I'm baaaaaack. It's only been a few months since I last logged off for my portfolio project, but really feels like I have lived a wholeee lot of life. And guess what, I feel more ready than ever to be so back for round 2, back with fresh ideas, back with new inspiration, and back ready to give it my all and create an awesome portfolio.
But, first, lets get a little into our first project of the year, our group documentary piece! I was really excited to work on this, as many of my interests lie more in the social and political aspects of media, and among media forms, the documentary is one of the best ways to explore these avenues of society.
Before we could get started on creating our own documentaries, we need a little, inspiration.
1. American Promise
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| American Promise (2013) |
We started in class with American Promise. Released in 2013, this film spans 13 years across the educational lives of two young Black boys as they enter a prestigious private school. More than a film about just education, the documentary explores the psychological and social impacts the prestigious majority white institution has on the boys, and the complex ways their experience at Dalton shapes their life.
Influence on My Project:
Verite film-making: By using clever camera moments to carefully reveal and showcase realities about the subjects lives, the filmmakers authentically create the Verite look. By employing subtle camera movements and capturing candid moments the film-makers were able to capture a complex image of the lives of the boys. In many moments, the film implies realities about the subject's lives, and then through verite scenes subtly proves why these assertions may be true. The beauty of verite film-making is being able to show not tell. I absolutely took this as a big inspiration for my own documentary as I loved the idea of showcasing main ideas to the viewers without having to state anything explicitly.
Social Impact: As a whole, I really enjoyed how this film went way beyond the surface level and through its style of raw verite film-making it showcased many poignant social implications. Most important among them was showing how school achievement was so linked to what went on outside of school. This was especially shown with Seun, who in part due to his parents not being able to be highly involved in his education, struggled in school and was dropped from Dalton before High School.
2. Exit Through the Gift Shop
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| Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010) |
Influence on My Project:
The strength of authentic b-rol: One of the biggest strengths of Exit through the gift shop, is the extensive b-roll that was captured by Thierry Guetta in all his years. Throughout the whole documentary his authentically captured b-roll in which people had essentially forgotten the camera was there, gave as true to life of a depiction of the events covered as we will ever see. This inspired me for my own documentary and showed me the value of using authentic b-roll, even if it may be lower quality, as this change in quality can be outweighed by its value in raw authenticity.
Deep focus on niche topic: What I really thought was great about this piece, is that they did not deviate from the slice of life they sought to cover. It had a fairly clear purpose, explore street art through the eyes of Mr. Brainwash and Banksy. Through this simple premise, the film allows itself to be taken to some insane places, but at the end of the day, it all comes back to that simple idea of understanding street art throuhg those two characters. This taught me that for my own documentary, especially with it being so short I had to ensure my focus was narrow if I wanted to reach any really insightful insights.
Adressing big questions "What is real art?": As previously mentioned, one of my big goals in my documentary was to address something bigger than the slice of life the documentary explicitly mentioned. Exit through the gift shop showed me a great example of how to do this by implying and sometimes directly asking far reaching questions. Through the behavior of Mr. Brainwash near the end of the film, in which he turns into someone who is seemingly using 'art' made by others to make money off of his brand, the film starts to question what art is. It appears as if from the perspective of Banksy what Mr. Brainwash does, the greed that he engages in is not art. However, this isn't explicitly said, instead similar ideas are explored through his actions, and responses to it. This showed me for my doc the importance of having a few underlying ideas or messages.
3. New York Times Op-Docs
"Where Am I From?" By Nouf Aljowaysir
Screenshot from "Where am I From" showcasing the avaunt guard unique style of film-making
Summary of Op-Doc content: A woman from a mixed identity of Iraq, Saudi, and American origin grapples with her identity by asking an A.I. where she is from. By exploring different aspects of her identity and asking the A.I. about it, the A.I. eventually tells her that it can't help her because it doesn't know where she is from.
Influence on projects
Usage of a unique elements and elements: Throughout the piece, the Creator grapples with the question of where she is from. Her choices show the complexity of her identity and how it can't be answered in a quick manner, its multi-faceted and complex and can't be simplified into a simple image or idea.
In the piece, the robotic voice of an A.I. is used to describe perceptions of where she is from in a simple straightforward, as the A.I. sees it. This choice contrasts with her voice over in which she explains the complexities of where she is from. The way these choices are juxtaposed allows the viewer to see the differences between the different identities society ascribes to her, and what she actually perceives her identity to be.
Succesful breaking of genre norm: Another prominent choice in the production is the overlaying of videos on each other. In traditional Documentary conventions, in order to maintain a realistic feel, only one piece of content typically appears on the screen. In defiance of these conventions, Aljowaysir consistently overlays multiple videos on top of each other, each showing a different aspect of her identity. This cleverly allows the viewer to get a visual picture of how complex her identity is, and how the different aspects of it interact and overlap.
Takeaways:
The content left me really shocked and impacted. This reaction was largely as a result of the techniques used, many of which were unorthodox, and which I had never seen in any prior piece of media. Therefore, it encouraged me to consider breaking more genre conventions in my documentary.
Summary of Op-Doc content: A lawyer argues against the CIA's torturing of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay
Influence on Project:
Usage of Archival Images: used to showcase the situations being represented and create empathy among the audience. For many of the places and people being discussed, as a result of danger and lack of access, there is no opportunity for on the ground b-roll. As a result, the documentary relies on inclusion of pieces of archival images and videos. These provide context to what is being discussed by the interviews, and creates an emotional appeal by putting visual imagery to the events being discussed. This is essential to the documentary's message as the emotional appeal makes viewers more likely to take in the anti-torture messaging, since they see physical manifestations of its cruelty.
Highlighted segments of documents are also used to support the documentary's message. The specific sections that are included in the documentary are carefully selected, and specific pieces of the documents are highlighted to provide direct support to the documentary's message. Through this selective construction, in which he selectively uses government documents to support his message, the documentary maker adds additional credibility to his argument against prisons.
The piece made me more sure in my perspective that in order to achieve the ideals that America sets to achieve as a nation, it is necessary that we don't give up our values and renounce ourselves to torture or other cruel acts for the sake of retribution.
Takeaways:
- If the other Op-doc taught me how to break genre conventions, this op-doc showed me how to stick to genre conventions. Aside from the heavy content matter, everything else in the documentary pretty much stick to genre norms. It even showed me that archival pictures could successfully be used as videos as long as some motion is shown.
4. Abstract: The art of design: Costumes:
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| Staged b-roll in Abstract helps to illustrate points made in the documentary |
Summary of content: The primary purpose of the series Abstract, is to give a deep dive
into the inner workings of a different field of art. Through the
episodic format, the show is able to explore to a high level each style
of art with the detail required to form a full understanding of it.We specifically watched the episode on costumes, featuring an incredible veteran in the costume making game.
Influence on Project:
Staged b-roll:
To realize the purpose of diving into costumes one primary technique that is used is staged b-roll. Traditionally, this would be seen as contrary to the purpose of a documentary, which is to show a valid ‘slice of life’. However, the staged b-roll in Abstract actually enhances this purpose by showcasing and visualizing what is being described in a way that makes it more engaging and easy to understand for the audience. This works hand-in-hand with the use of indirect interviews, as the staged b-roll can expand on what is being discussed in the interviews and add additional context and make the clips more engaging.
Takeaways:
- This doc in specific greatly influenced choices I would make in my documentary as I really enjoyed the usage of staged b-roll in this documentary. The way that it was managed, elevated what she said, and illustrated what she said, in very fit in that certainly strctk
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