Formative Assessment Week 6-13

During our production of our Documentary, I familiarised myself with the sound recording equipment, mores specifically the clip mics as I had never used them before this project. After we finished filming and moved onto the post production stage of the project, my role of sound technician became less relevant, so I gave feedback on the film during the editing stage.

Co-Writing an essay.

For the final assessment of Recording Reality, we had to co-write a two thousand word essay on one documentary theory types and how it applies to at least two documentaries of our choice.

At first we created a small power-point presentation on out chosen theory and presented it to the class, along with video examples of how out theory applies to it. Afterwards, we were tasked to create an academic essay about said theory, so me and my partner each chose a documentary and researched it, learning how our theory could apply to it and how it compares to the other's documentary choice.

We then began to write the essay separately, becoming experts on our individual film and once we had finished, we put our essays together and worked on the introduction and conclusion, along with the bridging and comparison paragraphs to ensure that our individual essays linked together.

After getting feedback, we worked to improve what we had. The benefit to working with someone on an essay is its a little easier on each person as they would only have to research one documentary each rather than two on their own and the bridging paragraphs were relatively easy to make. The problem with co-writing an essay is repetition where both partners had written the same thing or used the same example, but this is easily fixed by proofreading the whole essay and changing the similarities, using different examples instead.

Reflexivity and "Bowling for Columbine"

Jay Ruby states that reflexivity is to not only be self aware, but to be sufficiently self aware to know what aspects of self are necessary to reveal so that an audience is able to understand both the process employed and the resultant product and to know that the revelation itself is perposive, intentional and not merely narcissistic or accidentally revealing.

At the beginning of Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" (2002), he shows us a series of American people doing their job as Moore narrates "the farmer did his chores, the milkman made his deliveries, the president bombed another country whose name we couldn't pronounce." Moore uses humour in the juxtaposition of the farmer and milkman's mundane jobs and the destructive nature of the President's actions to  make a statement about America's tolerance to violence and how it has become mundane.

Later we are shown an advert from the 50’s – 60’s for replica toy guns and how they “feel like real and sound like real”. We are then shown home footage of Moore as a child with his “first gun”, while he narrates about how he couldn’t wait to go outside and “shoot up the neighbourhood.” This is meant to show parallels to Harris and Klebold, the perpetrators of the notorious Columbine High school massacre, and how they were “children with guns”, commenting on how even children are brought up with guns, whether they are real or not. Moore paints himself to be the “average American” while also pointing out the flaws in his own culture. 

Ruby says that one can find sustained reflexive elements in comedies in the form of satire and parodies, which Moore uses throughout his documentary to comment on the state of America when it comes to gun control and violence.

Documentary Synopsis.

My Dad's Army Days

My Dad sits down to recall his life in the army. He's back home in Algeria, the year is 1971 (January) and he is 18 years old. He gets a letter informing him that he is to enlist in the army for mandatory service, and he is exited to go, wishing it will toughen him up and make him more responsible. His older brother stays behind to help out their father with his work, and my dad leaves to go to the army base. As soon as he arrives, they shave off his Afro, measure him, give him his clothes, boots and a rucksack containing another pair of boots, converse, two more uniforms (one being ceremonial) and a water canister. He gets divided into his section and begins his 6 months of gruelling training.

Everyday he and the other recruits train with and learn how to clean weapons, do mechanic courses and first aid, along with obstacle courses consisting of the standard netting, wall and rope climbing, and the hardest task, crawling through the gravel, which grinds and slashes away at the skin on his knees and elbows. He endures and looks forwards to his months of service after training. Those who fail or slack off during the training are either whipped with a belt or are forced to crawl in circles in the gravel, which would reduce the toughest of men to crying messes.

During the role call, my dad laughs because of the drill Sargent's funny accent. The Sargent inspects each soldier and questions who laughs, and because no one responds, they are all forced to crawl through the gravel for 15 minutes, which causes my dad to laugh even more as he crawls. This continues every night for a few days until my dad decides to hide in the toilet for every role call to avoid laughing.

During the mechanic course, my dad and a few other men work on an armoured jeep, and as per the Sargent's instructions, the men start to push the jeep. The wheel makes an unexpected turn and rolls onto my dad's leg, pinning him to the ground. He is quickly taken to the medic, who removes the crushed boot, puts a cast on my dad's leg and sends him home, recommending that he gets discharged. My dad refuses as he is determined to finish his service and returns a few months later to finish his service.

He becomes a Sargent and works through several different sections, starting off at the sports section, then moving onto logistics and eventually becomes the manager of the kitchen, becoming responsible for ordering the food for the chefs and managing waste. He finishes his service on December 1981 and returns home a disciplined man.

              

Formative assessment 3

Room 237 (2012, Rodney Ascher)

The documentary starts off like a film as seen by its composition of wide shots to close ups, POV angles and even the choice to hire Tom Cruise.

Compares "the wave of terror" mentioned in the marketing of the film to the colonisation of the white settlers and uses a shot by shot comparison of a settler chopping logs with and axe with a shot of Jack Nicholson chopping down the door with his axe. "The wave of terror" followed by a shot of native Americans running towards the camera.

Tracking shot of Tom Cruise walking down stairs towards the movie theatre, followed by a panning shot of the seats as the narrator talks about how he remembers the the seats they sat in when they first watched "The Shining".  Visually imaginative shots are used, lots of red shown throughout this sequence, which was a motif throughout "The Shining".

The shots match what the narrator it talking about, reenacting his memories of him walking out the theatre in a daze, heading towards the underground car park.

Zoom in on Tom Cruise's face as he thinks to himself about the film and his realisation that native american culture is sprinkled throughout the entire film, accompanied by scenes from the film, and black and white cowboy film scenes of Indians riding their horses, archive pictures of natives smoking peace pipes.

Narrator realises that the film is about the genocide of the native Americans, which is said as we see more footage from westerns of cowboys firing cannons at the natives.

Talks about duplicity, which the twin girls represent, he talks about the broken peace pipe treaties while we see a shot of Calumet baking powder cans behind Jack Nicholson's head, all turned in different directions to represent the failed treaties.

Formative assessment 2

Character description:
Young, unenthusiastic, a bit of a shut in, yet compassionate and loyal. Has his own problems and mental health issues but listens to others during their time of need and tries to help out.

Questions:
- What are your interests?
- Why do you choose not to go out often?
- when did you first find out about your mental health?
- Does it affect your everyday life and if so, how much does it?
- Why do people come to you when they need help?
- Do you like helping others or do you feel obligated to help when asked?

Documentary Proposal

For my documentary proposal, I had the idea to make a documentary about home businesses and the effort one must go through to make sure their business succeeds. The main character for this documentary would be my older sister, who is someone who has started up many different home businesses over the years all centred around crafts and fabrics, whether that be fabrics for others to use in their projects or hand made accessories.

The documentary will follow my sister on her day to day routine as she prepares her products and ultimately sets them off for shipping, all while talking about the process of starting your own business and the hardships she faced while starting up her different brands.

 I propose to represent the subject as a story of hope by showing the trial and error process that all businesses go through and how to push through these problems to achieve your dream. I plan on using mostly action shots where we interview my sister while she works rather than a simple sit down interview. I plan on keeping the overall tone of the documentary quite light which an be done through the use of a faint merry melody in the background and a moderate pacing that cuts between interview and action shots.