Jen G’s Blog

So, so long over due but this blog did not just move to the back burner, it was taken off the stove top.

In a nutshell: the film was finished, defended as an Honors Thesis, received high honors, premiered at the Kimball Theater and later in Prince William County. It is currently being used in Prince William County Schools and in Prince William County historic sites.

Check out the facebook page

Watch the whole movie on IMDB

Since then I have been working on my Masters in History and continuing to make and work with films.

Check out my website at
https://sites.google.com/site/jengarrott/

Major accomplishment: Ben Lomond rough rough cut. It’s coming together though.
I think in general the footaae turned out well. It is not ideal since I would have preferred to show what a field hospital would have been like a day or so after the battle but the reenactment I filmed was portraying a longer period after the battle. So most people were up walking around and just had bandages on compared to people still being brought in to be treated. But perhaps with a little research I can cover the material I wanted in voice over and still images…although I don’t think there are many of wounded soldiers before they were treated. I may just have to alter my original intent a bit.
I have decided that I really like the Hitchcock quote, “In fiction film, the director is god. But in documentaries, God is the director.”

As far as progress on the Bristoe segment, I feel like I have been working on it a lot with not much to show. I have been re-familiarizing myself with the footage, which as far as Bristoe was concerned was a little disheartening since I feel there is a lot of it that I can’t use, mostly because the long shots and even the medium shots look empty. I think I did an okay job with what I had but some shots are just not believable with the amount of people that I have. I am planning in putting in some of the footage I took at Gettysburg because that is at least a way to get some greater numbers in. I have been trying to play with the color corrector video filter and maybe you or someone in the media center can help me. I have been trying to make the Gettysburg footage a little bit darker or greyer since that is what the day was like when I filmed at Bristoe and I think that is more believable for an October day.

I have also been running into some difficulties with creating timelines and dealing with footage that is both widescreen and regular. One of the cameras at the Bristoe shoot didn’t actually get set to widescreen so I have been going back and forth about what I want it to be as a whole. I could just enlarge the footage that is not wide screen but when I start pulling in still images, those are rarely widescreen so I am not sure. I was playing around with making the widescreen footage regular (which basically just crops the sides for me) so I could do that or I could just edit the wide screen as widescreen and then when I pull it into a regular timeline it has the black bars on the top and I could just add black bars to the rest of the footage. Which is what I ended up doing for the first segment so I am also not sure whether I want that level of continuity between the segments.

So basically just a lot of little things that have been slowing me down. I need to stop getting bogged down in the details. I would have liked to have them done by this point but I think I have been spending too much time trying to shuffle the Bristoe footage around. I am trying to take smaller steps and have been making timelines of “good Confederate shots” and “good Union shots” so I know where to pull things from when I need them without having to go back through all the footage.

In other news I talked to a fellow student who may be interested in scoring the other two segments for me. Hopefully this works out because music has been one of the big issues I know I can’t do very well myself.

Tonight is my Honor’s Colloquium and hopefully that goes well. I plan on showing my first segment, taking about some of the process and the theoretical issues I have been contending with. I just hope for a slightly larger audience than the first presentation…

(and the countdown to this whole project being due)

So…wow…it’s been a year since I started this project.  Last winter break I was doing a lot of research and filmed an interview in a courtroom…(bad acoustics, bad idea).  This break I actually haven’t even brought a camera home but I now have a different piece of equipment – a brand new MacBook Pro. Through a combination of grant money, personal savings and a financing option through Apple I now have a MacBookPro with a 13 inch screen and 2.53 processor.   I now have the capability to edit pretty much whenever and where ever I want.  Since my whole project is on the external hard drive I purchased earlier this year I still have the option of editing in the Swem Media Center, which I still might do because I’m sure I’ll miss the 21 inch screens! Unfortunately, due to delays on getting the grant money approved and getting the financing through Apple I didn’t get the physical computer until last week. I loaded Final Cut on to it and connected my external hard drive the first night and so far so good.

Currently, I have a little work station set up with my Mac open with Final Cut next to my old laptop with Microsoft Word.  I am in the process of transcribing some of the interviews I had previously filmed, particularly those of Jim Burgess who spoke on the Battle of Bristoe Station and David Born, the site manager at Ben Lomond. I have a nice system where I play a sentence or two from the interview clock pause and can just turn and type it up. This works much better than dealing with different windows on the same computer. I find that it is helpful to add this extra step instead of going straight to editing the interview footage because I am a visual person and it really helps me to be able to sit down and read what each person says during the interview.  After that I can highlight the parts that I feel fit the narrative I want to portray and then begin to write the voice over script to fill in the parts that the interview didn’t cover. I am also considering making either transcript or the mildly edited footage of the interviews available separately in case people want to know more in depth information.  I am working through Jim Burgess’s interview right now and he give some great background on the different divisions and brigades of each army that were engaged at Bristoe that might now make it into the film but space on the web page allows I would like to make available.

As far as the web page goes my current understanding is that this blog space will continue to be available to me even after I graduate.  I talked to one of the academic IT personnel and they didn’t sound very optimistic about having the video portion hosted on William and Mary. He actually suggested I just post it on youTube.  While that is always an option, I feel that it would greatly diminish the academic standing of the film. The current plan which I am very excited about is that I will be able to host my video (and hopefully some additional info such as the interviews, historical narratives and teaching aids) on the NIAHD site (National Institute for American History and Democracy).

http://niahd.wm.edu/ – here is a link to the student journals

http://www.wm.edu/as/niahd/?svr=web – and some additional information on the program

I am have and am currently taking some NIAHD classes in order to receive the Public History certificate, hence my connection to the program.

On the agenda for the first half of the week, before I return to campus, is a meeting with the Director of the Humanities for Prince William County Public Schools regarding the possibility of using my film in the classrooms (very excited about that).  And possibly meeting with some teachers or administrators from my high school to talk to them about the possibility of showing my film in the high school theater some time in May after it is completed so people from the Northern Virginia area can see it.  I am planning on trying to set up a meeting or talk to someone from the Kimball about having a screening there some time at the end of April or beginning of May.

Right now it’s nice to have the new laptop but seeing it every day is really a constant reminder of how much work I still have to do.  Hopefully that will help keep me on track this semester. There just happen to be all those other things like class and track, etc. The countdown to May begins!

Here are some various pictures, or production stills if you will.

These were taken when Professor Zuber came up and I showed her around the different sites I am filming.

Behind the camera 1

Behind the camera 2

Testing the lights

Filming at Ben Lomond

Thanks to Professor Zuber for being my photographer for the day =)

This next set was taken when I was setting up for the interview I conducted with Jim Burgess on July 15th.  He spoke on the Battle of Bristoe Station and we filmed it in the school room at Brentsville.  I used a map that normally hangs in the Brentsville Courthouse as a background.  An original plan was to film one interview in the schoolroom and another actually out on the battlefield.  Unfortunately, the plans for the second shoot fell through, but I think I accomplished everything I needed to in the first interview.  Other pluses of the schoolroom:  controlled environment (for weather and light), lots of power outlets (yay!), was able to have a stationary camera since he was seated instead of outside walking around. On to the pictures:

Setting up in the schoolroom

More set up

The next few are from the interview with Rob Orrison on July 25th.  I had already filmed an interview with him last semester but unfortunately I had to scrap it because of poor sound quality.  The Brentsville Courtroom is lovely but very large and open.  The echo, combined with some microphone malfunction equaled footage that was beyond being fixed by editing.  So this time I decided to film the interview still in the Courthouse, but used one of the smaller upstairs rooms instead.  The room is called the magistrates room because, originally, it was where the magistrates (judges) could go in between hearing cases oncourt days.  More pictures!

Getting stuff from the camera box

Unpacking the lighting kit

 Plugging in the cords

Testing the camera

Thanks to Jay for being my photographer on both of these.

The last batch is from the Ben Lomond living history event that took place on July 18th.  Most of these are just background shots that I took during the brief interlude where I put the GL2 down. I don’t think these give a good representation of everything that was going on at the event but my main priority of of course capturing everything on video.

 Reenactors on the front lawn

Close up of reenactors

Field hospital flag

These two were taken by one of the reenactors, Harry Aycock.

Filming coffin scene

Me at Ben Lomond

More deatail on how the filming itself went at all of these events and locations to come soon.

 …the thinking side of things.  Most of my posts to this point have been about what I am doing as far as what is physically needed for this project. Henceforth, I’m going to try to shed some light on the mental processes as well. I used “precarious position” to describe the place I find myself in partially for the alliteration, but also for the balancing act that I feel this project has become. By doing historical documentaries, I have to be both historian and director (and lighting, and sound, etc.).  The historian side of me wants everything to be completely accurate, while the director side seems to allow for a little historical error as long as the point or general story gets across.  Currently, these two sides are clashing. 

Upon a recent journey to the Library of Congress to do some research, I made the wonderful discovery of find the actually article that John Rice wrote to The Republican, in hometown of Springfield, Massachusetts. My elation was quickly tempered when I saw the date: 1886.   Not, 1866, as I had originally thought, and portrayed in the current version of my film.  In my defense, 1866 was a very reasonable guess.  All of the Union armies congregated in Washington, D.C. for a Grand Review after the war was over.  D.C. is relatively close to Prince William County so I thought that perhaps John Rice had made a detour before he traveled home. Apparently not.  Apparently he waited 20 years to get around to it.  Which means that my John Rice and Amos Benson actors, who did a very wonderful job and who are both college age, should have been middle aged men.  The lesson I have learned is that if I don’t know a date for sure, I shouldn’t use one.

So, the battle becomes do I give in to the historian side and refilm the whole scene with men who look the appropriate age, or, do I just change the voice over and say “After the war” and leave the footage, which does still portray the general story? 

I am going to be giving this topic more thought but right now I think it will be determined by whether I can realistically dedicate any more time to that scene when I do still have two other segments to worry about.

In other general news, I have been able to set some dates for filming a couple of interviews in July.  I am also looking forward to being able to film an event that is taking place out at the Ben Lomond site on July 18^th.  In the works is a possible trip up to Pennsylvania on July 5^th to film some of the Gettysburg reenactment that is happening there. This would be my first real endeavor into witnessing a large organized reenactment…we’ll see how it goes.

 Here are some pictures I took during a recent trip to scout the Bristoe Station Battlefield location:

Field at Bristoe Station :I was excited to find that the elements of nature on the battfield are not noticabley landscaped…I forsee some great shots of soldiers running through the high grass…

Hill at Bristoe :This is the hill where McIntosh’s guns were located and subsequently captured, if I can aquire an actual gun that is where the scene will be depicted, if not then maybe I’ll just have to pretend that Petersburg = this hill.

A lovely pond :Perhaps supplied some drinking water to passing soldiers…

Lamb’s Ear : …aka Civil War soldier’s toilet paper.  The question of what Civil War soldiers used for this purpose was raised in my Civil War Era class this past semester so since I knew the alternate use of this plant with soft fuzzy leaves I was excited to find it growing naturally on a battlefield.  Too much info?  Maybe…

Luckily for me it happened to be a wonderful, picturesque day so maybe some of these will become film stills?!  You saw it here first my friends, a special sneak peak.

Back to the drawing board

Ok…well…..it’s been awhile and so much has happened.

Big news breakdown:

-         The semester is over

-         I got a summer research grant to work on my project (which is now definitely my Honors Thesis)

-         I burned the first DVD copies of the Brentsville segment

-         I am now pressing on with research etc. for the other two segments

In other news I had my wisdom teeth out.  Not a pleasant experience.  Hopefully no wisdom was lost.

To back up to where I left off, (all the way back at spring break…wow) much of that break was spent scrambling to get everything ready for filming.  And by get things ready I also mean find reenactors.  Luckily things came together beautifully.  I was able to get a really great, historically authentic, and knowledgeable group of people together for filming.  The weather wasn’t the best but overall the day went as well as can be expected.  Trying to be director, lighting, sound, camera person, and caterer all in one day was exhausting…but worth it (although help on the next might be nice). 

Once back at school I started going through the footage and most of it looked really good.  I had a few shots where there was the stereotypical boom mic in corner and of course some footage I didn’t use but I was please with most of it.  The remainder of the semester was spent editing.  Unfortunately, I had to drop one of the interviews I had filmed because the sound quality was just too distracting.  I learned a lot about sound filters but I also learned that they certainly can’t fix everything.  

I did end up doing one more day of filming down in Williamsburg, at Freedom Park which has some log cabins, to recreate the second half of the Amos Benson story.  After I loaded those clips the rest of the editing was mainly recording voice over, find more still images and putting in music.  I ended up using music solely from the Library of Congress web page and I think it worked fairly well.  The only problem is that there are still some changes I would like to go back and make to the Brentsville segment and I hope I can find enough music to accommodate the added length.  I also am going to have to seek other options because I don’t want to repeat the same music in the other two segments. 

Well that is a really condensed version of what it took to get the Brentsville segment finished, or at least to where it is now.  Part of the reason that I would like to make a few more changes is because I think the pace is a little bit too fast.  Since currently my goal is to have this be an educational film I may need to cover the key information a bit slower.  I also am thinking about including more text, such as titles under the pictures of relevant people, like Amos Benson. I think I could also take out some of the images so that I can spend more time on the ones I have in there. 

Right now I am in the planning and research phase for the other two segments.  Luckily I did a lot of research on Ben Lomond over last winter break and already have a rough narrative.  So for that one I need to plan out what images I am going to pair with each section, including what scenes I want reenacted.  I also may need to reshoot the interview with the site manger since the one I did before was not very good quality. Some of the issues I had with the film I shot last semester could be fixed in postproduction but now that I know more about lighting and framing it might be best to re-film the whole interview.

I have a couple of good character stories for the Ben Lomond narrative.  The only extra information that I might include/research would be medical practices of the time.  I know there is the good museum in Maryland on that topic so that might be worth a trip.  I also might want to do some basic research on the other houses that were used as field hospitals in the area.  Some, I believe are also still standing but I am not sure what they look like now.

For my other segment I had originally thought I was going to do it on the town of Occoquan since it was a Union stronghold during the war.  Unfortunately, after visiting the town, a film shoot there would be very difficult.  It has become very commercial and while some of the facades look period, they are so cluttered with random boutique and restaurant signs it would be difficult to work around.  I might put Occoquan on the back burner for a later documentary.  I think the town would lend itself to a more “history happened here, and this is what it looks like now” style.  But this would seem out of place with my other pieces since I plan on using preserved or restored historic sites.  I still plan on including some of the relevant information on Occoquan, but there doesn’t seem to be enough for a whole segment.

So, with Occoquan no longer an option for the third segment I began to look at other Prince William County Civil War sites. Although I am not really a military history enthusiast top of the list currently is Bristoe Station Battlefield.  This was a minor battle in which the Confederate forces attempted to ambush Union forced but suffered massive casualties. I am still researching and trying to find some good specific stories or quotes I can use so that it’s not just a play by play of the battle. So far it seems that this battle has been largely ignored, both in print and in film.  While it is exciting to possibly be the first to focus on this topic, I am not sure whether I will have enough information and be able to depict it in conjunction with the style I want.  If not, I am considering covering some information on the naval blockade.  Or perhaps somehow connecting it to the Occoquan information.  Or something completely different.  Who knows. 

Stay tuned… =)

Well I think it’s safe to say that this semester has gone by the fastest yet, perhaps the 17 credits I’m taking has something to do with it.

I’ve been doing a lot of work with my project recently and have run into some setback as well as some great finds. In speaking with my advisor I have decided to narrow my focus on my project for this semester to deal solely with Brentsville. I hope to continue this project next year as a Senior Honors thesis (the application for which is one of the many things currently on my to-do list) so I will include the Ben Lomond story then. In theory this makes the project more manageable but I still feel like I will have a difficult time keeping the project under 7 minutes or so.  Especially now that I have been going back through the two interviews I have, I am finding that there is not only large parts of those that I would like to include but also additional information that I would like covered by a narrator.

My general process up to this point has been as follows:  Over break I typed up a historical narrative of the information that I would like my film to cover.  I have gone back and typed up transcripts of the two interviews I did over break and now I am comparing the text of all three to see what the interviews cover and what I would still like to add in addition.  The major component that neither of the interviews covered, but that I feel is of the utmost importance in giving my film an emotional side is the Amos Benson story (see previous post “Waiting for replies”).  I decided to include it this semester even though I may return to it next year as well.  I also am trying to decide whether to present the story all at once or break it into two sections and use it to ties the whole film together.  More to come on that thought process.

One of the things that I was really worried about for my film was having a decent soundtrack. Although I will still probably try to talk to people in the film scoring class, I was really excited to find that the Library of Congress section on American Memory has audio files.  I still need to double check on copyright but there were some great band and vocal pieces that were actually recorded with period instruments. From what I read on the website, since it was commissioned by a U.S. government agency it is not under copyright. Hopefully it is true because some of the pieces I listened to could definitely work. 

As far as actual editing, I have all of my clips logged and have been dividing things into different sequences.  I still need to go back and look through more American Memory photos on the Library of Congress web page because to back up the narration that I want I will need a lot more stills.

This week is Spring Break and I will be going back to Northern Virginia tomorrow.  I have been in contact with some reenacting groups and I am still waiting to hear back from more people but I hope to be able to film the scene of the men enlisting at the courthouse on Saturday.

I also have another opportunity later in April to do some more filming.  The 49^th VA Infantry is going to be doing a reenactment actually at Brentsville.  Unfortunately, I also have my Conference Track Championship the same day.  But since the event is going until 10 p.m. it sounds like some of the men will be camping at the site over night. This would be a great opportunity for me to film some camp life shots, as well as possibly have people stay and so some filming on Sunday morning.  My only concern with this is that I would have less than two weeks after filming to work it into the final product. 

So now I’m going to be working on a more detailed storyboard, getting the details lined up for filming on Saturday and once everyone else is back on campus next week try to get in contact with some voice actors and possibly some composers.

Well I’m not sure how it is already February but time flies once classes start.

To go back to the end of break.  I was able to do two interviews before I had to head back to school.  I interviewed Pamela Sackett who has done a lot with the Friends group that was associated with Brentsville and Rob Orrison who is the current site manager at the Brentsville Historic site. I did both interviews in one day as well as stop by Ben Lomond to get some general outside shots.  It was quite a busy day and I wish it had been a bit warmer but over all I think it went alright.

I had checked out all of the equipment the night before and gotten batteries for everything but for some reason when I was interviewing Mrs. Sackett the lapel mic seemed unually loud through my head phones.  I did not have any problems with it when I interviewed Mr. Born out at Ben Lomond.  I was much closer and in a smaller space so this may have accounted for the difference. I finally ended up putting the mic on a chair in front of her instead of having her wear it. The sound quality seemed to be better than using just the on camera mic but I hope it turns out ok when I upload the film. 

I had the lighting kit with me and I am getting much better and faster about setting it up by myself.  There were plenty of outlets and it was an office so the light was relatively easy to control.  She had a very large American flag hanging in her office so that served for a great backdrop. She also had some pictures of soldiers that I had not discovered in my personal research so I was able to get some shots of those as well.

After that I went to Ben Lomond to get some shots outside of the building itself.  This was slightly difficult because it was winter there was little vegetation to shield the development and modern buildings. There is also a recent addition to the house with holds the gift shop/bookstore for the site but it visibly does not match the period of house so I tried to exclude that from shots as well.

My final stop for the day was Brentsville where I set up the interview with Rob Orrison in the Courthouse.  I debated about whether to do it actually in the main room of the Courthouse or one of the smaller upstairs room or in a different building entirely such as Mr. Orrison’s office.  I decided on the main court room because I hope to film a small reenactment in there and I think seeing the space used in different ways would be interesting for the viewer.  I also think it is a bit more of a non traditional space for an interview and I know I personally get bored with the same bookshelf backdrop in documentaries.  All in all the space was a little bit difficult to work with.  The courtroom has very large windows and only a few outlets but I decided to film Rob with his back to the main courtroom (so the magistrates’ bench was on the far wall) and in the section where the ceiling was lower so I could control the light better. Once we started I had the same problem of the lapel mic being too loud even after I tried to adjust it so I again set the mic in front of him but out of the frame. 

During both interviews I was excited when I could picture how things they were saying would fit with images I already have or how I could cross cut the two interviews.

I am still grappling with what is feasible to accomplish in one semester.  I would rather do one thing well than do two only decently.  I will see how the next few weeks go but I may end up concentrating on just doing a documentary on Brentsville this semester and hopefully include the work and research I have already done on Ben Lomond in a future project.  

As far as my current plan of action I will be in the library this weekend loading the footage I took during break and possibly doing some storyboarding to see where the still images I have can line up with the interviews or what I want to use for voice-overs.  More long term goals are to try to get in contact with some professors at the Law School to talk to them about copyright issues, ask around or poster flyers to get some voice actors to read narration and be persistent with the reenacting groups as I would like to set up a couple of things to film during Spring Break.

Over the past week I have been continuing my research which has resulted in draft forms of historical narratives for both Brentsville and Ben Lomond. 

Friday, Jan 2, I went back out to Manassas and met with Mr. Burgess, who is a NPS employee there.  He showed me to their upstairs research room.  He looked through the information they had on file there and we found a picture of Amos Benson who was a member of the 4th VA Cavalry.  This was exciting as it was the first image of someone who was from the area and a part of what I am covering in the documentary.  I spent a few hours there and found some other good pictures which Mr. Burgess has since emailed to me. I considered just filming them but I figured it would be better quality if I had a digital image and could just import it into FinalCut. After researching I went back out onto the battlefield and got some great sunset shots of the Jackson statue and of the cannon. Once I was finished there I headed over to the Bull Run library to pick up a book I had reserved.  The book, I thought, was a diary of Horatio Nelson who was also a member of 4th Va Cav. Co. A.  It turned out to be more of a narrative analysis of his diary and had few actual quotes from him. A good short read but not exactly what I was looking for.

At the beginning of this week I had emailed a couple people to try to set up interviews as well as some reenactors to try to organize a reenactment that I could film this weekend.  As of now I have had some luck setting up interviews, people have been open to them but I am having a difficult time pinning them down about when I can actually film them.  I have one scheduled for Monday the 12th but since I will be returning to campus the 15th I am running out of time.  Hopefully I will be able to get two others lined up for next week.

The biggest disappointment so far has been not being able to film a reenactment at either of the sites. I was hoping to get at least one done while I was home on break, but since that has not happened I am looking ahead to the end of the month and am planning on being back in the area the weekend of Jan 31/Feb1.  I supposed I should have expected reenactors, people who live in the past, not to check their email very often but unfortunately this is the only contact information I have for them.

The best thing that happened this week was my stumbling upon a story about Amos Benson, the first soldier I was able to get a picture for. In one of the files at Bull Run library I found this amazing story about how he and his wife took care of a Union soldier, John Rice, after the First Battle of Manassas (Benson was not enlisted yet) and after the war Rice came back and asked if there was anything he could do to repay them.  The Bensons did not want anything for themselves but asked that he donate some money to help repair their church (Sudley Church, which interestingly was used as a Union field hospital during the war).  Rice went home to Massachusetts and wrote his story in the local paper and asked for donations.  Rice was able to send more than enough money to repair the church.   I thought this was an amazing story.  I photocopied it and wrote down the authors address that was listed.  I plan on contacting him to see if he has any documentation on the story as well as if I can use it in the film.  The story could fit into my Ben Lomond narrative but I might wait and make it a separate piece that I could tackle next year.  We’ll see.

Today I am going to set up the wireless microphone set and make sure everything is working properly for Monday and then just wait for email replies…