Film 1:
A Plastic Wave:
A Plastic Wave is a participatory documentary which follows surf teacher Dave Muir as he seeks to educate himself more about the single use plastic waste pollution which has been washing up on his own beloved beach.
Muir and James Roberts employ a large selection of pieces to camera interviews with field experts and the locals of Mumbai to truly unearth the root cause of mass pollution of plastics.
Although the film was hardly groundbreaking artistically or stylistically I found the director’s choice of interview subject’s especially when travelling to Mumbai was what set the film apart for me. Muir interviewed Mumbai locals who lived by waterways which were heavily polluted. This new perspective which I had not seen before in other waste impact documentaries enabled me to understand why locals contribute to these issues.
My group’s documentary will involve a lot of piece to camera work with our interview subjects so watching this film made me think critically about what questions we are asking and how we can utilise our time with the subject to gather the most insightful responses relevant to our social issue.
Stylistically the DOP’s use of long shot’s of Mumbai’s waste truly allowed me to understand the scale of the issue at hand, and put into perspective what it was that waste management organisations are truly dealing with.
I also thought the use of the participatory mode enabled me as the viewer to be more connected to the subject. By learning about Dave’s story first and why he was so driven to learn more to help protect his beach back home it let me feel connected to the issue on a personal level and create a sense of empathy for a place and person I had previously never heard of. Although our film is unlikely to take the mode of participatory it does create ideas about how our group can utilise our final chosen mode to create a sense of connection between audience and the subject matter. Given our topic it will be vital that our audience can feel a sense of empathetic connection towards our interviewee.
Film 2:
Against the Current:
Against the current is a participatory and expository documentary which unearths the struggles which young Native American face when trying to keep the culture alive in a modern world. Director Daunnette Moniz-Reyome documents her life and the life of her family and friends and they attempt to juggle 21st century living with rituals and native belief systems whilst also aiming to heal their culture from prejudice and historical trauma received at the hands of colonisers.
Again much like A Plastic Wave, this film may not have been groundbreaking stylistically however I found that Daunnette’s use of her chosen modes was exceptional and helped solidify the film’s message.
Daunette employed a large amount of full shots in fly on the wall situations which acted as B-roll whilst she narrated about the issues and experiences her people faced. These shots intertwined with participatory interviews where Daunette was in frame created the ability for me as the audience to feel as if I was genuinely there experiencing these Native American rituals. It felt more as if I was a third party listening in on the conversation rather than just another viewer behind the screen.
Again this helps increase the audience’s connectivity to a subject creating a deeper sense of caring for the subject matter. I believe our film will ideally stylistically be similar to Against the Current. Our group has discussed and struggled to come up with ideas about what kind of B-roll footage we will use but after watching this film I believe that by employing fly on the wall scenes where our subject carries out day to day tasks overlapped with the interview audio it will enable the subject and film to feel more like an experience with the subject rather than a sterile interview.
Daunette’s use of lighting and colour grading also gave the film an overall “softer” and professional feel as opposed to the previous film which I believe lacked some post production editing of the footage.
Daunnette also employed a use of Native American music as a backing track. This inspired me to think more critically about what kind of music our group should be using in our film. As a film lover and film student I have always believed that the sounds and in particular the music used in films is one of the most important features of a film and that a great soundtrack or song in a particular moment can completely shift the desired emotion which is to be elicited in that scene. I believe that by finding the right song or songs for our short snippet of our film we can add another layer of emotional depth to our film.