Week 9

What Are Documentaries About?

• Understand the difference between a documentary and a news report

• Understand that "truth" is a complex concept that is different from "accuracy”

• Engage in close reading of a media "text"

MAIN OBJECTIVES

VOCABULARY• documentary, documentarian, genre, fiction,

non-fiction, accuracy, objective, subjective, propaganda

What is A Documentary?A documentary is a broad term to describe a non-fiction movie that in some way "documents" or captures reality.

What Makes a Documentary a Documentary?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34-zYlEI5_4

Defining Documentary• "Documentaries bring viewers into new worlds and

experiences through the presentation of factual information about real people, places, and events, generally -- but not always -- portrayed through the use of actual images and artifacts. But factuality alone does not define documentary films; it's what the filmmaker does with those factual elements, weaving them into an overall narrative that strives to be as compelling as it is truthful and is often greater than the sum of its parts."

•--Sheila Curran Bernard, Author of Documentary Storytelling

Watch Documentary Trailers

https://vimeo.com/15464226Rising From Ashes

After Happily Ever After trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhiDXIbZcNU

THE TRIANGLE OF COMMUNICATION

• “For every documentary there are at least three stories that intertwine: the filmmaker’s, the film’s, and the audience’s. These stories are all, in different ways, part of what we attend to when we ask what a given film is about.”

--Bill Nichols

What Makes a Great Story?

https://vimeo.com/40972394

Ken Burns: On Story

FILMMAKER INTERVIEWSFreida Lee Mock

• http://www.pbs.org/pov/behindthelensvideo_freidaleemock.php#.VkOset-rRsM Stop at 2:50 minutes

1. What are the purposes of documentary films?2. Do documentary films tell the truth?

Up Heartbreak Hill (Trailer)

http://www.pbs.org/pov/upheartbreakhill/trailer.php#.VkNGu9-rRsN

IDENTIFYING DOCUMENTARY TECHNIQUES

• What is the topic? Is it something you would expect to see in a newscast or a newspaper?

• Who tells the story?• What types of shots are used?• Who or what is on screen most of the time?• Are the images contemporaneous (vérité)?

A re-enactment? Representational? Something else?

Sound of Vision (SHORT FILM) 8 min (

http://www.pbs.org/pov/soundofvision/full.php#.VkNJvt-rRsM

Group Discussions

• https://docs.google.com/document/d/128obEBzZ-SVA4QK9RSk7Kvje0nrTRzMtG4tJ-LikKWk/edit