Errol Morris has an interesting Documentary style, because he films his participants in a place that they are comfortable and often uses the rule of thirds to frame them. The story is about the creation of a Pet Cemetary, and he gets the perspectives of both the rendering companies (companies devoted to repurposing dead animals as resoruces) and the people backing and the people working to create and manage the Pet Cemetary. There’s a lot of emotion involved, and the interviewees are often filmed in a position that you can clearly see their eyes. I like the way that Errol has carefully cut the documentary to incorperate the silences before and after they speak, and also leaving in parts of the interview that left it feeling authentic and wholesome, like the sound of a car horn driving past, even though the interviewee commented on it.

I noticed that Errol communicates a lot with silence, often a scene will feature the interviewee in a natural habitated accomidated with nothing, just a still shot of the character to let you think about what you’ve seen and heard and how it makes you feel.  I noticed that he would often scenes run a little bit long, and leave a moment of silence after the interviewee has said what they want to say, most of the time, the person would fill the silence. Due to the lack of music within the piece, it was a refreshing sound to hear one of the characters gently strum on the guitar, and it put the audience at ease.

He would also often convey something about the character he was interviewing with the landscape that surrounded them. For example, he filmed a wealthy insurance businessman at a desk surrounded with awards, and he filmed a young college graduate in his small home in the country.

For my final project brief, I would like to include accomidate parts of Errols style, like

• The use of silence when presenting an emotional scene
• Filming characters in their natural habitat, (if possible)
• Put the camera focus on the eyes
• The use of Rule of Thirds whenever possible