The Art of Persuasion’s aim throughout the semester has been focused around becoming closer to answering the question: How do we make a documentary that is both political and poetic? In order to explore this driving question, we have been required to work collaboratively and produce short documentaries for Project Briefs 3&4 and produce writing addressing theoretical concepts for Project Briefs 1&2. In Project Brief 2 I attempted to answer the question ‘What is wrong with simply observing the world?’ which prompted me to realize that the most powerful documentaries require the filmmaker to be heavily involved.
‘All participation may start with observation but the insight and context gained when a documentary strives to do more than simply observe is incomparable. When an audience is offered the opportunity of insight into a subject’s perspective and emotions the chance of social change becoming a reality seems much higher. Furthermore, experimentation in documentary can often create the most emotionally charged viewing experiences, with experimentation of documentary form not something synonymous with simple observation.’
The Art of Persuasion: What’s Wrong with Simply Observing the World? (PB2)
From early on in the semester, a number of documentary films were shown in class in order to get us to start thinking about political and poetic films. The main source of inspiration to me was John Smiths experimental documentary Blight (1994) that explores displacement due to development in London. The audio, which consists of spliced up interviews and construction noises, is arranged rhythmically in order to create an emotional response with the viewer. This abstract, poetic way of presenting information interested me and encouraged me to create something similar. In Project Brief 3 for the shot film Sign City, we attempted to employ the technique of creating a rhythmic, repetitive audio in order to engage the audience (and in our case to irritate the audience. Project Brief 4’s final product Flow also found inspiration in Blight, with interviews being used in an experimental way through the splicing and arranging of four different perspectives. While compiling the soundtrack for Flow, I realized that often less is more. Because we had collectively interviewed four people, we ended up with quite a lot of material and ended up having to be quite brutal with what made the cut. Even still, in the last tutorial of semester we presented out draft to the class with the feedback being to shorten it even more. Fewer statements gave the audience more time to reflect on each thing being said, and to really make an impact.
Working collaboratively has been a focus of the semester, and something I have struggled with before because I find that depending on other people stresses me out a bit. Although there were some problems with the workload being even in Project Brief 3 and resulted in Elaine and I starting to work as a group of two, my experience working collaboratively in Project Brief 4 was very positive. Initially we were going to focus on the political conversation around the tampon tax, but decided to create a short documentary addressing the taboo still surrounding periods, thinking this would allow us to be a little more poetic. After pitching the idea to the class, Ruby ended up joining our group but this time around we had no problem evenly dividing up the work. I feel we worked well together and that everyone had an equal amount of input, a rarity in group work.
Furthermore, I found that the constant feedback from both Liam and the class was very beneficial, and that the class as a whole worked on a collaborative level. By having the opportunity to present progress on a weekly basis it became easier to overcome any problems encountered, as at least one person in the class would have an idea to help. One of the biggest helps was when Liam suggested having a textured background for the underwear in Flow, which prompted us to film a small candle alight with a white sheet as the background. The underwear then covered the candle and we were left with a rather beautiful, flickering glow that improved the aesthetic quality hugely.
As for the driving question of the studio (How do we make a documentary that is both political and poetic?), I found that although my knowledge is far greater than it was previously, I am yet to find the answer to such a large question. I’m happy with the films produced in the semester but I feel it would take far more experience to answer the question completely.
The Art of Persuasion: How do we make documentary that is poetic and political? (PB4)
