Angeline Shea’s comment on “How did documentary filmmaking get started?” I loved the line at the end that said “the voice of the documentarian contributed significantly to framing a national agenda and a common course of action”. The reason I liked this line so much is because of the fact that when most people view a documentary we often assume that the only agenda a filmmaker has is to educate the viewer. While I usually try to approach any sort of media with a grain of salt, due to the fact that I know consciously that there is generally an agenda attached to it, most of time I’ll forget this when watching a documentary. With movies I generally notice when a filmmaker does certain lighting, camera positioning, music choice, etc. on purpose but with documentaries I realized I didn’t often have such a critical eye. I had never before considered the fact that with documentaries the careful planning that goes into filmmaking for an entertainment audience can still be true for a documentary one as well. This idea that documentary filmmaking needs to be considered as groundbreaking as photography itself is something I think needs to be recognized. The fact that people view these types of films as “record[s] [of] everyday life as it happened” is something that I think many people truly believe. If we aren’t careful mockumentaries that aren’t easily seen as comedic or satire can be taken seriously and miscommunicated to others as being the truth rather than a representation of a filmmakers’ product. This makes me think of how people like Asians and Asian Americans’ are portrayed in these films can also play a role in further dramatizing the differences and create this idea that they are truly completely different than the white majority. The constant stock images of Asians being these “oriental mysterious exotic creatures” with “strange customs” and the stereotypes that are constantly used to represent them needs to be discussed. If we continue to create these images of the past with these stereotypes without recognizing that they are just that, the past. And therefore not necessarily representative of the current or future aspects of a community like Asian Americans, we run the risk of further embedding these misguided images of people. Like the reading said “it is a trained analyst or interpreter whose voice brings meaning to the image. It is because of that, like with all other media we need to continue to hold media sources like documentaries with a critical media literate eye on what these films can represent and the agenda that is held behind them. Like everything from the news to entertainment media, everyone has an agenda and opinion. We therefore need to hold ourselves accountable and create our own opinions based on our own research, experiences, and our journey for what is the truth. It is not enough to just sit back and accept what a documentary depicts as the truth to be what is actually real.
After reading the article, it seems that documentaries, although factual, are still one perspective about a particular subject. Documentaries and Hollywood storylines seem to be more similar than I gave it credit for. Through the particular selection of screen shots and placements of where the interviews intersect with the timeline, documentaries try to fulfill their purpose in not only educating the viewers but also serve as a guideline to what the viewer should take with them from seeing it. Grierson’s first definition of a documentary is that they are “creative treatment of actuality.” Like the article says, this links documentaries to a cloudy mixture of fiction and nonfiction. I feel that this makes the documentary stronger because it intertwines a personal view with the actual facts and it makes the viewer understand the issue in their own pace. They modify the facts in a way that it becomes a story; it has a storyline in which the viewers follow, instead of throwing facts out to the viewers. Documentaries weave together the stories of the people involved, and it helps to understand the impact by bringing in the emotional value to the reality of the situation. I never paid attention to how a documentary is put together, but with a successful documentary, it does not simply explain the facts, but it stirs an emotion within the viewer to both feel and relate to it or even to rally supporters and those who will do something about it.
2 comments:
Angeline Shea’s comment on “How did documentary filmmaking get started?”
I loved the line at the end that said “the voice of the documentarian contributed significantly to framing a national agenda and a common course of action”. The reason I liked this line so much is because of the fact that when most people view a documentary we often assume that the only agenda a filmmaker has is to educate the viewer. While I usually try to approach any sort of media with a grain of salt, due to the fact that I know consciously that there is generally an agenda attached to it, most of time I’ll forget this when watching a documentary. With movies I generally notice when a filmmaker does certain lighting, camera positioning, music choice, etc. on purpose but with documentaries I realized I didn’t often have such a critical eye. I had never before considered the fact that with documentaries the careful planning that goes into filmmaking for an entertainment audience can still be true for a documentary one as well. This idea that documentary filmmaking needs to be considered as groundbreaking as photography itself is something I think needs to be recognized. The fact that people view these types of films as “record[s] [of] everyday life as it happened” is something that I think many people truly believe. If we aren’t careful mockumentaries that aren’t easily seen as comedic or satire can be taken seriously and miscommunicated to others as being the truth rather than a representation of a filmmakers’ product. This makes me think of how people like Asians and Asian Americans’ are portrayed in these films can also play a role in further dramatizing the differences and create this idea that they are truly completely different than the white majority. The constant stock images of Asians being these “oriental mysterious exotic creatures” with “strange customs” and the stereotypes that are constantly used to represent them needs to be discussed. If we continue to create these images of the past with these stereotypes without recognizing that they are just that, the past. And therefore not necessarily representative of the current or future aspects of a community like Asian Americans, we run the risk of further embedding these misguided images of people. Like the reading said “it is a trained analyst or interpreter whose voice brings meaning to the image. It is because of that, like with all other media we need to continue to hold media sources like documentaries with a critical media literate eye on what these films can represent and the agenda that is held behind them. Like everything from the news to entertainment media, everyone has an agenda and opinion. We therefore need to hold ourselves accountable and create our own opinions based on our own research, experiences, and our journey for what is the truth. It is not enough to just sit back and accept what a documentary depicts as the truth to be what is actually real.
After reading the article, it seems that documentaries, although factual, are still one perspective about a particular subject. Documentaries and Hollywood storylines seem to be more similar than I gave it credit for. Through the particular selection of screen shots and placements of where the interviews intersect with the timeline, documentaries try to fulfill their purpose in not only educating the viewers but also serve as a guideline to what the viewer should take with them from seeing it. Grierson’s first definition of a documentary is that they are “creative treatment of actuality.” Like the article says, this links documentaries to a cloudy mixture of fiction and nonfiction. I feel that this makes the documentary stronger because it intertwines a personal view with the actual facts and it makes the viewer understand the issue in their own pace. They modify the facts in a way that it becomes a story; it has a storyline in which the viewers follow, instead of throwing facts out to the viewers. Documentaries weave together the stories of the people involved, and it helps to understand the impact by bringing in the emotional value to the reality of the situation. I never paid attention to how a documentary is put together, but with a successful documentary, it does not simply explain the facts, but it stirs an emotion within the viewer to both feel and relate to it or even to rally supporters and those who will do something about it.
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