Lawns: A Documentary (part 1)

Watch part 2 at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFs3J9SS1ig

When Glendora High Cinema History instructor Roger Graziani assigned his students to produce a documentary short in early 1996, Nick Ferrell, Mike Williams, Josh Stricklin and Pat Nelson answered the call with Lawns: A Documentary, an inspired 14 minute treatise on the cultural and psychological implications of modern-day America's obsession with their lawns. Moving from man-on-the-street interviews of local Glendorans to in depth discussions with lawn care specialists to even the disgruntled musings of a recently fired church groundskeeper, Lawns: A Documentary says just about everything about lawns that 17/18-year-old kids are willing and able to explore.

Lawns marks a pretty important milestone in the G-Town canon as it was the first video cut by Mike Williams rather than Joel Eckert. And on the very first version of Adobe Premiere at that! This changing of the guard in the editor's chair meant a couple things: first we were no longer leashed to Joel's myopic obsession with only working on projects that involved fighting and gun play. Second - and even more importantly - Mike's new-fangled non-linear editing capabilities liberated us from the technical restraints of Joel's manual A-B roll method of editing. Lawns would have probably suffered both technically and creatively had it been cut on Joel's equipment.

That being said, it can be said that Lawns doesn't quite hold up as well all these years later - especially during the bloated middle portion that cuts back and forth between the two "lawn care experts". Looking back, that sequence could have been cut not only a little more deftly, but economically as well. After all, one can only listen to someone talk about watering sod for long. Over all though, its not bad for a first time documentary attempt. If memory serves right, the only other worthy competitor in class was Josh Nicols' documentary about death that featured onscreen microwavings and toilet flushings of live gold fish along with a pretty ridiculous meditation on Hitler the artist.

Shot and edited spring, 1996

Category:

Education

Tags:

• glendora
• town
• gtown
• g-town
• archives
• lawns
• grass
• lawn
• care
• fertilizer
• church
• groundskeeper
• gardener
• documentary
• mower
• mow
• water
• home
• suburban
• yard

[OrdoAbChao666]

RIP: This man, who got so excited about lawns, he got buried in one.

[OrdoAbChao666]

ITS GREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNN­NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN­NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNn

[LoliVomits]

Amazing.