Today (october 15th, 2020), we showed our near ‘final ready’ documentaries to the class. My film lacked my ending as it wasn’t finished but I found it extremely beneficial to have peoples feedbacks towards my near finished documentary. I was so pleased to hear that everyone liked the vulnerability I presented within my doco as I was very nervous to show case it.
I wanted to use this post to appreciate documentaries that stuck out to me today. For example Isabel’s inner conflict between the benefits and disadvantages towards travelling to Africa for volunteering was such an amazing film. Her editing skills were exceptional and really captured this idea of two opposing opinions on the idea of volunteerism. Another film I loved was Rishi’s as I had never heard of code switching before in my life and am excited to see his final creation. His use of colour grading and text on screen made his documentary very light hearted and educational.
It was amazing to see the ways in which my peers displayed their stories. They were each crafted in ways to ‘interest audience members’ (Bernard, 2011) and all followed individual ideas.
Receiving the feedback I did assisted me in forwarding my ideas and thinking creatively in ways I wouldn’t normally comprehend. I experimented with several different documentary techniques such as materiality, animation, sound design and many more. The abundance of techniques allowed me to create a somewhat messy combination of film that I was able to edit into a more flowing documentary. It was interesting watching my documentary grow into something different from my starting idea. From something that seemed more like a public service announcement, turned into a very emotional and personal film.
I am grateful that these studios are so flexible and able to accept changes to ideas.
References:
Bernard, Sheila Curran. Documentary Storytelling, 2nd Edition. 2nd ed. Focal, 2013.
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