'The
hands are a man’s outer brain'.
- Kant
Finally, a practical module! It’s a great
opportunity to be able to produce [your own] short documentary as part of your
degree; surly a bonus for a show reel/CV.
I’d been brainstorming various ideas since I first picked the module
last year but when this year’s semester began, it hit...
no it slapped me! I [randomly]
thought about a compliment I had received a long time ago regarding my hands,
so I stopped to think about hands in general. What is it that we do (everyday)
that doesn’t involve the usage of our hands? Practically nothing and we tend to
take them for granted. To be truly honest I initially thought that the idea wouldn’t
be approved, but before the pitching I did my research. As I’ve learnt,
researching is an essential part for any type of filmmaking and it will help
build up a firm argument. The aim is to convince people that it’s a makeable
film!
The pitching went well and I am now
directing [OMG] a documentary about hands. Once formed a group and allocated all the
tasks, already done the research, it was time to look into more depth on what documentary
style I was going to approach. Nichols’s 6 types/modes can be reassumed into:
- Poetic
- Expository
- Observational
- Participatory
- Reflective
- Performative/Interactive
I must admit that after viewing Pockets, I felt even more confident in proceeding
with my idea and decided to take inspiration from its mode: poetic and
performative. In some why I actually thank James Lee, the director, for the
inspiration and hopefully this documentary Hands
can be nearly as good.
- Against the early forms of fiction film, poetic documentaries assemble images of the world, through time and space, “by means of association and patterns”. This fragmented and impressionistic mode made people appear simply as entities.
- Subjective experience and emotional response are key aspects of the performative/interactive documentary style. “... might include hypothetical enactments of events designed to make us experience what it might be like for us to possess a certain specific perspective on the world that is not our own”.
I then sat down and watched the various documentaries for each mode. These films tend to create a creative connection between music and images (Regen; Play of light: black, white, grey; N.Y, N.Y), some use narration/voice over (San Soleil; Night and Fog) and there is no or hardly any interaction with a specific subject. San Soleil begins with a quote, which foreshadows my idea of starting with two citations, while Night and Fog uses voice over; I considered deviating slightly from the main aspects and involving people [interviewees] so that the audience may share their personal experiences/thoughts. Their statements will potentially be a voice over for certain images; the aim is also to have people reflect upon this neglected body part, make us thing how throughout time society has been able to use hands as “a symbol, a tool and a weapon”.
AG
Research Paper
Clips
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