After receiving my feedback for my rough cut, and researching more into documentary modes, especially poetic documentaries, I’ve decided to re-start my film from a new angle and concept. One of the main things that Poetic documentaries really focus on is juxtaposition which is not an angle I really looked at my film at before. I looked up on YouTube just different examples of poetic documentaries to try and spike some inspiration and ideas. One that really stood out to me was this short film focusing on Time. The focus that this short film has on juxtaposition really opened my eyes to using it as a centrepiece for my own film.

After doing a few mind maps, and brainstorms I decided I wanted to show the juxtaposition between the events of a birthday (cutting cake, singing, opening presents) and just an average day or a normalised routine. I decided to do this because there was a lot of footage that sort of circulated around these things. Footage of birthdays and just normal kid stuff, or normal routines that my brothers have been groomed accustomed to as we’ve grown up. I split it up into three ‘categories’ you could say, focusing more on individual then group shots.

 

 

So the way I thought I’d juxtapose the film was to do it by different scenes e.g. before cake shots would be juxtaposed with bike riding, film of my brothers and I opening presents would be juxtaposed with playing outside, and when happy birthday was being sung it would be juxtaposed with us playing our respective sports. I want to show juxtaposition between the events of a birthday and everyday life because birthdays are seen as such celebrated days, that everyone experiences and as kids it’s easily the first or second most important day of the year – not including Christmas. It’s so interesting that these rituals, cutting a cake for example are always done on birthdays but on everyday of the year we just go about doing whatever we please. Whether it be sports, playing outside, etc, birthdays are always seen as a highlight of the year.

 

 

I wasn’t struck on a structure per se, but now that I’ve finished construction of the film with my different scenes juxtaposed I wonder whether it would be better to structure it not by the juxtaposition (cake shots to bike riding) for every persona but by the person so like:

 

 

Person A – birthday shot > normal shot > birthday shot > normal shot > birthday normal > normal

Person B – birthday shot > normal shot > etc etc

Person C – etc etc.

 

 

I’m going to try and find some feedback from some of my friends and my family and see what they think about the structure and go from there. But for now I’m really glad I did some brainstorming about my research and found some inspiration to guide my film going forward.