With Albert Maysles in Winnipeg

The weekend with Al got me so inspired on documentary filmmaking that I feel like my head is about to explode with ideas and motivation. Al dropped too many gems to list but here are a few that I was able to transcribe on my iPhone notepad:

“My goal is for the audience to become friends with the people on the screen.”

“Get close get close!” - a great mantra for documentary filmmaking

On Salesman: “We focused on the man who was least successful as a salesman but most successful as a human being.”

On seeing one of his old films w/ narration: “Narration is only an interference with what’s going on in the mind of the viewer.”

“Time and time again I’ve been in the right place at the right time i attribute it to luck and patience.” 

“There’s something in the nature of documentary, if a director has a poetic eye they can capture the complexity of the scene.” 

“Every documentary no matter what it’s about is an adventure, a discovery.”

On working with subjects - “The gaze is very important, how you look at them in that first moment. Then you follow that up with love.”