A First Brush with Moviemaking!
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Here at Chicago magazine, we're trying something new. Consider it a little "experiment," if you will. We've decided to take a traditional story—a profile of the supercool DJ Colette, by the music writer Mark Guarino—and turn it into a short documentary film. Five years ago, this wasn't the business of magazines. But today, magazines have two audiences: one for the print version, and one of for the Web. And for you Web folks, every sort of storytelling device—from podcasts to short films to blogs—is fair game.
Our first foray into film probably wouldn't have happened if it weren't for two Ph. D. film students, E. Joong-eun "Ernie" Park and Michael Graziano. These guys are used to brainy side of film: Ernie's dissertation research is on the aesthetics of "time-being" in the films of Yasujiro Ozu. Mike's is on the historical, cultural, and theoretical implications of media technology. A mouthful, I know. But as you can imagine, studying film all the time leaves them a little, well, dry. So they keep the creative inkwell inky by doing documentaries on the side, under the name Uji Films.
For our first project together, they hung out for three days with DJ Colette, a bicoastal house DJ (and aspiring pop diva) whom we profiled in my arts and culture section in December. They tagged along to the magazine's photo shoot, hung out with Colette at Smart Bar, and even went with her to the hairdresser. The resulting seven-and-a-half minute film is a quirky and touching day-in-the-life of a woman who spends much of her time on the road, entertaining the hipsters at night and trying to maintain a normal life (husband, laundry) in the day. I absolutely love how you see her moving around, doing her thing, even dropping her husband's iPhone.
What do you think about our first real foray into video? We want to know, so we can figure out whether to do it again. Post your comments below. And to see the Uji guys' other work, go to their Web site. Ernie's next project, American Mythology, about a struggling musician, is going to be airing soon on the Documentary Channel.
Photograph: Katrina Wittkamp
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Coda is a blog by arts and culture editor Cassie Walker, who, love it or hate it, always has an opinion. During the course of her weekly culture hunting, she reviews high art and pop culture events so you'll know what you need to check out and what you can miss.
Comments to this blog are moderated. We review them in an effort to remove foul language, commercial messages, and irrelevancies.
Reader Comments:
Awesome! Simply, awesome. Keep them coming.
I think it's a good idea.
However, the mainstream doesn't really know what house music is. I would have liked to learn how and why this music is so important to Colette. What is it's allure?
I think there could have been more focus on Colette and her art. People obviously appreciate her for what she does but you couldn't really grab that from this film.
Quite literally, this is the greatest thing I have ever seen.
TOO LONG. Nobody watches videos longer than two, maybe three minutes online. And why are we supposed to care about this woman? The piece lacks context. Even something as simple as "Colette has DJed here, here, and here, and URB calls her XYZ" would matter. Instead, it was a sob story about a girl whose parents sold their Lincoln Park home (and probably cleaned up nicely). Too long, not informative enough. I dropped out in the third minute.
certainly not "the greatest thing" (sarcasm, i assume), and maybe needs more context - although how can someone who "dropped out in the third minute" give a summary of the piece, funny. i'm glad you guys are trying to offer something in this realm, and something a bit different. but no one is mentioning the solid piece of writing by guarino (a trademark of your magazine). in 5 paragraphs, guarino delivers a succinct and informative piece on dj colette, which, now that i'm thinking about it, the video compliments. okay, enough said, keep up the good work, cassie. i love coda (someone who covers art sans snobbery) - and especially loved your notes from paris :) -jma
Educate yourself!
www.spiritlessons.com
www.prophecies.org
Great idea. Love the short on DJ C. How often will you be doing these pieces?