Blog Post and Reading Response #4

My group honestly hasn't accomplished so much since my last blog entry. We've created a timeline with which we are to strictly stick to. I think we can. Our documentary was originally set to monogamy. It has now been changed to love in general and how people communicate this to each other. I think that even though this is a rather vague idea we can turn it into something specific in the end. We'll find a specific question to answer about love. I believe "How do people communicate there love for each other?", would be a great question. It's a cute idea.
The week's reading was from a book by Michael Rabiger. Interviewing is apparently the core of a documentary. There seems to be no story with out it. In interviewing the subjects thoughts and feelings must be there. You need to get close to them and help them be comfortable so as to share all they have. Look over your questions, but don't read them off like a survey to the person being interviewed. Help calm their on-camera nerves by conducting the interview like a normal conversation. Make sure sound is good before any of this takes place.

Blog Post and Reading Reflection #3

My documentary group is going to have a lot of fun with this project. We've figured out the main question we want to be answered, "Can monogamy really exist?" We've to interview two different couples and a single person to get there takes on the question. It's going to be really difficult to get all that we want to show into a 5-10 minute film, but I think we'll do okay. Right now as far as people we want to interview I only have one couple in mind and Lena knows of another. We just need to set up times.
This week's assigned reading was all about research for a documentary. The article says that in all the excitement a lot of people will most likely only brush over the research process, not getting enough information. There seems to always be more room for research. This article is a great guide to how to do research. I didn't even think of looking into old news articles or political history. They say, "the best research is done when there is a genuine desire on the part of the scriptwriter." I have interest in my topic so I think my group will be able to do some good research.

Blog and Reading Reflection #2

We just added another member to our documentary group, Bea Cooper. I think we can still do really good with three people. It'll probably be a little harder to coordinate, but I'm sure we'll come out with a great finished project. We have yet to decide on our final subject of the documentary. It's between the question "Is monogamy really possible?", and the topic of sentencing juveniles in the court. Tomorrow we'll make a decision and write down a time line, so that we have a schedule to follow.
This week's article was called "How Real Does It Feel?", by A.O. Scott. I guess sometimes people make movies and fool the public into thinking what they made was a documentary, when really it's not. Recently it's become popular with film makers to make movies in a way that makes them look somewhat home-made. This seems especially popular with horror movies, like Cloverfield and Paranormal Activity. This style seems to captivate the audience more. It freaks them out, to know that it could all possibly be real. Recently it seems kind of impossible to be able to tell which film is reality/based on reality or labeled reality, but warped into something an audience wants.

Documentary Period: Blog and Reading Reflection #1

The VOICES class is now going into Documentary Mode for the next few months. I'm really quite excited, because I love documentaries. They are very interesting to me, even the dullest of subjects in documentary form can strike my attention. My partner for the documentary assignment will be Lena. We're having a whole lot of trouble deciding on a subject or topic to do our documentary on. We both have a lot of great ideas, but some of them are very unrealistic or boring to others. My two favorite ideas that I came up with; the way children view the world as apposed to adults and a mash-up of a few old couples' love stories. The children idea I find interesting, because kids are so honest. They tell you what they see and there isn't a whole lot of bias. The old love stories would just be adorable. Sort of a When Harry Met Sally feel. There are problems with both ideas of course. Where would the issue of the stories be?
The reading assigned to us this week was an intro to directing documentaries. I had no idea there were so many different kinds of documentaries. They can be shown from a future view, as a creative treatment of actuality, social criticism, or from one specific person's point of view. Successful documentaries have interesting stories, people that present themselves well for interviews, and some tension. You want to engage the audience and then keep them there. Many film makers will argue, but a documentary can really come in any form as long as it's the documentation of actuality. Many documentaries are biased, because the person making it clearly has their opinions and wants to share them.