Part 1: A reflection on two impact documentaries.
Trust Me (2024)
Trust Me (2024) is an animated documentary short that follows Anne, a young woman who recounts her struggle to find self-acceptance after being diagnosed with bipolar disorder. The film is presented in narrative form. Anne narrates her experience with bipolar through its highs and lows. The story resolves with her coming to terms with her disorder and reflecting on the positive impact the making of the film has had on her self-image.
Trust Me contains elements of the expository mode in the mixture of animation and real footage, which serves as B-roll; the participatory mode in the engagement between Daball and the subject Anne Chataigné; and the poetic mode in the animation (Nichols 2017). In my group’s short impact documentary Where Are All The Queers?, we will use elements of the expository mode, combining interviews, B-roll, and voiceovers, with the poetic mode where we will convey the aesthetic experience of being in Queer nightlife venues.
Director Melanie Cura Daball has prioritised storytelling over authenticity in this documentary, melding animated interviews of Anne with footage of actors re-enacting the memories she describes in voiceovers. These re-enactments support the storytelling of Anne’s memories as they help the viewer to visualise the events. Although the re-enactments support the storytelling of Trust Me, they detract from the authenticity of the documentary as the events are staged and dramatized. The subjects in Trust Me are all staged, from the lines that have been drawn to the re-enactments. Daball is more concerned with aesthetics and communicating emotions versus depicting true-to-life authenticity in Trust Me, particularly in her choice to animate the interview with Anne. In Where Are All The Queers?, it will be important for us to balance storytelling with authenticity so that we not only capture authentic experiences of Melbourne’s Queer nightlife communities and venues but present them in a way that emotionally appeals to our audience using storytelling devices.
Colour is another highly present motif throughout the short film. The lighting in the re-enactments becomes more colourful as Anne becomes more manic. Anne’s body is lit in naturalistic three-point lighting when in a relatively normal emotional state. As Anne’s mania rises, the edges of Anne’s body begin to be contaminated by coloured LED lights that create a halo effect. The shots become more and more colourful as Anne becomes more manic. Anne is lit in monochrome red light in the scenes where she experiences the most distress. In my group’s impact documentary, Where Are All The Queers?, we intend to use LED Tube Lights to add colour to our participants during interviews to depict the emotions and vibrancy of the Melbourne LGBTIQ+ community.
The Last Lesbian Bars (2015)
In the documentary short The Last Lesbian Bars (2015) host JD Samson travels to San Francisco, Washington DC, New Orleans, and New York City, cities well known for their gay scenes, to investigate why lesbian bars in American cities are closing down en masse. The film begins by introducing the issue and Samson. The film’s form then follows Samson as they travel from city to city, highlighting the unique aspects of the lesbian communities within those cities. In Where Are All The Queers?, we will also feature different Queer nightlife venues throughout Melbourne, highlighting the unique aspects of the communities within.
The Last Lesbian Bars appears to utilise the performative mode, stressing JD Samson’s engagement with lesbian bars (Nichols 2017); however, Samson is credited as a host. The director of the film Drew Denny does not appear within the frame. The documentary mode Denny implements is expository, compiling different shots, archival material, intertitles, and voiceovers to tell a story narrated by Samson (Nichols 2017). Featuring one core participant ties the narrative together as viewers explore the issue presented in the documentary from their perspective and feel a sense of familiarity. In Where Are All The Queers? we will feature a core participant, following them on a night out in Melbourne from Queer venue to Queer venue to create a story within our larger issue.
Denny features shots of iconic American landmarks such as The Golden Gate Bridge which grounds the documentary’s concerns and setting in America. We could include imagery of Melbourne landmarks in Where are all the Queers? to make it clear to viewers that the film is set in Melbourne and that the issues presented are Melbourne-specific.
In The Last Lesbian Bars, images serve to visualise what participants say during interviews. In a study by Aufderheide et al. (2009), some filmmakers note the importance of using archival footage and images that are directly relevant to the subject matter being discussed in a documentary to maintain authenticity. Drew Denny has incorporated archival footage and images in The Last Lesbian Bars which show participants when they were younger. Some archival materials do not refer to specific people but an era in lesbian bar history referenced by a participant. This archival material visually enhances what the participant is saying and allows the viewer to envisage what is being discussed, enhancing the depth of knowledge passed onto the viewer. Although The Last Lesbian Bars overlaps in subject matter with Where are all the Queers? as both documentaries feature Queer bars, we won’t use archive material in our documentary as we want to focus on the present-day communities in Queer venues in Melbourne.
Part 2: A pitch document for the impact documentary your group is going to pitch.
Where are all the Queers?-Pitch Document
Reference List:
Aufderheide et al. (2009) Honest Truths: Documentary Filmmakers on Ethical Challenges in Their Work, Centre For Social Media website, accessed 2 May 2024. https://cmsimpact.org/resource/honest-truths-documentary-filmmakers-on-ethical-challenges-in-their-work/
Daball M (director) (2024) Trust Me [motion picture], Just Be Nice, United Kingdom.
Denny D (director) (2015) The Last Lesbian Bars [motion picture], Vice Media, United States.
Nichols B (2017) Introduction to Documentary, 3rd edn, Indiana University Press, Bloomington.
