Kurt Lancaster's List: Basic Audio, Lighting, Editing

Another great documentary piece by Dai Sugano. He tells the story visually. What can we learn from his approach and style?

Follow the saga of Sunnyvale Mobiel Home dwellers as they fight for their homes, then relocate after developers take over the property. Shot and edited by one of the top documentary journalists in the field, Dai Sugano of San Jose Mercury News.

We spent nearly five weeks total at my mother’s ranch in Colorado and then in the Tehachapi and Gold Country areas of California recording about 90% of the sound effects for this show. The final 10% came from recordings that we did for Merrano of the Dry Country and a few sound library cues. We tried to record all our outdoor sounds actually outdoors and in stereo. All of our effects were recorded in moments of silence with no wind or aircraft … it is remarkable how few and far between these are. Sometimes we would wait 45 minutes to an hour for just a few moments of actual silence.

ASC defines cinematography as

a creative and interpretive process that culminates in the authorship of an original work of art rather than the simple recording of a physical event. Cinematography is not a subcategory of photography. Rather, photography is but one craft that the cinematographer uses in addition to other physical, organizational, managerial, interpretive and image-manipulating techniques to effect one coherent process.