A point that stood out from the reading is that of the ‘drama documentary’, a documentary that is treated dramatically. This excited me as I thought about my documentary I am to make this semester and thought, as my documentary is dealing with a subject that is already so dramatic (Larping) it could be an interesting idea to play with this idea. We could use the adapted convention of real people acting out medieval reconstructions, or we could film all of our subjects in character before, during and after the game and simply film their fantasy game like its a real event. After watching a game last week I saw that they walk around in character so we would be filming true events.  I was also talking to a friend last night who is making a documentary about her auntie who is a hoarder and schizophrenic. The auntie is too paranoid to have anything that identifies her on screen so we were saying that she could reenact her entire documentary with another actress in place of her auntie.

The example of the Aileen Wuornos story and the various positions on the spectrum between fictional and documentary that a film can be placed. It’s something that everyone has seen before but is interesting when pointed out. The fictionalised docudramas like Monster must annouce the ‘true’ basis of their story where documentaries of the same subject rely on the audience preconceptions of it being true. The ‘truth’ of the subject lies somewhere inbetween these stories.

Abstract Exercise. 

What this exercise highlights is the thin line between abstract and cheesy, between being able to make a coherent, textured edit or something that resembles a tacky 80’s film clip. Unfortunately, mine resembles more of the latter. I tried to keep my layering of visual simple because of this reason, layering for the sake of layering is how you get an amateur looking result. I tried to form some kind of narrative, or at least coherency, with the juxtaposition of the audio and visual. The audio goes starts with a cityscape that blends into a layering of water and birds that, along with the visuals, kind of resemble a dream-like segment, and then finish off with a more realistic mix of audio and visual again.

Having good quality sound and video was incredibly important. In such a simple exercise where simplicity is key, having good quality recordings make editing a well polished sounding and looking piece much easier.

Howard Rheingold. Net Smart: How to Thrive Online. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. Print. (Chapter- Chapter Four: ‘Social-digital know-how: The arts and sciences of Collective Intelligence’, pp 147-187.)\

Web’s collective intelligence,

use communication media to organize collective action

mass collaboration is about doing your own business more effectively

collective business of self-preservation

the most effective asset we have is how to solve problems collaboratively

virtual communities, like contracts and constitutions, are technologies of cooperation

social dilemmas – are the conflicts between self-interest and collective action that all creatures face in daily life

  – lack of trust in the potential cooperation of others

mutual benefit -> common purpose means the move from self interest to common goals

groups can move from networking to coordination to cooperation, by building trust, communicating and explicitly seeking a common purpose.

“WOW is the new golf”

        – the collaborative mind-set

A networked- rather than hierarchical command and control structure.

Add value to information you find – help others transform it into knowledge by adding context – share not only what you find but also what you think of it.

The participatory skill of curation and some of the collaborative skills of virtual community are fundamental to collective intelligence.

I am not too sure when the actual documentary started, if it was from the very beginning with the overlapping stories or when the second narrator started talking but this confusion also carried across to the subject of the documentary as it was very hard for me to keep up with what all the speakers were talking about. Obviously the overlapping stories at the beginning were impossible to understand, this was intentional but I think unnecessary and did not set up an easy listening environment for me. These voices continued under the first narrator introducing the stories and faded into a recording of a train which then continued for the entirety of the ten minutes. This monotony made it feel like I was listening to an audiobook rather than a radio documentary, yet the subject matter and the way of speaking made it very difficult to understand and keep up with what was being said. At times the train noises were too loud and the narrator too quiet which added to the confusion. The story did in fact sound interesting but I think a little simplification of the storytelling and possible more variety with the soundscape could have helped with keeping my attention.

My goal of Film/TV 2 is to make a documentary that I am proud of, that I feel was made to the best of my ability and that I was able to extend my filmmaking skills to make a hopefully coherent and entertaining documentary. I would like to have more of a leadership role in the making of the documentary as I am quite fond of my idea for a documentary subject. If I was to be the director of the film I would hope to be organised and creative and challenge myself to be a good leader who also makes a good film.

This semester I really would like to familarise myself with the equipment a bit better, I am hoping that using the cameras and sound equipment becomes slightly more natural and smooth as at the moment it is still a bit of a daunting task. It still takes me a while to figure out the process and I am hoping that by the end of semester this becomes easier.

From Imagining Reality by Pawel Pawlikowski.

1. Documentaries shouldn’t be used as recorders of an objective reality, rather they should be instilled with the directors own personal vision. A director has the power to, and should, manipulate the subjects through various stylistic choices in order to establish a specific form. The subject of a documentary is most important and the filmmaker must be able to understand the world of the subject through their eyes.

2. The institution of TV and its instant and disposable framework is threatening the future of documentaries. The verite style of filmmaking is stagnant, boring and uncreative yet it is the style which is the most marketable and convenient to the television model. It is getting harder to tell real stories about real people as by financing coming from TV means expectations do not allow for the kind of scope required to produce such documentaries.

The aptly named documentary ‘End of the line’ gave a moving, almost macabre yet accepting portrayal of a small country town populated by the elderly who are all very much in aware of their own mortality. In my opinion, the film set out what it achieved to do as with such a morbid subject the film could have easily taken a much more depressing direction. The film actually gave off a sense of warmth, the acceptance of their mortality by these people made the film quite uplifting, it highlighted the community aspect of the town and gave the impression that these people were content with their lot in life and wouldn’t rather be anywhere else in the world.

I feel as though this documentary was more about the town of Broken Hill rather than the people in it, it gave me a sense that these people come and go through the town, it is the town that affects the people not the people changing the town. Broken Hill is stagnant, it gives nothing to the young people and the elderly use it and pass it on. This impression is giving off by the various filmic techniques, the feeling of isolation is portrayed with shots of the outback and broken down cars.