Filed under: media industries 1 | Tags: brainstorming, cinema, questions, reading, topics
This week’s reading was really helpful and I’m going to give it a go in this blog post in terms of some of the things we discussed in last weeks tutorial. Our overall if you take it topic is a combination of independant vs international filmmaking and cutting edge original films, which is so broad it’s completely ridiculous. The reading shows some steps in terms of narrowing broad topics in to particular narrow areas of research that not break into the ‘too narrow’ domain. One of I guess the sub-topics that I wrote down was building reputations in the film industry, which is still very broad, however it links with other things that i wrote down such as marketing, retaining quality filmmakers and building a brand. So, say I stick with these ideas as my very general sub-topics. Now the job needed to be done is to focus that topic. To do this the reading suggests that you use words such as: ‘conflict, description, contribution, and development’ (p. 43) to tune your broad topic into a more developed focused one.
So say my broad topic is: building reputations in the film industry. This can be focused into something such as ‘The contribution of marketing in creating a larger Australian film culture’ or ‘The importance of the contribution of branding in order to build Australian film reputations.’ Or something of the like this narrows down something broad and looks at a certain area of topic, the first example being the study of marketing and the second being on branding. It narrows the path of study into how reputations can be built, and focuses in on one specific example. The next thing the reading wants you to do is turn your now narrowed topic into a claim rather than a statement.
‘The contribution of marketing in creating a larger film culture’ to ‘In Australia there is a crucial need to promote and market films in order to instill a larger and loyal reputation for Australian cinema’
Or something along those lines, anyway it is expanding the original idea into something a lot more specified.
The next part of the reading focuses on moving a focused topic to questions. Firstly you must ‘Identify the Parts and How they Interrelate’:
What are the parts of your topic, and how do they relate to one another?
Why is there a need to promote Australian cinema? How will marketed films create a loyal Australian audience? Will certain parts of marketing and promotion work more effectively in order to build the reputation of Australian cinema?
How is your topic part of a larger system?
How have other national cinemas effectively marketed their films? What is the general consensus about Australian cinema? Does web dominance give new and improved outlets of how we can market Australian cinema?
Secondly, you must ‘Trace Its Own History and Its Role in a Larger History:
How and why has your topic changed through time, as something with its own history?
What were the original perceptions of Australian cinema when it began? How has the Australian cinema experience changed? What are the major factors leading to the changing nature of Australian cinema? Has the reputation of Australian cinema changed over time?
How and why is your topic an episode in a larger history?
Why is Australian cinema so badly received compared to other national cinemas? What examples of Australian cinema have been received well due to international marketing? How has the digital age changed the possibilities in terms of how Australian films can be marketed? Why is a loyal audience important?
Thirdly, Identify Its Characteristics and the Categories that Include It
Well I don’t really understand the questions here as they seem rather vague, therefore I will skip this for the moment.
Fourthly, Determine Its Value
What values does your topic reflect? What values does it support? Contradict?
Does marketing undermine the value of the film simply as a film? Does marketing undermine the value of the film as art? Can an art film be marketed and still be worthy of its artistic value?
How good or bad is your topic? Is it useful?
Are films already marketed successfully in Australia? Are some films unmarketable? Is there any point in marketing films when films are dying anyway? Is it more useful to look at how the web is changing marketing strategies?
The next step is to evaluate all your questions, which I will come back to shortly.
Reference:
‘From Topics to Questions’ in Booth, W; Colomb, G; Williams, J. ‘The Craft of Research,’ (p. 40-52). Chicago: University of Chicago University Press, 2nd ed. 2003.
Filed under: media industries 1 | Tags: creative class, florida, reading, research
The basic premise of this article is to research into the rising nature of the Creative Class and what type of people and industries constitute a creative class of people. Or basically what needs to be in place to make the most out of our creative people. The annecdote that Florida uses at the beginning of the article was really relevant in terms of explaining that it is not simply technology that is bringing about these cultural shifts, but an overall ‘result of incremental shifts in human behaviour and social organization’ (p. 17). The annecdote being that a man time travelling from 1900-1955 would see a larger abundance of technological change, but not much social/political change in terms of the workplace and at home, however a man time travelling from 1955-now would on the surface see not many new developments but the whole social hiearchy would have changed into an expansive people driven economy fueled by creative minds.
The second part of the reading focuses on ideas around what different aspects make a creative class of people, in terms of three ideas surrounding ‘technology, talent and diversity’ where through research Florida draws correlations between different types of people and a creative environment. The correlations Florida makes is an openness to migration allows for innovation and economic growth, where high concentrations of migration in a particular city creates a conjested area of ‘innovation anf enegetic people from around the world’ (p. 252). He also points to a strong correlation between homosexuality and high-tech industries. Florida claims that in measuring high concentrations of homosexuals he is able to point and single out cities that are open and tolerant. Florida concludes with a certain system in terms of how creative classes grows:
a cluster of creative agents form larger economic units, which grow and develop, which leads to a cities own growth and development.
So what does this mean in terms of us?
Overall, I found Florida’s article really facinating and inspiring in terms of the fact that creative people are needed more than ever and that the business world is opening up in a more casual creative environment, which means that there are more jobs and employment opportunites for creative people in this new social structure. Even though his article is very much based from an American point of view I kept drawing on his examples and relating them to Melbourne and found that Melbourne has all the means to become a creatively fueled city. As it is extremely multicultural, which in terms means a large sense of diversity. Has a large (what Florida labels as) “The Geography of Cool”- cities of culture and fashion. At some point in his article he even made the point that it is the cities that have more cultural than landmark emphasis that have a larger creative class, which immediately drew a comparison between Sydney and Melbourne.
In terms of certain research aspects I thought it could be really cool to research similar things in terms of Melbourne’s own ‘Creative Class’ because I think these studies are really important in terms of seeing which cities have the creative power to revolutionise media and to actually make a possitive change.
Reference:
Florida, R. L. The Rise of the Creative Class, (p. vii-xi, 1-17, 249-266). North Melbourne, Vic. : Pluto Press, c2003.
Paul sent us an email saying that perhaps we could also reflect on the course; what is good, bad, etc. I liked this course a lot better than I liked TV1, I think because I found making a documentary more interesting in terms of being creative, where with TV1 I felt it was very structured and left very little movement for creativity as we were meant to be Hollywood directed. Therefore, documentary was always going to be better, especially after studying True Lies, because I felt I came with an advantage in knowing all the things you could do with documentary, and how creative it could be.
the lectures
I thought the lectures were great, especially because we watched so much stuff. Robin’s lectures were great because they just showed us an array of different documentaries that we could refer to, and watch, which is what you want. I get the most inspiration out of watching what other people have done, so therefore watching previous years tv2′s documentaries was also really great and really important as it allowed us to see what we were capable of doing, because really some of them were amazing. I also thought the more technical lectures by Paul were really great, because that’s something we didn’t cover in True Lies and something we really needed to know when making our own documentaries. Liam’s lecture on ethics was also great, which brought in the ethical considerations from True Lies but applied it to our own documentaries. Overall, I was truly impressed by the lectures they gave us a full grasp of the course and were really helpful as well as inspirational in terms of some of the snippets we saw.
the tutorials
The three exercises we did were great in thinking about documentary and applying it in a practical manner. It also broke up the intense planning of our own documentaries. I think I really learnt a lot from these exercises and then was able to apply them later on. In fact I think we could have done maybe one more of these exercises, perhaps focusing on sound, even though the observational exercise did cover this I think soundscapes are really important to docos and I would have loved to kind of explore this further. As always all the technical stuff was covered really well from camera to lighting to sound, which we could then apply to these exercises and see where we needed to improve. In one of the last lectures, it may have been the last Paul showed a clip from Forbidden Lies where green screen was used. I think it would have been great to cover some more creative technical techniques that we could of applied to our docos, especially in the case where some of our docos were restricted to talking heads. Therefore, I think just even being made aware that we can do these things earlier on. In conjunction, I really liked Robin’s idea of showing a doco at the beginning of each tute, and I think this should be continued and span through every tute for the semester applying to whatever we cover that week. It gives something tangible to think about and talk about in the tute, because in the lecture we don’t really discuss the clips we see we just listen. Maybe, to place more emphasis on the digi doss we should use this to watch in class, because I feel that it is almost forgotton.
the readings
Some of these readings did cross over with True Lies, yet again the Rabiger ones were really great in terms of pre-production and making sure you’re really ready to film your doco. I also like that the readings stop in week 10 as it gives time to really focus on the editing process. Even though, some of the readings are a bit dry there are ones such as the interview readings with filmmakers that really made me think about what we were doing, and if we were doing it in the right way. Without, the readings I don’t think I would have thought about our doco as much as I had and I really think there needs to be more emphasis on doing the readings so that your group members are as engaged as you are. However, sometimes they are long and you don’t have time.
overall
I’m very pleased with this course, even though I do think it is the most time consuming and really is a lot of effort. However, I think that it is structured extremely well and that you have all these people around you to help you out whenever you need, which is my way of saying the staff are very accessible. I also think that all those how to movs and handbooks are so crucial and without them I don’t think we would have ever be able to export, etc. I feel that a lot of time goes into making this course a good one.
We have recently decided that we wanted to have a voice-over in our documentary to contextualise and clarify our story. However, I think we need to be very careful in the use of our voice-over to ensure it is not presenting a ‘voice-of-god’ narrative position. Therefore, I think it is important to look at how voice over can be used in a constructive and creative way without assuming the position of knowing everything. When thinking about this I found myself at a bit of a dead end and thought it might be good to look up how different documentaries use voice-over in different ways.
When doing True Lies there was a really great book by Stella Bruzzi called New Documentary: A Critical Introduction, which has a section on how different documentaries used narration and voice-pver specifically. I thought I would go back and read this section or skim through it to an extent to find a dynamic way to use voice-over in a following blog post I will look at some clips from the digital dossier to analyse voice-over myself and find how we can apply these to our own documentary.
- Voice-of-God narration claims to inform the audience and is usually used to re-tell historical events. The idea Bruzzi suggests comes from ‘an elitist conception of the role of the media’ (pg. 44)- I think this is almost the opposite of what we want to achieve with our documentary because it is obvious that we as media students at university have any idea of what Maggie has been through, even though we can sympathise and understand her circumstances and realise how well she’s done to get through it I don’t think we can take the stance of knowing all. Even though we can present statistics I think we need to show and present our position in terms of Maggie.
- Ironic Narration:
a narrator who is not in some way suspect, who is not in some way open to ironic scrutiny, is what the modern temper finds least bearable.
(pg. 51)
Instead of the voice-over matching the images and informing as in the ‘voice-of-God’ style this type of narration doubts the reality of the image and shows reflexively that this images presented are representations and therefore the voice-over juxtaposes the images presented. A narration that:
both draws the audience into sympathising for the image and sets them critically back from it.
(pg. 52)
It is a more subtle voice-over, which does not provide
explicit commentary and criticism, but rather creates the space in which such interpretations can occur.
(pg. 53)
I think that this form of voice-over could work very well in our documentary especially considering that Maggie’s story isn’t typically one of homelessness. Therefore, if we use our voice-over to present facts about homelessness and what homeless women experience it provides a critical distance from Maggie’s individual story while still providing context, where the audience has to work to see how the voice-over is connecting to Maggie’s story. I think this is important because we don’t want to tell Maggie’s story for her.
3. The Woman’s Voice
‘the closer the text is to the image, the less it seems to connote it’ (Barthes 1977: 26), that an image’s connotative function…is reduced by the literalness of any accompanying text.
(pg. 57)
This voice is highly reflexive and questions everything from the filmmaking to the event to the way words are constructed and by being feminine takes away the ‘voice-of-God’ aspect to the narration due to the fact that it is a woman talking. The main film Bruzzi uses in this section is a film called Sunless, where she describes it in reference to voice-over as:
it offers up images that fluctuate between the domains of the personal or the mundane… and the historical or generally recognisable… which are in turn juxtaposed against a transgressive and ambiguous voice-over that only sporadically collides with them.
(pg. 63)
The voice-over is representative of no one but is a fictional constuct of the documentary itself that is aware of its own formings and place within the documentary.
I think that there are parts of this that will work for our documentary and parts that will not due to the rest of the structure of the documentary. If we use this style of voice-over it will contrast greatly with the rest of the film, which is quite generic in form, well not generic but simple. This voice-over works because it questions its own validity and therefore is unpretentious an non-dominating, which I think is especially important in our documentary. The voice-over cannot seem superior to Maggie it cannot be seen as presenting Maggie’s story because Maggie is unable to articulate her story herself. Therefore I think this voice-over will work well in conveying how we filmed Maggie, what we considered and to give insight to know Maggie better and her relation to the filming process. However, a lot of our feedback came from the fact that Maggie’s story was too ambiguous and that we really needed factual contextualisation that stated clearly the Maggie is homeless, and that we need to say this directly, and be obvious with our images and voice-over because Maggie is not that obvious. Therefore, I think there is room to be reflexive, but also we need to recognise our own distance from Maggie’s life and how she did not open up to us completely and how that relates to her story of being scared of the outside world. Yet, I feel we need to be slightly expository and factual in saying that she has experienced homelessness, so then the audience can immedialety know that this is a story of a homeless woman. Yet, I think we need to refrain from categorising her neatly into this bracket as we need to present her as complex she is not just a homeless woman, she is a mother and a grandmother and more simply a woman, a human being and we need to present her in that way to show that she is multi-faceted.
Reference:
Bruzzi, Stella 2000, “Narration: the film and its voice”, New Documentary: A Critical Introduction, Routledge, London, pp. 40-67, http://books.google.com.au/books?id=A-w-YxAnM4EC&pg=PA40&dq=voice+over+in+documentary&hl=en&ei=Uqq7TOLLGIecvgOFiIX5DQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=voice%20over%20in%20documentary&f=false
Filed under: tv2 | Tags: cinematography, ethics, kirsten johnson, reading
Often I feel overwhelmed by the amount of men that seem to dominate the film industry and therefore found the interview from Kirsten Johnson particularly enlightening and particularly relevant to our own documentary. Whilst reading I found myself writing down words and phrases that came to mind regarding our own documentary that were extracted from the words of Johnson who has a great grasp of her own visual style and the ethical boundaries that forms her work, which really resonated with me. I truly thank Meenal for telling me about this reading as I feel that this will help our documentary move towards something more insightful.
What first comes to mind, is what Meenal talks about in her own blog post and I feel similarly about this, being that when you are capturing ‘questions of social difficulty’ it is important to capture them beautifully. We are definitely looking to capture this in our own documentary. Originally, we wanted to make it rough, handheld to reflect the hardships of her life. However, now we have stepped back and realised the necessity to shoot our documentary beautifully. We want to keep or audience engaged in the story and to feel an attachment and therefore feel that we need to portray visually a more flowing approach that will harness her life in a way that is engaging to the audience and pays respect to her as our subject.
In conjunction was something Johnson said in terms of expanding the scale of your documentary and making it universally about a certain subject. Yes, we are interviewing one woman but we are trying to say something about homeless women and therefore are using our subject as a spokesperson for homeless women. Johnson speaks of this in relation to a film she did on prisoners where by:
isolating the hands against the uniform that they’re wearing, indicates that we’re talking about prisoners, not just one prisoner
In saying this we need the visuals of a broader context, not only do we need her as our subject, but we need her hands, her feet, the streets, the houses, etc. We need to show that this is not just about her but about homeless women on a broad scale, and what it means to her (to all of them to overcome homelessness). I think it’s important that her words resonate and that some of the things she says applies on a more general level as well, this will also form the questions that I write to target in on contextualising her within the realm of homeless women.
Ethically I feel that from what she says Johnson steps back from her role as cinematographer and truly sees that she is dealing with people who are putting trust into her and her crew.
It’s often incredibly painful for people to talk about some of what they’ve experienced, and yet they have made some kind of choice to let themselves be filmed. In that arrangement, I think there’s a space for human attention.
My first principal is, “Do no harm,” which I think is possible within filmmaking, and it’s a constant question one has to ask oneself.
Both these quotes really resonated with me and emphasised the constant fact that you are dealing with someone’s life and need to know yourself what you are achieving and why, what are you asking and why. Ultimately, these subjects are trusting you and it’s your obligation to do them no harm. In our tutorial on Tuesday we had a group meeting and Sarah asked me if I’m willing to dig, because you have to be, you have to get the information. Even though I totally agree with her there is this need to get information, it is not the prime objective because if this documentary is going to upset our subject we are not making the film that we as a group went out to make, we are trying to strongly position ourselves as showing the realities of homeless women in a positive light. I think there is always a line and your role as a filmmaker is to not cross it, but to find a way that deals with your subject in a way you will get the information without forcing it out of them and I always think there is something to say about people that can’t share their emotions. Johnson talks about a similar case, where she filmed a subject that was very stilted, serious and unemotional, yet after watching him realised this was a cover for the deep emotion he felt, where everytime he took a glass a water he was drinking it to hold back the emotion. She claims it was one of the most emotional interviews she ever filmed. Therefore, there is this overwhelming need to capture movements, capture when the subject drinks, because every movement could be speaking so much louder than the subject can in words. This truly emphasised something Liam asked us last week being why are you making a documentary about this, what can you say that can’t be written in an article? This is it, it is every subtle movement that cannot be expressed in words, but more poignantly than words expresses your subject.
Reference:
Cunningham, Megan. “Searching the Frame, Exposing a Vision.” The art of the documentary : ten conversations with leading directors, cinematographers, editors, and producers, (p. 149-175). Berkeley, CA : New Riders, 2005.
Image Source:
KJ and masai man. “Interview: Director & Cinematographer, Kirsten Johnson.” Still In Motion. <http://stillinmotion.typepad.com/still_in_motion/2010/04/interview-director-and-cinematographer-kirsten-johnson.html>
Filed under: tv2 | Tags: cinematography, observational documentary, reading
This reading was great in terms of relating with what has been the focus of my previous blog posts in terms of observational documentary. Haskell Wexler precisely articulates the issues with observational documentary in terms of its authenticity. This comes as somewhat surprising considering that he was part of the direct cinema entourage of Pennebaker, Leacock and the Maysles Brothers.
Even though the interview is short it captures moments that articulates how observational documentary cannot work, where he exclaims “Of course we coach people.” Followed by “we are not like the surveillance cameras in the supermarkets.” This indicates a major point in terms of documentary filmmaking, in the mere fact that we are still making films, and therefore need to stimulate natural drama. It reminds me of the fact that we still need to think like filmmakers, you are still thinking about how you’re going to cut your film together, such as in Wexler’s case asking Keith Richard’s to walk through a door again to ensure that he could edit the segment together.
This to me is not toying with the truth, because we all walk through doors numerous times on a daily basis and is not being untruthful because this truth doesn’t matter it will not change the integral drama of the doco, it simply keeps flow and ensures a finished film product.
The point Wexler makes most poignantly is that:
There is “no reality.” Once images are recorded, by whatever medium, they cease to be reality. It becomes the filmmakers reality. All the images we see are images now presented by the people who are able to present them.
(pg. 89)
I think this point is so completely relevant with documentary filmmaking that it makes the observational filmmakers seem rather silly in claiming that they just captured reality, when the reality is the relationship between the director, subject and camera. There are so many different things in play, that in saying that we just recorded reality is a lie in itself.
The image is always controlled by the filmmaker, whether they want to control it or not. We all have a vision and even if we try to avoid it it will convey endlessly through our work. Last semester in Integrated Media 1 there was a massive argument about what it means to be creative and Adrian Miles argued that you have to have an intention, an initial purpose. This carries through to documentary. Film is art, documentary is film and these all involve creative processes, whether they end up being the epitome of your intention or something completely different, it was your intention that sparked the whole project.
Reference:
Cunningham, Megan. “A Conversation with Haskell Wexler.” The art of the documentary : ten conversations with leading directors, cinematographers, editors, and producers, (p. 88-89, 149-175, 277, 284). Berkeley, CA : New Riders, 2005.
Image Source:
Jump Cut, Haskell Wexler’s Latino: an “ethic” soldier’s story, http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/jc50.2008/Latino/2.html
So this week has been slightly crazy and therefore I am now slightly behind, however still not too worried. Anywho I’m catching up on week 4 readings in an attempt to get them done before week 5. Anywho I’ve done another reading from Rabiger’s Directing the Documentary, this section on Research leading up to the shoot. I don’t think this title really hits on the things that this reading talks about. What it does talk about it is structuring your documentary loosely around the Hollywood three act system. I feel like this system has been drilled into us and will never escape. However, it really does mean loosely, as it is so hard to determine an ideal structure in documentary filmmaking. Blah, blah, blah. I’m not going to go into the details of the 3 act structure because we’re all very aware of it by now. The reading does, however give some very handy tips. It highlights the need for a documentary to be ‘dramatically satisfying’ and it is therefore the job of the director to look for nuances of irreversible change, which become the beats of your doco. I like to think of these moments as one’s that really show who the character is, because an irreversible change for them, could be something so everyday to us, something we don’t even think about. I think this is especially the case with our documentary, where these women have to overcome things on an everyday level as well as a long-term level. We often think of things on a long-term basis so I think it could be really interestig to pick up on little dramatic tension nuances.
The reading also suggested a need to make the audience wait for these dramatic tensions, the importance of building something up to a climax and then releasing it. In terms of our doco I would love to end it on the climax and avoid resolution, because really there is no resolution, and I think the resolution will be more poignant if it comes in that moment of tension, in the moment of realisation. Getting the audience to wait till the very last seconds of our doco.
And one last thing…Make sure you gather all the facts, yet at the same time weave that into the answers of your subjects, and avoid at all cost narration. In other words keep the facts subtle, but at the same time don’t miss them. Yet, again I really like this idea of subtlity with our story, I want it to be subtle. I want the fact that these women were once homeless to be subtle. I would love to show this through imagery, rather than direct dialogue and if through dialogue more metaphorical that direct telling. However, I see a lot of need to have all those facts, even if they aren’t directly told, facts such as: names, places, dates, ages, times, sequence of main events, relationships, etc.
Reference:
Rabiger, M. “Research Leading up to the Shoot.” Directing the documentary, (p. 236-239). 4th ed. Burlington: Focal Press, 2004.
Filed under: tv2 | Tags: approach, director, questions, reading, review, treatment
This blog post is going to be a big combination of a few things that have happened this week. I guess I will call it a sum up of week three, bringing everything together in order to write the treatment that is due in a few week’s time. This post will be made up of a list of questions taken from this week’s reading by Bernard Curan on ‘Approach.’ This reading forces you to make decisions and will work towards me writing my directorial approach. I will answer these questions in reference to my group meeting on Thursday and a documentary I watched, well stumbled across today called ‘On the Ball,‘ which was about the Homeless Soccer World Cup.
The first section of this reading asks you to watch docos and ask yourself; which elements you like or don’t like, and which might best serve the project at hand?
In relation to ‘On the Ball’ I thought they treated the idea of homelessness in a highly ethical manner, letting all the men that are or would be homeless experience something that is ‘normal,’ a contrast to their everyday experience of living on the streets. The thing that I really liked about this documentary were the different perspectives of all the homeless men, showing their delight in playing soccer, without avoiding the hard journeys these men face along the way and how difficult their lives it. However, what I didn’t like was how they romanticised soccer as being the epitome of freedom from their lives for these men. I also thought that the documentary built up a high degree of seperation between the homeless and the non-homeless, which works on one level because as the documentary states itself these men do feel on the outskirts of society. However, by creating this degree of difference it felt that these men were very much at the whim of the non-homeless people in charge.
In terms of our documentary it is obviously a very different take on the issue, very obviously it will deal with women instead of men, which forces it to be different in numerous ways. What I learned was the importance of getting a rounded scope of the characters in your doco. You want to get as much material as possible, where ‘On the Ball’ got a lot of information on what soccer means to this men, yet didn’t avoid the hard questions of their state of homelessness, how they got there and what it means to them? Therefore it created this great tone and mood, where there are the highlights of soccer, yet the sadness and tragedy of their lives. I think this is something that you need to capture when thinking about homelessness. As I have discussed earlier I really want to break down the barriers between the homeless and the non-homeless and therefore incorporate a more collaborative approach.
This leads on to other questions, some that I can answer now, some that are more murky.
Do you want to create an intimate portrait or a stylized whodunit?
We talked about this in our meeting and are going towards an intimate portrait rather than something that is stylized. We agreed that if we made a stylized documentary it would contradict the women’s lives, which are rough. We want to let our style not overwhelm the content of our film. However, when we talked about audience we discussed the screening and that it would have to in some respect appeal to all us media students. Therefore, our style will have a filmic quality to it, where even though the audience may not be able ot realte to the subjects they will appreciate the style. Therefore it will be slightly stylized.
Who will tell the stories in your film? What will drive the narrative?
The drive of our narrative will be a non-conclusive journey, a sort of day in the life of. The stories will be told by the once homeless women with a direct emphasis on one of their stories that will drive the narrative and push it forward. We don’t want it to be a rounded happy ending, which is what happened in ‘On the Ball’ where a lot of good things came out of the experience. We appreciate that even though these women are off the streets they still have lots of problems to overcome.
Do you want some of your film to be observational?
Well we also talked about this in our very productive meeting. We decided that are approach will be to obtain as much footage as possible. I think this is impossible to do without the use of observational footage. What I learnt from the pre-production reading was you need to look for what is usual and what is unusual, and you cannot possibly capture this without the use of observational footage. The audience needs to get a sense of ‘what things are really like’ away from the ‘interview’ situation. I also think you need it for cutaways and filler to make your documentary come together as a whole.
Do you want to set up sequences?
To some degree I think this is unavoidable. You need to get certain information and therefore you need to ask questions. However, when we watched The Nest it mainly relied on observational footage and really worked and seemed to avoid the need to set up sequences. In terms of our documentary I want to get some good interview footage, however done very casually, yet they will need to be setup in a certain place and context.
Will you interview people alone, together, inside, outside, informally?
To some degree I answered this question above. I want the interviews to be done informally otherwise I am scared of overpowering the women with cameras and lights, etc. I don’t think this would be helpful in getting the women to answer more truthfully and therefore disadvantage our doco. As much as we want it to look good, we don’t want it to look perfect.
Will the interviewer be on camera or off screen? If off screen will the interviewer be heard by the viewers?
I think we will mix this up a bit. I don’t want us as filmmakers to dominate the film, yet I want it to be to some degree reflexive. Therefore I think we will need to test this to see which works better. To have the interviewer on screen limits editing options as you will need to keep the question in the finished doco, otherwise the audience will be wondering who is that sitting next to the person being interviewed. Having the interviewer off screen gives us a lot more editing options.
This blog post was mainly for my own benefit to think about the directorial approach we will take and therefore form a base for writing the treatment. It is more a scramble of thoughts, rather than a truly developed idea. Sorry about how ridiculously long it is.
References:
|
Curran Bernard, S. “Approach”, Documentary storytelling for film and videomakers, (p. 75-79). Burlington: Focal Press, 2003.
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Chloe Cassidy,”On the Ball,” http://ten.com.au/video-player.htm?vxSiteId=cb519624-44a2-4bf7-808b-3514d34e96e4&vxChannel=DOCOS&vxClipId=1427_doco-tldc185-ball-seg1-050509&vxBitrate=300&CMP=LEC-DANCEgetVideoLink
So I did a reading, and it forced me into proactive mode as I realised that there is SO MUCH to do. The reading was on ‘Initial Research and the Draft Proposal.’ The things I loved about this article was that it gave me a starting point and an end point and heaps of steps along the way (well 23 steps to be precise), luckily this is a group project, otherwise I’s be terrified of running out of time. Overall there are three stages: The initial stages, which include research. trust and reality checks. Following this is the drafting and proposal stages, which includes action sequences, preinterviewing and rewriting a hypothesis. The nest stage is a refinement, to narrow your focus and deepen the film. The final stage is addressing aesthetic concerns, such as style and images. The broaden the contextual framework of your film.
This was overwhelming for me so I decided to draw up a mind-map to get to the main points I need (and therefore my group) to do in terms of getting the most polished, well maybe not most polished by to achieve all our aims.
a research mind-map different areas we need to explore.
I did a seperate one for aesthetics, because even though a lot of these ideas will come from research I think that it lies quite seperately to the research frame.
aesthetic areas we need to cover
These mind-maps helped me to see where each form of research led to and how that will help us to come towards a refined idea for our documentary. I will use this reading mainly as a check list in terms of pre-production. Even though some of the ideas are more crucial than others I think that a systematic approach to this will really be of value to our documentary in terms of shooting and editing. One thing about this reading that really stood out for me was step 12. I thought that this step really guages if you are ready to begin filming. The step is to ‘Write a three-line description’ that will summarise your story. If you cannot summarise it in 3 lines you aren’t ready. I find this a crucial point. In these lines you need to get to the heart and sole of your documentary, without any nonsense. Another point made that really resonated with me regarding narrowing the focus to deepen your film. The tip here given was to ‘seek the center of your film by assuming that you may not yet have it’ (pg. 210). This to me will force your documentary to have so much more meaning, even though you think you have a great central core, there could be something better.
I will really use this reading to really get into what our documentary is all about. It has truly motivated me to research and develop our story into something that will truly resonate.
Reference
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Rabiger, ‘M. Initial Research and Draft Proposal,’ Directing the documentary,
(p. 207-218). 4th ed. Burlington: Focal Press, 2004.
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I slightly missed this reading when I was exploring blackboard, however I have found it and I realised it would have been a really fantastic tool for our meeting in trying to come to a resolution. Oh well! I think we can still use it in terms of going in deep to explore our ideas. The reading gave good questions in terms of finding the right story to tell. It asks what is it about the topic that grabs you? And tells you key characteristics that a documentary filmmaker needs to have; intellegence, curiosity, an ability to learn fast and a readiness to consult with ‘experts’ in the field. If I was using this to examine myself I definitely lack this readiness needed. I always feel so self-conscious when it comes to this readiness and I know it takes me a while to just call up and ask, for some reason I get extremely nervous and petrified, and I’m not sure what of. I know this is something that I really have to overcome. I’m just not sure how to go about it.
In terms of planning our documentary we need to have not necessarily a rounded and completed idea of what our documentary is going to be about, but a sense of story and potential development, to anticipate a range of outcomes and at the very least a style or structure in mind. Does the story hold sufficient promise?
There is a key outline of how to evaluate story ideas. We need to ask ourselves the following questions. Does your film provide entre into new or interesting worlds, and can you obtain access to these worlds? Do you deeply care about the subject that will keep you commited through the process? Who is your intended audience? Thinking about age, geographic area, educational level, etc. and always try to tell a story that will grab, hold and stay with your audience. Will anybody care about your story? Can you make them care? Is your story timeless? Is the story visual? or, can you make it visual? What makes people want to know more? What else has been done on the topic?
It’s about exploring your topic in as much depth as you possibly can. I hope that my other group members have read this reading as I think it will help us overcome the problems I outined in a previous post.
Reference:
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Curran Bernard, S. Documentary Storytelling, Documentary storytelling for film and videomakers, (p. 27-37). Burlington: Focal Press, 2003.
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