Week 2: Documentary
29/01
Today, we were discussing the six different types of documentaries. This is new for me as I never known about it before and never noticed. However, here is the short summary of the different types of documentaries that I have learned.
Poetic: Focuses on experiences, images and showing the audience the world through a different set of eyes. It is more focus on achieving a feeling rather than conveying the truth.
Expository: The type of documentary everyone knows about which is more aiming to persuade or inform the audience a topic chosen. Most expository documentaries have the omnipresent "Voice of God" narration over the footage.
Observational: They simply observe the world around them. With portable film equipment, they merge into the background and let the camera rolling. This style attempts to give both sides their voice to an important issue and give the audience first-hand access to some of the subject's most important moments (some are often private).
Participatory: This style has elements of both expository and observational but the filmmaker is in the narrative. It could be minor like hearing the filmmaker's voice behind the camera, prodding subjects with questions or cues to directly influencing the major actions of the narrative.
Reflexive: It is similar to Participatory in which often includes the filmmaker in the narrative. However, unlike the previous, they make no attempts to explore an outside subject. Rather, they focus solely on themselves and the act of the making the film.
Performative: An experimental combination of styles used to stress subject experience and share an emotional response to the world. They often connect personal accounts or experience in contrast to larger political or historical issues. It is sometimes been called the "Michael Moore" style. Filmmakers can use their own personal stories as a way to construct social truths, without having to argue the credibility of their experiences.
Furthermore, we were asked to write down pros and cons about social media and questions based on What, Where, When, Who, Why, How and So What.
Cons
30/01
1/02
Today we looked at another documentary which is called Super Size Me which is about a man who will only eat Mc Donald's food for a month. The style of the documentary is participatory as the filmmaker himself is in the documentary and is the centre of it. There were some documentary techniques used such as authorial voice which is the narrator, bias to prove a point or emphasise it (for example- that he started to vomit a few minutes later after eating which is not true as it takes at least an hour for the body to react this way). Low angle was used to prove major points. Although, there were some shots that were unfocused which were a bit annoying.
2/02
After watching Super Size Me, we were asked to look out for reviews and controversy regarding the documentary. There was a mix of positive and negative reviews regarding Spurlock's claim on Fast Food. Those who were praising the documentary, they say it was refreshing as it showed the truth of the negative of fast foods. They believed how damaging eating process food can be to the person and to the point that some health and biology teachers show this to their class. However, there were some were a skeptic to Spurlock's experiments. There were some that tried the experiment and did not gain as much as Spurlock did. However, he counters that they did not eat much and exercise more than he did. One of the controversies surrounded the documentary was the then Vice President of GMA, Gene Grabowski who admits in his interview that "they [GMA] are a part of the obesity problem". He, one of the most powerful lobbyists in the USA confirms that big companies did not want to admit that they are part of the obesity problem. After the film was released, Grabowski no longer works for GMA in which could be in part to his comment in the film, which indicated he did not stand behind the GMA’s purpose.
Today, we were discussing the six different types of documentaries. This is new for me as I never known about it before and never noticed. However, here is the short summary of the different types of documentaries that I have learned.
Poetic: Focuses on experiences, images and showing the audience the world through a different set of eyes. It is more focus on achieving a feeling rather than conveying the truth.
Expository: The type of documentary everyone knows about which is more aiming to persuade or inform the audience a topic chosen. Most expository documentaries have the omnipresent "Voice of God" narration over the footage.
Observational: They simply observe the world around them. With portable film equipment, they merge into the background and let the camera rolling. This style attempts to give both sides their voice to an important issue and give the audience first-hand access to some of the subject's most important moments (some are often private).
Reflexive: It is similar to Participatory in which often includes the filmmaker in the narrative. However, unlike the previous, they make no attempts to explore an outside subject. Rather, they focus solely on themselves and the act of the making the film.
Performative: An experimental combination of styles used to stress subject experience and share an emotional response to the world. They often connect personal accounts or experience in contrast to larger political or historical issues. It is sometimes been called the "Michael Moore" style. Filmmakers can use their own personal stories as a way to construct social truths, without having to argue the credibility of their experiences.
Furthermore, we were asked to write down pros and cons about social media and questions based on What, Where, When, Who, Why, How and So What.
Pros
- Connecting to people at long distance
- Able to make new acquaintances
- Catching up with someone easily
- Make people rise to fame-Become famous- make living
- Tell the news and updates
- People knowing your private life too much and priving too much on other's life
- Creates drama and cyberbullying
- Makes the user create a false persona of themselves
- Everything is monetized and people desperately depends on it
- Gets involve too much in their social life rather than their real life
- Isolates everyone in the outside world
- Social media is now a business and they have CEOs
- It becomes addictive
- It was first to create connections and see other friends but now it is a business corporation
Who:
Who created social media?
Who is the targeted audience?
Who is in charge of social media accounts?
Who really uses the most of social media?
Who is the CEO of each social media?
Who is the CEO of each social media?
What:
What is the purpose of social media?
What attracts people to social media?
What is the newest trend in social media?
What makes a person successful by using social media?
What is the starting age for young people to use social media?
Where:
Where do people use it?
Where is the first use of social media?
Where the most use of social media?
Where are the offices or servers?
Where social media not allowed?
Where social media needed?
Where:
Where do people use it?
Where is the first use of social media?
Where the most use of social media?
Where are the offices or servers?
Where social media not allowed?
Where social media needed?
Why:
Why social media or [name] was created?
Why people want to be recognized in social media?
Why people are obsessed with social media?
Why businesses are so interested investing in social media?
Why people create fake identity or persona in social media?
Why people create fake identity or persona in social media?
When:
When did social media was created?
When people start the social media craze?
When did the young people start using social media?
How:
How has social media influence the different generations?
How has social media influence the individual and those surrounding them?
How has social media determine one’s personality?
How has social media influence society?
How has social media influence society?
So what:
So what is the importance of social media to the youth?
So what, does it challenge the norm?
So what can the people do to avoid cyberbullying?
So what can stop the addiction of social media?
So what does it play with society or people?
Today’s lesson was an interesting one as it was something that I was not expecting. We first start the lesson by looking at Mr Andrew’s black and white photos. He was doing a challenge where he had to take a photo in black and white every day. So our job was to look at it and pick them apart. There were some that I liked and some that did not stand out to me. The ones that I liked was the tiger, the lamps and some figurines because the way the lighting was positioned. Some black and white even reminded me of film noir unit we did at the end of last year. What I also liked was the position of the subject and the use of the rule of thirds to make an interesting composition. The only photo that did not stand out to me was the tree with Christmas lights due to the angle as it was not as interesting and would have been much better in colour. Well, that is my opinion. Overall, at the end of the day, the lesson was about taking in criticism. This is profound to me as it is one of the important things when you are a filmmaker or life in general. Criticism is a very important as it can make the filmmaker improve his or her skills, help other filmmaker or in my case classmates to bring out our potential. For me, it is a good practice to take criticism now so that later in life, we can handle them more civilian. Be in the film industry or media or life in general. To me that is a really good life lesson, I really enjoyed it.
1/02
Today we looked at another documentary which is called Super Size Me which is about a man who will only eat Mc Donald's food for a month. The style of the documentary is participatory as the filmmaker himself is in the documentary and is the centre of it. There were some documentary techniques used such as authorial voice which is the narrator, bias to prove a point or emphasise it (for example- that he started to vomit a few minutes later after eating which is not true as it takes at least an hour for the body to react this way). Low angle was used to prove major points. Although, there were some shots that were unfocused which were a bit annoying.
2/02
After watching Super Size Me, we were asked to look out for reviews and controversy regarding the documentary. There was a mix of positive and negative reviews regarding Spurlock's claim on Fast Food. Those who were praising the documentary, they say it was refreshing as it showed the truth of the negative of fast foods. They believed how damaging eating process food can be to the person and to the point that some health and biology teachers show this to their class. However, there were some were a skeptic to Spurlock's experiments. There were some that tried the experiment and did not gain as much as Spurlock did. However, he counters that they did not eat much and exercise more than he did. One of the controversies surrounded the documentary was the then Vice President of GMA, Gene Grabowski who admits in his interview that "they [GMA] are a part of the obesity problem". He, one of the most powerful lobbyists in the USA confirms that big companies did not want to admit that they are part of the obesity problem. After the film was released, Grabowski no longer works for GMA in which could be in part to his comment in the film, which indicated he did not stand behind the GMA’s purpose.
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