18th day report - end of the first step

Report
15 november 2006

Last day of the workshop!
Today first step of zaLab TV gets to an end.
Next step will be three months of video production both in Palestine and in Tunisia.
In order to have second step fully organized, today we wrote the two dreams left, The Other and Religion. Here is the development of the two ideas:


The others
We choose Riad and his wife story in order to speak about the others because this story shows the relationship between a young man, with Palestinian culture, and a young girl, with Israelian culture. Their story shows the relationship between these two different ways of life and how they converged in a family.

Characters:
Riad is a Palestinian man born in Jerusalem.
When he was young he used to go to work in Shoresh, near Tel Aviv.
There, one day, in a LunaPark, his head knocked on a wall and he fainted.
A young girl helped him and he felt in love with her.
They had to struggle for their love.
Now they live togheter in Katanna, north Jerusalem.
His wife was a Jew born in Russian.
When she was young she travelled with her family to an Israeli settlement, near Tel Aviv.
There she met her husband, Riad. Since she decided to marry him she became Muslim against her family and all the society will.

Synopsis
When she was young, and she was still in Russia, she had a dream:
an arabic man with a white horse, came and ask her to become his wife.
This his the beginning of our interview.
In the interview we want to ask them how they met, and where.
The reaction the two families and the societies had when they decided to get married.
And how they get to build this peaceful family.

Language
The idea is to show how these two persons, coming from different cultures and religions now are an happy family.
In the main scene the two of them will be shooted togheter.
Particulars of their house will also give us an idea of the place where they live.
We are gonna use two cameras, on trypod.
The first will give us the idea of the family, with the two of them and , if possible, their son.
The second camera, on their side, will shoot just one or the other, while they will be speaking.
After the interview we will shoot them while they are inside their house, doing something or just listening, and we will also ask them to show us some photographs of their life, in orther to shoot them.
We will shoot also particular aspect of their house, in order to show different aspect of their culture.


Religion's dream

Navi Samuel is a small Palestinian village in north-east of Jerusalem surrounded by Israelian settlements. Here there is a holy place splited into two parts: one mosque for Muslim, one church for Jewsh. All around this place there is barbed wire and soldiers at the entrance. Every person that want to go inside has to pass a controll.
We want to make people aware of this situation, similar to many others alla round Palestine.
Make them wonder: "why all this?!".

Synopsis
The film is an observative documentary. Holy images and images of the conflict mixed togheter. The minareto vs the wall, Koran engraving vs the barbed wire. Soldiers at the entrance don't let people in. The contrast between sacrality and war becomes more and more incisive. Stiff and absurd situation.

17th day report: the Other's writing

November 14, 2006

This morning we edited a second version of Mariam, the War dream.
According to the suggestion of ZalabTv Barcellona we kept all Mariam's speach, but instead of seeing her while she speaks, we see her land with her.
We think this version works better than the first one.
Even if it's an interview, this editing way leaves more room to a dreamy dimension.

In the afternoon we started to edit the Sea Fiction.

Then, we discussed about the subject: the Others.
Due to the situation, Palestinians, when they discuss about "the others", usually mean people living really close to them - and really far ideed: the Israelis.
People that share the same land, but with whom they do not talk, because of the conflict.
The idea that came out for this dream is to tell the love story between a Palestinian and an Israelian. Man and woman that, against societies and the families will, got married.

For whatì about the Religion dream, they decided to tell us the story of Nave Samuel, a small village near Biddu, where there is a holy place that is a mosque and a church in the same time.
All around this place there are soldiers, and barbed wire.
Through a work mainly based on observation, we would like to show the strong contrast between the sacrality of the place and the presence of weapons.

When everybody got to the center, we discussed about what we are doing, what we have done and what we still have to do.

We set up a timetable, in order to have all six main projects ready before the second half of January.

That leaves time to the guys to develope some ideas they came out with during the discussions, but that we couldn't work on.
About the War subject we decided to develope another film about different uses of the wall.
For what's about the Time, the guys want to carry on with the interview's idea: "If you have just one hour left to live, what would you do?!"
For the dream The Others we suggested that it can be interesting trying to work on people abroad, but that are part of our same project.


Today last day, hope the eletricity is not gonna run off this evening too!

16th day report: the other writing

report of November 13, 2006
Today we wrote the arabic and english version of the Love subject thet we developed yesterday.
The subject, with some notes marked in italic in order to give you some explanations, is linked with today's report.

After that we talked about the things we still have to do from the day we leave up to march.
Before we leave we have to write all the subjects we still have to work on.
About the timetable we are gonna talk tomorrow: we agreed a group meeting at 4 o'clock.

After that Sara gave them the right coordinates in order that they can export and compress in the right way each movie. In the morning and first afteernoon the only guys in the laboratory were Khaled and Abdulla.
When Ahmad, Hazem and Mohamed Gaze came we talked about the subject The Others (also related with love subject) .
The Others will be an interview of a man and a woman, a palestinian and an israelian, that fell in love 10 years ago and fought with their families and with the society in order to coronate their dream: to get married and became a family.
In the interview the idea is to begin with a dream she had when she was young: an arabic person coming on a white horse to pick her up and marry her.
Then she talks about how they met in Tel Aviv and she decided to follow him in Qatanna (Palestine) and become Muslim. Only in this way they could get married.
The reaction of theirs families and their societies.
Their marriage and their present happy life, with a newborn son.
We discussed about the language of our interview, what is important to show, to say, and in which way. We are thinking to shoot with two cameras on trypod, in order to give the idea of an happy family, how they are now.
For tomorrow this subject will be developed and the treatment written.
At the end we started to put ideas for the Religion subject.
Yesterday an idea was already present, but at the end they discovered that the man they thought about was not as they had imagined him.
So we still have to think and develope this subject!

And, at the end, surprise!!!
Mariam, the war movie, is now finished!!!.
We exported and compressed it.
Inshallah it will be sended for this evening!!

15th day report: love writing

Today in the morning we discussed on dream of love, starting whit Khaled.
First we did some general consideration on the subject:
delicate argoment
love means lot of different things: love between mother and child, love of a man for his job,...
differences between love in television and love in the real life
differences between love in the town (Ramallah) and in the village (Biddu)

we had 5 ideas:

DOLLARS: it is about boys going at the female college to watch girls going out. We called it "dollars" because of the green scool dress.

AHMAD'S NOVEL: he is a writer who wrote a love novel, when he published it, the people of the village considered him a sovversive and forbid him to enter in the village. The idea is to shot him while he is reading a part of the book, he close it and he says that the book has been forbidden in Palestine.

LOVE STORY: a boy and a girl in love need to meet each other in Ramallah to avoid problems whit the conservative Biddu comunity of Biddu.

INTERNET LOVE: A boy print a photo of a girl found in internet, he gets in love whit this image and pretend to have a relation (singing songs to her, drawing his picture,...)

Finally we decided to make the Love story one.

Ahmad, Mohamed and Khaled discussed about how to write the SYNOPSIS (what is that, how to write it) and also some elements of screenplaying (storyboarding, continuity). We arrived to discuss how to shoot the film.

This is the synopsis:

The two characters exit from them houses in Biddu at the same time, but separately. They go trough the same streets, they jump in the same bus service and they sit separetely. She just gets a quick look to him. They jump out from the bus separetely, in the caos of Ramallah. He follows her from the distance, like a spy, zooming in trough the caos of the center. They walk almost in a hurry, in a tense atmosphere.

Now he waits in front of a restaurant, she appairs from the right. She stops. The street is desertic. No one around. Calm situation. He watches around to be sure no one is looking. She looks no worried anymore, but suddenly relaxed and happy. She achieves him, he is now also happy. Their hands calmly meet and hold going inside the resturant.

Bethlehem Bloggers: Voices from the Bethlehem Ghetto

Bethlehem Bloggers: Voices from the Bethlehem Ghetto

14th day report: Arafat anniversary

Today for the Palestinian guys has been a really important day: 2 years from Arafat death
We all went in Ramallah for a great manifestation, where people from all the area meet, in order to celebrate this event.

Kaled for his television network, and other guys from the centre with cameras, shoot and took photographs of all the event.
We went with them, but just as assistants of the troupe.
All the work has been organize from the guys themselves, and we were all really happy for this, because this means that they are really getting into the video production work, and with or without us they are gonna try to do a great job!

Tomorrow, anyway, we'll carry on with the zalab tv project, so more news for tomorrow.

13th day report: sea/do shootings

November 10 2006, Fiction day!
We met at 8 o'clock, and, quite misteriously, everyone has been on time!!!!
At 9 o'clock we start shooting at basel house for the first, the second and the third part of the shooting.
We had many spectators (all Basel and Sultan and Ahmad's family, with tea, chocolats and coke!)
You can see here the street outside basel's house, and the stairs getting to his parent's house.

The shooting went really well, and every characters (who were Abdallah, Hazen, Ahmad and Mohammed Gaze) get really deep into theirs part.
In the afternoon we did the cameracar shooting, thanks to the help and the car of sultan's brother, and we shoot the last scene in the sea location, as you can see in the two photos.

Around five o'clock all the shooting was finished, even if Khaled, our cameraman, was still shooting the landscape and the sunset!


Sara stayed in the centre all the day long trying to solve some computer problems
that can slow down our editing work,and she prepared a really good pasta for everyone, really really hungry after all the shooting day!

So, now, lets go to eat, and see all of you tomorrow!

12th day report: time/do shootings

REPORT of the 9th of november
Time dream day
This morning the sun was with us and we went to shoot the dream of the
time (observative documentary).

This is our dream:
In the morning the square of Biddu is full of people: there is someone
that is working, someone who is going to school, some cars running, friends
chatting, and people waiting for the time to pass.
Many services wait to go to Ramallah.
Ahmad is going there to get to the University.

He spend lots of time just waiting for the service (collective taxi) to be full.
In fact, it leaves only when is full.
After the first cigarette, Ahmad lights the second one sitting in the service.
He hopes to leave Biddu.
He waits with an old man, a young mother and her son; many other people come and go.
While the driver is waiting for the service to be full, he talks with his friends waiting.
Finally Achmad doesn't want to wait anymore.
He leaves the service and walks away.


Happy for the shooting, after a break with bread and zatar (a very nice herb), we finish the editing of mariam (the war tell).
Now we just have to find a really good translator in order to write the subtitles!



If there will be some time left,we will watch today's shooting.
And tomorrow, inshallah, it will be the fiction day!

11th day report: time/do writing

8 nov 2006

In the morning, with Kahled, we continued the editing of war/tell (mariam interview)
In the afternoon we finished to discuss about distribution, trying to understand why our first film, "Under the same roof", was so successful abroad (winner at Pievecortoconcorso, selected al SolELuna film festival in Palermo, Inventario in Zaragoza, Spain e SoloParaCortos, Barcelona, Spain), but impossible to screen in Palestine, and our third film, "the pain of memory", is so good for screening in Palestine.

After that we discuss about the importance of the writing: this is the only way we can really understand the work we are doing, and can make us and the tunisian group understand what we are working on.
We agreed that before the end of the laboratory, all the dreams, already done or the ones we still have to work on, will be written.

We focalized on Time/do (documentary about the waiting in order to take a bus): while simone and mohamed went to the service area in order to take some picture of the location, we decided the shooting way and the structure of the dream.
Tomorrow morning we will go and shoot it.

10th day report: war/tell editing

Wonderful sunny day in Palestine. The youth center is still missing water due to a little israeli curfew. We've still something from the reserve tanks we've charghed yesterday, so we can drink tea and coffee and we could clean the center. We never told you about one of the guy of the Video Unit, Achmad Hasen (the photographer of our first film, "Under the same roof"), who missed this workshop. That's because he's now in Israeli jail. He happened to pass in the city center of Biddu one day in which israeli army was inside and kids were throwing stones. After, he was blocked at a checkpoint while going to Ramallah, and one soldier recognized him as a stone-thrower. He wasn't, but it changes nothing. Now he wait for his trial. No doubt he will be condemned. It's 6 to 18 months of jail.

Anyway.

We spent all the morning time in finalizing the rough cut of our war/tell (a re-edit of some old footage we did love but we couldn't use in our last production, "farrows, the pain of memory"). At two o'clock in the afternoon the rough cut was finished. Helas, it was canon footage captured with a panasonic, and this created some horrible audio drops. no solution outside to do final postproduction in Italy. There is debate in the center wheter to upload the film anyway or not.Tell us what you think about it.

After this, we took a bit of time to reflect together about distribution of the Video Unit work inside the community and outside. The discussion was very productive. At the end, we found out that distribution is the central step in the process. It is right now because that will make us enjoy our works, because it's a form of accreditation for the center (and have some film already screened may help for further shootings) and a way to make new people interested in video unit. In the long run, because it's the way to fulfill our goal, social change, and because it can be a form of susteanibility. So we decided to make two first screening into the center, then to make a public screening in Biddu and one other in Beit Duqqu (a very close village). Then to make screenings in schools, in the university that enroll us. Finally, to try the way to Al Kasaba (the only cinema of West Bank and East Jerusalem) and the Ministry of Culture. We're also fascined by the idea of setting up a mobile cinema for all the villages around.

Finally, we worked in postproduction of the sea-tell film, going through titling and subtitling, color correction, audio design and sound correction, exporting and compressing. It was three hard hard hours of technical improvements, but we did it. We're finishing now, at nine o'clock... much earlier than previous days. We're gonna have a party in Ramallah because Basel, one of the center guy, is leaving tomorrow for one-year study in Italy.

Tomorrow we will work at finalizing War-tell, at preparing shooting for Sea-do (that will be held in friday), at deciding about the film on Time, and in discussing about love subject.

9th day report: war/tell editing

this morning the workgroup was formed just by Khaled, Barbara and Simone (because that was supposed to be day-off). We captured 2 tapes of 3 from the footage of Mariam interview. in the afternoon with Mohamed Gaza, Mohamed Monsur, Khaled and Ahmed the montage of Mariam (war dream) began. We are more than in standby for the Sea Fiction, but it is hard to find anybody available for an whole day. Some of the key guy has university exams (Abdullah) and we are trying to make the shooting on wendsday next (after tomorrow). Khaled is very enthusiatic and is trying to keep the moral high, saying don't worry we will finish the Mariam film, shooting and editing the time and the sea fiction film very soon. For what's about the time film, as we've two subjects (time-tell and time-see), and Tunisians also are discussing about Time, we're waiting to hear from them what tey will do to decide what subject we'll develop.

This is the timetable of the activities we will be doing this week

- tuesday 7th(tomorrow):
. Mariam editing (we hope to have a rough cut for tomorrow evening!)
. meeting about distribution and dissemination and screening of the Unit's video productions
. developing the film on Time (mainly deciding where and when is better to shoot and which service)
. postproduction of the sea-tell dream with Mohamed Gaza.

- wednesday 8th:
. shooting the fiction on Sea (hopefully, we will understand tomorrow if they all will be available on wednesday)
. capturing the sea fiction footage

- thursday 9th:
. shooting of the time film (at the service station, people waiting)
. editing of the fiction
. capturing of the time film footage

- friday 10th:
. editing the film on Time
. finishing the fiction

...we will see, but all of you hope for us!!!
for today is all, see you tomorrow!

8th day report: war (and love...) writing

War brainstormig, today!
We were Achmad, Mohammeed Gaze, Abdallah, Khaled, Basel and Sultan. For a moment, also Mohammed Mansour appeared. We were thinking to shoot the fiction, but was impossible,because the weather is really bad (drizzle, showers, two-meters visibility... not the ideal to go to the sea)So we picked a writing session.
At first, following Alberto's suggestion, we decided that we will develop together just one of the two subject about time, keeping the second for after. We will choose the time-show or the time-tell according to the tunisian choice. So, we talked about the war subject, and we came out with these ideas:
.1st: develop an interview we shot in the last workshop and we didn't use because last film was focused on 1948 and 1967 events, and the character, Mariam, spoke widely about the present situation of the war nowdays in Biddu and around the area. Everyone there loved this woman and that footage, and it is beautiful to see how archive come actual to use.
. 2nd: children playing war games (documentary), with the use of sad images related to the war
. 3rd: a meeting with a group that 10 years ago shoot a war movie here in Biddu(the idea is to meet with the author, see the movie and try to re.make it nowdays or enter somehow in relationship with them (kiss subject)
. 4th: interview ' what do you think about war?'
. 5th : go to interview all the people called Harb (that means war in arabic)or Salam (peace)
. 6th: different funny uses of the wall (go and use it to plat squash...,probably with the help of a mirror, but is still to difficult and dangerous!)
. 7th :the destruction of the wall (the idea is to shoot a crane or someone
that is building it and to edit it backwards)
. 8th: weather news (fiction) about war

During the brainstorming we came out with a really cool idea about love: a videoclip in which old men (or the guys or...) sing a love song and in
the background many kitch images going on...we will work on it!

Anyway, about the war subject we started to work on Mariam (we watch all the footage, and batchlisted it, and translated it, and tomorrow we will start the montage). While Achmad, Mohammeed Gaze, Abdallah, with Basel and Sultan's help,watched the footage, Khaled finalized the sea-tell editing...

7th day report: sea/tell editing

hello everybody!
Sara is with us, hurrah!

today (yesterday, ndr) we did the editing of our first film, for tomorrow evening it will be ready! we did some shooting in the local swimming pool (their sea!) with Mohamed and Ahmad, in order to finish the editing (we thought to finish it for this evening,but there are many visions about how the clips should stay together, and
it's really difficult. We hope we can find a consensus on some temporary
version in order to upload a draft version to share with you)

tomorrow fiction film is completly sorted out, and the meeting it will be at 7.30 am at the centre (hopefully, we will start at ten o'clock!)we saw the tunisian first movie,
excellent, congratulations guys! you did really good job, the guys of our lab were surprised (they were just wondering why you shoot the sea in the evening?!)

...that's all for today, see you tomorrow!

6th day report: sea/do and time writing

Friday, holyday in Palestine!
and because everyone was back home, we had all the guys around, and we did a good job! we split into two groups, the first one has been capturing all the shooting for the interviews, and the second one has been working on the fiction...we have got it! we will shoot on sunday, inshallah, we have all the four characters, the props list and a storyboard idea...lets say that we'll do it, inshallah!!!

the sea/tell interviews are going in a good way, we have an idea about the three minutes film,and we also thought about a longer version (6 to 8 minutes), because we have lots of good material,and two guys in the lab that really like to work on the montage, so... why not?!

tommorow we will go again on the fiction, in order to have everything ready for sunday! anyway we already know where we are gonna shoot, and more or less what to do:

1. First sequence is a shot pan from right to left, in order to give an idea of the place where we are (on the right of the house we can see all the hills around Biddu!)and to introduce our first character.

2. Close up on him and his friends arrive (we decided already all the dialogues)

3-4. Second and third sequence will be a little more improvisation,
we will shoot with two cameras, in mohammed house and in the car.

5. For the last sequence we know we will have 7 to 8 close up on our characters at the sea, and with a pan shot we will show the real sea (a bucket full of water)and the place where they are!

Tommorrow we will also work a bit on the characters (a small theatre
training),while today simone did a really good photography worshop with two of our best cameramen!

In the while we started to talk about Time: after a big selection (between something like 18 subjects!),we decide to develop an interview (what are u gonna do if u have just one hour left to live?!)and the "waiting and waiting for the bus to fill up and start"...only one problem: now that they have discover how much the fiction is confortable, the group is keen to use it in order to avoid the contact with the society, which is of course a very complicate issue, but this is also the reason for the Video Unit to exist, in their own statements.
That's all for today, we are waiting for sara,who,due to the strike in Tel Aviv is really on late, and tommorrow we will be all togheter, inshallah!!

5th day report: the sea in Biddu

We worked at the logging of yesterday footage and we prepared the guys to shoot at the barber shop. the idea to work on other sotries doesn't make any sense now, because we can't do it without another troupe.
but the sea is a powerful subject, it includes problems and dreams, without even touching the usual arguments about occupation and conflict.
One "funny" thing is that for the children the sea is a pool (Al Qubeiba
pool, or Saffa pool), but is quite hard to make the sense of it. any ideas?!

Working on the logging of yesterday footage we developed a tipology of
answers organization:
A are the human reactions at the question,
B are the private and more intimate answers,
C1 are the more personal answers of informative type
and C2 are the general answers about palestinian situation.
we talk about the structure of the editing:
ABC, with the final surprise,
ACB, with the personal answer more charged with what we discover before,
or A BC BC BC, a kind of compromise.
we decided to work on the first one.
during the import we will take all the A and C1 we have, while we will do
a big selection about B and C2,because we have lot of material.
during the barber shop interview we asked more questions about A and C1. At the end of the day we watched the barber shop shooting, and tommorrow we will edit it!
it will be hard select just 3 minutes, but the shooting is good, so we
will work on it!!!

we are so happy that also the tunisian guys are working on the same
subject, and we're keen to see their work

that's all for today,
a hug from the palestinian guys!

4th day report: sea/tell shooting

Dear ZALAB friends.
Today was the first shooting day!
Stefano, Barbara e Simone met Ahmed in Biddu, Khaled in Ramallah and Abdullah at the University Bir Zeit. The Italians were very impressed of the atmosphere, young people all around the campus, most of the woman without the veil, everyone very gentle and open-minded as we are actually not used to.
We choose the first place and we prepared the equipment. For the first time the Italians did not fell like aliens. Khaled was interviewing, Abdullah on the camera and Ahmed taking sound. Barbara logged, Simone took backstage images and Stefano some backstage shoots.
We did lots of interviews and we came back very happy about the work.
Amazing trip back trough the fantastic fruit juice in Ramallah, the busiest center around, full of hypnotic scenarios (for Simone's happiness). We arrive in Biddu after some provocative check points. In Buddu we make the interviews to the children. It was not so hard to find volunteers! Very noisy sound, but very intensive faces (look at the attached pictures). We try also to get some shoot in the barber shop, but no one was there and we decided to try tonight or tomorrow.
Very nice day, we are all very tired but whit the good feeling you have when you did something good. At the moment in this room there are very enthusiastic guys following the Stefano's and the Barbara's editing lessons (Abdullah, Hazim and Ahmad). They are trying everything and asking lots. Stefano is happy about that, also if is a tiring way to end the day.
So, happiness in Biddu. Enjoy the attached pictures!