Volviendo: Documentary

Volviendo [English Version] (2007) from Lawrence Martin on Vimeo.

This summer my flatmate Laurie began his dissertation project for his masters in documentary studies. A 30 minute piece he shot this spring in London and Chile, the documentary followed Vladimir Vega a Chilean exile who was forced to move to London over 30 years ago after he was imprisoned for his political action against Pinochet. Vlad read a news story about the youngest boy killed under Pinochet's rule, a 13 year old named Carlos Furinia who's body was discovered last year. Vladimir wrote a song in honor of the child and took it to Chile to play it for Carlos' surviving family. Laurie followed Vlad on this journey recording over 30 hours of footage.

This summer he and I spent 3 weeks in a classy climate controlled edit suite in the media studies department at Goldsmiths reworking a mountain of footage into what we hope became a complex story of exile.

This was my first stab at editing something I hadn't shot myself. I also discovered (what everyone already knew) that I like to be in control of things. Luckily I found a great editing partner who is quick with the technical side of things, knows what I mean when I say 'no, make it half a step earlier and switch the 3rd and 1st clips' and has it done just in time for me to say ' no, no the 2nd and 1st would be better' and does it all without protest or pause(and it doesnt even seem to phase him when I writhe on the floor when a cut doesn't work or do a victory dance when it does) Hopefully we will work on many more projects to come.

Time: N/A

Cost: N/A

Equipment: Sweet Suite G5 Mac with Avid and double screens; PAL monitor, Tape Deck, 30 hours footage on MiniDV (prelogged, binned and transcribed thanks to Laurie's super organization), 23 regular lattes

Level of Difficulty: (total project: 5 sawzalls) editing 3.5 sawzalls