Genesis Student Film Fellowship Update

InA Choi and Ed Hancox share field notes following their latest shoots

As written by InA Choi

(Lightly edited for length and style)

EP 02. Nine — 10–1 = 9

The perfection completed by imperfection – gap – possibility
For me, the documentary is ‘Nine’. If the narrative film that we can control everything in the frame is completeness, 10, there is always one variable in a documentary. People who prepare filming always want to eliminate or predict all kinds of variables but actually, this one variable is what makes being documentary and sometimes this one possibility reverses the other nine.

It was truly difficult to build a ‘tone and manner’ while preparing this documentary. In narrative film, ‘tone and manner’ is in the realm of a director but in a documentary, it is on the edge of that realm. This is due to fact that the character leading the story in a documentary is not created by the director. Therefore, the tone and manners in documentary begin with the director's perspective about characters of the story. Who is this person? What does the director want to talk about through this person? How does the director understand this person? After a long pondering, the perspective I chose was to one step back from the character. Introspect my arrogant belief that I can put everything of character in documentaries in a short time, and not trying to define the person as a concrete character. In the pre-production step, once I leave one possibility in study and observation, I could find multiple layers of this character and it became easy to concentrate on the story.

One variable leads the story in an interesting way. The temple where the main character of our documentary stays is quite an interesting place for me. Her temple is a small apartment house located in the center of the town, not a traditional temple in the mountain away from the world. Her small temple surrounded by a carefully decorated greenery garden contrast to the outside. Inside the temple, there was a room for editing the film, and movie posters and scraps of newspapers were attached to all over the place.

It was different from the image that I had before about stereotypical temple where monk stays. That one variable changed the way designing shots. I made a judgment that this space is exactly representing her identity as a monk cultivating the garden of mind in the middle of the world without leaving the world. Eventually, cinematographer suggested using a drone to capture the greenery garden surrounded by grey buildings and we could make the interesting scene. One variable about space changes the character of the person in the story and the shot design. I know this is so obvious but this experience allowed me to rethink again.

Currently, I am heading to post-production after finish shooting finally. From now on, I will build a storyline in more detail and put actual videos on the timeline. Therefore, the title of the next episode will be ‘Line’ followed by ‘Ep01. Mine’, ‘Ep02. Nine’
Last, I am a person who has one idea about what I want to talk through the film. It is the staff of the team and my mentor producer that fill the remaining nine. I would like to express my gratitude to those who shared with me their opinions and efforts on this project.

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As written by Ed Hancox:

(Lightly edited for length and style)

I’m back from a five-day shoot in New Hampshire, and although I’m sore from schlepping equipment around the granite state, I’m as excited to look at my footage as a kid unwrapping presents on Christmas day morning.
My film is about an ice castle. I’ve been having trouble describing this to people, because it really is just that – a castle made out of ice. You have to see it to understand it, and that’s why I think it’s a perfect subject for a film:

One way to look at the ice castle is that, as one of its builders told me this weekend, it’s basically a huge art project – one that takes 8,000 man hours to build, and which must be constantly maintained once it’s open, because pretty much the only thing that ice does is melt.
But what makes this piece of art special is that the visitors to the ice castle are taking part in shaping it – literally. By far the most enthusiastic visitors to the ice castle are kids. And every time they run their hands over the ice sculptures, every time they wrap their arms round the ice turrets, the ice melts and transforms. So, collectively, the kids who get such joy from the ice castle are helping create this monumental work of art.
That brings me to the reason why this is a story worth telling. The ice castle is in the north country of New Hampshire, a beautiful, remote region that is not an easy place to live in – especially during the frigid winters. The north country has been hit hard by the opioid crisis, and New Hampshire overall has seen a 50% rise in the suicide rate in the last 20 years.
I don’t think that the ice castle can solve these problems. But I do believe there’s a reason we turn to art in times of despair, whether we’re creating it or partaking in it. It makes us feel connected to things greater than ourselves – the people in our community, the natural world we exist in, and the collective human ingenuity that allows us to create something that make people wonder, “how did they do that?”
The beauty of the ice castle is that it is never finished, and as such, offers a constant invitation to keep creating, creating for creativity’s sake rather than to achieve some end goal, because creating makes us feel alive.