Text & film Analysis

Analysis of a text

The piece of text I decided to look at was a handout from Producing and Directing the short film and video by Peter W. Rea & David K. Irving.

I chose to analysis this text for several different reasons. Firstly, I appreciated the way it had been set out on the page, information had been effectively separated into helpful chunks meaning the reader isn’t hit with an overloading about of information and forced to cherry pick the best bits. But mainly because the information it included was extremely relevant to the work I would be carrying out within teams over the comings months.

One section I found helpful to read was titled How do scripts affect budgets? In this section, the idea of contingency planning money planning is briefly touched on.

“[…] The writer requests an elephant for a particular scene. […] The producer looks at this script need and says to himself, “Where do I get an elephant? Wont it require a big truck and a trainer or even trainers?” […] The producer might ask that a less expensive animal be substituted. If the story is not compromised.” 

This really stuck out to me because it got me thinking about planning for our own projects. Do we all really need to be together filming or can a smaller group be off getting other shots? If we can’t film our contributor in our ideal location do we have a backup reading to go? The questions this section of the article got me asking myself proved to be invaluable when contributor after contributor and idea after idea fell through. This outlook allowed to quickly jump without compromising our original ideas.

The next big section of the article I enjoyed reading was the Basic guidelines for the short film. This section set out the short film into sections:

Length

The central theme

Conflict

One primary event

One major character

Minimum backstory

Etc.

This outlook really allowed us to get a lot of our ideas and how they would play out, straight in our heads.

“A short film ideally focuses on a single event around which the action of the story revolves […] The single event is an important element in the success of each film.”

This got me thinking about short films I had watched, not only documentaries but drama. Its near impossible to think of any that focus on more than one story point and the ones that do often risk over complicating film to cram as much back story or dialogue as possible.

“By focusing on the playing out of just one event, the director can filly explore the events dramatic potential.”

This is something we knew would come in handy especially with our 2-3-minute piece for task one. There was never going to be enough time to explore our contributor’s backstory or family life without taking away from the one event or story we wanted to pull on people’s heart strings. Therefore, when it came to the edit it really gave us the confidence to cut large amounts of dialogue and story out that we knew effected the audience’s ability to really focus on what’s important.  Often, we realised that backstory was naturally fitted into place with a line said that allowed us to connect the dots without it being spelled out for us.

Overall this piece of text proved to be invaluable when working practically on our films, it gave us the confidence to make harsh decisions not only within the edit but within the team.

Analysis of a feature and short documentary 

Timothy Treadwell was a man who, over the course of 13 summers, documented his time living within the habitat of bares in America. However, after an accident that cost him his life his story was never finished.

The documentary I will be looking at is Grizzly Man, released in 2006 Werner Herzog pieces together footage from Treadwell’s final summer out with a mixture of interviews from close friends and family.

The 1hour 44 film is a beautiful tribute to the late Timothy Treadwell highlighting his achievements as an activist and a film maker. Not only this, the film doesn’t shy away from looking at the controversy his actions had created, we see several opinions some even believing Timothy got what he deserved.  

The film starts with a talking head, self-recorded footage of Treadwell explaining to the audience the potential danger being so close to bears can bring. I like this as an introduction because we are given little to no information, we don’t even know the title of the film or hear any voice over from Herzog.  This is a technique I feel we will use in our documentaries, as they are only short we need to hook the audience from the beginning and make sure that no interest is lost. This is done effectively here because as an audience we are un aware of what is to come. Therefore, when we do get the reveal of his death we are shocked and cam imagine what it would have been like living in the centre of the media storm.

The style of this film is very amateur, as it to be expected, however, I enjoy the fact that the footage filmed by Werner Herzog follows the same hand held low budget feel. Keeping the cutaways like the footage recorded by Treadwell doesn’t take the audience out of their emersion and it’s something I would like to focus on when making our films. For example, if we film a personal interview, hand held and softly lit then it will be important to make sure that any cut always filmed follow the same rules, this will set an overall “look” which will allow for coherent viewing.

Another thing I liked about the film was its patchwork structure, the fact that we had many different interviews intercut with a large number of original footage meant that the film not only felt like a tribute to Treadwell’s work but also as an educational piece. We as the audience could sit back and learn about the bears through his eyes, but at the same time we got to see what effect the isolation and his enthusiasm had on him. The constant setbacks and, threats and “intruders” brought his anger to a head which came out while talking to camera. This raw emotion speaking without a care of what people thought and with no one looking was fascinating to observe, even more so knowing where this film was leading.

As I touched on before, I’m thankful for the fact Herzog shows more than one side, he shows us the isolation and internal struggle of Timothy but he also shows us the effect he had on other people around him, and not all we good. I feel like a lesser documentary would have focused on making this either a piece against Treadwell or a piece placing him on a pedestal. This did neither. I found myself, on more than one occasion, swapping sides, agreeing that he was breaking the rules set by the park but then also seeing a bear being stoned just so tourists can get a good picture. As a viewer, I found this inner battle of right and wrong something really interesting to get to grips with and its these kinds of emotions I want to extract from people over the coming months.

In terms of relevance to my own projects this film has shown me the importance of relevant cutaways and seamless editing. It’s also helped me thing about the important part a voice over has, as what is effectively a character on its own, the importance of allowing time for the film to breath and letting the audience absorb the information they have been given. I feel like all of these things will be more than useful when it comes to creating documentaries of my own.

Another documentary I found interesting and thought provoking was Embarrassed. This dramatised poetic documentary written and performed by Hollie McNish gives a beautiful and harsh look on the opinions of breastfeeding in public and how the attitude of many needs to change. I like the effect that talking to camera and breaking the fourth wall has in this film, it makes the subject feel personal and forces concentration from the viewer. This is something that I would like to try on one of the tasks in the future, the idea of looking and speaking directly into the camera is unnatural but produces interesting outcomes. Furthermore, I love the fast-paced cutting and scene swapping back and forth it keeps the audience on their toes meaning McNish is never forced to linger on one shot too long risking the film looking stale or repetitive.

Overall, I think both films have been made to a beautiful standard allowing the true subject to take centre stage, rightfully this allows the audience to engage with what’s being said and having relevant cutaways and voice over makes the films feel streamlined and relevant. Both include elements I know for I fact I will carry with me into future projects throughout this course.