Meet the Artists

On Thursday September 1st, the Macaulay freshman class and I visited the Macaulay Center in Manhattan to go meet some documentary film makers and learn about the art of making a documentary film. I, probably like most of my classmates, was really annoyed to have to travel right after school straight to Manhattan when the weekend was right around the corner and freedom was so close, but we went anyway because it was a Macaulay requirement and we had no choice. I initially thought it would be boring, but even though the dark room and comfy auditorium chairs almost made me fall asleep, I managed to stay awake for the entire first film, which was fairly interesting. It was about former Von Dutch partner Bobby Vaughn, and the struggles he faced trying to relocate to Queens and start a clothing company after a murder allegation against him in Los Angeles. The documenters were a former graduate of the Macaulay Honors program and a professor currently teaching in the city. They both chose to make a documentary on this man because he was an interesting character in the community and he was reaching out to help the neighborhood he lived in, so the documenters also wanted to be in support of that. I found the movie, especially his account of fighting off an attack by his best friend only to then take his life, very interesting.

The documenters also talked about the process of making a film. Besides choosing a topic that would be exciting enough to make a movie on, they also had to get the funding, the supplies, and the manpower to make a film. The student who graduated from Macaulay, whose name I’ve forgotten, talked about the relative ease of getting technology good enough to make a feature film. He said that this was the easiest time for an amateur to make a film, because now it only cost a few thousand dollars to buy a good camera and rolling tape. They also mentioned that while shooting the film took only a month or so, editing the entire film took a year, which was pretty shocking to hear. I have more respect for filmmakers now, even though I didn’t think their job was easy before this event either. But it was pretty interesting to see someone be able to make a film and to learn some of the techniques on getting the entire piece put together.