminder that I was always available. The strike had a lot to do with it, since Anne edited on her laptop and she and Heather lived nearby while I was on the other side of town. It would be a huge convenience for all of us if they had to keep going to campus to meet me. Even after returning from class though, I had to keep asking for progress reports, because I wasn't in the same class - I felt like I was wrestling information from their grasp each time, simply because our schedules didn't match. No matter how fast they replied there was still a bit of a wait. I hardly ever got to see the footage - I felt as if I was the cinematographer, whose entire role was done. Which is largely true, since they said the sound was clear enough they could do it.

Well, obviously not the fine-tuning. Or at least, they deemed it secondary and didn't worry about it. Next time I'm going to demand the editing and picture lock be finished earlier so I can touch up and do my job. Sound is my job, and any issues are my fault regardless of the fact that I didn't even get to touch it after recording it. Even if I don't see it that way, that's how others watching the film will.

I'm well aware I'm a control freak. This time I relinquished control - was quite proud of myself for being able to do that, actually - but I think I relinquished just a bit too much. It's as much my fault for not pushing them as it is theirs for leaving me out of the loop.

Don't get me wrong - I'm really grateful for the work that Heather and Anne have done. They've put together an awesome story from the footage we had. And while I was off doing homework for other courses or relaxing they were slaving away in the editing room. I just wish that I could fix the problems that I now see in front of me, plain as day. It wouldn't even be difficult. Nor would it take very long.