After completing Outside the Box, there are a few ethical considerations that I’d like to emphasise in future productions. One of which is building a relationship with the subject/s off camera. Although I was acquainted with the volunteers, it wasn’t until filming had commenced that I made an effort to build genuine relationships. There were moments where some volunteers looked uncomfortable during filming, particularly when they were faced with hurdles such as stock shortages and bad weather. In hindsight, if I had more of a connection with them, they may have felt more at ease and willing to be filmed during those challenging times.

“If a photographer cares about the people before the lens and is compassionate, much is given.” EVE ARNOLD

In an interview with The Economist (2012), documentary filmmaker, Molly Dineen, highlights the importance of honesty with her subjects. She claims that it is the only way to gain trust, which enables the subject to give themselves fully to the interview. I wish I had followed this approach prior to filming, as I only gave the volunteers a brief explanation of what the documentary would explore. If I had clarified the goal of capturing COVID’s constraints on the food bank, volunteers may have been more open to being filmed in those vulnerable, frantic moments.

The failure to properly brief our subjects also posed challenges when interviewing Maria. I did not make it explicitly clear that this film was not about promoting the church’s program. I also failed to communicate that our target audience was the general public and not just church-goers. This led to spiritually-centred responses during our interview, presenting an ethical issue for our team; “do we remain true to Maria’s character who is so strongly led by faith or do we edit those responses in order to create a relatively neutral perspective, that does not alienate non-religious viewers?” By being more transparent about our intentions from the beginning, I would’ve received more relevant responses. If a strong religious tone was still evident, Maria would have been aware that this was not something we’d use in the final edit. For future projects, I’ll need to make it a priority to outline exactly what the documentary will address and how the footage will be handled in order to communicate our intended message.

References

Spong, R 2020, Week 4: Molly Dineen’s kind cuts / Ethics / The interview, Real to Reel, RMIT University

The Economist 2012, Molly Dineen on making documentaries, YouTube, 4 April, viewed 11 October 2020, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iweXyqBY82U>.