Select from one of the readings and briefly describe two points that you have taken from it. Points that excite you, something that was completely new to you. 

“There’s a lot of drama in ordinary experiences.” – Frederick Wiseman

When I was trying to come up with a concept for a potential documentary, I kept thinking that I couldn’t do certain things because they would end up too dry or too boring. I thought about the documentaries that I really liked watching (Blackfish, We are Legion etc) and compared their subjects and interviewees with the ones I would potentially have in my documentary; I kept thinking that the ideas I generated were not interested, exciting or dramatic enough. But in the reading, Wiseman states that ordinary things can still be quite dramatic. And this lead me to think of the Humans of New York blog, where photographer Brandon asks ‘ordinary’ people simple questions which prove to have the potential to result in extraordinary, touching responses. I realise now that we aren’t making a feature length documentary investigating and revealing certain secrets of different topics. We are making a 5 minute documentary, and in that time, it is possible to find a small amount of drama in something simple and ordinary.

“The basic paradox is that nowadays the documentary needs TV for its survival unyet it is TV that is killing the documentary” – Pawel Pawlikowski

I found Pawlikowski’s point about television and documentaries interesting because it talks about how there is a need for producers to fill spaces on television with shows, and how because of this, ratings need to be heavily considered. In order to hake audiences happy, documentaries need to appeal to a wide audience, and generally to do this, cameras are set up in places of high interest e.g. prisons, and customs. There is not a lot of room for an experimental documentary. Now that I am reflecting on the television shows I see everyday on TV, I now realise that a wide selection of them are lacteally documentaries: Border Control, Hoarders, Embarrassing Bodies etc. Why do I like watching them? Because most times someone is getting in trouble, has something awkward to admit or has a really fascinating obsession. Most of the stories unfold the same way, however. There is not a lot of creative or artistic direction I believe. But there are a lot of viewers. However, a documentary which could be beautifully filmed and really aesthetic and meaningful won’t get many viewers or will only appeal to a certain audience. I find that really interesting.