Katie Thomas

About "Twenty One"

By the end of last semester I had just turned twenty-one and was looking forward to my junior year at Hampshire College.  But I became restless and decided to leave school for a while. I had no real sense of what I might do with this time. I just needed time off to explore.

One thing I also needed was a job. So I started working with Nubar Alexanian who is a close family friend. The actual idea to film myself came from conversations between us as I shared my confusion over what else to do with my time. Nubar suggested that I explore these questions on camera.  So he gave me a video camera and a bunch of equipment and told me to make a movie. 

I began filming myself without any clear sense of what I was doing. I had no previous experience with the technical aspects, evident when Nubar suggested I use a tripod and I asked, what’s that? I also didn’t know what the movie would be about. I had no script, no theme, no narrative, only a sense of the approach, which was sort of a film diary exploring my thoughts and feelings on camera. And though I talked about my life, my reaction to the process itself became more pressing. Twenty One is what emerged.

If I had really thought about people watching this movie while shooting myself, I wouldn’t have interacted with the camera the way I did. I told myself that the process was for myself even though I had committed to making a viewable piece. In the back of my mind I knew it wouldn’t be worth it unless I was willing to risk putting it out, to be viewed by other people. 

Tech Info

I used a JVC HD10 camera with a wide angle lens (so I could stay close to the microphone as much as possible).  The mic was a Sony ECM-MS908C and we recorded to Sony Mini DV Digital HD tapes.

Nubar’s instructions were simple:  put the camera on the tripod, use all automatic settings on the camera, stay close to the mic when possible, the zoom button is here, and this is how you load and unload tapes from the camera.

We edited on a G5 in Final Cut Pro HD after digitizing the footage in iMovie HD and rendering it in Final Cut.

About Katie Thomas

Katie is enrolled as a student at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA. She is studying psychology in preparation for graduate work in the field. She is also interested in film and video, which she hopes to pursue in further work. She is still taking time off from school and plans to live in California during the next semester.

About Nubar Alexanian

Nubar has been a documentary photographer for more than 30 years. He’s traveled all over the world producing pictures essays for magazines like The New York Times, Life, Geo, Fortune and many others. Four books of his work have been published: Stones In The Road: Photographs of Peru (1992), Where Music Comes From (1996), Gloucester Photographs (2001) and Jazz with Wynton Marsalis(2002). His first piece for radio, Perfect Hearing, aired on Transom in October 2003, on This American Life in Feb 2004 and was an award recipient at The Third Coast Audio Festival in 2004.

As a photographer, he is currently shooting portraits of all the essayists for This I Believe, which airs weekly on National Public Radio (www.npr.org/thisibelieve) and is working on his fifth book with filmmaker Errol Morris.

As a filmmaker, he opened Walker Creek Films where he is producing & directing a film about music in the Middle East. He is also finishing a series of short films on Flamenco music and dance in Jerez, Spain.

Related Links

• Nubar Alexanian's Website

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