Documentary Entry 7

Assessing Encounters at The End of The World is a difficult enough task normally. The additional difficultly of knowing Roger Ebert, a man I have equal reason to hate and respect has said his piece on it makes it what was already a Herculean task now a harder version as somebody else has already done it.

Ebert was a man who had controversial opinions towards things I like particularly video games and there role in art and human emotion, to say we strongly disagreed would be an understatement. But regardless our contrasting opinions there's one thing I'll say about Ebert: he knew what he was doing and if you're not trying to reach Ebert's level you might as well call it quits now.
The fact is I'm not Roger Ebert(at least not in reality) so anything I can say Ebert's already said and done better. Not that I'm not gonna try though I may have utmost respect for the man but he still said things I didn't like.

Right away there's a lot to say about this film. The director Werner Herzog narrates the film and his voice has a certain grab to it that whenever he speaks you as a viewer are drawn to listen. He could be doing the stock check at a supermarket and you'd be drawn into it all (something I call the Morgan Freeman Effect).

Werner has a knack for wonderful shots and it certainly helps he's got an impressive location to work with, he takes what could possibly be the world's worst holiday resort and turns into amazing scenery that takes the breath away.

On top of that Werner's got a unique of invoking emotions from an entity that I wouldn't really expect in a non fiction setting, in this case: a suicidal penguin. The punchline is that the scene with the penguin is surprisingly tragic as Werner makes it clear that this penguin is obsessed with going away from his chums and even if humans did intervene he'd just keep going on a journey he'll never finish.

To reiterate, I'm mourning the loss of a suicidal penguin! (Plus that documentary is 6years old if that penguins still alive now I think we've found the next superior species!)
In the end, Encounters At the End of the World is an interesting experience. It takes advantage of its location and the people in it, it looks amazing for a 3 man project and the narrator clearly cares about the subject dearly and delivers his narration in a way that draws you in from the word go. Overall, very good stuff well worth watching.

Documentary Entry 6

So today I had my first practice session with a camera. One word comes to mind to define it: wreck.

As it turns out not working with a device you actually have zero interest in working with means you tend to forget everything about it. I'll admit I still remember how to do certain things but I don't remember why you do them (though chances are I never learned in the first place).

I get that the rule of thirds exist but I'll be damned if I have a clue why it exists. Yes I understand that it forces a viewer to focus and find that a spot not in the middle but the fact that I had to look up why shows and says a lot.

I get that you don't have your character in the centre of a shot cause it looks really weird but that's about all I get. I follow the rules but I don't really understand them.

To make matters worse after hearing absolutely nothing for a week (to the point the group had declared the chance of interviewing the subject stone dead) we finally get an update saying that it's okay.

Two things disturb me about this: The first is the short notice and the second is the fact that I'm not ready for this. I can't relearn 3 years of work in a day/possibly 2 days.
In summation I need more time.

I need more time to practice and relearn what I've forgotten going over notes is fine and all but actual practice is needed and the idea that I can learn what I need in a day or two is laughable at best.

Documentary Entry 5

"Think of it as a mask you wear to overcome life's hardships".

I've always been keen on Carl Jung and his works in psychology. As a former student and friend of Freud himself he actually disagreed with his masters theory that the subconsciousness was just a bin for all our negative thoughts. Jung argued that while that was true he felt that the mind held more than that too.

One of Jung's most popular theories was the idea of the "Persona" Jung believed that a Persona was akin to a mask we wore to hide our flaws and insecurities. The quote above is an excellent way of summarising it.

He believed everybody had a Persona that served as a compromise towards the individual and what society expects of a person. However on the other side of the coin was the Shadow.
The Shadow is that which we don't want others to see. The faults and flaws we have that no one else should see. Jung believed that unless we overcame our Shadow we would he consumed by it.

Bit more complicated than "men wish to kill their fathers and sleep with their mothers" ain't it?

To make a long story short, I realised that people who partake in being a drag queen are said to be donning a Persona, this lead me to raise the question( or in this case several):

Are we seeing the true self of the queen? Or a secondary Persona? Perhaps even their Shadow if this is something they partake in a way from the eyes of those who know them? To be honest I don't know the answer it just seemed to be an interesting topic/point to bring up.

Jung wasn't known for associating with homosexuals so I can't say what his opinion was on the matter but from what I can tell he had no problem with and actually believed there's no such thing as a 100% straight individual especially if the bibles story of Adam and Eve is considered. Though a popular theory about why Freud and Jung fell out was because the younger Jung feared that the older Freud would come onto him(something I can't buy to be honest, Freud was too busy painting humanity in the worst possible light for intimacy).

Still as I said before but it's worth saying again, it is a bit more complicated than father killing and mother boinking isn't it?

Documentary Entry 4

Glen or Glenda?: An Assessment

Glen or Glenda? Is a film that's either so bad it's good or just flat out bad. There's no middle ground. At least in theory, the fact is having watched I can say a lot of things about it.
It's poorly written, poorly paced, can't make it's mind up over the message it wants to deliver which isn't good when discussing an issue like transvestism, it's poorly acted which makes the dialogue even worse and Bela "I was Dracula for crying out loud" Lugosi contributes nothing relevant to the plot.

And yet for all that I can't say it's truly horrible. From a film standpoint at least, for all the mass amounts of mess throughout the film manages to keep my interest, I can't say why or how but it does. It might be because Lugosi reappearing and doing something completely irrelevant is far too tempting.

And even without discussing its gender issues (though one could argue for a fifties film it's actually progressive) it's an absolute mess of a film made by a man who was making films to pay off debts from making films.

The movie raises the theory that because Glenn's mother used to favour his sister Sheila over him, the psychiatrist believes that Glenn started wearing Sheila's dresses to attract the attention and affection of his mother.

It also mentions at the end of the film that transvestism is something that can be cured (which seems very backwards as Ed Wood was known to dabble in transvestism even fighting in the Second World War during its bloodiest battles in bra and panties).

I know it might be contradictory to say this considering the above but outside of that scene at the very end the film handles the rather sensitive subject rather well. Well for the time it was made at least, the film uses the justification that a transvestite is not a homosexual as if to say being homosexual is worse than being a transvestite.
 It's not great justification by today's standards but the fact is it was the best Wood can manage without earning the scorn of every moral guardian everywhere.

"Glen is not a homosexual. Glen is a transvestite, but he is not a homosexual." So not only is it offensive it's also redundant dialogue too.

To add another layer to its offensiveness the film actually includes a scene where a male character undergoes a sex change to become a female and it's shown that he has to "learn" how to be female and also has to "unlearn" being male. The implication being that a woman once a man is unable to do the things he was capable of doing once before. Then again the 50s so it's probably a case of values dissonance or similar justification like the above.

In the end Glen or Glenda is poorly written, badly directed, visually unpleasing, horribly acted, has a message that's all over the place at best and downright bipolar at worst and offensive in at least 3 different ways. Still despite all that it's at the very least fascinating and probably only offensive because of the way the world has changed since.

Whatever message the film has gets lost in the shuffle of mediocrity. And yet it's still very fascinating. For all that can be said about Ed Wood you can safely say while he never made a good one he did make fascinating ones. And maybe that's a good thing all of itself?

Documentary Entry 3

Below I have two interviews featuring drag queens that discuss the issue in different ways. It's just to help me specifically as a cameraman but can benefit both an interviewer and director as well.

Example 1:

This one is very basic but it does what it sets out to do: give an interview. A few things do bug me, the interviewee, Starry Nadeshko never talks to the interviewer directly and is always addressing the camera. The image below is something that the viewer sees a lot of.

The second gripe I have is the interviewer who focuses mainly on his notes and this is especially prevalent near the end, a good interviewer should make eye contact with his interviewee. As a result the cameraman has very little to work with and the audience loses interest, it isn't as bad since the video itself is short but it needs to be called out on.

That aside it's a good interview and for just over 5 minutes covers a lot of ground about drag queen life. It covers it's topics well and for what seems to be a very small time product at the very least

 

knows what it's doing.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=sNSl2SCMvQ8&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DsNSl2SCMvQ8

Example 2
This second one is actually played for laughs but it looks a lot better than the first one and a lot more happens. There's action for starters. Opening with a performance by our drag queen shows what we're in for. The interview itself is staged whilst the drag queen is a proper persona.



Props to the host Kate who plays the ditsy blonde perfectly and her reactions are priceless. When compared to the first interview it's less insightful but more interesting simply because stuff is happening.

Since it is for comedy rather than for seriousness it isn't the best video for insight but it's actual style is what I personally would look for in an interview. It actually has a few of the things mentioned in the previous entry.

Overall both interviews work well and do what they were supposed to but the second one seems better from a visual standpoint making it the one I'd draw from. The first one looks dull but it's strengths come from the interview itself so it might be best to use it for interview inspiration.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=AXn9TFRs-9w&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DAXn9TFRs-9w

Overall both interviews work well and do what they were supposed to but the second one seems better from a visual standpoint making it the one I'd draw from. The first one looks dull but it's strengths come from the interview itself so it might be best to use it for interview inspiration.