UWOL 24 - The Farmer - Paul Wood

[Paul Wood]

Earlier this year my father in law died, and as a result, we relocated to rural Brazil from Spain a couple of months ago.
The Farmer shows the life of a typical small farm, and some of the difficulties the farmer encounters in his day to day life.

I had the idea quite quickly after the theme was announced, but did not manage to film anything until the last minute - I've already learnt a lot from the process of filming (I'm still very new at this), but welcome feedback to help me to improve.

[Trond Saetre]

Hi Paul, welcome to the uwol family! Good to have you with us.

I like what you made. It's really interesting to see how the life is in other parts of the world, and I enjoyed watching your entry.

You have a great story, and the images to back it up.
It's good that the farmer used his own native language.

Well done!
I look forward to see more films from you in the future.
Stay with us!

[Markus Nord]

Hi Paul!

This is a powerful film… and I would have like to see more... you should make a 10-20 min doc about the hard life of farming in brazil and maybe show how the western (developed?) world are “feeding” on this land. How “we” are affecting that part of the world.

Well done Paul, and if this was you first time, welcome to the family!

[Steve Siegel]

Paul,
A powerful piece no matter what language it was in. You can just see and hear this farmer's dispair, trying to figure out how many crops he can get, and realizing that none of it will improve his life. I have to admit, however, in watching his plight, that I couldn't get one thought out of my mind: that this was once rainforest.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Paul,

Welcome to the UWOL challenge. As you have seen UWOL has a strong US and Scandinavian contingent (and UK & Australasia to a degree), but its lacking in other continents.

So I'm glad to see we finally have another equatorial country in the mix. Furthermore; I'm glad that you have kept the long standing UWOL tradition of only having equatorial entries from people with the surname of Wood - we expats and Wood's have to stick together on this convention!

Anyhow, I enjoyed your entry, and I could see a lot of similarities between the plight of your farmer and farmers I have met here; so your story resonated with me.

If it was me I might have tried to cover a couple of cuts in the interview with 'B' roll footage, and maybe tried the same thing during the crash zoom in the beginning (B roll the actual zoom, and then come back on the close up of the hands) - but thats just me being picky. Overall I liked this documentary; and I think you and I probably have a similar style of story telling.

I look forward to seeing more from Brazil!

[Paul Wood]

Thank you all for your comments!

Ha Ha, Simon, I agree wholeheartedly! Let the Wood tribe keep showing what happens in the rest of the world!

I was really filming this over the course of a couple of hours (it shows!), and was using a radio mic to get the sound, which led me to often trek about leaving the camera running pointing at the ground, or whatever, whilst I got the commentary. The zooms and tilts (hands shot) would really have been better left out, but in the edit I decided to go for a more ¨news¨look, so I left some of the more questionable shots in, as I thought they added to the feel of the overall piece.

Steve - I was very sparse in my description, so I should have added that this is shot in Sao Paulo state, about 22º south, and well outside the rainforest zone, although I am led to believe that the area was forested a long time ago.

I did travel across the Amazon a couple of times in the '80s, and was left with a deep impression of the deforestation, re population and other things happening at the time - I think things have improved, and hopefully I'll get time to document some of this in the future -

Thanks again for welcoming me to UWOL, I am enjoying the process, and have found a lot of inspiration at DVInfo, and hope to contribute in the future.

[Toni Dolce]

Hi Paul!

I'm a newbie, too!

I love all things international, so I was really touched by having you expose the human side to the challenge. You were really able to capture the dire straits of not only this farmer, but through his essence, the plight of many farmers worldwide.

The thinness of the cows was really disturbing to me.

I agree with Simon that a little more B-footage would have been great to better illustrate his words. However, now that you say you were going for a news-style, I think you nailed your objective.

Toni

[Mike Sims]

Hello Paul. I’m glad you found us and that we finally have someone from your part of the world contributing. I enjoyed your story and the farmer is quite compelling because he has so much character written in his face. It was easy to empathize with his situation. Well done. You say you are new to this. The best way to improve is to make more videos! Please do.

[Ruth Happel]

Paul,

This was a really interesting story, combining human interest with nature. It seems a microcosm of how things are going in many parts of the world. Degraded environments don't provide the resources necessary for people or wildlife to survive. But a focus on inappropriate means of making a living- sugarcane and cattle in Brazil, continue to make things worse. By telling one man's story, you have humanized this and made it possible to really care about what happens. Thanks for a really compelling film.


Ruth

[Bill Thesken]

Paul, I've watched it twice. First of all, it's interesting that you and Simon as he says need to 'stick' together as Woods in the southern hemisphere film world, I think it's appropriate that you should try to 'lumber' down the road together on your quest. You both have very similar styles I think. I thought the film was a little heart wrenching, the old guy striving, kinda stuck in a rut. Farming is hard. The amount of milk he had at the end was tiny. The ending left me on the edge of my seat a little, but that's not a bad thing wishing the story wouldn't end there.

[Richard Jacobs]

I'm new to this forum. Where's the link to view "The Farmer" movie? Thanks

[Simon Wood]

Find it here:

The Farmer

[Finn-Erik Faale]

I like your documentary style. It is good for the story that the farmer got enough time to talk.
I think we know him and his life after these few minutes.
Thanks for participating and welcome to UWOL.

[Geir Inge]

Sorry about your father in law Paul and hope you're doing fine.

You enter your first uwol competition very well I must say.
Your documentary video has something real about it.
You incorporate us into life on the farm, the cows and the farmer.
Show us that life is hard and how they work to survive.
So good that you let the farmer speak his own native language and uses subtitles.
You provide a good story that grabbed me from the first second.
Colours, editing and sound are good.

Thanks for sharing.

[Dale Guthormsen]

Paul,


What an interesting video. I liked the native language and subtitles.

the rumble from the mild wind is disruptive to my listening experience (.59). If you are using the on camera mic you could reduce that by placing a baloon over the mic par, then make an artifical fur covering to go over that. then you can cut mild rumble. if you have an external mic like a rode video mic then make a fake fur cover for it and that wil help a lot. I live in heavy wind and with that only a blimp can block the rumble out of the audio.

considering you recent move and all that was going on in your life i am impressed that you got this film together.

thanks for sharing!!