Today at 12:30pm, our group got together to discuss early ideas about our exercise and group project. Since I had no ideas of my own, we discussed Alice's ideas which are:
To explore Folk Dancing: the two minute could explain (poetically) what the dance is, and the 10 minute can be more about the people involved. It's usually stereotyped that it is only the older generation that enjoy it, however there is a greater range of people who love the dance, and therefore we want to make people more aware of this. We liked this idea because we thought it would adapt well into the idea of creating a poetic documentary, as well as having something someone within the group is passionate about themselves. This idea also made contacts easier and also location scouts/events will be easier to be aware of when it comes to the production stage.
The second, (back up) idea was to create a documentary on the city of Sheffield and how this has changed over time. In a way, we all thought this a little cliche and wanted to proceed with the first idea, however this would be a safe simple idea to fall back in if any major issues occurred.
However this is still early stages of development, and there maybe many more ideas and information between this and our next session, where we are taught more about what our documentary should entail. This meeting was just to try get ahead and organise ourselves.
This meeting also allowed us to split the roles in a way it was equal and everyone was happy. As of this meeting, the group and roles are as follows:
Alice Hathaway: Producer/Sound Design/Assistant Director
Natalie Obank: Cinematographer/Assistant Director
Lewis Hague: Editor/Assistant Director
Thursday 31 January 2013
Wednesday 30 January 2013
Week One: Introduction To Documentary
On Tuesday 30th January, we had our first session with Chrissie on our Documentary Strand. We were introduced to the schedule and where to find the relevant information and guides on Blackboard as well as important dates within the module we needed to remember (for pitches and assessment).
We then went on to think about What Are Documentaries For?
Firstly, we needed to understand that a documentary and a public information film are different, one simply presents information to its audience, and the other, being a documentary, has many reasons and purposes. Ones we discussed in session were that a documentary is mainly used to enlighten an audience on something that people may not know about, how example lives of minorities or jobs people never knew other people did. A documentary presents facts, reality and truth.
It can sometimes be used to answer a question or interrogate/reflect a subject. Some documentaries may be considered bias of the views of someone within the crew, whether it's the director, producer, cinematographer or editor, it's easily swayed into an opinionated work, especially if the subject is something the crew is passionate about, however this isn't always the case. Some reflect the pros and cons of a subject and situation and let the audience themselves decide for themselves - that choice in this case isn't taken away by the influence of the film - your presented with both sides of the story, and left to decide which you believe to be true or right.
Other reasons documentaries might be made is to create a portrait or campaign (explore) an issue.
'A documentary film is a movie that attempts to document reality. Even though the scenes are carefully chosen and arranged, usually through editing after filming, they are not scripted and the people in the movie are not typically actors. Sometimes, a documentary film may rely on voice-over narration to describe what is happening in the footage; in other films, the images speak for themselves without commentary. A documentary often includes interviews with people in the film for additional context or information.' - Anon
What Makes A Film A Documentary?
Documentary films usually focus on something which occurs within real life, and include footage (maybe archive footage) of events as they happened. Sometimes, for example, a film about the second World War may have featured actors (reconstruction) who portrayed the soldiers, real or fiction, and recreated certain scenes and battles within the war. However, as stated before, a film about the war may only just focus on featuring footage of actual scenes from the war, with added commentary from experts or veterans who were present at the time it was happening. It is between these, that the focus on documenting the reality of an event rather than the drama or a fictional narrative that separates a documentary from a Hollywood film or drama movie.
One type of documentary we discussed within this session was cinema vertié which means 'Cinema of Truth' in French. This type of documentary is known to not include any narration; the camera is simply used to follow the subject. An example we saw a little of was Don't Look Back, which was a biography about Bob Dylan's tour in 1965 - we commented on a conversation between Dylan and a woman, where she appeared to be whispering and unaware of an audience; or that anyone else could hear what she was saying. Another style is known as the 'Ken Burns' style, which was named after the director who made it popular within documentary work - this style of documentary included a narration of written documents that were from a historical period of time, with the use of music and images shown on screen to help the audience feel the 'reality' of the event.
The History of Documentaries...
'The earliest films of any sort were actually documentaries. They featured single shots of actual events, such as a boat leaving shore, and were referred to as "actuality" films. Other early forms of the documentary film included propaganda, such as the famous Leni Riefenstahl movie,Triumph of the Will, which depicted Adolph Hitler as a hero for the German people. Due to the low cost of making these films, and the use of the Internet as a distribution tool, documentaries in the 21st Century have become increasingly popular as online media.' - Anon
Within this session, we also discussed the history of documentaries, and how in the Pre 1900's were referred to as 'Actualities'. As stated in the quote above, the earliest films created were documents, for example The Lumiere Brothers' film following the workers at a factory as they left the building.
We then looked at a range of extracts from certain films, such as:
The Nanook Of The North (1922)
Man With The Movie Camera (1929)
Chronique d'un été (1961)
Don't Look Back (1967)
Salesman (1968)
We also looked at the difference between reenacting and reconstruction:
Re-enacting - Real people and situations repeated for camera
Re-construction - Real situations repeated and constructed by crews and actors for camera
We also noted the BDM (British Documentary Movement), through John Grierson and how 'the power to discover unknown worlds and rediscover last ones.'
Other Notes:
Notions Of Truth:
- the camera never lies
- fly on the wall
- every cut is a lie, however lies must be told to tell the truth
- the documentary maker is subjectively objective.
We were asked to discuss one of these phrases and explore them and their meanings.
Historical Phrases:
- Pre 1900's 'Actualities'
- Flaherty
- Vertov - Kino Pravda
- British Documentary Movement
- Cinema Verité/Direct Cinema
We then went over the brief, and sorted ourselves into groups. For the moment my group is:
Alice Hathaway
Natalie Obank
Charlotte Harvey
Lewis Hague
However a member maybe changing modules so we may need to adjust our group accordingly. We exchanged numbers and will be holding a meeting to discuss ideas soon.
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