My City My Bicycle Movie
My City My Bicycle Film / First Directorial Debut
As someone who uses a bicycle for sports and transportation, I started attending various cycling events and shooting video from the bike. Over a span of 7-8 years, I participated in events and got to know various cycling communities. To support these communities and associations, I occasionally received requests like, "Ufuk, would you like to shoot our event too?" free of charge. However, I never imagined this situation would one day turn into the question: "Ufuk, we want to make a film. Would you come with us for 7 months across 7 cities and 7 regions to shoot a film together?"
While resting at home over the weekend, I received a FaceTime call from Zeynep Arapoğlu, whom I had met at previous cycling activities, and Seçil Öznur, who used to run a bicycle shop in Istanbul and later moved to Athens (I actually bought a nice bike from her once). Wondering what was up, we started talking, and they filled me in on the Facebook Community Leadership Program (https://communities.fb.com/).
You all know Facebook Groups. Facebook wanted to demonstrate that people in groups creating social impact also interact in real life, reinforcing the idea that these groups are alive and actively expanding communication. To help bring out this real-life social interaction, they wanted to provide various forms of support.
Zeynep and Seçil called me after they applied for this program and were selected. They mentioned that with Facebook's support, they wanted to shoot a documentary—even if not a massive production—but they specifically wanted to work with someone who already made room for cycling in their daily life and was part of this world. They had some up-in-the-air questions: "We have plenty of time to shoot, but is it right to just film and publish it? Should the person shooting also handle the editing, color grading, and music?" Frankly, having no prior experience in this either, I knew we would figure a lot of it out along the way. The idea emerged that if we had a solid plan, we could turn our interviews and footage from each location into short monthly clips. Shooting and compiling the whole film as short clips sounded like a great idea at the time. It would keep the topic fresh, and our content would be ready to go.
7 Cities, 7 Regions, and the Team
Months after asking "Are you in?", Zeynep and Seçil finally said, "Let's start, the first location is Mersin!" Realizing we needed to prep our equipment first, I listed our requirements. Among this list were a camera, lighting, spare batteries, and—since I'd be shooting one-handed on a moving bike—an electronic tripod that provided omnidirectional stability was an absolute must.
Besides Zeynep and Seçil, the crew included Emel, Özlem, and Seçil Zor, representing the Women on Bicycles Initiative (Bisikletli Kadın İnisiyatifi). Together, as a documentary crew, we would travel to 7 regions and 7 cities to shoot our film. According to the initial plan, we needed a tandem bicycle rider (we envisioned someone riding in the front while I filmed from the back) who could also assist me during the shoots. Baran Düzyar, a close friend I've cycled with for years, came to mind, and we made him an offer. He gladly joined as both film assistant and tandem rider, making the team complete.
As the Mersin plan took shape, we needed to prep the questions we would ask the women cyclists we were going to meet, so I drafted a list. The members of the Women on Bicycles Initiative would then diversify these questions and use them during the interview phase.
April 2019 marked our first region and first city, which came and went beautifully. It ended up being more exhausting than we anticipated because both the women's cycling event and the group ride turned into a full city tour. We realized this wasn't ideal for filming and that we hadn't used our weekend time at the location very efficiently.
We executed our shoots and events with much more optimized plans in Diyarbakır, Samsun, Muğla, Eskişehir, Bursa, and Van. By utilizing the day more effectively, we captured more shooting opportunities. Since we didn't have much of a chance to get to know our subjects before arriving in the provinces, tailoring our questions to the individual during the interviews became crucial.
The First Edit
There was about a month left until the premiere at Facebook Station. I had 30 hours of raw footage on my hands and a flood of ideas in my head. I figured that if I followed a process similar to my professional design work, at least the editing phase would feel somewhat familiar. First, I started watching all the footage I shot; this is where I realized what I remembered and what I had forgotten. From my viewing and notes, I created an outline.
Our questions and the overall theme progressed under the following main topics:
- The Connection Between Daily/Work Life and Cycling
- Social Interactions Facilitated by Cycling
- The Intersection of Family Dynamics and Cycling
- The Emotional Experiences of the Women on Bicycles Initiative Members (the film crew)
To make the film easier to watch and give it structure, I decided to start with a macro perspective—daily life and work—and then zoom in to a micro perspective, continuing with family ties and social interactions. I built a small prototype based on this.
The prototype was very simple. I would watch the footage that survived my initial cuts back-to-back (this took about 2 full days) and slowly start placing these selected clips into the outline. Due to my tight deadline, this method really helped reduce the pressure of finishing the project. After a week of work, I roughly achieved the flow I had envisioned. I now had a ready baseline for the structure, narrative, and final editing operation of the 6-part film I had constructed.
The First Screening
After watching the film repeatedly and showing it to close friends, my expectations for the audience's reaction started to take shape. I was open to feedback, even if it was ruthless or non-constructive. The premiere took place on September 13th at the newly opened Facebook Station (https://istasyon.fb.com) during screening week. It was a milestone—the members of the Women on Bicycles Initiative were seeing the film they worked so hard on for the first time, and it served as a test for me to gauge initial audience reactions. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited. It was fun to watch people's reactions as the screening began. In my usual line of work, I (or we) bring UI designs and other projects to life without actually seeing the users' real-time reactions.
Trailer
See you in future film projects :) http://www.benimbisikletimbenimsehrimfilm.com/
IN THE PRESS
https://tr.euronews.com/2020/01/08/iki-tekerlekle-ezber-bozan-kadinlar-bisikletli-kadin-inisiyatifi
https://www.cyclistmag.com.tr/2019/11/28/benim-bisikletim-benim-sehrim-film-gosterimi-1-aralikta/
