Posted on October 6, 2010 by Andrea Ballocchi

As I finish up exam week, I asked Andrea to critique “Time to time,” a new documentary filmed by II reader Ernesto Villalba. The video doesn’t currently have English subtitles, but he said he hoped to add them soon. Regardless, I still encourage English viewers to check out the video and look at some of the technical aspects such as the lighting during the interview, which is quite nice. Here’s Andrea’s take on the project:

Ernesto Villalba, a multimedia photographer from Spain, recently sent us a link of the first video produced for “Once Upon a Time”, a new Spanish and multimedia film company that he just launched with multimedia producers José Carlos Castaño and Sergio Caro.

Although the company has not launched an official webpage yet, this is definitely a venture to keep an eye on. Their first video, “El Tiempo al tiempo” (Time to time), is a short documentary story about “Emilio, the watchmaker.” It is a slow beautiful story, very sensitive and quite emotional. Throughout the documentary two stories about Emilio are interlaced: What his profession is and what he thinks about the notion of time, watches and his personal life. Although this might seem a little all over the place at first sight, it actually gives a nice pace to the story – you don’t have time to get bored by technical (and philosophical) explanations about watches and time while on the other hand you don’t have the chance to become overly sad about his personal life, which is quite emotional.

The video has a really beautiful composition, color and lighting, and the pace of video is perfect for Emilio’s personality and story. The details of the house add another layer of narrative, which I personally think added to the emotional sadness that this kind of story makes me feel.

On the down side, the story is a little too long for the internet. Some clips could have been cut and the story would have remained almost the same. (Although I have to say that the length and pace of the narrative added to the emotional feeling that it produces).

Other posts that might interest you:

• Behind the scenes of “Reframing Mexico”

Tags: documentary, El Tiempo al tiempo, Ernesto Villalba, José Carlos Castaño, multimedia company, Once Upon a Time, Sergio Caro, Spain, videography

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• ← Viaja a la punta norte de Canadá en el documental interactivo “This Land” de NFB
• Nueva compañía española “Once Upon a time” lanza su primer mini documental “El tiempo al tiempo” →