kuleana--does-anyone-care

[kuleana--does-anyone-care]

Hello everyone!

I might come back here and post a social media page for the Kuleana project. But I haven't set one up yet. Oops~

Take care y'all. It's been good ^_^

#uhwoacm #uhwo acm #capstone #capstone experience #KULEANA DOES ANYONE CARE?? #Youtube

[kuleana--does-anyone-care]

capstone update #5

Hello! We're in the final stretch now... A lot has happened since my last post. Sorry, but I'm really not the blogging type.

So! Over the past two or three weeks, I've cut together my "extended trailer" for my doc. My goal was to have something between 3-5 minutes, and ended up with something around 4 minutes 40 seconds. I figured this was the way to go since there is so much information to share on the topic of Red Hill. If I'm making a trailer for something this complicated, I need to make sure that viewers are getting all of the context they need to understand why the issue is important.

The biggest struggle was figuring out what would make it into the trailer. I spent a lot of hours going through my footage, and collecting public domain clips from DVIDS, the "Defense Visual Information Distribution Service". (Anyone can use content from DVIDS: dvidshub.net is the URL. All of its content is produced by the US Military.)

After much hemming and hawing, one night it just came to me. I put together the first draft of my trailer, and it restored hope and light to my world. 😂

I got feedback from 9 people about it. Only two people had doubts, but I've been working to address the things they mentioned. Everyone else really liked it, which was very helpful to know. When you're editing something, you start to question whether it makes sense after viewing it 20 or 50 times over.

I have a corkboard that I used earlier this semester to help me wrap my mind around all of the different parties and topics involved in this Red Hill story. After making the first rough cut of my trailer, I decided to use the corkboard to visualize and rearrange my trailer's narrative. This was absolutely necessary, because of the sheer amount of sequences and clips I had prepared. Last weekend, I spent a lot of time standing in front of the board, trying to figure out what I could move, and where I could place new clips. It was well worth it, and I can't imagine trying to do this kind of work a different way. (Thanks Professor Farinella and Gabby Navalta for recommending this method!)

All in all, I'm really pleased with how my trailer is coming out. It has changed a lot over the past week! The storyline is mostly the same, but I managed to add in a lot more information at just the right moments. The narrative feels cohesive to me, and the people who have seen the new version agree. I did not, in fact, mess up the magic I had going in the original cut. Relief!

Until next time, please enjoy these photos which document my trusty corkboard's metamorphosis over the past week. I will treasure them always.

#hawaii #documentary #film #filmmaking #red hill #water pollution #environment #sustainability #nature #water #land use #land ownership #water rights #uhwo #uhwo acm #uhwoacm #capstone

[kuleana--does-anyone-care]

capstone update #4

dilemma / struggle

I am not too happy with my capstone project. Just being honest.

I made some progress over this past month, but there are also just so many things that went wrong. I already wrote in one of my other posts about how the whole ʻUluʻulu request process was going. A lot of back-and-forthing, a lot of time and work put into it... So far, with nothing to show for my efforts. Let me continue that story now.

There's footage I had my heart set on -- MY MISTAKE. It turns out I can't use it. The collection owner is planning to produce something with it soon, so they denied my request. That's fair, because it's up to the copyright holder if they want to allow someone else to use their materials. But it really throws me off, because I had a lot of ideas about how I would use that footage in my project. It was actually more than one thing. I screened these files, took detailed notes (basically wrote transcripts of parts) and sent my carefully selected timestamps to the archivist. She had me write a "one page" to send along with my request to the collection owner, explaining my project and my intent for the footage. It ended up being a huge amount of wasted time. I had heard some horror stories about incorporating archival footage into film projects. But it's a whole other thing to live through it yourself. It's pretty devastating, and also a bit... infuriating.

It's negative in more ways than one. First of all, all the time I spent ideating about how I would use the footage, how it connected with my themes and helped to tell the story, what sorts of b-roll I would edit it together with -- all of that was a wasted effort. I could have been using that time and energy on something else. But a lot of times, there's no way to know that until you're at the end of the process. I was prioritizing this footage in particular, ahead of other archival clips. And now I'm thinking it might be too late for me to get any archival materials before the time that our deliverables are due. I've been screening and requesting clips from another batch of titles, and things are in the works, but it may all be for naught.

There were also other titles I was hoping to use that I found out were unavailable. For example, I was hoping to use clips from an episode of the classic show Pau Hana Days, only to find out that the show is never approved for duplication by its owners. Really great! Tisha the archivist has been incredibly helpful. It's not her fault! But I'm getting really sick of trying to incorporate archival footage.

It's a lot of work for things that might not be able to make it into my deliverable. And it's not just time wasted screening and requesting the footage. It's time wasted reconsidering things that I had thought were solved, things like the structure of my doc. The story I am trying to tell. I'm getting to the point where I need to stop wasting so much time on things that aren't guaranteed and just work with what I have. I currently have a lot less than it seemed I would, so it's getting scary.

Other update: I was going to interview Wayne Tanaka from the Sierra Club of Hawaii last Tuesday, but he came down with covid. Due to my work schedule, I had to reschedule for next Thursday. That's 9 less days that I will have his footage to work with. Also scary.

The good news is that the Ernie interview went really well, except for an equipment problem at one point. I can work around it. Wayne's interview will be great too. I just know that overall, I'm way behind schedule.

Signing off--

#documentary #film #archival footage #warning #roadblocks #suffering #pain #feeling extremely negative about this whole thing #honest blog

[kuleana--does-anyone-care]

from our interview yesterday!

thanks, Ernie!! ⛰️💧

and shoutout to matthew and samuel

— @nakimkcapstone / @sa-acmwo-capstone —

couldn't have done it without you guys ;w;

next up: wayne tanaka (sierra club hawaii chapter director) on kuhio day 🤙

#ernie lau #board of water supply #ola i ka wai #shut down red hill #aloha aina #red hill #no ka oi shipyard

[kuleana--does-anyone-care]

by: 花景色

#nature rocks #preserve it

[kuleana--does-anyone-care]

capstone update #3

Hello, tumblr! I am finally back with my third update. At first I was waiting for something noteworthy to happen, but then a lot of things started happening all at once. I could have written this update two weeks ago, but I've been caught up. I have great news! I was able to get in touch with two local leaders who will allow me to interview them. One is Ernie Lau, Chief Engineer at the Board of Water Supply. You may have seen him on the news a couple of years ago; in 2022 he led the Walk for Wai protest march to Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. He has also addressed the public many times with updates about Red Hill. Speaking to Ernie has been a big part of my idea for this project, so I'm really excited for this opportunity. The other interview is with Wayne Tanaka, the Chapter Director of the Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi. (If you are unaware, the Sierra Club is an organization focused on protecting and preserving the natural environment.) Prior to his position at the Sierra Club, he served in the Public Policy Program at OHA, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. I'm looking forward to hearing his thoughts on Red Hill and our environment. Also hoping he might have an opinion to share about the US Military's involvement here. Another thing I did was receive my first batch of ʻUluʻulu titles (archival videos) and watch them! The first set was about 3 or 3.5 hours worth of footage. Some of it was produced, but most were production materials -- unedited recordings. I took detailed notes of what I saw, with timestamps, in order to keep everything straight. Part of the process is submitting timestamps of clips I'm interested in using in my doc. Then I send those to the archivist (shoutout to Trisha!!! <3) who does some paperwork and sends in a request to the materials' owners. (She undoubtedly does a lot more that I am unaware of.) It's been tough to find a good workflow for this process, because:

1) in order to view full-length files, I must first request links where the titles can be streamed to me

2) since I don't have a downloaded copy of it, I am unable to drop it into Premiere and begin working with it/ placing markers on it

3) ^this is my usual workflow for working with footage and building it into something, so it's been a learning process

4) the ʻUluʻulu player does not support changing the speed of playback

5) it takes time to get approved to use clips, and longer if you want to request "screeners," full-length files that are downloadable

6) you never know if your request will be approved until it happens, so you could be putting a lot of time and energy into something that won't pan out. (It's a gamble, which can be disheartening)

...#6, I learned that the hard way recently. Since I waited so long between posts, let me save that for next time. Oh yeah, I will have to tell you about the FTAC meeting, too. For now, I'll keep working through the second batch of archival videos I requested. My doc's structure is still not settled yet, but it's slowly solidifying with each new ʻUluʻulu video I see.

#hawaii #documentary #film #red hill #water pollution #environment #sustainability #nature #water #land use #land ownership #water rights #uhwo #uhwo acm #uhwoacm #capstone

[kuleana--does-anyone-care]

capstone update #2

Hello everybody! I see people making some really good progress with their capstones. Unfortunately, I am not yet one of them. I wish I had more to report, but I really don't.

I'm still behind schedule, and I haven't completed all the tasks that I laid out for myself last time. I still need to keep working on my interview questions, and send messages to people I want to include in my documentary. It's happening this week, PERIOD.

I still have things swimming around in my head that have not been written down. I'm not sure why, but I'm having the hardest time getting this thing off the ground. It's all still a little incomprehensible to me, how this will all get done. I have that "paralysis" feeling, and it's very bad. It's kind of unlike me, too. I thought I got better at this these past few years. :/

It's not that I haven't done anything lately, I've been busy working on other stuff, like regular homework, outside jobs, and a ton of things related to my school club, WOBA (we host open mics on campus! Look for us at Pueo Pilina!!)... I just feel stuck in a loop with my capstone project. I still have faith that it will come together one way or another (read: for better or worse), but the stress is definitely building.

It doesn't help that I'm setting all my own deadlines for this documentary project. When I think about tasks related to my other responsibilities, those deadlines are very "hard" and "real" in my mind, because they are controlled by someone else. Whereas, the deadlines I set for capstone-related tasks seem more flexible. Even though they really aren't.

My plan for this week: keep my head down and WORK

--I'll update again next week >:o

#hawaii #documentary #film #red hill #water pollution #environment #nature #sustainability #water #land use #land ownership #uhwo #uhwo acm #uhwoacm #capstone

[kuleana--does-anyone-care]

by  Alex Schwab

[kuleana--does-anyone-care]

also, have this... the project that started it all (thanks prof. Farinella)

RED HILL (2022)

#hawaii #experimental #documentary #film #environment #forest #plants #flowers #nature #sustainability #water pollution #land use #land ownership #navy pollution #sovereignty #no ka oi shipyard #“the best” #Youtube

[kuleana--does-anyone-care]

capstone update #1

TO REITERATE: I'm planning to produce a 30-min documentary film.

Hello, I'm finally here to update my blog! I meant to do this last week, but didn't... I was struggling to wrap my head around this project and what I'll be doing this semester.

I think I'm a little crazy for taking this on. Sometimes it feels like too much, but I certainly won't be quitting.

My first reality check was trying to populate the workback plan. It was a necessary step, but so difficult. I had to come back to it a few times to get it sorted out. I always feel like I'm overlooking something when I'm planning out a project, and I've never tried to produce something of this magnitude before. But I sat down with my workback plan again tonight and finally have it in good shape. Coming back to it has helped me process what I'll need to do, and I feel pretty certain now that I'm not forgetting anything. I also recreated my workback plan in Notion, because I don't think I'll be able to stay on track if I only look at it on Google Sheets. (The formatting... the lack of color-coding and other viewing modes... Nah, homie, I can't. TwT) I also gave myself dates to complete things by. I know I can work to a deadline, and now I have a ton of them. Isn't that fantastic!

Anyway, I'm really happy with my organization on this project now that I have all my tasks thought out, written down, and with dates. The tricky part now will be keeping the Google Sheet updated according to the Notion.

Right now I have a bunch of tasks marked as "in progress." There's so much I need to do in the next two weeks, mostly making lists of people and Instagram accounts to reach out to. I already follow a lot of accounts but I have not created a master list for myself to keep track of them all. Once I have my list, I can start drafting up messages to send to them, asking if they might want to participate in my doc, or could put me in connection with people who would. I'm kind of worried that I don't have much to show for myself, a presence, or a reason why they should trust me, that kind of thing. But I'll try it anyway.

I also need to draft emails/ send texts/ make phone calls to people I know, who said in one way or another that they might be able to lend a voice to my project. Cast out a bunch of lines and see if I get any bites. 🎣

Another thing is, I want to find videos on YouTube and Vimeo of the ʻOnipaʻa Peace March that happened a couple weeks ago. I wasn't able to go myself, but I'd really like to incorporate footage of it into my film. Maybe someone would be willing to let me use a few of their shots. If not a person, maybe one of the local news outlets. I also need to do some research. I have a playlist of some news clips about the Red Hill water crisis from when I made my 5-minute piece about it in Fall '22. But there have been updates since then, and I need to collect even more. I'm not 100% sure what or how much I'll do with it yet. But my creative process is 'collect all the stuff, look at and absorb it all, ???, get vision, create the vision'... so step one is gathering more things. :)

Also want to find more PDFs. Last semester, I found some studies and national news articles about Red Hill, pollution by the Navy/ issues similar to what's happening here, but my research topic was persuasion, so I spent the vast majority of my time on that. There's definitely more out there, and I want to find it because I'm thinking of using scans/ screenshots in my film.

Oh, and I'm planning to request titles from ʻUluʻulu by 2.16. Gonna try my absolute best to stay on top of the deadlines I've set for myself. LONG POST: FINITO!!!

#hawaii #documentary #film #red hill #water pollution #environment #nature #sustainability #water #land use #land ownership #uhwo #uhwo acm #uhwoacm #capstone

[kuleana--does-anyone-care]

hello, thanks for checking out my blog ^^

#hawaii #red hill #documentary #film #water rights #land rights #land ownership

[kuleana--does-anyone-care]

[kuleana--does-anyone-care]

never-ending man: hayao miyazaki (2016) dir. kaku arakawa

#fax