Connection Lost – Filming Without Direction

I’m not so good at being put on the spot.

I am hoping that this might some day change but for now, every workshop puts me in a position of discomfort as we are given a task to fulfil within the boundaries of that very workshop’s duration. This week was, unsurprisingly, the task of documentary making, in which we had to explore the art of the interview.

As everyone left to find locations outside, my group remained inside, wracking our brains to come up with a direction for our interviews. Whilst we had a collection of ideas none of them seemed to solidify properly and so we haphazardly decided to simply start rolling and see where the footage went. We only had so much time, after all. What we collected ended up being the least cohesive collection of random imagery I think I have filmed to date… and that was fascinating.

Looking back over the footage and reflecting on what the reading has enlightened me to, I experienced first hand the contrived nature of narrative. Sure I probably could have strung together the clips into a shoddy interview that vaguely made sense, but the great part of what we did that Thursday afternoon was illustrative of the fact that life does not amalgamate naturally into a cohesive narrative. We filmed almost non-stop during a 45 minute period, including the points in which we readjusted the camera settings and rearranged the interviewees. It was one of the most organic pieces of footage you could capture and it is that organic quality that strips it of any sense of narrative.

Narrative presumes meaning and purpose to everything that is being witnessed, where, in the case of life, nothing has such an intrinsic meaning and many pursuits serve little to no function. There are loose ends everywhere in life; its an incoherent and blundering mess. Thats why narrative must be drawn out of life, and woven together, to be seen. Useless information must be dropped and conflict, climax and motivations procured in order for us do draw narrative from reality.

As I sat at my desk, trying to string these clips together I realised I was doing what my mind does subconsciously. I was discarding the loose ends and attempting to string together an experience I had had into a linear journey with purpose and meaning. I was bringing meaning to my clips by inferring connection… so I decided to stop. I kept all my footage cut off from one another, allowed little to no connection to be made between them. What was left was most definitely documentary. It was a perfect summation of that afternoon in fact, but it had no narrative… which made me wonder, exactly how much reality must we discard in our ceaseless pursuit of meaning? What have I sacrificed, in my memory, to attempt to string my life into a cohesive and consequential story? and exactly how much do we warp our experiences in order to give our stories a significant narrative?