Whilst attempting to edit the footage and sound I had captured and recorded in previous weeks, it became apparent what the concept ‘finding order in the random’ really meant. The footage I had to work with did not really go with the sounds I had and vise versa, but I tried to come up with a kind of context to base the short film on. I relied on repetition of shots, mostly because they were the best and most usable that I had, but also to try and push the main point of my random story accross to anyone who views it. My intention was to create a documentary based on the concept of isolation vs nature and freedom. The whole idea that a big building with bars over the windows holds this person inside. While nature runs and flows thorugh life outside, this person inside is trapt and cannot leave to experience it.

The qaulity of my sound recordings was pretty good, it was clear, not distorted, and sounded quite natural. However, with my visual footage, some of it was quite over exposed. In saying this though, most of the footage was usable in my short abstract documentary! When actually out recording the sounds, I found it useful as I was never really very confidant with sound recording. Whilst recording these sounds, I learnt to listen more carefully to my surroundings, and to work with the mixer once again. Furthermore, as I stated, this excercise made me think about the way I could possibly put together footage that wasn’t really supposed to go together in order to make sence. I think I worked with what I had and tried my best to come up with a theme/context for my random short film.

Abstract Exercise – FilmTV2 from Shannen Carlton on Vimeo.

As a student who studied ‘True lies’ last semester, it is really cool to step into the shoes of the documentary maker, and try to work with all the things I analysed while watching documentary films last semester. The reading entitled Documentary: The Margins of Reality talks of many of the misconseptions I had with the difference, and fine line, between fiction and non-fiction films. As it discusses, many people see any dramatization in a documentary style film as being a negative aspect – something that tips the film that is claiming to provide an insight into reality, over to the side of fiction. To this though, I say that documentaries claim to provide an insight into a version of reality. Everyone has their own perception of the world, and obviously, their own perception and veiws when it comes to issues, people, places, events, etc. This personalised view of things can be downplayed in documentary films, but that doesn’t mean the intention behind it is not still there. A documentary filmmaker will inevitably create the film that they see reflects the ideas and values that they want to push accross to their audience most. If this requires dramatisation, so be it. The use of dramatisation just hypes up the issue/topic, and helps portray the point in a way that might be more appealing and/or interesting. This is the main point I liked from the reading, and I feel like too many people have the idea that dramatisation in documentary just takes away from the non-fiction aspect, whereas I feel that it can definitely ad to the hype of the non-fiction aspect.

Question 1 –

From reading the treatement to ‘End Of The Line,’ to then watching it in the lecture, it is clear to me that with this kind of documentary making, the story the creator is attempting to tell can take on a life of itself and evolve into new territoy of the story. This treatment explains a documentary focusing on a family and their life in Broken Hill, and how their life of isolation is strange to some, but they love it. From what I can remember of the actual documentary that was produced, it had quite a depressing vibe to it, and focused on different people who reside in the town of Boken Hill. I can’t remember exactly who those residence were, however, some of them spoke of how they liked iving there, or had moved there to live out the rest of their life. From treatment to final product there has been an evolvement, where the story has slightly become something else. So, the group who crated ‘End of The Line’ definitely told a interesting story with their short film, however it does seem that the final product was not neccessarily exactly what they had originally set out to achieve.