Documentaries have always been fascinated witht he death penalty and those who sit on death row. There is something truly unique about waiting to die. There are few other circumstances where a usually healthy person sits still, waiting for that day. Often, they know the exact day.
One example of our fascination is the infamous last meal. Last meals are known for being the very last thing the inmate eats before being executed. The inmate gets to choose whatever they want to eat, within reason.
A photo collection went viral late last spring called "No Seconds" by Henry Hargeaves. He gathered information on infamous inmates last meals. He then recreated what they would look like then photographed each one. The photos are ominous.
This may hint at why there are so many death row films. Errol Morris made the Thin Blue Line. Werner Herzog made Into The Abyss. And do not forget fiction films like Dead Man Walking. It is a powerful subject matter.
My two favorite jazz singers of all time, Amy Winehouse and Nina Simone, just so happened to be in two of my favorite documentaries of this year (which just so happened to be nominated for Oscars). What a mouth-full.
These two films tell two tragic tales. Neither of these lives were easy. Both films take on a similar aesthetic in the singers tell their own stories through found footage, audio and photographs. However, What Happened, Miss Simone? takes on an even larger task of telling the history of the civil rights movement through her lived experiences. Amy remains self indulgent through a riveting tale, but one without huge depth.
Of course, the music really tells the stories of these women's lives. The lyrics are carefully embedded into the story, often with no introduction. However, I was surprised Feeling Good, one of her most noteworthy songs, was not featured in Nina's story. Instead, the film introduced hidden gems in her line of work. Either way, I highly recommend both films.
Documentary [dok-yuh-men-tuh-ree] : based on or re-creating an actual event, era, life story, etc., that purports to be factually accurate and contains no fictional elements.
Although this class is focused on narratives, I felt like documentaries essentially do the same thing. They tell a story to the audience. They introduce a world, a conflict, and how it can be resolved or has been resolved. Narratives do the same, with an opening scene that is completely opposite from the ending scene, and a climax in the middle. The reason why I'm writing this is because recently, I researched more into documentaries and how to make a good one for my trip to Myanmar this winter. I feel like the same elements that make a documentary can also be applied to making a narrative film.
How to make an effective documentary
1. What is the message you want to convey?
I think this is an important question to ask yourself. Before you even think about what equipment you need, you need to find out what the focus of the documentary is going to be, and why you're filming this in the first place. What are the issues you want to address and offer solutions to? Is it going to be worthy of your audience's time? And make sure the topic you choose is also something that you're interested in, as well as enlightening and enganging the audience. Generally, documentaries are about controversial issues, and as well as educational. If you're going to provoke, fully explain.
2. No one likes to be lectured
Although it's the documentaries job to inform, you don't want to bore the audience and make them feel like they're in a classroom. This can also be applied to films as well: Don't tell, show. People don't go to see films to have a person tell them what the film is about. We go to see movies to see the emotions and the drama and the action. With documentaries, you don't want to lecture your audience and over inform them on the subject. Instead, you want to inspire them to learn more about your documentary and be involved as well.
3. Outline, outline, outline
It honestly can't be emphasized enough. Outlining what you want to include in your documentary or film can help you organize your shots and time schedule as well. You don't wanna be out in the middle of the day ready to shoot, and not know what you need to film. Along with that, it's better to overshoot than to undershoot. You want to have more shots to work and edit with, especially if you're travelling to a location and you'll only be able to shoot certain days. Re-shooting sucks, and no one wants to go through all that effort, only to not have enough shots.
4. Music
Music can completely change the mood of a scene, even manipulate how the audience can react towards a clip because of the sound. It's one thing to enhance the scene with audio, and another to alter it's intent. When editing, it's important to ask if the shot can speak for itself. If it can't and you need music to alter it in anyway, chances are you're going to ruin it and make the audience feel disconnected and even feel different than what they were supposed to feel.
So I bet a lot of you guys already saw this film when it came out last year, but I'm a little late to the party so I'm gonna talk about it now!
For those of you who haven't seen Blackfish here is the trailer, so you can have an idea of what it is about and what kind of film it is:
To begin with this is an extremely interesting film in terms of subject matter. I am not a documentary film student, but I have always been impressed by the medium's ability to draw public attention to issues that many people don't know much about or didn't even know existed. When it came to this film, I was in the latter category.
I had never really given SeaWorld much thought, which is surprising honestly because I'm not a big fan of circus for the same reasons this film argues we shouldn't be fans of SeaWorld. This film does an extraordinary yet haunting job of displaying why wild animals, Orca's in particular, are not meant to meant to perform for human entertainment.
This film is extremely disturbing, but also moving and eye opening. I have never been to SeaWorld but after watching this film I can guarantee you that I never will. But clearly, I am not the only person to feel this way after seeing this film.
21 Million people watched the film when it premiered on CNN, and the consequences have not been kind to SeaWorld. Since it's release there as been extremely vocal backlash against SeaWorld. SeaWorld attendance and revenue has dropped significantly in the last year. Also since the films releases, the companies shares have also dropped 22%, and then after the companies announcement of low quarter earnings fell 33% on August 13, 2014 alone.
Critics say SeaWorld is going to have to respond to the demand for change soon, if they want to survive. However, the SeaWorld website still have an entire page devoted to tearing down the documentary and claiming it's all lies. (Which is extremely unsurprising)
In an article for CNN the director, Gabriela Cowperthwaite, stated that she never meant to turn people against SeaWorld, "I hope you like the film. I don't know if it will change the way you feel about animals in entertainment parks. I didn't intend for it to do so. I just wanted to tell the real story. And I trust that once audiences are armed with the truth, they will make the best decisions by themselves and their families."
If you ask me, I'm glad this issue is getting so much media attention. It has sparked an important ethical debate that may have otherwise gone unaddressed. It just goes to show the power of documentary filmmaking.
