The documentary I choose is my favorite documentary style, without very fancy pictures, but the content can touch my heart very much. This documentary is called: when day is done, It’s a beautiful and lovely documentary. It tells the story of the director’s grandmother recalling her husband from their acquaintance to the death of her grandfather due to dementia. Noreen’(Director’s Grandmother) voice is used throughout the film, there is no much emotional ups and downs, but rather a calm and kind tone in recalling the story of her and her husband. Especially at the end of the film, Noreen is singing without the music, which is the best part of the film, ‘I miss you… when day is done.’, When I finished watching this video, it really touching me. The film is also a reflection of the transience of love, and company is irreplaceable happiness.
It’s really enjoyable for me to watch a slow and well-made documentary like this. Except I really like the story content and overall rhythm for this video I just mentioned, but also I enjoy in every footage, color and editing. I like the producer who can capture beautiful pictures and connect them with the whole story, so that the audience won’t feel boring, but think they are a part worthy of praise. Secondly, its color is consistent with the overall story. The current picture is a little dark and the tone is cold, which can be connected with director’s grandmother’s missing her husband.
When there are fragments of memories, the picture is lively and the tone is warm. The contrast between the two also gives the audience good thinking.
As I mentioned earlier, this is a documentary style that I really appreciate, so I really want to imitate it. I have tried before, but the results have been disappointing. Part of the reason is that I always want to synchronize the picture with the sound, but the interviewees or main character will not look at the camera naturally. Therefore, if I want to make a documentary in this form, I will also adopt the director’s idea. The picture is not synchronized with the sound, but the mood can also be shown through the picture, which I think is also a challenge for myself.
For a long time, I think food documentaries are presented in the form of “food is beautiful” or “food is fancy”. For example, the “chef’s table” is an artistic presentation of fine food, or the documentary “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” reflects the ‘spirit of the craftsman’ of Jiro Ono for more than ten years. However, the food documentary I watched recently, Ugly Delicious, which completely changed my view on food documentary. Although the entire series is also about food, But as the documentary’s title suggests, it hints at something people (include me) often think about in their minds, but rarely discuss publicly: Can ugly food be called good food? Is authentic food necessary? For me as a Chinese living in Australia, I can deeply feel the issues discussed in this documentary, which is one of the reasons why I choose this documentary. Some foreign students told me, they find a good restaurant, but after seeing the decoration or there have non-Chinese waiters, I would like to judge that this is not an authentic Chinese restaurant, or the food tastes bad. But is it wrong to insist on the authenticity of food? As the Fox(2017) said when describing the role played by the documentary media, documentary is a kind of ‘sober discourse’, and represents the reality and its possible social impact, which can trigger the pursuit of knowledge for the audience. What this documentary brings to the audience is the cultural identity of Asia and Europe through food, and some cruel and unfair history or reality in those area. It is also the subject that I care about and want to reflect on. Of course, host David Chang’s humorous style is also the reason why I choose this documentary to present.
What makes this documentary different from other food documentaries is that it does not focus on the delicately made food or the rare ingredients. Instead, it focuses on eight food category, delicious but unrefined foods, pizza, Taco, Barbecue, Home Cooking food, Fried chicken, Fried rice, dumplings and even Chinese food. However, the producers did not focus too much on the food itself, nor did they demonstrate any food preparation in detail. Starting from food, the producer explored the individual stories behind food, and discussed the philosophy of cooking, cultural differences and racial discrimination, which also brought the food documentary to a new level. As the Nichols(2018) said, the documentary does not need a big topic to cut into, but a big and important story to support. I have to say that the choice of the entry point of this documentary is very attractive, which can not only attract the audience, but also connect the geography and culture well.
In each episode of the ‘Ugly Delicious’, David would talk about food with his friends, who are also celebrities in the world, such as James Christian Kimmel. David collided with their thoughts. The content they discussed was not limited to the food itself, but also focused on the views of people from different backgrounds on the food culture. At the same time, they also communicated about the social aspects behind the food. Through their conversations, food expert analysis, and interviews with real people, Providing documentary evidence, asking questions as an audience, being an active audience, Calibrate facts by telling, showing images (Fox, 2017), It’s also a natural way for the audience to understand the message they’re trying to convey. David said, I know we wanted to make it educational, we almost thought of it more as a variety show sometimes. As the documentary is burdened with a heavy theme and educational, I have to say that the producer Morgan is a genius. The atmosphere of the whole film is lively, and the music is sometimes rock and jazz, with the editing technique of matching the beat, plus from time to time insert funny animation and the main characters of each other’s ridicule, which more like a few picky foodies wandering in the streets, while eating chat. Producers throw serious ideas in a pleasant atmosphere to attract an audience,interesting enough. This is also the inspiration for my works. Don’t be rigid, but change the traditional documentary mode and consider the audience’s interest.
Finding the right movie modes usually means deciding which format to use for a subject (Nichols, 2018). From my point of view, ‘ugly delicious’ takes multiple models,it’s more empirical than explanatory, It immerses the viewer in different aspects of the world from different perspectives, It’s a whole new way of looking at things that we’re familiar with. However, this documentary is consistent with the concept of the expository mode, it illustrates the producer’s intention in the simple way of oral narration to show the connection between food and its culture (Fox, 2017). In my opinion and in combination with Nichols (2018), expository and poetic modes are the main modes of this documentary.
According to ‘Ugly Delicious’, I find a lot of inspiration for my documentary work. Although the topic selection is different, both the shooting method, the choice of modes and the expression of the theme, which have given me a lot of reflection. In addition, the topic selection was the most difficult part for me to make a film in the past, and I often neglected my surroundings area. According to Nichole (2018), he give me idea about when I choosing a theme, people should understand the existing world and get inspiration from the life around them, in this way, people can stimulate deep social problems and become a focus topic, which will be of great help to my future topic selection.
After two weeks of study, I deeply realized that my previous understanding of documentaries was too superficial. Whether in class or through the reading by Broderick Fox , I learned that there are six basic shooting modes for documentary —— Reflexive, poetic, expository, observational, participatory, and performative. In addition, people adds three more which are autobiographical, prose and interactive. All these nine modes have their own practical forms and methods. At present, I still have a little confused about each mode, also, I have some difficulties using these modes, but I completely ‘killed’ the idea that the documentary is the single mode.
Recently, I’ve been ruminating about my interest topic about food. For the topics,food waste or animal welfare, although those topic is very good and professional , but I do not know much about this area, I do not know how to implement. For me and my friends, the most care thing about food is how to control our diet. Also in today’s life, dieting has become the most popular way to lose weight. If I could dive into this subject to make a documentary, there would be multi modes of filming.
First of all, I’m very interested in reflective models. Through the author’s description, it can stimulate the audience’s reflection on the society, and also recombine another meaningful visual order through the clips shot from life. This is also a mode that I want to challenge myself, I can jump out of the limit of my vision to create the visual effect I want. For example, it can be less boring to use this mode when I show the physical symptoms or psychological stress that people experience after dieting, so editing can play an important role in this mode. Secondly, the whole video is based on the reflexive mode and I want to add a little bit of explanation, which is the explanatory mode. For me, this model is the easiest model to imitate and one of the most commonly used formats for food documentaries in China in recent years. Simply describes the image in a literal. I think it is necessary. If my picture has been reorganized, then there may be an abstract possibility. I want to organize a theme of the film through part of the voiceover. In fact, participatory mode is also the mode I want to try, because producers can play a positive role in creation and guide participants to better achieve the goal that producers want to achieve.
In the future, I still need to practice more on various documentary modes and be able to create my own mode by using multiple documentary modes.
Finally, for the video essay in assessment 1, I still have a lot of confusion in the topic selection and shooting. In the next few days, I need to solve problems timely and help each other with my classmates, I hope I can find out what is the video essay and what is the structure for the video essay.
Food has been the most important part of human life since the very beginning. In China, there is a saying, ‘民以食为天’. The English translation is ‘Bread comes first’ or ‘Bread is everything’ (Although I think the English translation is not very accurate). Food is essential for people to survive, so talking about food is essential.
The reason why I choose studio is that I have always been passionate about food, I like to eat, I like to share food photo and video to others, like cooking, and like to find different kinds of food in different countries. Besides, this studio also gives me an opportunity to learn how to make a documentary. In fact, when I just entered the university, there was a very small exercise to shoot a simple character documentary. Due to my lack of experience and don’t know any documentaryshoot methods, I was not satisfied with the final work. Therefore, in the course of media 5, I want to learn a lot of documentary forms, shooting techniques, etc. I want to express the meaning behind food through the final food documentary, which I know is a big challenge for me, and I will try my best to achieve my final goal.
Before I attend the courses in week one, my idea of documentary was probably too one-sided, after week one course, I think I need change my understanding of ‘documentary’. I used to think that documentary is a very rigid, it only need to record the facts, do not need additional gorgeous decoration, and documentary must be narrative. But now I think documentary can be any form, it can express reality with fancy pictures, and it can also be abstract (which surprises me the most). I don’t know if I’m right or wrong, but anyway. From now on, I want to break all my previous thoughts on documentaries and re-understand and learn about documentaries.
Due to the continuous improvement of people’s living standards, food as a part of consumption also brings many problems, such as food safety, food waste, these problems encountered in life, I am very interested in these food issues. In particular, nowadays, people no longer only pursue “full” for food, but prepare for health, so I will probably focus on this issue in this semester. For the future work, I am looking forward to working in groups. For me, if there are familiar people in groups, maybe we can give play to greater potential, because we can better exchange ideas with each other.I don’t want to get in the way of shooting because of the language problem.
After the two courses in week one, I would like to know more about how to shoot abstract documentaries and how to organize ideas, etc., which are quite confusing.
The contrast between the two also gives the audience good thinking.