Pockets (Dir.James Lees, 2008)
Pockets (Dir. James Lees) is a three minute documentary film which explores the subject of emptying different peoples pockets to see what the items they have on them mean to them. I find this short documentary interesting in terms of how visual it is within a short amount of time.
I particularly like the use of depth of field within the film; the use of focusing different areas of the shot enables the viewer to discover parts on screen that they may not have previously considered, for example, within the second shot shown below, the viewer is narratively being told something about the subject that is shown to be out of focus, however visually the background location is in clearer focus, which takes the story visually away from subject and makes viewer instead search frame and focus on the background location instead.
I also find the choice and range of angles within the 3 minute film interesting, and feel like this is something I would like to be able to explore in a similar way within our own documentary, in terms of experimenting with creative angles and shot types as well as using focus pulls when filming the art filled walls and areas. I like how this film has such a simple concept to follow, however it still keeps the viewer engaged for the full three minutes, as it is shot creatively and the cinematography is composed well. The film also feels very real and reminds me of some independent films that I have seen, in terms of following a simple concept and narrative within a short amount of time, but still making it visually appealing enough for the viewer to be fully drawn into.
The Apology Line (Dir. James Lees, 2007)
I found 'The Apology Line' to be an insightful documentary film, as I thought the style and approach of the film was very interesting and different to others that I have seen, as it did not seem to follow a standard documentary structure or narrative. I enjoyed that the film did not have a strict narrative structure and instead focused on exploring a simple idea that gained different responses and that at times felt more like a short film. By watching a different type of documentary film such as this, it has given me an insight into how open documentary filmmaking can be, and the options that can be explored instead of just telling a story. I like that this documentary follows such a simple idea, but is so effective as the set up that it does have gains different responses and manages to still keep the viewer entertained throughout.
Another element to this documentary that I like and that I feel works well to convey the mood to the viewer is the cinematography. The use of focus pulls and the composed lighting set ups help to visually set up the tone and mood of the film, and make the film look more visually appealing. As a lot of this documentary focuses on fewer shot changes and more on longer pieces of audio,the few shots that are shown on screen during this are held for a long amount of time, making it even more effective as well as fitting with the subject matter well.
Towards the end of the first semester, the early idea of creating a documentary based on Street Art was introduced to me by Alex and Oliver, who asked if I would be interested in joining them, either as a possibility for our upcoming documentary project or an outside of university film project.
I found the idea really interesting, but thought about how this could be achieved in a visually different way to how other street art and graffiti specific based documentaries and programmes have previously portrayed it, as I did initially think that it had been covered quite a lot before and wanted to create something different. I decided to take my camera out around the city centre and its outskirts, to see if I could capture any pieces of interesting street art from unusual angles, as an early visual starting point for this concept.
