Style and Documentary

Presentation by:

Caroline Schwab, Thomas Anderson, Preston Boardman, Grace Hyun

The concept of style

• Style: how film techniques interact to create another formal system of the film. Style and narrative/non-narrative form interact with each other http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flq0t4jrqJQ

• Group style: the consistent use of techniques across the work of several filmmakers. Ex. German Expressionist, Soviet montage

Style and the Filmmaker

• Style used to parallel plot line

• Narrative contrasts reinforced with stylistic differences http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWFa8zfWfeA

• Overall style to reflect progression of story

Style and the Viewer

• Viewers have subconscious expectations about style

• Conforming to expectations http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRiiG_IeqlM

• Experimenting with style http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uLpRvERjLE

Analyzing Film Style

• 4 general steps

• Step 1: Determining the Organizational Structure• Understanding how the film is put together as

a whole

Analyzing Film Style Step: 2

• Identify the salient techniques used• Spotting color, lighting, framing, sound• Salience: most important techniques in a film

(may depend on the intention of the analyst)

Step 3: Trace Out Patterns of Techniques

• You can then notice how they are patterned

• Techniques will be repeated, varied, developed, and paralleled, across the entire film or even with in a single scene.

• You can find stylistic patterns in two ways

• 1. Reflect on your own responses

• 2. Look for ways in which style reinforces patterns of formal organization.

1. Reflect on your own responses

• If a scene begins with a track-in, do you expect that it will end with a track-out

• If a character looks left, do you assume that something is offscreen and will be revealed in the next shot

• Is mounting excitement in a scene due to quickening tempo or accelerating editing

2. Look for ways in which style reinforces patterns of formal

organization.

• Filmmakers often design the film’s stylistic system to underscore developments in the drama

• Even a single scene is affected greatly by style

• A scene usually has dramatic pattern of encounter, conflict, and outcome.

• With the cutting becoming more marked and the shots coming closer to the characters as the scene continues

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XljEXSUcyo

Against the overall structure

• Sometimes stylistic patterning will not respect the overall structure of the film

• Style can claim our attention in its own right

• But even if the stylistic patterns do swerve off on their own, we still need a sense of the film’s narrative organization in order to show how and when that happens

Example: Ozu’s Ohayo (Good Morning)

Step 4: Propose Functions for the Salient Techniques and the Patterns

they Form

Here the analyst looks for the role that style plays in the film’s overall form

• Does the use of camera movement tend to create suspense by delaying the revelation of information?

• Does the composition of the shot tend to make us focus on a particular detail?

• Does the use of sound or music create surprise?

Step 4 Continued

• A direct route to noticing function is to notice the effects of the film on the viewing experience

• Style may enhance emotional aspects of the film

• Rapid cutting throughout The Birds causes shock and horror.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hplpQt424Ls

The Documentary

• The viewer is usually able to tell the difference.

• Different reasons to watch documentaries.

What is a Documentary?

• A presentation of recorded facts

• Authenticity

3 Ways a Documentary Can Be Made

1. Filmmakers film the subject matter live.Ex. March of the Penguins

2. Filmmakers present with visual aids.Ex. An inconvenient Truth

3. The filmmaker stages certain events to be recorded.Ex. Never Enough

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25r52dNKTgA

Staged Documentaries

•Manipulation of events.

Documentaries with Staged Events

• Can increase effectiveness.

Fires Were Started by Humphrey Jennings

• Or reduce authenticity.

Roger and Me by Michael Moore

• Viewers know that it is staged, but trust the documentary that it is true to real life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjHQnX8KMnc (1:03)

Documentaries with wrong information are still documentaries, just unreliable.

Types of Documentary

• Compilation film. A collection of images.

• Interview or Talking-Heads. Straightforward interviewing.

• Direct-Cinema. The event is being filmed live.

• Nature. Documentaries about nature.

• Portrait. Documentary following a single person.

• Synthetic. A mix of any types of documentaries.

The Line Between Documentary and Fiction

• What separates a documentary and fiction.

Both can be ased on facts.

Difference can base on viewers. Production or style.

Acknowledgement of reality.

• Mockumentaries.

Mix of stage, dramatization and authentic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLgh9h2ePYw

Categorical Form“Categories are groupings that individuals or societies create to organize their knowledge of the world”

ANALYTICAL & EXPOSITORY

Risks boring the spectator with too much repetition of same examples

Must introduce variations to interest audience

might be exciting, unusual, visually interesting

... may have elements of

both categorical and

rhetorical form

The filmmaker may still take

a stance on the categorical

subject (IMPLICIT), thus

injecting a bit of rhetorical

form into the film

BUT...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJIatF1XOdk

Category: Addictions

Subcategory : Cat-food addiction

Stance (IMPLICIT): addiction is strange, grotesque, unhealthy, reflects larger personal issues

“shows doesn’t tell”

“My Strange Addiction”

Rhetorical Form

“Rhetoric is the language designed to have a persuasive or impressive effect on its audience”

ARGUMENTATIVE & EXPLICIT

Tries to...

1) move audience to a new conviction or attitude

2) argues an opinion not fact (the issue can never be absolutely proved)

3) appeal to emotions as last resort

4) persuade the viewer to make a choice that will have an effect on his or her everyday life

Types of Rhetorical Argument

1) From Source: Arguments use reliable sources of information as evidence (interviews, testimonies, narrators)

2) Subject-Centered: Film appeals to common beliefs about subject as argument

EXAMPLES to prove public’s thoughts on subject

ENTHYMEMES (an incomplete argument)

3) Viewer-Centered: Appeals to emotions of the viewer (can disguise weakness of argument)

*** Often arguments are presented as facts -- as if they are simple observations or factual (Don’t fall into their trap!)

“How Beer Saved the World”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdwYjFnFoJU

ENTHYMEMES:

“... more beer + more barley = more farms and the invention of MAN”

(re-establish that beer is good)

“...beer was essential to the people, essential for their nutrition, and essential to the origin of writing”

(repetition disguises statement)

“Waiting For Superman”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEOOCTmR-k

VIEWER-Centered:

sympathetic emotional response

(hopelessness and innocence in Anthony)