Searching for Sugar Man

Searching for Sugar Man is a documentary film directed by Malik Bendjelloul , which details the efforts of two Cape Town fans in the late 1990s, Stephen 'Sugar' Segerman and Craig Bartholomew Strydom, to find out whether the rumored death of American musician Sixto Rodriguez was true, and, if not, to discover what had become of him. Rodriguez's music, which never took off in the United States, had become wildly popular in South Africa, but little was known about him there. This documentary is elaborately designed with a few skills of suspense films. Rodriguez himself is extremely dramatic: he’s zero in US, while hero in South Africa. 36-year-old Swede, Malik Bendjelloul, ever co-worked with many outstanding musicians, such as Björk and Die Prinzen, during the work at a TV station, so he is an insider without doubt. He was completely amazed the first time he heard Rodriguez’s song in Cape Town when he resigned in 2006 and went for backpacker tourism in Africa with then girlfriend. Malik originally planned to make a seven-minute video to be broadcasted on TV, however, only collecting information had taken several months. Malik told himself over and over again: This is a bigger story, and this should be a movie. Malik decided to stay in Cape Town and made friend with Rodriguez through the latter’s daughter. However, it is at the third year when Malik flew to Detroit that these two men met each other. At first, Rodriguez was reluctant to be shot, but when he saw Malik shot the snow scene of Detroit early in the morning at minus 20 degrees, he was deeply touched by that young face, red with cold and agreed to take a very short interviews. The biggest difficulty lay in funds. If you are an investor, would you invest in a documentary about an artist that nobody knows about, the directorial debut of a young director? Swedish Film Institute ever provided him support funds, which, however, was withdrew in the third year of film shooting. At first, Malik used Super 8 video camera, but then, he could not afford the Super 8. At that time, he was excited to find that there was a Super 8 APP in Apple’s App store, so he took most of his material by using this APP priced 1 dollar. Until 2011, the actual shooting part had been basically completed, and the rest parts were post-editing and sound soundtrack, as well as the most important cut scenes. Paying everything for Searching for Sugar Man, Malik almost had nothing to keep it going on. He began to pick up the brush and make some simple illustrations by himself; on the table at him home in Stockholm, he struggled with editing software. This is how he completed the film, suffering various difficulties. His film might be the most inexpensive one, but indeed the best one.

Update six genres of documentaries list

Six genres of documentary

The genre of documentary according to American theorist Bill Nichols, documentary can be divided into the following six genres:

Poetic documentary

Poetic documentary appeared in the 1920s and one of the representative work is called 'Rain' directed by Joris Ivens. The genre of documentary does not emphasize the narrative, the time to create and coherent editing. It is focus on rhythm the creation and the combined of different spatial. It aims to convey the emotion and mood.

Expository documentary

Expository documentary appeared in the 1920s. The genre of documentary's publicity intension is clear and pay attention of the commentary to convince the audience to accept their point of view, the typical characteristic in form of 'the voice of god', the material edit and omniscient viewpoint.

Observational documentary

Observational documentary appeared in the 1960s. The technology is based on emergency of portable camera and tape camera. The genre of documentary has not commentary  and specific actors. The filmmaker like a 'fly on the wall'. Observational documentary is mainly expressed the real world. It is difficult to deal with historical themes. Expression of image can easily become boring in the absence of narration of subtitles.

Reflexive documentary 

Reflexive documentary appeared in the 1980s and one of the representative work is 'Surname viet of given name nam'. The genre of documentary's  characteristic is present the social and historical process itself reflection. It same like other documentaries, importance of the real things. The most important is the reflection of the director to the documentary. 

Participatory documentary 

Filmmaker does interact with subject and does not cover-up filmmaker appear in the film. This interaction is present within the film. The participatory documentary appeared in 1960s and one of the representative work is 'chronicle of summer 'directed by Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin.

Performativity documentary 

Performativity documentary will be subjective to enlarge of a real event and departure from the realism style. It emphasizes the subjective expression of the creators. One of the most representative work is 'tongues united' directed by Marlon Roggs. The genre of documentary usually similar with avant-garde film.

References:

Nichols,B. (1942) Introduction to documentary, 2nd edn., Indiana,USA: Bloomington : Indiana University Press.

Three-act beat structure

Last week, we have a homework to make a three-act beat structure, the topic is 'getting a locked door open in an emergency'.

Daniel is a high school student, his parents go outside to look after his grandparents. He played x-box in the room. He play games all day, he feel very dizzy. He prepare go to bath room and go back to take a rest. When he open his door of bedroom, he do not why he cannot open. He continuously push the door. He have not eaten all day, so he feel very weak. He starts becoming go crazy. He kick the door like he control the man in the game. Finally, he smash the door open. Simultaneously, his parents back to home and watch these. 'Why you broken your door?' his parents ask.

'I cannot open it, when I push it.' Daniel said. His parents reply, oh my god, don't you remember you need to pull it?'

Interactive film and cinema

What do you understand by the above title?

Interactive film is the video game which is between audience and viewing. Interactive film need audience to control the plot or characters. It is like a video game. Interactive film emphasis the plot of the story, through the full- motion video. Audience can choose the options and follow their point of view to story development.

What is the new experience that is available to the audience?

As a participants, audience take part in the film and to control the film that is a brand new experience. They could be wave their hand or put hands up and so on. In the past, the audience just a viewer or onlooker, audience could not involve to the movie. Sometimes, audience hope the story follow their own opinion to develop, so interactive film can satisfy their needs.

What example of practice can you find of the above?

This is example of practice that needs audience to decide continuous plot. 

What can we expect in future?

People can watch interactive film in the home. A same interactive film, different audience can get different story and ending. They can discuss their own ending and how to made it. I think that will be a interesting experience in the future. 

Do you think, from your research, it will become important or stay a 'niche' experience? 

I hope interactive will develop more popular. In my opinion, some of people hope to have a relax mood in the cinema. They do not want to decide something or wave their hands. Just keep quiet follow the storyline, finish the movie.  In addition, many classical movies have splendid storyline, if the storyline is depended by audience, it will not a good story. Thus, I think interactive film will become a minority experience.

About visual components influence documentaries

People usually think a documentary shooting in uncontrolled situations. However, there are three basic type of documentary productions: using found footage, shooting in a controlled situation and shooting in a uncontrolled situation. Firstly, the filmmaker need to analyze the visual material and define the basic visual in the pictures. The principle of contrast and affinities created by the visual components will influence the visual structure of the final production. Secondly, a controlled documentary situation allow the director to control the visual component. For example, how to set up the background, space, lighting,shots and so on. A documentary like a story, have a core conflict. The conflict could be occur between filmmaker and audience. The conflict become 'will the audience understand the information presented by the filmmaker?' A documentary must have a point of view. If a documentary have not a point of view, the visual components will not exist, even through the emotion of audience. In a uncontrolled circumstance to shoot a documentary that is a tough works. Because the film makers do not know to predict what, if anything. In the circumstance, a filmmaker need to know own point of view. When something happened in uncontrolled situation, how do you want the audience to feel emotionally about it? You need to make a properly visual structure plan to fit the current circumstance. The most control comes in the editing room. The footage can be analyzed to the visual components. The action and story depend on the cut and combine ways.

References:

Block, B,A. (2008) The visual story : creating the visual structure of film, TV and digital media, 2nd edn., Oxford: Focal.

The visual story

This week I finish read The visual story. The book overall has ten chapters. I have read chapter 3 space. So I talk about the rest of chapter in the book.

Chapter 4 line and shape

The line appear in the color contrast and tone, the line appear or disappear must be depend on the contrast. No matter the line in the white or black background,  the line only appear in the color contrast and tone. Such as a black square in a white background, people can see it. On the contrary, the black square in a black background, people cannot notice it. The same principle appear in the 3D viewpoint. In addition, object appear the different positions in a frame, audience will subconscious connect the objects to make line. Track also can makes line, regardless of actual or virtual line. Many picture can be reduced a simple line via color contrast and tone. A simple way we can check the main lines in the picture, just via squint to observe the picture that is a easy way to recognize the lines. To evaluate the lighting can be controlled line existence. When an object movement, it will leave the line or track. Different track will give audiences different visual intensive.

Chapter 5 Tone

Tone is the brightness of objects. Firstly, you need to find the subject, you need to show the audience what the audience to look. Secondly, check the lightning method is to take a white and black photo. Finally, tone can emphasize the important objects or hide the objects that depend on how you want to design the tone non-coincidence.

Chapter 6 Color

Sunlight made by different color. Color system is composed of  two system: additive and subtractive system. The additive system involves the mixing of colored. The subtractive system is used in the mixing of painting and dye. Additionally, the basic components of colors is hard to define each color. Someone like to use some poetry name such as: 'King's ransom', 'liberty' and 'romance', which tell about more emotion the color rather than a description of color itself. People often use color swatches. If swatches are not available, there are three terms that can describe any color: hue, brightness and saturation. Hue is position of the color wheel: red, orange, green, blue, yellow, cyan, purple, magenta. There are only eight hue, pink, brown are not hue. Brightness is addition of white and black to the hue. Brightness is the position of the gray scale. Saturation refer to the purity of the hue. For example, the fully saturated means the hue is extremely vivid. In fact, when we shoot a film, we can use color palette to control the color. Filter is used in film of different style. Such as 'comformist' use lots of filter in the film, there are cool tone filter. To control the color in the film that is the film consistent style.

Rhythm and movement

Rhythm and movement easily confuse  in sometimes. A faster movement could be not have a fast rhythm. A movement can be fast or slow, it is different rhythm. Finding the rhythm in movement, some specific movement can create visual rhythm. Secondly, the rhythmic beat will increase intensive, the movement of the object gets larger in the frame. Sometimes, we need follow the sound's rhythm to confirm visual rhythm. Moreover, decide how much editing will be involved in a scene, this will influence your amount of fragmentation.

Chapter9 Story and visual structure

A story has three basic part: exposition, conflict and resolution. Exposition of a story need to state fact needed in the story, e.g. location, time, main characters, character relation, plot and so on. However, sometime exposition could not appear in the beginning of the film. The director will use flashback or montage， putting exposition set in the middle of the film. Then,  conflict and climax of story. As the story develops, the conflict will increase.The conflict could be external or internal. Internal conflict usually include emotion struggle. External conflict usually include physical situation. Such as fighting or crashing. The resolution for finish the story. And the audience need to time to experience the whole story. Simultaneously,  visual structure also has visual exposition, visual visual conflict and visual resolution. Firstly, the visual exposition need to show the basic visual component will be used to support the story. In addition, visual exposition can set up visual component for space, emotion and line and shape. Secondly, the visual conflict need to follow the principle of the contrast and affinity to build intensive. To be specific, the greater contrast in the visual component, the more visual intensive or dynamic increase. The greater affinity in the visual component, the visual intensive or dynamic decrease. Thirdly, the visual resolution can use the principle the contrast and affinity, to increase the visual component affinity. The visual intensive will decrease, thereby a story will be finished. 

Overall, visual story is a really good book. I learn many visual components. This week I use lots time to finish read the book. Each part is important in a film that is depend on what style of film do you want to make.I will compare the different space aspect in six genres of documentaries next week. And  How can  I set up a visual structure of documentary in my work. I will talk it later.

References:

Block, B,A. (2008) The visual story : creating the visual structure of film, TV and digital media, 2nd edn., Oxford: Focal.

Life in a day

This week we watched Life in a day directed by Kevin Macdonald and many co-directors. Why there are many directors in the documentary? Because the documentary is record what it was like to be a live on 24th July 2010. Two famous directors took up the events in the Youtube website. Finally, 4500 hours of footage, 80,000 submission, from 192 countries, and finally to created 90 minutes documentary.  To my surprise, how the editor cut the footage in 4500 hours. How to select and connect footage. 

Some of footage looks like not very clearly but these ordinary people's life is recorded with ordinary scenes. Everyone has different life in the same day. From the morning to night, everyone do the different things all over the world, they speak different language, everything makes very curious.

However, via similar color and similar rhythm and sharp contrast to combine each different footage. For make  interest point, some stories still run through the documentary. There are many laughing points in the documentary that are not deliberately. Our life is a real documentary, everyday you will find those fantastic object. 

From the documentary I learn some editing skills and how to note footage when you finish you shooting. Because you have massive footage, you can put a same thing use different footage of people. The editing method makes the documentary more interesting.

References:

IMDb (2011) Life in a Day, Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1687247/?ref_=nv_sr_1 (Accessed: 2nd December 2015).

YouTube (2010) Life in a Day: A new type of filmmaking, Available at:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf1AI3_qX7c (Accessed: 2nd December 2015).

YouTube (2011) Life in a Day: Raw footage of life, Available at:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2NiaCNGR8s (Accessed: 2nd December 2015).