This week’s tutorial was so special because we had it online due to the Coronavirus, and the topic of this week was desktop documentaries which are really relevant to our lives now. For desktop documentaries, I think it’s a very interesting type of documentary to me because I’ve never watched the documentaries in this form, however compared to the normal documentaries, the desktop documentaries in my opinion in some extent can present resources in more diverse ways. In the film My Crush was a Superstar (2017), it mainly records the desktop, which uses a lot of pages (including news, video & pictures) with different sources introducing the character and also other footage combined to complete this film. Moreover the street views in maps were used in the desktop documentaries as well, which was super creative and interesting (street views, 2017). Thus, I think I would like to make a short desktop documentary combining the ideas from those two films.

Since I always have interests on how garbage collection and classification affect environmental protection, for my work this week I researched on the topic of Where did the trash go and make a short film of it. Because of my student status, I couldn’t  have many opportunities to participate in observing or shooting each step of garbage collection, however to make a desktop documentary which adds the online sources (pages, news & pictures) could solve this problem. Moreover to make the film more complete and like a documentary, I add the street views (instead of adding footages like in the film of Amazonia (2019)) around my living area in the film to introduce the environment and add the voiceover run through the whole film. Additionally the film introduces the process of garbage collection, and I want the viewers to see how difficult it is to collect and recycle garbage, so that they can reflect on their daily lives and consider how to behave more environmentally friendly.

To reflect my work, the short film seemed to be more narrative rather than persuasive, and the connections between pages and pictures were not smooth enough, thus I think it more necessary to me to go deeper on research different topics and consider in what way to present it properly. Also increasing my editing skills could be a big part of my progress in this semester as well.

Amazonia. 2019. [film], Directed by Roger Beebe.

Street views. 2017. [film], Directed by Anne Berman

My Crush was a Superstar. 2017. [film], Directed by Chloé Galibert-Laîné