Hi blog! So over the past few weeks I have been doing research on the genre of documentaries. I watched two full length documentaries, "American Promise", a documentary that was filmed over 13 years, following 2 boys grow up, Directed by one of the boys' parent, and "Exit Through The Giftshop", a documentary about street art, Directed by a Banksy, a very famous anonymous street artist. I also watched two op-docs, called "Crying Glacier" and "Ellis Island" on the NYTimes website. They were much shorter, but provided unique takes on how to produce a documentary. I also watched 3 episodes of an episodic documentary called "Abstract" on Netflix, which had a more stylized approach.
All of these different types of documentaries were helpful for research, since I knew that I would have to make one on my own.
Here's my notes from the full-length documentaries:
In American Promise, I learned how important it is to have A LOT of B-roll. In this case, it had 13 years worth, which would make editing a nightmare, especially when you have to decide what are the most important aspects of a child's literal life. I also learned a lot about how to deal with filming younger individuals, since they had to do a lot of scenes at school, we discussed in class how the directors had to go about getting the okay to do so. Finally, I learned how important it is to develop a clear story in your documentary, because even though this project had 13 years worth of footage, there was still clear themes that were discussed throughout and nothing seemed out of place despite there being many new obstacles with adolescent life. Overall, I really enjoyed this documentary and the concept was unlike anything I had seen before.
Here is the notes from the episodic documentary:
Due to Abstract being so stylized, I learned a lot about unique ways to tell a story on very niche topics. This episodic documentary highlighted a new art niche in every episode. One episode I watched was about the art of stage design, and there was a lot of staged B-roll of scenes like the designer walking through the stage she designed. There was also a great deal of archive footage to describe certain stages that they do not have access to for B-roll such as a stage designed for Beyonce's world tour in the 2010s. Overall, this was a really interesting approach because every episode was unique while still being connected as one production.
Here is some info about the Op-Docs I watched.
This Op-Doc focuses on Ludwig Berner, who has spent nearly a decade recording the sounds of the alpine glaciers, which are melting due to climate change. The film follows Berner as he uses several microphones to record his "crying" glacier, which is the term that he used because although he is fascinated by the sounds, they are a result of a very unfortunate situation.
Visually, there is only B-roll being used, we never see Berner sitting down and talking in an interview, although we do hear him periodically. Text is also included on the screen to help give background information on what exactly is going on in the Op-Doc. The B-roll shows Berner from a variety of angles, and shows him walking in the glacial environment as well as him holding the microphones in the water. There are also a few shots that do not include Berner at all, and solely highlight the environment, as it is just as much of the topic as he is. For example, there is an included shot of a cave-like spot in the glacier, an extreme close up of a bug in the water, and even an extreme long shot of the glacier from above to highlight how dead it looks with all the cracks.
From an audio standpoint, this Op-Doc is very interesting because like I mentioned earlier, we only hear Berner, we never see him sitting down in the A-roll. This is likely because the doc's focus is the audio of the glacier, so the audio used is the main driving point of the documentary. There is also no music in the entire thing, as it would make it very difficult to listen to the sounds of the glacier, which are included throughout the doc. I would say about more than half of the doc is simply listening to the variety of sounds that the glacier makes with some visuals to assist us in understanding what we are hearing, making nearly all of the audio (besides the voiceover) diegetic sound.
I thoroughly enjoyed this Op-Doc because I have always been fascinated by glaciers ever since I went to Alaska, and I had no idea that they made that much noise. I had never stopped to think about what it sounds like below the surface, and I think that Berner is very creative for not only thinking to record it, but also preserving it to a point that the recording will likely last longer than the glacier. In the part at the end where he listens to his recording on a vinyl, I thought that it was very unique because he is treating it like music in a way, which I had never thought of before, but it did have a melodic feel to it.
This Op-Doc footage was taken by two high school students in the 70s about the abandoned location of Ellis Island in NYC, which was a station where immigrants would have to go through before being admitted to the USA. The Doc has three stages, "Hope", "Fear", and "Freedom". It was told from the point of view of three individuals, Joe Abbatiello, Irma Keat, and Abe Potelsky.
Visually, the footage is very clearly old for two reasons, first, because the quality is poor compared to modern technology that most people would use in 2024, when it was published. Second, Ellis Island was refurbished as a place for NYC tourists to visit as a museum in the 90s, and the footage shows an abandoned-looking building. The footage has many close ups of signs and hallways of the old building, and has a very eerie feel to it, because the first two stages don't have any sound besides the quiet noises from walking in the building, and the third stage has sinister-sounding music in the background.
The interviews are solely audio, likely to protect their physical identity as well as to focus on the story of the island, and less on the people. This is also supported because the names of the three interviewees are not revealed until the credits, implying that who they are is not as important for the intention of this doc, and their point of view regarding Ellis Island is the most relevant. The interviews describe their experience on the island and follows with the three stages of being hopeful, and then being pulled into the frightening reality, and finally be granted citizenship. The B-roll also includes images of when people were still in the building to give a visual of what they are speaking about, such as eating food or being treated with lice. The standout element in this was certainly the comparisons on what is looked like when it was being used in the 50s to the 70s when it was abandoned.
I enjoyed this Op-doc to an extent, because when I visited the Ellis Island museum in the past, I did not care much to learn about it since I was a young kid, but it was really cool to compare my memory of the refurbished one to the abandoned, and the island in use. However, I did not particularly like the lack of sound in the beginning because it gave me an uneasy feeling, when I didn't quite understand how that played into the purpose of the doc. The content was very interesting, however I do think that the intentionality of some aspects may have went over my head or been unclear in my opinion.
Overall, I really enjoyed doing so much research on different types of documentaries, and it has certainly become one of my favorite genres of media.
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