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Brainstorming Ideas: Inspiration

This week I began to watch documentaries for inspiration and give me ideas for what I could create. I watched a couple from the documentary submissions chosen from Short of the Week and took notes on certain elements that stood out from each piece on either interview or camera techniques. 


DOCUMENTARY SHORTS

https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2021/12/23/rat-tail/

RAT TAIL

  • A lot of b-roll footage and archive footage in relation to the story

  • Mesh of current, present footage and past footage

  • Helps the audience connect more to the protagonist who is also the narrative of the story

  • Use of music to bring the video together

  • Remaking old memories to show the audience (as if they too are active and participating in this moment) 


https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2021/09/13/night-ride/

NIGHT RIDE

  • Interviewer is involved onscreen, interviews his mum and actively participates on camera (but only follows behind her, not actually performing anything, just watching).

  • Makes the documentary a lot more intimate, especially since he is connected to the character and story.

  • By being onscreen but only shadowing his mum, he does not draw attention away from the narrative and main character.


https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2020/12/23/no-crying-dinner-table/

NO CRYING AT THE DINNER TABLE

  • Family story, needs a lot of participants

  • Focuses on the death of the filmmaker’s grandparents

  • 3 individual interviews (mum, dad, sister), each has their own b-roll footage and perspective of the same story

  • Each b-roll involves the character doing something interesting or represents them in a certain way (mother is cooking, dad lights incense in relation to perhaps religion, sister is exposed in a way to represent how vulnerable she is being on camera through her story).

  • The participants speak comfortably and casually to the filmmaker who is offscreen and only there through voice

  • Filmmaker has the participants react to the interview of the 3 characters cut together to create some sort of ending

  • Stylistic editing- blue tones are used to convey sadness, mourning


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