This is Jarratt. He’s an Agora Center alum (MMJ Cohort #2) who graduated earlier this year, he also shot the Story Without Words piece that’s on our class site (The one about the boy scouts making the fire). This past summer, he made videos for the San Francisco Chronicle. Today, he shoots live performances for Skype Live Studio and OPB Music, and also works for TriMet as their videographer.

We met and had a brief chat about how he shoots and what motivates him behind the camera.

What’s your shooting style?

Honestly, I have a hard time knowing how to answer this. Generally, I enjoy shooting “fly-on-the-wall” style where I’m just hanging out with people, but I don’t know if that’s what my shooting style would be? But that’s my preference—to just hang out in the situation or moment and just capture it as it is. I just try to shoot in a way where things aren’t too planned out, so I just go in and discover what seems to be the most interesting, which is probably speaking more towards the storytelling than the shooting style, but I feel those two things go a little bit hand-in-hand in some ways.

How do you shoot as a “fly-on-the-wall” without making your subject uncomfortable? What’s your technique to get them to be themselves?

What I’ve learned so far is that just being there for a while and continuing to come back helps. I kind of wonder what it’s like for people who shoot documentaries over a year or two, or multiple years, because so far the way it’s worked out for me is that the people I’m interested in, they’re also interested. Just being present over a period of time—which sounds kind of basic—has afforded the most intimacy or revealing aspects of whatever I’m trying to capture.

So, how do you use the “fly-on-the-wall” technique for spur of the moment shoots, or assigned shoots?

It’s kind of hard, especially at events with the general public, but at those kinds of events it’s kind of expected that someone will be around taking photos or video. I do feel a little bad sometimes because I feel like I should say something at first, but I also don’t want to say something because I want to capture the moment as it is. Luckily, most of those events aren’t just with one character or one person—you’re just trying to grab all these little scenarios that will, hopefully, tell something.

Who are some videographers/filmmakers that you look up to/inspire you?

Some of the “classic people,” like, I really like Frederick Wiseman a lot, and Ross McElwee—he did Sherman’s March. Did you see that? He [McElwee] gets a grant to make a video about this Civil War general—oh, and he’s from the South but he’s in New York—so, he goes down to shoot this video, and in the process he hangs out with all his ex-girlfriends because he’s trying to figure out his love life. It’s awesome, it’s one of the classic documentaries. Also the Maysles brothers, I like them.

Salesman, 1968, by Albert Maysles, David Maysles & Charlotte Zwerin

What’s some advice you’d give to an aspiring videographer/filmmaker?

Just go out and shoot. Those are definitely things I used to go out and do more often. Y’know, shooting as playing. That was definitely important to me for a long time—it still is, but now I’m just working all the time! When I was in San Francisco, I was getting kind of burnt out and I was really ready to leave and Wes gave me the idea for this lyrical, day-in-the-life San Francisco piece, and it got me excited about shooting and going out to shoot random daily scenes. That kind of stuff was really helpful to my own development and being able to get excited about anything.