My question is basically this:

This class is about breaking down the process of the teleological narrative and anthropocene. It is about creating and documenting things that reveal more about thing itself than to tell a story about the thing.
My short description of the class in itself is probably problematic. Nevertheless…

Is there a difference in the way we tell the story and what we tell the story about?

To break this down…

During this class I’ve thought a bit about creating and composing images that abandon ‘good storytelling’
Putting less thought into my reasoning behind when to cut a shot, or how long to let a clip play out, less thought into how to film an object or a space, no rule of thirds, no golden ratio, no wide lens for landscape etc. Initially I thought this was a way to rid my own agency as a film literate. It would allow the object to speak for itself without third party mediation in a sense. I thought that abandoning film structure, patterns, shot technique and so forth is apart of the abandonment of anthropocentric stories. And in a sense I still think this is the case. Because they are stories for US, and we code them with these things to have the film perceived with more beauty or whatever.  I can’t really think of examples but this is how I have reasoned it all in my head.

As of the past few weeks, I’ve realised that this probably isn’t the way to go. To get ride of these filmic codes and to film something just makes it bad. It doesn’t do the object justice. I think I’ve realised that the shots still need reason, and the ‘art’ of filmmaking still needs to remain on screen. I think it is more of a quest to focus on what we film and an awareness around that. Of course, an awareness of how we film is still important, I just think that my seeming ‘carelessness’ for how to shoot isn’t making proper use of film tools. So in a way, I’m saying that I need to bring my agency back as a filmmaker and put more thought into how I film.

I’m not even sure if I asked a question in all of this. But this is just something that I’ve been trying to tease out of my brain for a week or two now. Perhaps it’s something I’d like to fully understand by the end of semester.