Film and TV 2 – Week 3 Reading – Aesthetics and Authorship

Rabiger, M. Direction the documentary, (p. 54-57). 4th ed. Burlington:Focal Press, 2004

Rabiger discusses the different modes of documentary storytelling referencing both Renov and Nichols break downs. In Nichols’ definition of his 6th category, Performative Documentary he highlights the characteristics as “concrete and embodied, based on the specifics of personal experience, in the tradition of poetry, literature, and rhetoric.” This struck me as a style to be considerate of when approaching our documentary (tentatively titled ‘Adulthood’). My group members seem to be very interested in pursuing an abstract take on the documentary and I think it will be useful in informing the narrative structure to recognize that we will be asking participants to reminisce  and/or articulate their own personal conception of adulthood and we want the abstraction to be grounded in something. (is that an contradiction of terms?!)

The other message I took from the reading was that while there are different modes of documentary, you don’t need to be bound by the characteristics of any one mode; you can assemble and personalise the stylistic qualities depending on your motive.