Like I mentioned in the blog of the first week, I am willing to go deeper on the documentary in this studio. Thus, the social problems behind the food may become the main area I am concerned about. The first idea came to my mind is the food problem of the homeless community. For example, the homeless community may suffer from hunger or pay no attention to the health problem of the diet. More importantly, the government and a large number of charities are helping the homeless community. However, the problem isn’t solved even we keep giving food. The reason behind it becomes a very interesting problem to explore.
When I plan the documentary production, I start to realize that it is not going to be easy work. After I discuss my idea with Kim. She told me that the filming problem could be problematic and I may face to the ethnic problem. Then she gave me very useful advice, focusing on the food-providing charity. Kelly introduced the pay-as-feel restaurant called Lentil As Anything to me, which helped me a lot. Thus, I am going to explore the Lentil As Anything from three aspects, such as its operational mode, healthy diet, and its social role. Besides, the thing I need to keep in mind is that it needs to always relate to the food.
Subject: Lentil As Anything
In my opinion, the mode of the documentary largely depends on the purpose of it. For example, I aim to introduce the Lentil As Anything in the documentary. Thus, I may mainly use expository documentary mode for the narrative documentary. Fox (2018) noted that expository documentaries often combine images and interview together to service the narrator, who has a feelingless voice-of-god. Like Fox mentions, I will also add some interviews of the owner, volunteer, and customers to make it more diverse. In addition, some support images of healthy food are also necessary. In this way, the audience can get multiple perspectives from different people. Besides, the observation to Lentil As Anything, such as food, workers, and the homeless community, can give audiences a space to thinking. I prefer to let the audience participate in the documentary rather than just being told information. Base on that, I will use the interviews to combine the story rather than using a voice-over. A voice-over may increase the gap between the documentary and the audiences. Instead, the audience can have a sense of participation by direct listening to interviewees’ words.
Reference:
Vice 2018, SHELTER (Full Length Documentary), Youtube, 21 February, Vice, United States, viewed 16 March 2019, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUfNbNBFwRI>.
Fox, B 2017, ‘A Brief History of Documentary Movements and Modes’, Documentary Media: History, Theory, Practice, Routledge, ProQuest Ebook Central database.