In yesterday’s Media lectorial we recieved our task for Brief 3. This assessment requires us to make a 2 minute media portrait of someone we know. This had me pondering about the idea of a ‘portrait’ vs ‘documentary’. I suppose to me, a documentary is usually quite broad and covers a subject rather than a person. A documentary is long and informative. A portrait seems to be more symbolic and focused on a singular person and a singular interest or story of theirs. It seeks to capture the essence of them in a short amount of time.

This task both scares me and excites me. How can I capture someone in 2 minutes? I’m still building up basic editing skills and figuring out my way around a camera. Who will I choose to do my portrait on and will they be happy with what I’ve produced? However, during the lectorial, Rachel also mentioned that some of the best documentaries she’d seen were the most simplistic ones and this gave me hope. Simplicity is something that is underrated and something that I will use in my favour. I’m a creatively oriented person and so the more I brainstorm ideas for this task the more excited I get about it. I think not planning was where I went wrong in Brief 2, which resulted in me submitting something I wasn’t proud of and something that didn’t really represent me.

I’ve decided to to create my portrait around my best friend, Tiggy. She has a wonderful fascination with the 1930’s which is reflected in her clothing taste and the places she goes.