Lockdown is the new reality, and thus our course adapts to the new norm. This weeks task focuses on a form called Desktop Cinema, in which I focused on how another industry has adapted in this time. Although I myself am not that into the idea of producing Desktop Documentaries, I really liked how easy it is for anyone to have a go at it. If you’ve got a computer, you can make a documentary narrative.

This was quite a challenging task for me, first, I struggled to think of a topic to do, and second I was unsure how to make a 2 minute, desktop documentary engaging. Initially, I had used a lot of found footage in my first interpretation, but scrapped the whole plan and started again. I guess I’m learning that we need to plan our projects more than usual, I’ve always just had an idea, grabbed my camera and walked out the door. So having to construct a narrative first, find the websites, images and footage was a very different process for me.

One of the things I’m quite happy with is that I do find this piece engaging. I tried to follow a simple structure of introduction, conflict and resolution. I introduced the problem, built tension using the multiple videos; voices of those who are suffering. And finally a solution that farmers are using to combat sale loss. The layering of the voices very loosely based on a portion from Amazonia where Roger Beeb opened 3 ambient videos of trees and spoke over the top to add a mood to his voiceover.

I wasn’t overly happy with the voiceover and timing of it, there are lots of gaps in the video where I probably could have come up with more voiceover, but I didn’t want to overdo the vocal info dump, I wanted to allow the video to create atmosphere and information.

I’m not 100% sold on the music, and I know that we have to use it thoughtfully – which I tried to do, I found 2 different styles of songs and inserted them at key moments of change to evoke the moods I wanted. I just didn’t like the empty sound of recording a desktop screen.

 

• Bešlagić, L 2019, ‘Computer Interface as Film: Post-Media Aesthetics of Desktop Documentary’, AM Časopis za studije umetnosti i medija, vol. 20, pp. 51-60.
• Lee, Kevin B,  <http://www.filmscalpel.com/portfolio_page/desktop-documentary/>, Accessed April 9th 2020.