Production Notes: Build

Note: In terms of editing, the time-lapse sequence will remain largely unchanged.  The proposed changes below add voiceover and a brief scene after the time-lapse has finished.  Therefore, I am not posting a revised cut of the time-lapse at this time.

The construction time lapse opens with a zooming shot of the designed structure as rendered on paper.  The consensus from our last meeting was that the action of the time-laps sequence should remain voiceover-free.  Therefore, some establishing voice work has to occur in the zooming shot of the designed structure.  We’ll want to say something like this:

“This doesn’t happen in every design studio, but for this particular course we had the opportunity to bring a design to life by building it in the field.

“This would be a group effort by the entire class.  And the spirit for such work had been forged in our first visit to the farm. 

“The class selected a single trailhead element from collective work of the class. It would be this… … … maybe Jurg has an eloquent way of describing the branch structure

“We took advantage of resources from the forest, using the branches of invasive tree species to create the structure

“We worked together and the roles of team members grew out of persons diverse set of experiences and skills.  We had plant identifiers and gatherers.  We had diggers.  We had people with enough patients to arrange thousands of twigs into a cohesive sculpture.

“The sense of reward from the teamwork of construction was the unexpected surprise of the entire studio effort.  And in a way it harkened back to some of what we had learned in studying the history of agriculture.  Before the onslaught of mechanization, the collective strength of the community was relied upon to get work done:  to get the fields plowed, the barns raised, the harvest gathered.

“We tapped into the benefits of collective effort, and maybe that is one of the most important lessons of agricultural literacy.

To end this thing, we will get a shot of our two narrators at the actual structure in Rutgers Gardens. 

What would your closing thoughts be for that scene?

Production Notes: Design

View the super-rough re-cut of this sequence at http://youtu.be/NJ10vobsP8Q, and follow along with these production notes.

The original cut of this sequence focused on four design groups working separately, and the goal was to display the work from those four designs.  We have since then re-thought the entire sequence.  It will now be based on process.  The goal will not be to distinguish among four groups; instead, it will be to communicate the general overall design process that everyone worked through. 

In focusing on process, this sequence will be organized process-based topics, as follow:

-Design Goals

-Work Sessions

            -trace

            -computer

            -model

-Presentation (mid-term)

-Revision (outdoor working scenes at farm)

-Presentations (final)

            -cool finished graphics

So, let’s explore each of those sections, and work on a script.

Scene opens with black screen and introductory titles cross-fading in and out.  A massing of voices fades in – what any single person is saying is hard to distinguish, but you can tell that it is people’s voices.

“Our first design session of the studio…

“It may seem chaotic, and to be perfectly honest, there is a certain amount of chaos you have to work through in the beginning.  The first step is just to get your ideas out, to communicate them with your fellow designers.  And in many ways the design process is about organization; refining your ideas from a state of chaos into a coherent vision. 

“You could also argue that the design process began back on the farm.  It was there that we were introduced to the place where our designs would go, and it was there that we would begin to decipher the design goals for this project.

“In a phrase, our goal in this design effort is to promote agricultural literacy.  Our job is to design a trailhead that would allow visitors to enter a system of hiking trails on the farm.  That trailhead, by design, would have to express something of the agricultural nature of the place.  To open the visitors’ eyes to some better understanding of the place they are in.

Transition into discussing the work sessions…

“We would work in groups to formulate design proposals that meet these criteria.

“One of the first steps is always to begin drawing.  To get your ideas out.  You can only refine an idea that is given some sort of expression.

Footage of people drawing and working in groups.

“Design drawing, in these initial stages, is about experimentation.  Some people are more comfortable sketching on a piece of trace paper.  (Joe or Curry sketching)

“Others prefer to draw in the computer  (Patiro on his laptop)

“And very often we’ll create models to understand an idea in three dimensions  (Johnny with the model)

“The idea is to advance your idea, your design, to refine it, to move it forward, as much as you can.  And a vital part of design advancement is to take a critical look at what you have done so far.

“So we invite people to our work sessions that can help us with that.  Our faculty members, other design and building professionals, the client… these are all people who can look at a design with fresh eyes, and offer the critique that can help the whole thing work better, or become more coherent, or perhaps more expressive.  (Footage of Holly, Bob, that science education guy, Oliver in work sessions). 

Transition into presentations (mid-term)…

“As the semester moves along, you begin presenting your work.  Formal presentations can be nerve-racking at first, but they ultimately help your design.  They force you to refine the graphical expression of your design ideas and to express your thoughts cogently in the form of a presentation.

“The presentation also opens a conversation around your work that involves your peers and the jury members who participate in the process.  Many times, questions will come up that maybe you had not even considered yet.  And understanding the way different people view your work will help you to make improvements.  (Footage of a mid-term presentation.  Try to get something where a jury question/comment is audible)

“And whatever you take away from the presentation, you have to work back into the design.  Design is an iterative process, you review your work and make changes in order to improve it. 

Transition into revisions (outdoor work sessions)…

“After our presentations, we decided to re-engage the place, and so we went back to the farm for a work session.  (Footage of outdoor work sessions)

“You can’t just go to a place once, and expect that it will not change, or that the only changes that will be made are the ones you’re proposing.  Landscape, as a medium, is ephemeral.  It had been a few weeks since our last visit to the farm, and we were beginning to see the progression of spring.

“We worked on our designs with the sun on our shoulders, and we could suddenly imagine a place much more engaged with people than that first rainy visit when we thought so much about reading the landscape of this farm. 

“And our designs moved forward, so that when the final presentation came around, we had really advanced out work.

Transition into presentations (final)

Maybe now is a good time to show some of the most engaging design graphics.  We could offer a sentence or two describing the highlights of each.  Maybe we could do this initially with our two narrators, and if time permits in the semester, we could sub-in the one-two sentence highlights recorded by the individual designers.  That might be a cool effect, to all of the sudden get these different voices talking, other than the narrators.

Anything you want to say about a particular graphic, you can post a comment on them here: https://picasaweb.google.com/perry.kev/AgLitDesignGraphis?authuser=0&feat=directlink 

“But our efforts would not end with these final designs, for the goal of our studio was to actually build that trailhead.

A Note on Scripting

As you are reading these scripts that I've put together, I apologize if they seem too "word-for-word".  I was just writing down what I was picturing.  I'm certainly not married to any of that writing, and I hope that you will feel free to express your thoughts on these subjects in your own individual way.  Your creativity is highly valued!

My effort here has been to organize things, and the scripts as posted are my organized thoughts on these topics.

Production Notes: Research

Walking through the farm with a series of vignettes, each of which describe some aspect of the research we did at the farm: NOFA research, field observation, GIS reseach, and connecting with the spirit of the place.

Please note:  I have not posted a revised video clip for this portion.  I am depending on your input to choose the most relevant topics and best images from the NOFA and GIS research before putting the time into re-editing the clip.  Please be vocal about what topics you like and find relevant to this film.

Begin with some sort of introduction that provides a rationale for us visiting the farm:

N1:  Aldo Leopold once said that “The language of any farm is the farmer’s portrait of himself.”  Our first step in learning about this farm is to meet the farmer and meet the farm. 

N2:  Interestingly, Aldo Leopold also went to school just down the street from our farm.  He was known for taking long walks in the countryside, so in all likelihood we’ll probably cross paths with a route he walked a hundred years ago. 

N1:  It turned out to be a beautiful day for a walk.  The rain clouds moved out and we had upper forties and some sun.  Comfortable, certainly, for January. 

Transition into talk about the first impressions of the farm:

“We looked around and we didn’t see crops or greenhouses or the rows and straight lines you expect to see at a farm.  Instead we saw grass, lots of grass… grass, grass, and more grass

“We confronted barriers that were foreign to us.  You simply don’t deal with electric fences in normal pedestrian life.  And when we crossed that barrier, we moved into a new place, both physically and symbolically.  We wouldn’t look at farms the same way from that point on.

Transition into talk about agriculture in general:

“So we were beginning to read the landscape at this farm.  We identified plant and animal life, took in the sounds and the scents, felt the goosh of the pasture beneath our boots.   But we wanted to increase our agricultural vocabulary and deepen the context from which we would read this landscape.

“So we spent a weekend at the NOFA conference.  That is the Northeast Organic Farmers Association and we attended their annual statewide conference, which is held in January, when farmers are spending a lot of their time indoors. 

“And we learned so much.  We were introduced to agricultural topics like...

“Agricultural history, where we learned about the Native American agricultural practices that took place here before the European invasion.

“Biodynamics, which is a … … …

“We looked at the role of a prevalent farm substance: manure.  And we began to understand and value its role in the regeneration of soil.

At this point, we’ll continue to scroll through various graphics from the NOFA presentations.  Each graphic we should have a sentence or two that relates it to the viewer. The graphics we have available are posted at: https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=perry.kev&target=ALBUM&id=5779917396337786689&authkey=Gv1sRgCMXLn6u6_4mmeg&feat=email.  We can CHOOSE exactly which ones we and to talk about in any detail, and SKIP anything that is pointless.

“We found that these studies helped us to better understand our farm.  We now understood the grass as a crop (show an awesome grass shot) which is used to feed the cows (show an awesome cow shot).  We learned how the grass ultimately becomes cheese through its engagement with the cow, and that a byproduct of that process, the whey, provides nutrition for the pigs (show awesome pig shot).

“We saw how a bounty of grass cut and saved from the summer would help to feed the cows throughout the winter (show shot of covered hay bales).  And we even saw the role of manure in action, as the tractor spread chicken manure on one of the front fields, beginning the cyclical process of enrichment which makes this whole place function

“When we saw the water move across the land, we began to think of the relationship between the farm and the greater extent of the watershed of which it is a part.  The water, as we saw it, linked the farm to its region, and so we stepped back and began to look at the farm from a regional scale. 

Officially, this is where the GIS research portion would begin:

“And we began to see the farm in a different way.  We saw it as a unit within a greater whole, and we looked for ways that the farm connected to that whole.

“We saw the stream as part of a system of streams… 

“We looked at the deciduous forests on the farm and saw them as contributors to a greater system of forests, providing a refuge for wildlife, and cooling and filtering the air we breathe.

“We looked at the role of other farms nearby and wondered about a way to connect to them by foot….

(The GIS maps available to us are posted at: https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=perry.kev&target=ALBUM&id=5779968675176421937&authkey=Gv1sRgCLCp9PnCstW6aw&feat=email  .  Any maps that you find meaningful or informative in a sentence or two can be included in the film.  What do you like?)

After the GIS, we would transition into the time-lapse sunset scene.

Officially, this is where the Sense of Place portion begins:

“And through all this research, we began to get a sense of what this farm is.  We were learning to read the ecological and agricultural signatures of the place, from the scale of the site to that of the region.

“But we also knew that the spirit of the place could not be captures in GIS data and that the feeling of the place could be sufficiently described through the lens of agricultural practices. 

“We stayed on the farm until dark that January afternoon, watching the sun descend along with the temperature.  And yet the core temperature of our group was most certainly on the rise, for we were soaking in the genius loci, the spirit of the place.  It is an exciting thing to experience a place, and that sense of excitement only increases in the presence of those who share such appreciation.  We would leave the farm that evening more unified than we had arrived, spirits high in preparation for the weeks of hard work that lay ahead.  

What are your thoughts?

Production Notes: Introduction

View a revised, though nowhere near edited version of the Introduction here:  http://youtu.be/Fd-CVPQPGuQ

Begin Introduction

On a black background with the sound of road traffic and windshield wipers, the following credits appear, cross-dissolving into and out of view.

“Rutgers School of Environemtnal and Biological Sciences”

“In association with”

“Rutgers Department of Landscape Architecture”

“present”

“Praxis Studio: Agircultural Literacy”

After the last credit, the view for Route 206 from inside the car cross-dissolves into the screen.  The car turns into the driveway at Cherry Grove Farm.  Two narrators begin to speak.

N1:  What a nice day we have for a farm visit.

N2:  Yup, all part of the studio experience!  I think it’s supposed to clear up a bit here, so by the time we start walking, maybe it won’t be so bad.  What were those questions the professor wanted to think about?”

N1:  She was saying that for this walk around the farm, we should put ourselves in the farmer’s shoes and try to relate to what we observe in that way.  The questions are how do you read the agricultural landscape?  What can we learn from a productive farm?  And what can a productive farm learn from landscape architecture? 

N2:  And isn’t there supposed to be someone from the Ecology department with us today?

N1:  Oh yes!  Dr. Ehrenfeld is walking with us. 

This style of dialogue will not work for this film.  In the lines above, the characters are supposedly engaged in the scene, present at the time the footage was shot.  All other footage and all other narration discussed for other scenes has the narrators as omniscient contributors of their amassed knowledge, reflecting on past events. 

“How do you read the agricultural landscape?

“What can we learn from a productive farm?

 

“What can a productive farm learn from landscape architecture?

“These are the questions at the heart of our agricultural literacy studio.  Over the course of a semester, thirteen landscape architecture students came together to start answering these questions through the process of design..

“We focused on a single farm in central New Jersey, and we accomplished a lot, from our initial site visits in December to the completion of the trailhead structure we built in May. 

“And we learned a lot too, in a research process that connected us with the farm and its processes, with farmers in the region at a major winter farmer conference, and with the regional scale of agriculture in central New Jersey through the use of geographic information systems.

“We worked in teams to create designs that would evoke what we learned in research.  We worked hard, through many stages of design, critique, and improvement.

“And ultimately we created something that worked.  It worked on paper, as a design for a trailhead that would welcome visitors to the farm.

“And it worked as a built structure, when our class came together as a unified construction team, bringing the trailhead design into reality.

“This film will take you through our process, from exploration to research, and from the drawing board to the built reality.

End introduction.  (Film design decision to be made at this point.  Should the introduction footage be the continuous progression of the farm as seen from the car?  Or, should the view of the farm from the car cross-dissolve into a view of our narrators as they are speaking?  …Or, narrators can appear in a frame of their own, set on top of the view of the farm from the car, like Picture-in-Picture on a television.)

What are your thoughts?  Please feel free to comment.   

Critique of the Second Cut on 08/15/2012

Back on Wednesday, August 15, we had a meeting consisting of me, ABG, Holly, and Jurg.  At that meeting we viewed the second cut of the Ag Literacy Film and discussed it critically in four parts.

The four parts are:
1. Introduction
2. Research
3. Design
4. Build

The initial notes from that meeting are included here.  You can also listen to the audio from that meeting, posted below.

Second Cut

The second version of this film was cut down by four minutes to a running time of seven minutes.  You can view that version here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt8SwvcUAZY&feature=relmfu

First Cut

The first version of this film was 11 minutes long.  You can access and view it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB4HeKyKAfE

This Blog is a Creative and Interactive Tool

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the Ag Literacy Film Blog!

We'll use this as a creative space to improve the Ag Literacy Film.  My goal here is to clearly communicate to you the running design of this film so that you can efficiently provide me with your valued input and insight.

This blog will be linked to various cuts of the Ag Literacy film on YouTube, as well as JPEG files on Picasa.  If you have trouble accessing anything I link to, please let me know.

I believe this will be a good tool for us to use because I can post something and you can respond directly to the subject being addressed in that post.  And of course, the goal here is to make progress during times when we are not able to meet.  So if you feel that our discussion has exceeded the usability of this tool, we'll just scrap it and have a meeting.

Also, if you don't feel like commenting, feel free not to.  At the very least, this blog can inform you of this ongoing process, so that when we do meet, maybe you've had a chance to think about what you would want to say.

Sound good?