Approaching the due date for Project Brief 3, Haylee, Daniel and I have worked in unison to complete the necessary editing processes.
Specifically, we decided to head down to the editing suite to record overlapping voices for our shot footage documentary, Sign City. Chiefly, we decided to use voice overs in place of city soundscapes as it more closely replicated our original formal intention with the documentary itself; specifically, the pervasiveness and often repetitious quality of public signage. By employing our voices and editing them to an overlapping and increasingly overwhelming soundtrack, the documentary’s visuals were thus reiterated; a factor which enabled us to overcome the obstacle of some of the sign’s text being too long to read in the montage sequence.
In terms of our found footage documentary, I spent most of Wednesday and Thursday (after of class) re-editing the overarching structure. Having shown Tech-No-Logic to both Paul Ritchard and Van Rudd in Wednesday’s class, the advice given was largely one of appraisal. Specifically, Van Rudd praised the humorous undertone afforded by the films ‘whitewashed’ imagery and ‘middle-class’, if not slightly glib instrumental soundtrack.
Furthermore, the recent addition of ending the documentary with the Microsoft logo was well received as it enhanced what both Ritchard and Rudd noted as the sarcastic and ironic commentary on technology’s often sleek presentation in marketing footage. The only suggestion made by Ritchard was to include the diegetic sound footage from the new reel footage of the West Ghana junkyard, in order to further engage audiences into an immersive and empathic viewership of the subjects. However, Rudd contradicted this point as he highlighted the aggressive and sardonic tone achieved through the stark juxtaposition of pop music with images of extreme poverty.
As a consequence of this, I decided to insert specific newsreel footage of American news anchors reporting the e-waste situation West Ghana. I found that by disrupting the continuity and emotional tone of the pop music with sudden news segments, the documentary’s argument was elucidated more obviously. For example, prior the the news anchor footage, the sudden change to bleak imagery was stark but not immediately obvious in its argumentative impetus. As the film form is temporally limited to a few minutes, it thus became imperative to create a more explicit expository in order to enunciate the political commentary of the appropriated imagery more profoundly.
In retrospect of this week, I have substantially augmented my original understanding and application of political commentary in the documentary form. Specifically, through employing found footage and re-contextualising it in a subversive way, I learned that expository is sometimes necessary. Such expository might take the form in a voice over literally reading the diegetic text; other times it might be an inclusion of such informational transmitters such as news anchors; ideologically inclined as they might be. Hence, by appropriating both marketing material (tech ads) and institutional media (news) in a deconstruction of hegemonic narratives of technology and its benefits in a Capitalist system, the documentary form is elevated to a platform of education and empowerment, both in its message and in its practice.