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i've been taking pictures and video of wrestling in my hometown for a couple years now. made this video of last month's show (make sure you stick around for the last third or so, woman in the audience gets Real Mad):
http://vimeo.com/10835033
shot with the 7D.
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you can check out some pictures here (http://danielchasepeach.com/wrestling1.html) and here (http://danielchasepeach.com/wrestling2.html). also got this video i shot last year with the GL2, so i hate how it looks, but you can check it out if'n you want to here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49KO7eH7l04&feature=player_embedded).
Looks great.
Most pro-wrestling fans are just a different breed of people.
I attribute it to incest and moonshine.
Seriously, that's the best wrestling short film I have ever seen. You get the environment just right and mix in all the insane elements with the sincere emotion which comes off as jaded to the everyday person but that animosity is there at wrestling shows. If you don't mind, I'm going to send it to my best friend. He's a writer at wrestleview.com, the most popular wrestling website on the net. If he digs it as much as I did, I'm sure he would show it around his crew there and it could start to circulate around.
I don't like wrestling, but I love ILaM's photography, and this is some amazing stuff.
Quote from: I Love a Magician on April 11, 2010, 03:02:10 PM
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It makes me sad to the deepest part of my soul that this little girl has an 80% chance of growing up to be this woman.
Quote from: polkablues on April 11, 2010, 03:54:37 PM
It makes me sad to the deepest part of my soul that this little girl has an 80% chance of growing up to be this woman.
I don't see anything wrong with the woman.
thanks, y'all. i put a lot of work into editing this together so i really appreciate it. this is the first thing i've shot with the 7D, so i was kind of making it up as i went along. i'm shooting a short with my girlfriend next weekend with the same camera. anyone got any tips?
Quote from: Gold Trumpet on April 11, 2010, 03:42:57 PM
If you don't mind, I'm going to send it to my best friend. He's a writer at wrestleview.com, the most popular wrestling website on the net. If he digs it as much as I did, I'm sure he would show it around his crew there and it could start to circulate around.
that would be awesome, thanks.
Quote from: Gold Trumpet on April 11, 2010, 04:14:42 PM
Quote from: polkablues on April 11, 2010, 03:54:37 PM
It makes me sad to the deepest part of my soul that this little girl has an 80% chance of growing up to be this woman.
I don't see anything wrong with the woman.
I respectfully disagree.
This is insanely good. I wish it was a full length doc. I hope you will tell us if you do more because I am very interested in seeing what you do.
g'job. is the audio just the in-camera mic?
i don't know much about audio so i just used a "Rhodes SVM Camera Mic"
http://www.tvcnashville.com/images/pic-RhodesSVMCameraMic.jpg
just put'er on the hotshoe and go. my girlfriend hates it.
You did a great job with the 7D. Your experience with photography helps a lot, I'm sure. A lot of people fall too much in love with the shallow depth of field, creating videos that I can only call "occasionally in focus." You've got a great instinct for how much depth of field to work with (and you keep it in focus). And as always, your compositions are lovely.
The audio setup that you have seems like a good solution for this sort of thing. If you're going to shoot a narrative and you have the option to go with a boom mic, that would work better. It will capture the dialogue more cleanly, making it easier to edit and will give you the best final audio.
I'm watching it again (for the 4th time I think now :shock:) this morning and I'm fascinated. Whenever the "Real Mad" woman gets on the screen I find myself watching her every move, she is mesmerizing. Her son looks spaced out. Her daughter is the magic touch. It's easy to imagine all kinds of stories about them.
Quote from: Gold Trumpet on April 11, 2010, 04:14:42 PM
Quote from: polkablues on April 11, 2010, 03:54:37 PM
It makes me sad to the deepest part of my soul that this little girl has an 80% chance of growing up to be this woman.
I don't see anything wrong with the woman.
maybe that she thinks it's real? and that this makes her full of rage? that she's holding a tiny child and hurling obscenities (probably more than we actually get to see) at a piece of "family" entertainment? that the child clearly is more interested in the camera than the proceedings on stage, which she no doubt gets dragged to week after week?
basically I Love a Magician has made something really brilliant. i'm not saying it's a great film or even a great short, it's not a conventional piece of narrative, what did u call this again, a trailer or something? it actually has a Frederick Wiseman feel, it's simply immersive, it doesn't offer much of a view point other than trying to give a glimpse of as many facets of this one event which remains unglorified despite the attention and effort drawn on it.
ILAM you were always one of the talented ppl here, i'm really happy to see your work again after you stopped uploading your pics, it was clear you had a good eye for composition but i considered that secondary to the real talent in your pictures which was an eye for characters. if there is forced drama somewhere in these images it goes unnoticed, everything feels natural no doubt a result of your own immersion in the world of these ppl for 2 years as you state.
i couldn't do what you do, i am too judgmental. i can't look at that little girl and not think what Polkablues said. but that's just our impression and certainly not the clear intention of the artist. GT proves the balance that you managed to achieve by seeing that shot from the point of view of the crazy lady, where i see the girl and can only think "why is she there?" her little eyes bring a small redemption by focussing on the camera, she doesn't yet have any will of her own and as she sits there in her crazy grandmother's lap she accepts her surroundings without question and naturally hones in on the one element that is mostly foreign to that environment.. she's accepting you, us, everything. and yet i can't help noticing the old lady every time, and judging her.
upon second viewing the foreshadowing of the opening shots is clear. the speech announces the drama onstage as well as the rift between the way each member of the featured family views the events. the conclusion that everything falls apart plays in the background as a natural line in the narrative of the stage but at that point the image of the child contrasted with the crazy woman takes on additional significance depending on the viewer's alliance. the division between the child and the woman is mostly made internally, they are both in focus and so it is our interests which ultimately guide the composition,. i have to believe that in a more controlled setting it would be tempting to hammer this contrast by purposely shifting focus between background and foreground, but that is the weak choice when the content is not compelling enough to make the viewer do this work himself.
i am going to stop myself before i over-interpret what i think could just as easily be seen as a cool video from a wrestling-fan perspective, but i don't like wrestling at all so i have let my mind wander.
This is great. I can't say much more than what's already been said. I really loved it.
I do wonder about the music choice. I wonder if it kind of puts the viewer into the POV of the angry woman. We've got some aggro asskicking music (Is it Fugazi or something?) during the actual match and then the more Explosions in the Sky sad music stuff playing during the final scene. At first, I thought the music may be lamenting the innocence of this poor girl, but I feel like it's really sad for the fate of the wrestlers in the artificial storyline of the match, which would suggest that we're supposed to feel for this crazy woman.
Anyway, not questioning the choice, just wondering about the intent.
Also, the footage looks great... I keep considering switching to DSLR, but I can't get over the rolling shutter and lack of real video controls. That's for a different thread though.
Quote from: RegularKarate on April 12, 2010, 01:50:50 PM
I do wonder about the music choice. I wonder if it kind of puts the viewer into the POV of the angry woman. We've got some aggro asskicking music (Is it Fugazi or something?) during the actual match and then the more Explosions in the Sky sad music stuff playing during the final scene. At first, I thought the music may be lamenting the innocence of this poor girl, but I feel like it's really sad for the fate of the wrestlers in the artificial storyline of the match, which would suggest that we're supposed to feel for this crazy woman.
Anyway, not questioning the choice, just wondering about the intent.
I like the music choice because I go to these events and even when I am in a cynical mood and only expect to laugh at everything, I still get riled up and into the mood of the environment. I act like the other fans there because I am a legitimate fan and the music sets the tempo perfectly. It's why I understand the woman, even around a child. It's how my family was with me when I was a kid.
Quote from: RegularKarate on April 12, 2010, 01:50:50 PM
I do wonder about the music choice. I wonder if it kind of puts the viewer into the POV of the angry woman. We've got some aggro asskicking music (Is it Fugazi or something?) during the actual match and then the more Explosions in the Sky sad music stuff playing during the final scene. At first, I thought the music may be lamenting the innocence of this poor girl, but I feel like it's really sad for the fate of the wrestlers in the artificial storyline of the match, which would suggest that we're supposed to feel for this crazy woman.
Anyway, not questioning the choice, just wondering about the intent.
the songs are:
comets on fire - "beneath the ice age"
the constantines - "nighttime/anytime (it's alright)" [they do sound a lot like fugazi]
the ponys - "everyday weapon"
neil young - "guitar solo #4" [from the dead man soundtrack]
(i apologize in advance, i can be sort of incomprehensible when talking about why i did this or that in projects)
i won't lie and say i put a ton of thought into the music or why i was using this certain song or whatever, because i was mostly looking for music that would put the viewer "in the moment" with the wrestling matches and give those sequences good momentum. the matches are kind of silly but you really do get wrapped up into what they're doing. it's pretty planned out of course but there's still plenty of real physicality and skill on display. it's kind of like watching something like the harlem globetrotters, you can sit there and say "what's the point of this, they're doing tricks with a basketball" but there's still a lot of talent on display even if it ultimately adds up to nothing (and, in the case of this little wrestling group, when there's a lack of talent it's still dudes going out and doing their best to put on a good show).
with the sadder music at the beginning and end i suppose i was sort of going from the woman's point of view. of course 95% of the audience knows that everything's fake and that it's just a show to go out and have a good time at, but these brothers have been the good guys here for the past 4 or 5 years and everyone loves them because they're hometown dudes. what usually happens is a bad guy will come out, talk shit about ohio county, say how we're all fat hicks with no jobs, then these brothers will come out and defend everyone's honor and everyone cheers. it's pretty simple but it works.
what got me was that this woman didn't care that the brother who turned on the other was talking shit about ohio county (pretty much saying what the bad guys before had said, "get a job, take a bath") but what she was so tore up about was the fact that he turned on his brother. i couldn't fit it in, but i have one thing when she was about to leave, she turned to me, still absurdly upset, and said something like, "when brothers turn on brothers, that's just not right." so say what you will about her family (and i can't comment on her one way or the other, but my dad knows her and said she's a pretty alright lady), but she obviously cares quite a bit about family, or at least the idea of it. i may have not made that clear enough in the video, which is a failing on my part if that doesn't come across.
p's right when he says it plays like a trailer, and that's also a failing on my part because i went out there mostly just to get some Cool Video and i didn't interview anyone or anything like that, and then this woman fell in my lap and gave it something of a heart. the next show is this coming saturday so i hope to get back home to shoot some more and get some interviews with people, at least with the woman and the brothers (who are probably very pleased that the turn worked so well, it wasn't just that woman who was upset). with the next one i just hope to make a more substantive video that's no so much crash and bang, even if i do just keep it in the area of "here's this event and here's what goes on." i don't know if i want to contextualize it too much.
I should have recognized both songs, especially the Dead Man.
Good post ILAM. The better it gets.
Look I don't want to come off as annoying about my praise for your video but I used to be a huge wrestling fan and I can't wait to see more of this lady and these local wrestling stories. It's this weird excentricity that I can't get enough of.
I hope you can get good footage saturday :)
Yes, I saw this a couple of days ago but had to leave home before posting. It is as good as everyone is saying, it looks great, it feels great, it really hooked me. I don't know what you're thinking to do with it, but you get more great footage of all this and work a little on finding a center to it and you may be working on the origins of an award winning short film, or documentary, or a combination of both, kind of like Reygadas and other filmmakers are doing, maybe even an actual expressionistic feature or something. Congratulations, it's really cool.
thanks, Alexandro.
made myself a real simple wrestling portfolio site, not a lot of new stuff on it, but i added some pictures that aren't on my regular site. check'er out:
http://danielchasepeach.com/brothers/