“Make Me Care”

For my project this winter term, I have been going from one topic to the other due to access issues. However, one of the things that I really wanted to accomplish was a documentary about the elderly.

Last term, I watched this video and everything in it captured my attention. I sat down and watched this almost 11 minutes video, without pausing it and giving it my entire attention. This video is also one of the many reasons why I wanted to do a story about the elderly community here in portland.

What made this video stick with me is the storytelling aspect. They captured Mary and the elderly center in such a heart-warming way.

The video starts with a sound leading picture technique, where we can hear paper being teared, but we don’t see it. Then it moves on to show us an elderly lady sitting by herself and ripping paper apart. Slowly, the story starts to unfold from there.

One my favorite parts in this entire video is at 4:57, when Mary speaks to the documentary team and shares a bit more of herself to everyone that’s watching. At 6:05 you also see as everyone is saying there goodbyes to her, yet she is still standing at the door

Thought the middle and the end of the video, the production team that filmed this included themselves into this short documentary. Their reasoning was because they have “realized pretty early on that we wouldn’t be able to separate ourselves from this piece.” They have gotten close enough to the women in the center and got used to being amongst each other that when they were filming it was very natural.

To me, personally, this wasn’t a greatly filmed video with many amazing shooting techniques, but the storyline and the characters in this documentary is what kept me watching it until the very end.

I eventually came to care about Mary and the other members in her elderly group and that’s why I still remember this video.

This documentary was shot primarily with an ARRI Amira, and some additional shots were done using the Canon C-100.

5 responses

  1. I agree this was a great film and was well told. It definitely made me care about Mary and the plight of all forgotten elderly in our society. The story was so well told I can overlook the somewhat shaky footage, which I think was distracting, especially at the end. I really like the unpretentious feel of this film. By not focusing on the organization or senior center (we don’t even find out its name or location), our attention becomes focused solely on Mary, her loneliness and the issue of how we treat the elderly in our society, which is implicitly implied. Thanks for sharing.

  2. Wow, nice piece! I learned a lot of from this piece because it’s related with my winter project–Aging. The camera setting is kind of different compared with what we learned in class. I’m not sure how many cameras they use, but probably one shot in front of the character and the other one shot from the left side (according to the film view).

    I like the detail shots and I also like the way they cut together. I should get more detail shots for my piece and cut them smoothly.

  3. I think this is awesome that you chose to do your piece on the elderly. They are often times the forgotten. One of the reasons why I really liked the Oral History was because it sort of showed our elderly survivors of Vanport that they are still important, and they hold the keys to our history. My grandmother had me in tears the other day telling me that if it weren’t for us (her grandchildren/great-grandchildren) she, in other words, wouldn’t be alive. We keep her going. We keep her moving, we check on her daily, and we tell her we love her as much as possible. It makes me sad to know other people her age are not as blessed and as cared for as she is. Elderly people deserve love and respect, and we need to do more to make sure the winter season of their lives are spent with as much love as we can muster. As usual, if you need subjects to interview, please let me know and I will help you out.

  4. Great piece, thanks for sharing, Noor. I totally agree with you that content is what pulled me into this piece, and I stopped noticing a lot of the shaky camera work. Also a lot of great cinema verité/showing instead of telling, especially in the opening sequence. And yes, when she speaks to the filmmakers, to thank them for coming, that is an incredibly powerful moment.

  5. I did not realize until the closing credits that this piece was entitled “Junk Mail.” That’s actually pretty masterfully done. We hear Mary tearing pieces of paper in the beginning, but it is not revealed why until halfway through. That one little act of tearing up junk mail as an activity shows us what life is like for her outside of the senior center (one of the piece’s focal points) and I doubt the director had planned that ahead of filming. It just goes to show that those tiny details can make an entire piece that much more poignant. The longest shot of the video is the final one, showing Mary return to her slow and lonely life (like the shot itself) and then… No fade. Straight to black and then we are gut-punched with “Junk Mail” to remind us how she spends her days. The emotional hook of the piece came from emphasizing that one, minute part of her life. Incredible.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *