How We Made A New Yorker Short Documentary: With Jessie Zinn
INTRODUCTION
“That gimbal was terrible. And it was so heavy.” “Didn’t it overheat a couple of times? Cause it was also in the middle of summer and we were shooting in the northern suburbs where it gets up to like 40 degrees which is like in Fahrenheit in the 100s. And we were, like, sweating, and the gimbal was making a noise.”
If you’re watching this you may know me as the disembodied voice behind this channel, who edits these video essays made up of diagrams, shoddy photoshop work and footage from contemporary cinema. But what you may not know is that I also work as a cinematographer in the real world.
So, I thought I’d mix up the format a bit and chat to a real world director, Jessie Zinn, who I’ve shot some films for. One of those films that we shot during the height of the COVID lockdown, a short documentary called Drummies, was recently acquired by the New Yorker and is now available to view for free on their site - which I’ll link for you to check out.
Our chat will break down the process of making that short documentary - from coming up with the initial concept, hiring gear, cutting it together, to finally selling the finished film.
Also, if you want to see the full, extended podcast with Jessie, and also donate to keeping the channel going, it’ll be available on the Master tier on Patreon.
CONCEPT
Before the cameras and the lights and the calling of action, every film begins as an idea.
09:32 “I deas come through very unorthodox channels and different backends and ways of finding out about subjects and topics. I think it’s definitely worth noting that I always make films or I’m always interested in making films for me. And that’s not to say that I don’t have an audience in mind because of course I’m always very aware of who this is for ultimately; who is going to watch it. But I always approach a subject and have interest in making a film based on a subject that I’m just personally really, really interested in or feel a sense of passion towards in some sort of capacity.”
In the case of this film it was born out of seeing a photographic series by Alice Mann on the drummies or drum majorettes of Cape Town.
“Drummies is about a team of drum majorettes in Cape Town. It’s sort of like an intersection between cheerleading and marching band processions. It’s had this really interesting political history in South Africa because it was also one of the first racially integrated sports in South Africa during apartheid. And post-apartheid it’s become almost this underground cult world amongst young girls in schools. In particular in public schools. It’s both a sport where it brings a sense of community and family to them but also provides potential possibilities for upward social mobility.”
PRE-PRODUCTION
With a concept in place, Jessie then went about identifying and getting access to the potential characters that would be in the film and who we would focus on during the shooting process.
“So I actually cast for Drummies and I did that remotely because I was still in the States. So I asked their coach to send through Whatsapp videos of the girls - basically auditioning.”
From there she cut down her ‘cast’ to four or five characters who we would do the majority of our filming with. In the final edit this was later cut down to three characters.
Before bringing in any cameras, she did audio only interviews of her cast using a Zoom recorder and a lapel mic.
“People have their guard up when you first meet them. But in others, often with children, the first encounter is often sort of the least filtered. And so, I knew beforehand that there would probably be some audio soundbites and material that I could gather from those pre-interviews which maybe wouldn’t have been possible with having a whole camera setup around. Actually in the final film some of that audio and voice over is from those pre-interviews because some of it was such great material.”
When Jessie contacted me to shoot the project she passed on snippets of this material to me, so that when we met to chat about the film I already had an idea of the kind of characters that we would be photographing.
She also put together a script and a treatment which I could read through. As a cinematographer, it’s always fantastic to get this kind of thorough vision early on up front as it facilitates the discussions we have about finding a look, or overarching style, for the film.
“It’s always deliberately decided beforehand, at least with the short docs that we work on. You know, I’ll sit down with you often at a coffee shop somewhere and I’ll be like, ‘Here’s a couple of reference films and reference images.’ Then you’ll look at them and then you’ll say, ‘OK. I think this is what we can do based on these references and based on the real people.’”
In the real world, our characters were sitting around during this hot, summer vacation, unable to do much because of the covid restrictions. This led to us discussing the idea that the footage should feel dreamy, as if they were suspended in time - which is also a line that came from one of the interviews.
To visually represent this feeling we decided to shoot a lot of the non-dialogue scenes in slow motion with a heavy, worn, often malfunctioning Ronin gimbal that we managed to borrow from another Cape Town documentary filmmaker.
“This was something that we discussed beforehand. That we wanted there to be a dreamy aesthetic and in terms of the actual movement using a handheld, rough aesthetic wouldn’t have achieved that. You definitely don’t want to limit the dreams that you have in terms of aesthetics for your film but you also do need to be very practical about it and I think that’s what we often get right. We sit down and say, ‘these are the things we would like’ and then ‘this is the version of these things that is actually achievable.’
PRODUCTION
“It’s all about prep - literally. You know you’ve done your job well when you get onto set you can stand back and do very little. If you’re having to do a lot on set then you know you haven’t done a great job - basically.”
With all of Jessie’s prep, creative vision and our discussions about the film’s look coming together, I then, as the cinematographer, need to come up with a list of gear that we’ll use to bring these ideas to the screen.
When it comes to this, one of the biggest limitations is dictated by budget. Doccies are generally made with pretty limited funding, much of which is saved for post production finishing of the film. So for these kinds of projects I usually put together a gear list with two options: one, the kind of best case scenario with a full selection of the gear I’d like to rent, and two, a more stripped down list which is a bit lower cost.
A little bit of back and forth with the gear house may ensue until we come up with the best gear package that meets our budget.
For this film it meant shooting on a Sony FS7, with my four Nikon AIS prime lenses - a 24mm, 35mm, 50mm and 85mm. Although most of the film was shot on the two wider lenses. To add to this dreamy look that Jessie and I talked about I shot everything with a ¼ Black Pro Mist filter which gave the image a nice, diffused feeling.
As I mentioned we managed to get a free Ronin for the shoot - which was the old, original Ronin that was a bit tired but we managed to make it work. I also used a Sachtler Ace tripod, which some may see as being too lightweight for a camera like the FS7.
But, it’s small, easy to carry and makes finding a frame and levelling it off that much quicker. And speed in documentaries is often more important than fractionally more buttery smooth pans and tilts off a larger tripod head.
Although it hopefully does not look like it, every single interior shot in the film was lit with a combination of artificial film light sources and my most important tool: negative fill.
The lighting package I carried around consisted of a budget-friendly Dracast LED bi-colour fresnel, two 8x8 blackout textiles and a couple of C-stands to rig them with. Rigging the blackout to C-stands or hastily tying them to window frames is precisely how not to rig - but since I was working alone and had very limited time to set up each scene I had to make do.
When you’re working with a limited budget, the easiest and most cost effective way to control light isn’t by adding light, but by removing it.
As an example let's break down the changing room scene in the film.
“With that scene which would lead into the final performance because there was this theme throughout the film of being able to achieve dreams but also being held back from achieving those dreams. Because of COVID they weren’t actually able to perform and compete in all of these games and so, the changing room is of course tethered to reality. They have to get changed before any sort of performance. But they also weren’t performing at the time because of COVID restrictions and so I thought that that sort of worked.”
For that reason, I wanted to push this sequence visually about as far as we could into a dreamy state, while still maintaining a link to the real world. We took this orange, yellow palette of the changing room that we were presented with, amped up the warmth in the lighting to the max and pumped a bunch of smoke into the room to create an extra layer of diffusion.
With the help of an assistant I blacked out all the windows and doors which were letting through sunlight - except for a single window behind the characters. Outside this window I put up our LED fresnel, warmed it all the way up and I think even added a ½ CTO gel so that the colour temperature of the light went from tungsten to orange.
Again, doing most of the heavy lifting by removing light and then carefully placing a single backlight to create contrast and a more amplified visual world.
During the shoot, a technique which Jessie and myself often employed was to cordon off and light a specific space, almost like a set, then place the characters within that space and let them converse or act as they would naturally. That way you maintain naturalistic conversation and action but are able to also better sculpt the cinematography into the form which best suits the film.
POST-PRODUCTION
Once production wrapped, Jessie went about editing the film herself.
“I also often edit my films and so that is a big part of crafting a documentary. You’re not finding the story in the edit but you’re definitely chipping away at the basic model that you’ve planned. So when I’m on set I’m also shooting or directing with the edit in mind.”
“Drummies was a good exercise in learning how to trust my instinct. Basically the very first assembly that I laid down on the timeline which I had to deliver to the programme I think it was like three days after we’d shot the film. Which is insane, again. And so it was like a fever dream of staying up into the night to get this assembly done. And after that obviously I did many different versions and different edits where things changed and the structure changed. But when I looked at the final film it was actually almost identical in terms of structure to the very first assembly that I’d put down, like months ago, which also was the same as the script and the treatment.”
So again we come back to this idea of prep and how having a refined vision for the film going into the shooting process, even in a more unpredictable medium like documentary, is so valuable for a director to have.
After the completion of the music composition, sound mix and the final grade - which was based on the reference of another vibrant, colourful and slightly dreamy film - The Florida Project - Jessie is left with a completed film. But what comes after you have the final project?
“A couple of years ago people would say that the be all and end all are film festivals and that determines the success of your film. ButI don’t think that’s the case anymore because there are incredible online avenues for streaming services where you can put your film out there and it can get tons of views and potentially gain an audience that is much wider and larger than a film festival.”
‘So, Drummies did go to a few festivals but it was valuable because that’s how the film got distribution in the end. Both POV and The New Yorker showed interest because they’d seen it at a festival called Aspen Shorts Fest and they both reached out to me by email and said we’re interested in seeing the film, we’d like to have a look. And both of them basically came to me with offers within a few days and so that was the first film where I’d received pretty standard almost classical distribution interest in the film as far as broadcasters and sort of news channels are concerned. Whereas my two previous films got Vimeo Staff Picks which is, I'd say, a little bit more unorthodox and more current than those avenues.”
“People often think that if your film doesn’t get into an A-list festival then it’s the end of your film. Which is just so not true. Because the festivals that Drummies played at are I would say are probably B type of festivals. And those festivals got way more distributors interested than some of the A list festivals that I’d heard about. And so, never underestimate the space that your film is screening in is a valuable lesson that I learnt.”