NAMI Mercer Video Documentary Project

Team Meeting

August 10, 2016

Notes

The meeting began at 6:00 pm. Present: Brian Boni, Rob Hedden, Will Leavey, Julie Maddocks, Maddie Monheit, Chris Nesi, Tom Pyle, Jeff Schotland. Regrets: Matt Befi, Kevin Hallam

  1. Last Saturday’s B Roll Shoot
  1. Morning:Rob, Will, and Chris reported on the morning’s shoot. The Kingston tunnel shoot took longer to shoot and produced less usable B roll that anticipated. The second shoot at the Riverside School nearby produced some usual floral footage of bees on a sunflower, but it didn’t yield a sufficiently evocative “swing” scene. Although the team was on a school playground where children were playing, legal sensibilities and the presence of slightly suspicious adults thwarted all ideas of filming the children even from a distance.

The team also noted the camera’s frame speed setting for the morning shoot was different than that of the previous studio shoots. While such settings must be the same as originally intended, this oversight didn’t seem to affect the quality of the morning’s B Roll.

  1. Afternoon:Rob, Chris, and Tom embarked in the early afternoon for the afternoon shoot in Trenton, but learned that the charged battery for the camera has expired, rendering the afternoon session impossible. Instead the team traveled to the Liquor RX store on Olden Avenue, the Helen Fuld Emergency Center on Brunswick Avenue, a graffiti painting on MLK Boulevard, around Trenton, to the West Trenton Train Station, and to the entrance of Trenton Psychiatric Hospital on Sullivan Avenue to snap still shots of other possible B Roll locations.
  1. A and B Roll Review

The team watched the “7 minute” cut most recently done by Will and Chris.

The cut include a couple of B Roll scenes lifted from the internet. The group didn’t so much like the Kelly Thomas beat-down scene.

  1. Further B Roll ideas
  1. Locations:The group decided to determine a list of B Roll locations in advance to make shooting and moving among locations more efficient next time. Tom agreed to prepare this list, with help from Maddie.
  1. TV scene: Certain shots might require staging and re-enactments. The “TV wires” scene described by Pat D. is one. Robert noted that a retro TV might be available at the Sarnoff exhibition at College of New Jersey. He will call TCNJ to find out.
  1. Stock video footage: Chris and Will researched stock video footage on the internet for B Roll possibilities. They found a potentially effective arrest scene to accompany Kimme Carlos’ comments about “criminalization of mental illness”. The group felt that much of the other images found looked a little too fake.
  1. Narration

The group considered the inclusion of narration to assist with storyline and transitions. This would require scripting, after seeing what comes in the next cut to suggest an appropriate narration.

  1. Music

Brian remains ready to work up music ideas. He awaits a more complete version of the rough cut so to conceive and work more efficiently.

  1. Next B Roll Shooting Schedule

The team expressed its preference to participate in B Roll shooting sessions in a) the afternoons, from 3 pm to 7 pm, rather than mornings, and b) weekdays as well as weekends.

The group members (Rob, Brian, Will, Chris, and Jeff) confirmed their availability for the following B Roll shooting schedule:

Thursday, August 10, 3 pm to 7 pm

Sunday, August 13, 3 pm to 7 pm

Monday, August 14, 3 pm to 7 pm

Tom requested Julie Maddocks to book the camera equipment of PCTV for these dates.

The meeting adjourned at 7:10 pm.