On October 2nd, we started to learn about documentaries and their conventions in class. I was really excited to start this lesson since as a kid I would often watch animal/nature docu-series, such as Savage Kingdom and other pieces by National Geographic.
Dr. K's Exotic Animal ER , right here in Broward County, was another personal favorite! I had always wanted to be a vet when I was younger, and I had a Russian Tortoise (Masha) who got sick, so I actually got to go there and meet the people in the documentary!
However, I came to learn that documentaries go way beyond what I was used to, and the pieces we would study in class would further prove that statement.
We began with American Promise (2014), a documentary whose production spanned over 13 years. It follows the growth of two black students, Idris and Seun, as they attend a prestigious New York Prep School, which had a majority of White students. I found this piece very interesting as it was produced by Idris's parents (Joe Brewster and Michele Stephenson), teaching me a lot about bias and how it can affect a project. We focused on how the production techniques changed and developed as the boys aged.
Next was Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010), directed by Banksy, a famous anonymous street artist. The discussion in class began with observing how the director seemed to shift throughout the text, beginning with the unique Frenchman Thierry Guetta, but eventually became a discussion about the meaning of art (if it even has one). I really enjoyed the thought-provoking statements my classmates and I made, it was a really interesting work to watch. I liked how this documentary's main source of footage was from raw clips taken by Thierry himself.
Next, rather than watching another long documentary, we checked out a Netflix episodic documentary. It's called Abstract: The Art of Design (2019), and each episode examines a different creator and their respective art (ex. pottery, oil pastels, woodworking, etc.). The episode we watched followed the story of a costume designer named Ruth Carter, who worked on big projects such as Black Panther. My favorite part about this was how aesthetically pleasing it was. While stage b-roll is unconventional to most documentaries, I thought it was very well done in this piece. Being a professional production, the technical elements were debatably PERFECT and it was the kind of thing I couldn't not take notice to.
(Confession... We were supposed to watch a second episode on our own, but I was on a field trip and forgot to complete this assignment 😬... so that was on me!)
Anyway..... the last kind of studying we did was with the New York Times Op-docs. I chose to watch one called Pickle, which was in fact not about a pickle, it was about a bunch of animals. This short documentary had a cute quirky feeling to it, and it was easygoing to watch. The second one I watched was called Modern Goose, and it had a unique take on geese and their struggles in human-dominated areas. It was something I had never thought about before, so I found it interesting.
This wraps up the pre-documentary project research done in class. Stay tuned for the next post delving into research and planning for my own Documentary!
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