https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p52rWlWlMmE

Reflection on the Our Daily Bread

• The whole style of the documentary named Our Daily Bread is trying to let the audience ignore the camera. It presents the factory, works, and animals by avoiding all the technical elements, such as camera movement, camera position, music and etc. By this method, it successfully constructs an experience of the spectator to the audience. Normally, the inner of the factory is not common to be seen by the majority. However, the filmmaker makes the invisible visible.
• Besides, a stable shot lasts a few seconds has already told the mechanized work of workers and the relationship between the workers and animals in the factory.

How to convey ideas without words?

• Our Daily Bread almost completely hides the position and influence of the filmmaker. It does not just show the film without words but also without music. In our final documentary, we are going to present our interviewee living on a peaceful farm with an enjoyable life. To achieve the sense, we also plan to use the observation mode to record the interactive process between her and her animals. From my perspective, audio could become one of the most significant factors to construct the sense of the film, especially when we use minimum words. Thus, I will create a sound mixer with the sound of animals and the wind convey the feeling to the audience before they see the image. In addition, I could use some inspiration music to reinforce the mood of the scene.
• Moreover, a film without words interpretation requires more perfect details, I am supposed to do more work on the order of clips, the relationship between shots and the rhythm of the film.

Thought on the statement

The decision to use words minimally represents an attempt to match the film aesthetic to the footage, recognizing that the audience’s focus on creating their own mental representations of the objects represented in the image is in itself the most meaningful goal. (Hughes 2013, p. 335).

• A film without words interpretation could let the audience strongly focus on the viewing experience and the reflection of their own responses. Moreover, it could raise the audience’s awareness at a high level. (Hughes 2013)
• However, this statement is more like an ideal concept. There are various problems may reveal in the practice process.

• • Firstly, the words minimally documentary challenge the habit of watching a film. Thus, the acceptance of the audiences could be different. It is possible to lose a group of audience in the first 10 minutes.
  • Secondly, the expectation of the audience’s own metal reflection is highly required abilities of the audience, such as understanding, critical thinking, and reflection. Besides, there could be a gap between the audience’s interpretation and the filmmaker’s intention.
  • Thirdly, the meaning of the audience’s self-reflection could be arguable. At the beginning of the semester, we learned that the documentary is subjective even sometimes it looks objective. The filmmaker could control the whole process of filmmaking and express his/her own ideas by various aspects, such as the order of the scene, audios, the choice of clips, and etc. In other words, the audience’s own mental representations are guided by the director in a way. It is more like communication with subliminal influence.