Reflective Essay

Reflective Essay

This is the first time I've had to do a retrospective on a subject where my initial opinion of it changed dramatically from the beginning. 

Before this assignment documentaries where a thing I just couldn't get into. I live with the belief that reality is boring and that no one pays for reality. Maybe it says more about me than it does the world around me though. The fact is I always saw documentaries as pieces of media based in reality and I always assumed that reality no matter how pretty it looks through a camera lens is still boring.

But watching films like Nostalgia For The Light. A film about how the atrocities committed through the will of one man can linger for years and even if the stars provide hope someone has to stay on the ground and live with the despair. Watching that showed me that yes my reality is boring but I'm alive and I've got a family that's fully intact something that the people in this film don't.

Searching For The Sugarman taught me another part about reality but it also taught me if you do it right you can make a reality with a plot twist straight out of The Following. In regards to the bit about reality it taught me you can go from amazing to musician, to unknown icon, to family man and then back to amazing musician and you can be happy no matter what. 

As for making my own documentary I can use one word to describe it: Painful. I may have found a new appreciation for the genre but if asked to make another I'll gladly say goodbye to everyone I know and flee to Canada.

Maybe it was the setbacks in regards to subjects and locations, maybe it was a teammate justifiably going off on one every ten minutes and ruling through fear like Doctor Doom mixed with a care bear , Maybe it was the fact that I wasn't in this for any other reason than that I was just there and my team-mates were the ones who had all the enthusiasm (at first at least). 

Teamwork was a vital part in all this, is what I would say if it was honestly true but it isn't. I worked a camera as I was expected and intended to do but also bought some props and a £30 mirror. Our producer produced, got an interviewee, a interview location, clothing for the drag queen experiment, make up and a wig. In regards to our director he set up the stage and this is where the crickets chirp. I consider my contributions paltry at best but I can say I contributed more than he ever did.

 From a learning standpoint I can't really say for sure. I now know how to shoot a documentary effectively but the fact is I can't say why you use certain shots or why some things work better than others. I'm a grunt, I do grunt work, I do what's expected of me without questioning but you're asking too much if you expect me too use my own creative initiative. 

Speaking of that last bit of the paragraph above it applies not just to filming but also to editing. Editing software is something I can operate and for the most part I know what I'm doing but again I lack creative input or an idea of how and where to start. It's safe to say that I'm a technical worker rather than a creative one when it comes to camera and editing.

Though for all the above criticisms I think I can say it wasn't that bad an experience. I definitely had fun whilst filming thanks to our interviewee having a sense of humour. I just wish I hadn't got lost on the way to the house where the interview took place so I learned my sense of direction is awful too. I've improved with a camera and I've found an appreciation for the way documentaries are shot and made and the hurdles that people have to overcome to bring their visions to life. So for that I guess I can say reality isn't always boring but it's what you make of it and what you find in it.

Documentary Entry 11

Before I started doing this class a sentence I never uttered (because it wouldn't make sense to at any point and even in its current context it's still pretty weird) would have been "I never thought I'd see a documentary with a plot twist".

Now thanks to the phenomenal Searching For the Sugarman and this film Stories We Tell by Sarah Polley I can list two documentaries with plot twists. See before I started this class I always assumed that documentaries being based in the realm of reality (a place I'm growing to tolerate more as I watch these) and thus didn't have room for the
sort of elements featured in fiction.

For crying out loud Sugarman stretched the boundaries to begin with but the film built up to the reveal so well you'd think Christopher Nolan had done it.
Of course this film (and Sugarman too actually) don't go for the shocked squirrel Hollywood approach mainly because as I've said documentaries are based in the realm of reality and in the realm of reality most people don't react the way they do in films unless they're on American news, won an American game show or are in fact American.

The plot twist about Sarah's biological father isn't treated like some Breaking Bad shocking swerve there's no bouts of denial, no tears, no thrown arguments or anything like that. And yet it actually invokes a better reaction and likely because of it too because the emotion is real and tears crocodilian or otherwise aren't needed. A viewer can see the anguish there in front of them. Something a lot of film directors could probably learn to work with cause it's a hell of a lot better than "you are sad, this scene indicates you are sad, make a sad face"

It's a haunting reveal and probably hits harder with someone older than me (I'm only 19 so I haven't really learned which facet of reality of despise the least) and it makes one question the selfs around them because the film gives no indication of the route it's about to take and when it does it hits like a punch to the gut.

The fact that this whole thing is being narrated by the man who up until that point we the audience believed to be Sarah's father makes it even worse.
On a final note. Well done to Sarah Polley for this. This is one of the best ways you do the shocking swerve nowadays because it's a shocking swerve. There's a power to it and it's great because of it not in spite of it.