Eileen MignoniEileen Mignoni
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I have been shooting much of my footage with the Canon 5D Mark ii. It has a color richness and depth of field that I cannot resist. The footage from the 5d is different from the footage one gets from a video camera. The codex, I think it is, is different. Unless one converts the footage to another codex, one is stuck with lengthy rendering times, at every editing step. Right now, I am exporting a version of my piece to share with my coach. It is taking 15 minutes. And so, now, instead of working diligently on my video, I am writing this blog post, waiting for my clips to reach 8000 percent speed.
I went out shooting last night - just as the sun was slipping away. Two days before, I’d gone out to shoot lines with my car as my dolly. On the way to those lines, I saw other lines. Big, tall steel towers. They seemed close to the road. By sight, they were. On foot, they were not.
I spent 20 minutes wrestling through flora. Between myself and the utility pole were brambles, and nests, and untold, unseen wildlife. I was particularly afraid of snakes. I was also afraid that the car I’d left beside the road and could no longer see would get towed. I wanted to shoot straight up into a tower and have the clouds rush by. There is a dearth of puffy clouds in these parts. I settled to shoot day’s fading light. With that fading, first came the bats and then the mosquitoes. And that’s what I braved for, at most 12 seconds of b-roll. Was it worth it? I escaped with only an unattached tick. Do I need to go back?
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This is my favorite frame in my video. Why do horses always photograph so funny? Maybe it’s that everyone looks funny with a wide angle. There is some talk of cutting it. My video is not long but drags on. I need to cut some things. How can you not laugh when you see this? There is another funny line right before it. That one is going to stay secret so you can chortle when you see it.
I am looking to go with someone to document an ultrasound. I want this to be the closer to my piece. Electricity is not just about game boys, computers, and big TV’s - it’s also integral to our health care system. I think that a sequence of the beeping machines and the glowing mother would be the ideal conclusion to my story. I have this fear that if one of the women come to the site and see the horse with the text, they will get nervous and think I will make a joke of that process. I will not. I have to revise some of my linemen facts. They do indeed work sun-up to sun-down when they get behind. The crew we were with was about to go on that schedule, 7 days a week. They were behind. All the union says is that they must be paid overtime. They also might go to working under lights to extend the day, but that won’t happen just yet. My brother (lineman) really liked the video I put up showing a pole going up. I feel that makes it a success. I am going to share it with the website powerlineman.com and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
The Ubly plane ride was made possible by the former coach and teacher of my brothers. He teaches video and computer classes at their former high school. It’s probably one of the reasons he was so helpful – he understood what we are doing. He has shared links with me of their work. It’s great, and I am sharing it with you. I love that video is happening everywhere.
High School Heist Trailer
How to Plan the Perfect Date Part2
Man Vs. Wild 2 WUHS
Today I was asked if I felt constrained by having been asked to produce good journalism and to innovate. In multimedia, the two are inextricably joined. The limits have not been discovered, so within the realm, we all keep pushing forward. Motion graphic integration with video seems to be one means of innovation in multimedia. I think that we have bounds to go in terms of visual storytelling. There are so many ways to convey information visually, or even just to shoot video. On this project, I have looked a great deal to advertising, television and movies to see where I could advance (without, of course, the benefit of lights, dollies or steadicams.) All of these arenas are bounds away from most newspaper video/photo storytelling. I wouldn't design an interface without looking at the most recent winners of Flash Forward, a major competition for innovators in Flash from all industries. I am trying to do the same visually for my own work. On this project, I have been given the time to find that form. Which is why cutbacks in newsrooms or the forced video contribution of everyone in a newsroom is unsettling. There is no time to find the next form.
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My story feels like a disaster. It began so neatly. We want alternative energy. We don’t have the transmission lines to carry it. Building transmission lines is expensive, time and labor intensive, and difficult because of land rights issues. I found an example of this. The town where I grew up has just constructed a new wind farm. There is one more phase to go in their operation and then, they are stuck. The lines can carry no more power. The energy grid wasn’t built to take power out of that region. I can get on a crew and shoot actual line building. Neat and simple. Except that’s not the story I want to do. I want to explain what the energy grid is, what a precarious state it is in, how much needs to be built and what needs to happen for that to be built.
What is that story? Both personal electricity consumption and the population are rising. More people are using more electricity. Conservation efforts aren’t keeping stride. They slow the rise in demand, but don’t nearly meet it. Our lines are congested at higher levels than ever. Congestion means a greater likelihood of failure. Congestion leads to hot wires, hot wires droop, falling on trees and cars, and short out. If the drooping doesn’t take them out, then the wires trip automatically when they get overheated to prevent damage to the system. To help decongest, we need new lines, lines that are behind in construction due largely to land rights issues. In addition to that, there are fewer linemen available and parts are in short supply.
This is among my favorite pieces. http://bitly.com/airsickToronto I want my piece to look like this, but more concise, more informative. Less pretty and more factual. I’ve done five interviews now. I want to include bits from there. In my mind, I want the clips to be interspersed with the b-roll of line construction. The b-roll of the lines would have text, explaining the specifics of the situation. I don’t think I need to show electronic use. Maybe some lights coming on, but to match images exactly with what is discussed seems redundant. But, not showing images that match what is being discussed is wrong. I know it’s wrong. I shouldn’t want to not do that. But isn’t that how songs are written? New information is in the stanzas, while the chorus stays the same. Couldn’t line construction be the chorus? The structure makes sense – to me, but not likely to anyone else.
Does that even make sense? I need to get abstract and lush with future imagery I shot to use as a backdrop to that. I’m excited about that. The gripper from Nacho’s blog will likely be involved to some degree.
The video above is fun, but should have been timed a little better for the music. Why does everything seem so much better (fine) in final cut. I also would probably do a little more work with the 3-wheel color corrector, but this post is done, and I think I'd better be working on my actual piece.
By the way, the music is Radio (Made Easy!) by Bert Jerred used under a creative commons license through Jamendo.
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I was wrong about the linemen’s hours. They arrive at the yard at 6:30, and begin working at 7. We were there at 5:30 and waited and watched the sun come up. We spent the morning riding around in the truck of the general foreman. He brought us to different sites where we got to watch lead lines being run and porcelain insulators being strung up. The run rope through the poles and later use that rope to drag the very heavy electrical cable through the poles. I imagined line workmen in bucket trucks and climbing utility poles. I was surprised to find that much of the work was dragging rope and trudging through pastures, and in Kentucky, those pastures are set amidst deep hills.
The guys on the job are great. They are very friendly and let us get as close as we want to take photographs. I am sure they would allow us to document their after work activities. Nearly all of the men live in hotels in Richmond for the workweek and go to their permanent homes for the weekend. The foreman, Scott, for example, lives three hours away in Ohio. He has a wife and two children, ages 15 and 16. He misses them, but thinks this is a better living. He stays in most nights. Others are young and speak about the fun they have here. I’m not sure that that element is a part of the story I want to pursue. Although it is an interesting lifestyle, it is not what I am looking at in the piece I am crafting.
We were rained out. The day was called at 1:30. According to union regulations, a lineman is not required to work in the rain. Much of that is a safety issue. Live wires and water don’t mix. The job we went on today was dead (not electrified) because the lines are just now being built. Nonetheless, union rules stand. According to my brother, working in the rain is terrible. Everything takes twice as long and the guys are miserable. The men work in crews of about five men each. The crew has to decide as a unit that they want to stay. If one of them wants to go home, they all have to go home. That’s because that one, if he were to go home and the others stay, then the one who goes home gets paid just the same as those who stay. The boss doesn’t want to be paying people not to work.
I like posting photos. That’s why I wrote this blog today. Does anyone think these images are too large? I also wrote this to correct my error about starting and finishing times.
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It’s our third extended weekend of traveling and content gathering. The first weekend (Thursday-Monday) was in DC. We interviewed religious figures involved with environmental concerns. The second weekend (Thursday-Monday) was Michigan - windmills, the Vineyard Church and the National Summit. This weekend is looking at linemen in Kentucky (Friday to Thursday). We went to Saturday School at the electrical worker’s union (Local 369) in Louisville, Kentucky.
Our hotel was not very nice and in a seedier section of the city. My hero lineman brother got us a kicking room in the Galt Hotel – two towers of high rise, downtown, along the river. We could leave our camera capturing in the room without fear. I accidentally woke up at 5.30 this morning. In the window was the beautiful sunrise below.
Tomorrow we are due at the construction yard at 5:30 a.m. They are building a section of line on standard h-frames. Linemen work from sun up to sun down, when they are lucky. When they are not lucky, they work on a tight deadline and use powerful lights to work into the night. Too, storm duty has no set hours. Storm duty means they work until the power is all back on, however many hours or days that takes.
We interviewed an apprentice lineman at Saturday School. That lineman, Wes, had worked for 14 years as a machining specialist in an automotive plant. Aware of the uncertainty in the industry, he changed careers, betting that everyone will continue to need electricity. When I think of increased electricity demand, I think of gadgets, computers and televisions. When I speak to people in the electrical industry, they always mention electric cars. I do not think of electric cars as a realistic possibility. I am guessing I do not know enough about the topic.
That particular lineman may become the hook of my piece, the personal story that makes those who otherwise would not care about the story, care. What happens to my windmills? Will they have a function in my piece? I’ll have to see what I get in these next couple of days. I plan to interview another lineman while I am here – likely an apprentice also. In Saturday School, they began telling me about the various hold ups they have had in building this stretch of line in Kentucky. Most stories involved guns. My favorite involved a little old lady with a .357 who kicked the men off her land,and impounded their equipment.
We went to a Catholic Church today in Louisville. Courtney was outside shooting people leaving with the video camera. I was at the entrance. It had begun to rain, so the father of many young, tow-headed children went to get the car while the mother waited with the little ones. They stood at the door, light steaming in, and I began to take photographs at the edge of light and dark, just like I was taught. This is the photo I like best.
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There are footprints on the top of the trunk of my car. And on my roof. I tried to take a photo for proof, but the photo came out lousy, so I scrapped the idea. I don't think it's indicative of my photography skills, nor a portent for works to come. Just bad contrast - brown clay mud on silver. Lots of silver and little clog prints. I wonder whether the rental car company will notice. I'm in Michigan now. My original home state. I went to my mother's farm. Roughly 60 windmills have gone up in the farms around the town. They arrived in December. They call these windmill colonies farms. John Deere owns the windmills and leases the space the windmills are on from the farmers. Jeanette Hagen, the wind farm representative there with whom we spoke told us that John Deere makes sure to treat its farmers right to preserve its reputation in the farming community (they make lots of tractors.)
Jeanette and John Deere were not able to give us permission to film on the farms with the mills because they don't own the land, but I was able to get permission from the farmer. My project is not on windmills. It’s on the power grid. This wind farm has another batch of windmills to be built. After that, there can be no more wind development in that area until there is more energy grid to take the power. Ubly is an example of the problem in my video - we want alternatives, but our grid system is inadequate. It wasn’t built to bring power from the plains and Midwest. Ubly is an example of that.
Energy's a funny thing. I don't quite understand it yet. My brother Pete is an electrical linemen. He tries to explain it to me, and right now, I am going to understand what voltage, watts and amps are. And the footprints. Transmission stations are surrounded by chain link fence topped with barbed wire. (More people than ever before have been electrocuted breaking into transmission stations - substations to steal the copper wire used in electricity. It's at an all time high price. I'm also told that the country of Chile could buy all three Detroit automotive companies with the profits they made from copper mining last year.) So, chain link is pretty to shoot through. To get a view of the substation with a little less fence, I stood on my little Chevy Cobalt rental car, set up my tripod, and shot from there. The roof buckled, but went back to normal when I jumped off.
And Courtney and I have been up at 5.30 for the past two days, because if there's no real movement in the video, the light had better be nice.
The music in the video above is from "You Got" by Electric Funky.
I'm not sure it's the right music and I can't get the video the right size. Time to quit and try again tomorrow.
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