Third week blog post

Photo: circa-2000 cassette tape digitizer

Photo: cassette tape

Photo: box of cassette tapes

Photo: some of the names I was looking for in the cassette tapes


Photo: not even half of the cassette tapes. I numbered them.

This week, I worked listening to these cassette tapes from an answering machine that David kept for 45 years. The idea here was to get audio clips that can supplement the physical materials (which they themselves will become visual pieces of the film). Unfortunately, I couldn't go through the cassette tapes at increased speeds (ex. 1.5x, 2x, 2.5x) so I listened to them at the normal speed. I observed how people seemed to use voicemail/answering machines differently 40 years ago. One thing I found funny was how people announced their location and the time in their message. For example, they say "This is Joe is Saratoga Springs, it's Monday at 7:13 am."
This week, I learned how to use the cassette tape digitizer. This device takes the recording from a cassette tape and puts it on a thumbdrive. It is converted as an mp3 file. This can then be put into the timeline in a movie-making software.

Here are my goals and progress towards them:

1) Learn what it's like to be a documentary filmmaker and understand all the steps that go into a film

I continued to learn about the rhythm of independent filmmaking, which is mostly individual work.

2) Make an impact by helping expedite the production of the documentary since it was postponed due to COVID-19 (the plan was to shoot in some nursing homes around the time the first US COVID-19 cases arrived in Seattle nursing homes)

This week, I made a good dent in the cassette tapes. There is a lot of useable content I am finding so I am helping expedite the documentary production.

3) Learn about Beth's career trajectory

I learned that Beth began her career in public television in Boston then transitioned into independent historical documentary filmmaking.

Here are some of my questions. Next week, I am going to meet David Greenberger. I will want to know:
What is his personality over Zoom?
How did he meet Beth?