Documentary Research

    I made a documentary! Well, my friends Ace, Ale, and I made a documentary. We created our documentary on the work of "Techies" which are the people who work backstage on a theatre production. I am going to detail our entire processes from our research to planning, filming, production, editing, and a reflection of the entire project in a series of blog posts. This first blog post details the individual research to prepare for creating a documentary. 

    My research started with notes on a presentation prepared by our teacher, Mrs. Stoklosa, about the conventions, characteristics, techniques, and different genres of a documentary. This presentation gave the class and me good background information about documentaries and what they entail from a production and viewing perspective. The notes taken from the presentation proved to be very useful throughout the creation of our documentary as it gave us valuable information to look back on and reference to ensure our project followed the proper conventions and directions to qualify as a documentary. These notes were one of the most useful aspects of my research to create the project. 

The notes I took about documentaries

    To provide examples of the techniques and conventions highlighted in the notes, we watched three full-length documentaries in class. The first documentary we were shown was American Promise, directed by Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson. It detailed the lives of two boys, Idris and Seun, growing up from kindergarten to their senior year of high school, starting at The Dalton School in New York City. It also talks about the adversities the two students face as two black kids going to a predominantly white school. I enjoyed this documentary and found it very engaging. I liked how transparent it felt and the way it implemented interviews to further its story. Throughout the documentary, the subjects were growing up and maturing right in front of the audience's eyes. You saw their triumphs, their failures, their losses, their successes, and everything in between. This causes the audience to root for the subjects and keep watching in the hopes that they succeed. The documentary also heavily relies on interviews with the different subjects to tell their side of the story. This is what my group and I strived to capture with our documentary. We wanted our subjects to tell their story and be honest about their jobs as "Techies" and what their experiences are like. We wanted different perspectives of the job from people with different roles, like an actor, and how they view a "Techies" work. This documentary helped me with my own documentary in terms of finding a formula and elaborating on it to share the experiences of the subjects involved. 

  

The trailer for American Promise (dir. Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson)

    The second documentary we watched was Exit Through The Gift Shop, directed by Banksy. This documentary followed the work of street artists, documented by a man named Thierry Guetta who fell in love with the art so much that he became “Mr. Brainwash,” and started creating and selling his own art. I really enjoyed this documentary and it taught me about a subject I always thought was fascinating but didn't know too much about, street art. It also made me contemplate and reflect on what the true meaning of art is and what really qualifies as art. This documentary utilizes different techniques to highlight the work of street artists as well as provide perspectives as to how others, both in the street art community and outside of it, feel about Mr. Brainwash and his work. It used techniques such as voiceover to continue its story and provide background information to explain the topic and what was occurring at the given time. This was something we wanted to include in our documentary. We knew that not many people know who "Techies" are and that we needed to provide background information to prelude our documentary. We realized this would be the most efficient way to do that. Just like the voiceovers in Exit Through The Gift Shop provided information and narration to parts of its story, we utilized the same technique and highlighted what exactly it means to be a "Techie." 

The trailer for Exit Through The Gift Shop (dir. Banksy)

    The final full-length documentary I watched in class was an episodic documentary called, Abstract: The Art of Design. I watched two episodes. The first was about Ruth Carter and her costume designs, and the second was about Es Devlin and her scenic designs. Both episodes talked about what each person's process is like how they started in their field, their inspirations, parts of their life before their art, and many other topics. I loved this documentary and thought the topics were so entertaining and engaging. I particularly loved Ruth E. Carter and the beautiful costumes she's created. In both episodes, they use a lot of archival footage, mostly to show their work, designs, or a transformation from what something was like in the past to now. This was a technique we knew we needed to utilize in our documentary. We needed to show the before and after of different performances to highlight the effect and impact that tech has on production. We also wanted to show some of the work that techies have done using archival footage. These episodes gave great inspiration and insight as to how to utilize an important technique in our documentary.

The trailer for Season One of Abstract: The Art of Design

    In class, we also watched small, short documentaries submitted to The New York Times called, Op-Docs. Op-docs are quick documentaries highlighting a singular topic made by an indie filmmaker. They submit their work to The New York Times and if it gets chosen, it gets put on their website. These Op-Docs are a great way to showcase new filmmakers and learn about topics you never knew about before. I watched two of them. The first was called H.A.G.S. by Sean Wang. (linked here) It talks about a guy who reconnects with his friends from middle school because he is lost and unsure of where his life is going to take him. The second one I watched was called The Paradise Next Door by Lance Oppenheim (linked here). It was about a retirement community in central Florida called The Villages, what it's like to live there, and how the community affects the people living in the surrounding areas. Both Op-docs were very engaging and taught me new things, but also gave me insight into people's personal life and how they change as they get older. The Op-Docs were a very helpful resource for our documentary. They gave my group and I a good general idea as to how long our own documentary should be and how we could fit all of our ideas into a shorter span of time. It also gave us the idea to create our documentary on a topic that not many people may know about. These Op-docs gave me insight into a new type of documentary and how to incorporate different formats into our work. 

    Aside from the documentaries we watched in class, I watched one individually that was recommended to me by another student. It was called Saturday Night and it was directed by James Franco. This documentary followed the season 34 cast of Saturday Night Live and their process to write, review, prepare, perform, and air an episode of the show in a week. The episode that was featured aired on December 6, 2008, in which John Malkovich hosted. I loved this documentary and it was my favorite out of all the documentaries I mentioned, but that's likely in part due to how much I love SNL, especially this cast. I loved the use of color, particularly in the interviews. All the interviews are shown in black and white while everything else is in color. I think this shows are great contrast between perspective and what's being aired or worked on. I also think the use of b-roll and production footage throughout the piece was great and kept it engaging. This is what we incorporated into our piece. We wanted to show as much about techies at work as possible. Working on lighting fixtures, soundboards, etc. Showing what the "Techies" do and how their work affects a production highlights the purpose of the piece and keeps it more engaging.

The documentary Saturday Night (dir. James Franco)

    Each documentary I watched and all the research I did helped prepare me for creating my own documentary. My group and I implemented techniques and concepts from each one and learned a lot about what makes a documentary complete. Without this research, our documentary wouldn’t have been as successful; it was crucial to our process.