The Waning Days

By Ben Crosbie 

We are now in our final stages of production. With only a week left to go, we are in the home stretch. Each storyline and every character arc has to reach it’s conclusion, and all the remaining b-roll and establishing shots have to be filmed. After looking through our tape log of 36 hours so far (with a goal to reach 50 before we finish), we’ve made a final task list to help finish our filming efficiently and confidently. Nothing would be worse than to leave here on our last day, only to realize that a crucial shot was forgotten, or an important detail was missed. Looking down the list, we don’t have an overwhelming quantity left to capture. A few more interviews, some last scenic shots, and tracking down lingering release forms comprise the work of our last 7 days.

The People

We still have one more interview or scene to film with most of our characters. Frankie is the only one that seems to have reached a good point to allow us to stop filming. His dramatic arc is the most obvious (definitely the least subtle), and we are confident that we can craft a strong story with what we have captured on film. For the rest of our characters, their story lines are more complex in terms of filming and editing. It has been difficult to decide when and what to film, let alone when to finally stop filming.

With Yoram for example, we have filmed him a couple times in the kitchen, briefly as he grilled outside his house one evening, and once at Frankie’s cookout. While we may only have about 2 hours of footage of him, the video contains a surprising amount of usable content. But because we have only filmed him in such limited situations, we are planning one sit down interview with him and his wife, and hopefully to capture a little verite footage of home life. He has been difficult to film, mainly because of a lack of interest in participating, probably stemming from the belief (common to most people here) that his life is not extraordinary. If we can capture a solid hour of interview, we should be set to use him as a small character with an important viewpoint on the kibbutz — that of a person who feels the desire to be ambitious, maybe even leave the kibbutz, but is limited by his own kibbutznik nature and the realities of raising a family in the “outside” world.

Dganit represents another unique challenge for wrapping up a story arc. From the beginning, she has been the most difficult character to film. Soft spoken and shy, she does not open up easily on camera. The first time we talked to her, we thought she was incredibly sad and lonely. Later we discovered that our perception was caused by her quiet nature and nervousness in front of us and the camera. The few times that she has opened up and been herself have been rewarding, so the effort has been worthwhile.

Although her dramatic arc is the most obscure, we can sense that she is dealing with a conflictive issue. She feels alienated in the kibbutz, yet is also fearful of leaving — she rarely offers any insight into the issue other than saying “people hate my family here.” We are hoping to interview her one last time at her home (where we had our most successful interview with her previously), to try and evoke some self reflection on her childhood here, how she feels about leaving, and her hopes for the future. Additionally, we are holding out some last bit of hope that we can film her as she rides horses. She has promised that she will set it up for us, but so far has not.

Aside from Frankie, Safta has been the easiest person to film. While Frankie is a showboat and often likes the attention of the camera (although he will deny that to his grave), Safta happily has us film her doing anything merely because she is happy to have company and usually finds it funny that we find her interesting. We’ve already captured many great visual moments with her, but we want to get some more of her history in the kibbutz, and self reflection on her life. Serious interviews coupled with her nearly non-stop unintentional humor should make for one of the best story arcs in the film.

Kathy and Uzi have also been very accommodating to our filming. We’ve captured many moments of both as they work separately, and also together at home. Kathy has offered a wealth of insight into the kibbutz, both on how it relates to her life in addition to the more general issues, conflicts and changes of the community. Uzi has also added a great deal of insight into the kibbutz, but more through his actions than his words (Kathy is a native English speaker while Uzi is not). We want to film Uzi as he visits his mother at the retirement home here, and conduct one last interview with both of them as they describe how they met and fell in love — which should hopefully wrap up their stories.

The Minor Details

In between filming our characters we must film more b-roll, get stock footage, and get some remaining release forms signed. We’ve already been fortunate enough to get some old archive film of the kibbutz from the 1930’s and 1960’s. Captured digitally from 16mm film, the footage depicts various scenes from kibbutz life such as parades during holidays, the days when the swimming pool first opened, and scenes of farming in the fields. Amazingly we don’t have to pay for the footage, a rarity in documentary filmmaking, where archive footage costs can rise into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. We still have to get some still photos from the archive (also free) and from family albums.

We’ve shot multiple time lapse scenes of the sunrise and sunset, and of the moon at night, but we still need to capture a few more scenes of clouds streaking across the sky above Cyprus trees and buildings. We also need to get different establishing shots of buildings where we have filmed, or people refer to in interviews. We want more footage of nature here — flowers, trees, animals — because nature plays a big role in why people love this place.

With over 60 releases already signed, we’ve done a good job making sure people sign the forms at the time of filming. Sometimes however, it’s not possible to have a person sign, or we simply just forget. We have to track down about 8 more people to sign release forms before we leave. We also have to get non-exclusive rights licenses signed by each person that is letting us use family photos, and for the archive footage.

Hopefully 7 days from now, everything on our checklist will be crossed off. We want to leave here feeling like we have accomplished everything we have set out to do, or “reached our goal” as Safta often says. Although the greater goal of completing the film will only just begin once we finish here. It is just the end of the beginning.