Select from one of the readings and briefly describe two points that you have taken from it. Points that excite you, something that was completely new to you.
Rabiger, M. Directing the documentary. 4th ed. Burlington: Focal Press, 2004.
Rabiger: “Truth is always provisional and to some extent fictionalised.”
There are so many things such as stories of people and cultures that we have not learned about but been touched by films. Rabiger once says that audiences define films of fantasy or reality by the moment they “compare true claims on the screen with what they know viscerally from life”. It may be easy to make the information known to audience by simply presenting the fact; however what really change the audiences is to trigger their emotions. I guess that is why making documentaries is hard. Filmmakers may be criticised as not being objective if he raises certain truths while putting down the rest to present certain idea in his perspective. I used to think documentaries were a record of the flat, tedious truth but honestly there are so many anomalies when presenting and experiencing the reality. As Rabiger writes, “Like great fiction films, great documentaries tend to play out aspects of the human predicament in order to dramatize and organize what is troubling, unjust, or unanswerable”.
Interviewing Technique
1. Get comprehensive cover of expository information, from a variety of interviewers for more flexibility during the edit.
2. Give direction to the interview, and ask relevant questions when the opportunity arises. It doesn’t matter about order, this can be fixed in the edit. As I heard this a lot from people, this is very important to keep an ear out in case of the interviewees disclose any clue for a bigger story. We will prepare a list of questions but we will be flexible in asking questions like having a relaxing conversation in order to encourage our subject to build up his stories and elicit the emotions.
3. A subtle way to steer the interview is to outline what you have so far understood, to allow the interviewee to build on this understanding. This could be a way to show our subject that we are fully engaged with his stories as well as for ourselves to remind ourselves what we have collected from the subject at certain stage in order to be aware of what we miss or need.