Category: Arts

Categories
Arts Photography

Vivian Maier Documentary Photographer

Vivian Maier was born on February 1, 1926 in New York City. Around the age of 25 or 26 she started taking photographs, about 100,000 or more pictures by the time she died on April 21, 2009, ninety-nine percent of which she never showed anyone. She worked as a Nanny and/or Housekeeper most of her life using her spare time to photograph in New York City, Chicago, a village in France, and on an eight-month world tour accompanied by her trusted twin-lens Rollie camera hanging from her neck. Her work was discovered two years before she died but she was unaware of it. It included documentary style photography, 8mm film and audio recordings.

Two years before she died, on April 21, 2009 in Chicago, storage lockers where she stored her work and other things were sold at auction for non-payment of the monthly fees. John Maloof bought boxes of negatives and went on to buy more boxes of negatives, undeveloped rolls of film, 8mm and 16mm movie film from other bidders later on. He discovered the inspired work of Vivian Maier and ultimately brought her photography to public attention.

dvdcover
Finding Vivian Maier Documentary. See trailer at JRMartinMedia.

There are currently two documentary films about Vivian Maier.  1) The Vivian Maier Mystery, fifty-three minutes, released in 2013 by BBC.

2) Oscar Nominated, Finding Vivian Maier, 84 minutes, released in 2013/14 by Sundance Selects, directed by John Maoof and Charlie Siskel.

Go to JRMartinMedia for entire article and to view trailer for Finding Vivian Maier.

 

Create Documentary Films, Videos and Multimedia: A Comprehensive Guide to Using Documentary Storytelling Techniques for Film, Video, the Internet and Digital Media Projects.

Categories
Film News Reading

Directing Documentary Productions

Interview at Shaolin Temple, China

Documentary Directing and Storytelling by James R (Jim) Martin

The best directors understand the traditions and aesthetics of the medium in which they are working. They also have an understanding of the crafts involved and may have worked at some of those jobs themselves. The focus of Documentary Directing and Storytelling, is on directing, but also includes information that experienced directors should know about the process of constructing a documentary story.

New Book

Documentary Directing and Storytelling, written by James R (Jim) Martin offers a learning experience and an exploration into directing documentary story projects.

The book looks at fundamental and advanced ideas about actuality documentary filmmaking and nonfiction storytelling of all types using film, video, multimedia and other mediums.

 Documentary Directing and Storytelling is a great read for anyone with a strong interest in documentary or nonfiction storytelling. There are many critical reviews of documentary films and the stories they tell from a directing and filmmaking perspective.

Available at Amazon.com  Print and/or Digital

Available at Apple iBooks

“I’m a filmmaker. I’m an artist. I’ve chosen to work in history the way someone might choose to work in still life or landscapes.” — Ken Burns

“I think it’s inevitable that people will come to find the documentary a more compelling and more important kind of film than fiction. Just as in literature, as the taste has moved from fiction to nonfiction, I think it’s going to happen in film as well. In a way you’re on a serendipitous journey, a journey, which is much more akin to the life experience. When you see somebody on the screen in a documentary, you’re really engaged with a person going through real life experiences. So for that period of time, as you watch the film, you are, in effect, in the shoes of another individual. What a privilege to have that experience.”  — Albert Maysles

Categories
Arts Film News Reading

New Book on Interviewing and Listening by James R Martin

Actuality Interviewing and Listening techniques allow the subject or subjects of a documentary or nonfiction film to tell their own story in a first person narration. A third person voice over narrator may not be needed. Actuality Interviewing is a form of conducting interviews that relies heavily on the interviewer’s ability to truly listen to the interviewees and to know when to ask the right question. Communication occurs on more levels than what is spoken.

A film or video documentary usually has two primary components: action and interviews. Of course music and effects also play a role in telling the nonfiction story. But interviewing takes the place of dialog in a fiction film, so it serves the same function in a medium that relies on action to keep an audience engaged.

Many people think that they are listening to another person or a piece of music while they are also thinking about a conversation they had earlier that day or what they are going to say next. Listening requires more then basic attention to someone speaking or a piece of music.

Actuality Interviewing and Listening explores the connection between conducting an interview and listening on all levels. Anyone who conducts interviews or gives interviews, for any reason, will benefit from reading this book.

Available from Amazon.com in print or digital.  Also available from Apple iBooks

Categories
Arts Film Music News

Eight Days A Week -The Beatles – The Touring Years Review by James R (Jim) Martin

beatles-8-dayposterJust when you thought you knew everything about the Beatles along comes Ron Howard with a new traditional documentary film focusing on the Beatles in the beginning, getting underway, then moving on to the years of touring the world, reaching crowds so large they needed super big venues like Shea Stadium  housing 50,000 fans at a time on some occasions.

Eight Days A Week asks why, and looks at how the Beatles became such a huge sensation and success. Many possibilities are explored using actual footage of the young Beatles, combined with performance, studio sessions, film clips with behind the scenes from Help, Hard Days Night, and coverage of events, as the Beatles phenomenon grows. Some interviews appear to have been recorded back in the sixties and pulled from archival sources, although there are also good contemporary interviews in the film with Paul McCartney, Ringo Star and others.  ( Read More – watch Trailer)

 

The Beatles: Eight Days a Week
The Beatles: Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years
Directed by Ron Howard
Produced by Brian Grazer Ron Howard Scott Pascucci Nigel Sinclair
Written by Mark Monroe
Categories
Arts Contemplation Photography

Meditation On A Mountain

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©J R Martin

See below or double-click for larger image.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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©J R Martin 2016

Categories
Film Life Observations Relationships

Meet The Patels Review

MeetPatelscovThe best documentaries both inform and entertain. The viewer learns something new and enjoys the experience. Meet The Patels, winner of the audience award at the 2014 Los Angles Film Festival, achieves these goals as it explores the pressure on Indian American families to maintain their culture and traditions like marriage, when dealing with their American assimilated, second generation children.

This documentary is about Indian Americans, but it is also representative of what happens with other ethnic groups that have resettled in North and South America over the years. All ethnic groups coming to the United States have experienced the pressures of assimilation.

To view the entire review by Jim Martin go to Meet The Patels at J R Martin Media

Categories
Contemplation Film Spirituality

Women And Spirituality — The Goddess Trilogy

WOMEN AND SPIRITUALITY THE GODDESS TRILOGY is a three-hour, three-part series made between 1987 and 1992 sponsored by the National Film Board of Canada.  Part 1 – GODDESS REMEMBERED looks at prehistory and evidence,  beginning with stone age culture, where carved Goddess sculpture and cave paintings  are found in France. The Mother Earth creation story, along with the nurturing role of women in peaceful hunter gather groups is established.

To read the entire review go to  J R Martin Media Documentary Reviews.

 

Categories
Arts Observations Poetry

May Magnolia

maymagnolia1

May Magnolia trumpet

Summer approaching

another moment passing

 

 

 

 

https://www.almostseventy-one.com/2016/05/01/three-photographs-and-haiku-poems/

© James R (Jim) Martin – Photographs and words.

Categories
Arts Contemplation Observations Photography Poetry

Three Photographs and Haiku Poems

IMG_1041cloudsA photograph can be a Haiku without words.

 

Afternoon gray clouds crowding

patches  April blue sky

Trees wave green greetings

 

 

 

 

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Crow on a roof peak

Squawks presence loudly

Indifferent Blue Jay waits

 

 

 

 

maymagnolia1

May Magnolia trumpet

Summer approaching

another moment passing

 

 

 

Photographs and words by James (Jim) Martin ©2016

Categories
Film News Relationships

Cutie And The Boxer – Review by Jim Martin

CutieAndBoxercovCutie And The Boxer is a moving and insightful journey into the lives of two artists  in a relationship that has evolved over forty years.  The story begins with the eightieth birthday of Ushio Shinohara. He and his wife Norika celebrate this event by lighting a candle on a small cake.  Ushio and Norika are both artists, married now for 40 years. There’s about a twenty-year age difference between the two. They met when she was an art student who had just arrived in NYC from Japan.  Norika has lived in Ushio’s shadow for their entire relationship and she is now struggling to find  her own identity. Up until recently she has largely neglected her own work to support Ushio and raise a son. She harbors some justifiable resentment about this that manifests itself in her pushiness and her controlling their domestic life. But even with all the stress and issues, there’s an obvious bond between these two people.

The title of the documentary, Cutie And The Boxer, is connected to one of Ushio’s painting techniques, which is to put on boxing gloves, dip them in paint and punch the canvas from left to right. He’s still doing this at age eighty. He also does sculptures and other paintings.  Norika paints and draws.

To read entire review and watch trailer go to Cutie and The Boxer.

Create Documentary Films, Videos and Multimedia: A Comprehensive Guide to Using Documentary Storytelling Techniques for Film, Video, the Internet and Digital Media Projects.