We used many different documentary 'techniques' within our film, those most notably being interactive and expository, with hints of reflexive, performative and observational throughout. Most of these were used to portray 'real' ideas, as the majority of our interactive segments involve interviews, with teachers who have a great knowledge of the subject giving us their thoughts, as well as our expository segments offer real facts which obviously presents an objective truth within our documentary. However some of our use of certain modes did lessen the 'truth' we were conveying, as our main reflexive segment, our intro scene, was scripted. This was done simply to make the film feel more like a real film. It doesn't take away anything that we are saying or arguing with the film, it was simply done in order to give the film a vague sense of narrative and purpose, however it does raise questions as to whether documentary can ever be an objective truth.
The claim that documentary commonly manipulates its spectator is a very interesting statement. In the case of ours, I would say there are definite elements of manipulation, however not the entirety of the film is pure manipulation. For instance a moment where we temporarily move away from an interview in order to attempt to go against what is being said through editing is done, which is obvious manipulation as our clear aim there was to say 'nope, that's wrong'. However, the majority of interviews play out as they did when we filmed them, and there is very little manipulation through editing beyond this one moment in the film. The statement that the best documentaries engage spectators cinematically does realty to ours in some fashion. Most notably, the aforementioned intro scene was staged and done simply for a more cinematic purpose, and so I would say that it can certainly add to a documentary if it has more traditional cinematic features. This is simply because it gives the film more of an aesthetic variation, and allows for more than just several people talking about a specific topic, which could easily become rather dull for the spectator, and so this instead can make the film much more visually exciting and add a slight narrative to the documentary. However, I do think our film had a bit too much cinematic appeal, due to the fact that we had an awful lot of drone footage, which we opted to use instead of other filler or more frequent cutting back to who was talking, which did make the film a bit boring and repetitive at times, which is what I think was the biggest weakness of the documentary, despite the fact that the audience initially reacted positively to the drone footage, which does highlight the fact that engaging the spectator cinematically can lead to a more enjoyable experience. In conclusion, I think that our documentary was a moderate success. I think our film doesn't always push a clear message right at the face of the spectator, although this is sometimes done which does ask the question of how true or credible the documentary is. We managed to get a point across with some interesting insight from interviewees as well as some messing around in editing which allowed us to manipulate elements of what we were informed of. We did also aim to talk more about progressive values in contrast to traditional religious values, however we didn’t get around to being able to discuss this, and so the documentary seems to not really have an awful lot to say as a result of a huge chunk of what we intended not actually being made.
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We now have enough footage for our documentary. We have managed to get several interviews, those being with Mr Webber, Miss Jory, Miss Short, Rev. John Angle and Miss Alden. We had to find the right times for each interview which was quite difficult to find a right time that we were all available to film. We also have a few interviews with students as well as a lot of filler to be shown in between these interviews. We now have to go into the editing process and put the clips together in multiple different ways and find out what type of reaction we can gain by messing around with the editing.
After struggling for a short while as to what we wanted our documentary to be about and what we wanted to investigate, we have finally come up with a decent and suitable concept for the given theme of schooling and education. Our documentary will explore the religious education system and how the subject is taught in school as well as how religious values are held and presented around schools across the country.
To investigate this concept, we will conduct interviews with various people, specifically religious education teachers, science teachers and students. We will ask them what they think of the subject as well as their views on religion as a whole. We are aiming to remain mostly objective on the topic, in order to avoid criticising the school or any particular individuals. We also hope to explore the way in which traditional religious values, such as the treatment of the LGBT+ community, and the difficulties of keeping these traditional beliefs intact in schools in the midst of a modern, progressive society. We, the filmmakers, have very different religious beliefs and so we don't want to force one particular viewpoint as it would go against the integrity of us as filmmakers, meaning we will be sure to remain entirely objective and not alter the film in order to present a certain perspective or opinion. |