WRITTEN REFLECTION:
What you consider to be the most successful and problematic aspects of your submitted work
I’ve always been a logical person, and I’ve always liked doing things in a straight forward and conventional way. So when it came to the documentary portraiture task, my mind went straight to a pretty conventional portraiture type of video. I think I have done an adequate job of creating a conventional type documentary that captures various aspects of my subject’s love for photography. However, I think that I could have challenged myself and attempted to produce a portrait that was more abstract and creative, which I think could have been achieved by incorporating more found footage and perhaps other sound effects.
Any key learning discovery you made in terms of the creative possibilities of producing portraits
With this project, I learnt that sometimes it’s okay to not have a solid plan. With any documentary project you never get 100% control as to what your subject will say or do, so it’s more effective to plan out additional material after the interview has been done.
Also in this portrait making process, I learnt the value of silence. Not all the video has to be filled with audio, and pauses in conversation can be more effective. This is something that I will consider for future documentary projects.
What you learnt in the making process that might be relevant to your broader development as a media practitioner
Before I started this project, the idea of somehow incorporating found archival footage with original footage was a hard concept to grasp as I had no idea how to piece them together smoothly. Although I don’t feel as though I have used found footage as well as I could have, after exploring various audio and video sources for works licensed under Creative Commons, I can see the value in having these as an option in any type of creative work as they can add a different and complimentary tone to the piece.
