Blog #4

1. This week we  are going to figure out who we're going to interview, call them and plan when we can shoot! Cause it was the ending of the last semester we really didn't get to do a lot since we wanted to focus on our grades in the final classes, so now I hope we can get started and do this! I'm realy excited and think this will be a lot of fun! We figured out to change our topic from monogamy to relationships in general and human interaction. I think that is really interesting and that it will be fun to meet different people and listen to their stories!

2, "Directing the Documentary" by Rabigere Michael ch 14, Interviewing.

By reading this piece I learned a lot about how important interviews are in your documentary. They are the clue to make a good documentary and you get a human relationship by talking and getting stories from people. While interviewing it's important to get their story right, be respectful and listen. Before an interview it's important do do a lot of research, have some questions ready and also be able to ask follow up questions to the person you are interviewing. That's often the most important answers you get since you dig deeper and get important facts for your story!

It's important to take the location in consideration when you are doing an interview. It can be outside, in someones house at their workplace etc, but it's important that it has something to do with the topic of your documentary. The location will also play a part in telling the story.

Before an interview it's also very important to be prepared and also while you are interviewing give visual feedback so the person feels comfortable and want to tell you their story!

When you're done interviewing it's important to say thanks, and let them know that you just want them to look best as possible and if they are not satisfied how they are put on the screen you can always edit, but in the end you have the final saying. And also to get them to sign a personal release form that says you're allowed to use the material.

Blog #3

1. Right now our group haven't had really big progress since last week. We pitched our idea on Tuesday, we figured out that our groups topic is monogamy, and the question we want to answer or discuss is "Do monogamy really exist". For those who don't know what monogamy is, it's basically to be fully committed to only one person your whole life. So we want to interview interesting couples and maybe one single person/divorced person and see what people think about relationships and if their significant other is the only one for them. We want to interview couples in different ages, and try to narrow it down, so we're thinking of having three couples, 2 kids, around the age of five, a lesbian couple  and a old couple. We already know the lesbian couple, so we need to get permission from some kids parents and find the old couple. We want to try to find our characters this coming weekend or really soon so we can start planning more. We also want to have our video to include lots of pictures, especially from the old couple. I think this will be an interesting and cute movie.

2.

'How to Write a Documentary Script'

by Trisha Das

When I read this piece I learned a lot more than I thought I would. I learned that your documentary has a value and that all the research you put into it makes a huge difference. There is many ways to do your research, but the most important is that your documentary is interesting to you, so you want to spend time on it, want to put in the effort and that you will spend a lot of time thinking and looking for more information on your topic. You need to be curious and you need to ask your self some questions, like "What would I want to learn about this subject?" and etc. There is many different ways to get information. You can interview people, experts, you could use the media like the internet, books, etc, you can go out on field research, go to museums, galleries etc to gather information or you can skim read lots of fact books and pick out the most important information in each one of them. When you do your research you get a lot of information and it's really important that the quality is good. It's really important to spend some time segregating the relevant information from the irrelevant.

I also learned that it's important to have different perspectives in your documentary, and the best way to show that is through humans. So that leads you to find people to interview and what kind of questions you want to ask and get answered. I also learned that imagination is the biggest talent and tool of the scriptwriter and that is whats makes every documentary different. It's also important to dig deep, get information that surprises people. Find out more insightful details. When all the information is collected, the interviews done, the filming is past you need to put it all together. The hardest part is now to eliminate all the information that is not necessary to tell the story, reorganize your scenes if needed and the last part, writ the script.

Blog Post #2

Our group is now been formed. It's Zoe, Bea and me in our documentary group. We are kind of late in the process and we really need to get together and figure out a idea! We were discussing today in class what we wanted to make a documentary about and figured out that we might do one about love and relationship in all the different stages of life and ages. We think that would be adorable and interesting to document many different kinds of people, all from small kids to old people. We are all really interested in people and think it would be a fun experience to meet many strangers, hear their stories and talk to them! So we basically have to figure out an idea, make our pitch, and start planning!

2. "How real does it feel?" by A.O.Scott
I really didn't feel that I learned a lot from reading this critic by Mr. Scott. The article was written from his perspective with a lot of personal opinions that I do not agree with. The only thing that made me think a little extra while I was reading was his point of view on documentaries not being exact, movies that are "based on a true story" often aren't really how it was in real life. This made me think about all the movies that I have really liked mainly because it actually happened in reality, might not be exact.

It surprised me that he has this strong opinion that documentaries are films without art, that basically everybody with a video camera could make, and that they are not worth seeing. I really think that through documentaries you can tell stories, share experiences and people can learn something from you through an artistic, creative way. I really didn't feel that I got anything out from reading this article, mostly upset, frustrated and board of hearing this mans strong opinions, that I'll be better out knowing.

Lena

Blog #1

Chapter 1 "introduction" Directing the documentary by Michael Rabiger

While I read I learned some about what a documentary actually is. Michael Rabiger writes that a documentary explores actual people and actual situations. A documentary could be about the Past, the present or the future and he calls it a "creative treatment of actuality".

I also learned that a documentary needs a good story with interesting characters, narrative tension and an integrated point of view. It's also important that the documentary is to somewhat objective. That minimize the dangers and responsible you can have as a director. To be objective it's important to get facts from both parts of the case and cross-check everything.

The thing that surprised me the most was that he writes that it's important that the documentary is actuality and that everything can be proved and defended in court. I never thought that you can actually be sued for making and expressing your thoughts, actions and people through a documentary. This also made me think of how important it is to get all the facts correct, and be sure not to expose people in a negative way.

I am satisfied with what I learned, the paper/essay was pretty long so I feel that a lot of what was written was unnecessary for us Voices students to read and that we could just have got the basic facts. When I get that long papers to read I find it hard to learn something at all in between all the other information, so I'm satisfied that I learned some good basic facts about documentaries.

Lena