About documentary production

Week one introduced different docus. We were talking about filmmaking and what their the producers features were and also as seen in George Franjus ‘blood of the beasts’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFAUA8_mfXs and how Franju’s documentary about animal slaughtering works as a docu. Key aspects in this horrible animal killings is how the director has captured most of the climaxes of the killings and put it together to a documentary.

I think what works in short docus is what is mentioned in the readings, and also key aspects discussed in the lecture and the tute. Domination works because it tries to grow a documentary idea from dirt, and that’s what works. Audiences, most of the time wants to see the unusual and the new. Whether it is child abuse, drinking, nudity, animal programs, historical moments, biographies or animal slaughtering, it is deeply incorporated into human beings that a somewhat fetish for something unusual is exists. It can be wonderful, disgusting or something learning full being presented but it is one unconscious part inside us that wants to see the particular ‘that’.

Briefly, I think these things are:
-Strong characters.
-A conflict
-A journey
-A world and also someone’s world view

Documentary being ‘a rhetorical form of filmmaking- designed around an argument, or persuasion’ gives a filmmaker the space to play around with different things within the production.

In both the set ups, ‘Domination’ and ‘Glean’, the filmmakers have carefully thought of what to shoot where. When the dominatrix is talking, she is presented in shot where details are not that visible, whereas when she is showing her tools a lot of the room is seen. The directing of her talking and (not sure if this was acting) showing looked like an airhostess style and gave it a more innocent presentation.

In ‘Glean’, the construction and the style of this docu was wonderful in how Varda presented to glean. It contained characters as a cat, a remix of time, juxtapositions of images and real life per today, and not to mention placing the elderly in a bar when talking about gleaning and French harvesting.

Overall, I think what these two short docus have in common and that are important for filmmaking is their random and engaging characters. They have a conflict, a dramatic arc, a resolution and a theme. I think this together with putting characters and ourselves as filmmakers on the line, by asking difficult questions, will contribute to what works in a short docu.