Film TV 2 – Analysis and Reflection #3

Question 1 –

I terms of the audio recordings Ying and I did, the variety was lacking as there were very isolated sounds on each recording and very few of them at that, however this was bypassed  through a process of layering the sounds in order to create a stronger, although still bare texture. I had two video recording sessions so I had plenty of footage to choose from, unlike the audio.

It was one particular shot that I knew I wanted to use before even sitting down to do the exercise. The slow zoom out from a ‘high place’ was, in my opinion a really cool shot as it slowly hits you how ‘creepy’ this kind of shot is to the point where you’re thinking “this is getting ridiculous now”.

Overall I think the culmination of the audio and a select few of the shots we had recorded created a really eerie vibe. The videos could’ve easily been placed into separate contexts entirely but it was really the sound that pioneered this tone. The big, heavy, echo-y footsteps were a great sound to couple with the hero shot because of the pacing on both of them seemed to match so well. The inserts between the zoom out shot created a juxtaposition with the main shot being really desolate and isolated looking shots. My favourite sound was running my fingers on a stairwell barrier. Like I said in the last reflection, it gave the piece a sort of holy, ritualistic vibe which worked with the eerieness.

This exercise didn’t necessarily teach me anything but it did underline the importance of sound and how it can really shape a video.

Question 2 –

The idea of dramatising documentaries is really interesting to me. I may be (probably am) wrong, but there’s something so ironic about a documentary containing dramatisations and re-enactments. At the base form of documentaries, factual pieces and representation are expected by the audience when watching documentaries, so to read that audiences feel that it is not genuine to have a re-enactment in a documentary for reasons of unrealism and fiction, it begs the questions “how do we make a re-enactment or dramatisation in a documentary without upsetting the flow of information or the audience?”

That’s something I’ve been heavily investing my Film-TV2 research into and studying the conventions and techniques successful documentaries employ in order to make a documentary which represents truthfully in a dramatised and artistic way without it blurring the line between narrative film and documentary film. Is it good to blur the line? How do we make sure we’re not clearly over? These are the questions I’m trying to figure out.