The F-Word documents something so obvious but so subtly that it is brilliant. They follow a gay couple. Now I know it is obvious. No duh they are gay they are two girls who live together, but they barely ever talk about it. They reference it through animation and quick interjections, but rarely do they ever talk about it. The most attention they give the topic is at the beginning of the last episode where they talk about the law changing about same sex couple adopting a baby. The few references is the brilliance of the film, because it breaks down the notion of the nuclear family. The nuclear family is a wealthy white suburban family. For more of a visual: they are the families that own golden retrievers and matching fall sweaters. Nicole and Kristan are nothing like a nuclear family; they are gay.

This documentary however portrays them as a nuclear family.  They show their home and stable and sound life style. They show their dog, their kitchen, their scouter, and their friends. By showing their life in a normal way they are normalizing something that is so distant and different. They are making them a contemporary nuclear family. This point is driven home by attaching their relationship to an understandable emotion love. They show their search for the love of a child, which is something a nuclear family can sympathize with.

The attack on the nuclear family is expanded by showing inner racial families and other semi nuclear families. For example Jillian and Scott are shown together with two kids. They are a very wealthy couple, but there is something unique about their family; Jill and Scott are white, but their children are black. This adds another layer to the new contemporary family, because it normalizes yet another different family. This film even attacks gender roles in the family in subtle ways too. In the nuclear family, the dad is usually the voice of authority and the bread winner in the family. But in the contemporary nuclear family the woman is the power figure. The film says this in a subtle way by first introducing Scott as “Jillian’s husband.” This is introduction implies that Jillian is more important than him. The F-Word attacks nuclear families in a very subtle way by normalizing different families. Hopefully more films like this one will be made.

Seidman is a pro story teller. He has great experience and the most colorful portfolio that no one could even dream up. He has an amazing work ethic that is driven by one thing; his never ending curiosity. Each film that he chooses to write is nothing like his last, because he is always in search for something else to excite him. He said that when he is presented with a story, it has to drive him to think deeper and want to know more. This is not a new phenomenon that has been presented to this class. We have already been exposed to it via Documentary Storytelling‘s concept of the train.  Seidman is only wants to write a ticket if he is willing to buy a ticket for the train. The train of the story is the most important part and according to Seidman has to come from innate intrinsic curiosity. The story of the train has to inspire you and through your story telling it will inspire others. For example, Seidman is not religious but yet made a movie about a religious jewish movement. What inspired him to write it was as he said “money” but what fascinated him was curiosity for how they treated the women within the religion. Through his telling of the story of the movement he wanted to highlight and emphasize the mistreatment of the women in the religion. That was his train and that is what helped drive the film the extra mile. The train of the movie is important, but what is more important that that is what motivates you to get on the train.

Brooke Gladstone said that we need to get boredom back into our lives. She suggested deleting apps and carving free time into my schedule. So I deleted Facebook and Instagram and tried to carve out time for me (key word: tried). Even after these changes, I did not find myself bored. I often found myself playing games on my phone and looking deeper into some of my other social media apps. Even though I took the steps that Brooke suggested I didn’t notice any difference. So I took another step and downloaded an app called moment to monitor my phone usage. This app tracks the amount of time you spend on your screen a day. It counts the number of phone pick ups and how long you spend on each app. It also has a week long challenge where you set goals and challenge yourself to spend less time with your phone. It starts off with observing yourself, then distancing yourself form your device, not taking photos, to delete an app, take a fakection, observe something else, and to get bored. The first day I spent a total of 3:25 minutes on my phone with over 100 pick ups! I quickly changed my habits and cut down :30 minutes. By day three I had cut my time in half. That’s when I noticed the changes. I was not bored. I did not spend time thinking to myself. Instead I found myself filling my time with the people around me. Instead of taking five to ten minutes to relax on my bed on my phone, I found myself in a friends room talking. The way I observed myself was very different. I felt like I was documenting my life, but no through a camera, but through sheer experience. I want to thank Brooke Gladstone for making me put down my phone and find something to do.

The Thin Blue Line is an amazing action packed documentary that has to thank it’s production a lot for its success. It is both a documentary and a cop action short. The murder scene is a reenacted scene that changes as the story develops. It is shot with two different cars to play out two different scenarios. It is also shot with a strong use of inserts. The inserts give an intimacy to the scene, making you feel present and knowing every detail. This helps build and retain view interest as they slowly unfold a long case study. They do this by including shots like the partner drinking her milk shake at the beginning. At first it seems like a harmless milkshake, but then you learn that it was this milkshake that kept the partner in the car, when she should’ve been helping. The sense of abandonment that the partner had in that scene and the chaos of the murder is captured by seeing the milkshake fly out of the cop window and spill all over the road. Little shots like this kept interest and immersed the view in intimate detail. 

Reenacting scenes are a very powerful form of filming that documentaries use to keep viewers interested. It is very successful and most widely used by the history and discovery channel when they reenact great human feats of surviving animal attacks or to show life as it would have been back in the caveman era. Now we see more and more documentaries that are more of a production and a reconstruction of a past event. Seeing more of these kind of scenes in documentaries make me wonder what makes the difference between a documentary like thin blue line and a historical fiction movie like Sully or Captain Phillips? When does one become fiction and the other a documentary? Is it adding dialogue, or when you ever so slightly stray from the truth? 

In Kabul, Afghanistan: people in the market, people shopping, people building, people working, people riding rides, are all being watched by a white balloon. But why? For their protection? Or for mine?

In Kabul there is a white balloon that is owned by the United States military. In Maryland there is also a white balloon owned by the United States military. Both of these balloons are there for protection, but for whom?

Johnson documents a balloon that documents everything. A balloon that is above everyone and everything. A balloon that is god like. A balloon that strikes fear. A balloon that controls. It is ominous as it defies the winds and stands stationary surveying the civilians as they carry on with their everyday lives in the military occupied city of Kabul. At first you don’t know who is watching or why, but when you learn who it is documenting every moment it creates a sense of suspense. That at any moment something could go wrong, because the balloon’s presence tells you there is something wrong. That these people need to be watched and if they aren’t bad things will happen. The balloon is ire and evil, but it seems to be a necessary evil, in order for us to be safe. Johnson implies that the all seeing balloon will keep us safe because it is God like: “He sees the sky, the earth, and under the ground. God sees everything.” What safer feeling is there that as a soldier riding around in hostile territory than knowing that God is watching over you. The balloon will control them out of fear “insurgents and local nationals alike believe the blimp and see everything and will act differently when it is up.” The military strikes fear into the people and the balloon controls that fear, by making everyone know all through out the city that the United States military is always watching. I felt uneasy but I felt like it needed to be done to keep soldiers safe and the people calm.

But the short does not end there, it keeps going, and it goes to Maryland. That is when I felt uneasy. Why are they watching us? What have we done? But maybe it isn’t what we have done, but maybe it is what we might do. Johnson equates the military to the balloon and the balloon to God, making it so that the military is above everything. The military is even above God which Johnson emphasizes with a shot of the balloon over a church. That shot made me feel uneasy, it made me feel as if the military is everywhere at once and that they are doing it in the name of “protection” for America, but I don’t know if I feel safe anymore.

Monday night was an interesting night. Being told to cut, shoot, and edit all under a time crunch leads to things never working out as expected. At first it was awkward trying to figure out who to shoot and what to say, but after a few moments we were rolling. We originally wanted to talk about pet death and how sad we were when we lost our pets and the weird ways in which they died, but when we sat down in our editing bay, we lost all of that. We went from filming horror to humor. I did not expect that or see that coming from what we shot, but it was there. I was shocked by the power of editing. All it took was taking short sentences slightly out of context. Discovering this worried me more than calmed me.

The power of editing worried me because it made me realize how easy it is to change the tone of an interview all in the editing booth. People were talking about sad topics with a dark tone, but we presented out clip as a funny topic with a light tone. What we presented was not the truth and we turned the truth into lies in a few short minutes. That worries me because I now know that interviews can be manipulated to work for anyone’s point. Works can be taken out of context. One part of a sentence could be included and another neglected. Their is true power with editing and with great power comes great responsibility.

Here’s a little story

Framing things is weird. It was really challenging trying to fill the frame with close ups. I don’t know if that is because I was using a small piece of cardboard or if I’m special but I found that part really challenging. Framing from far away seemed to be much easier. It was easier to fill the empty space and adjust for distance. When using human subjects I found it hard to find the right amount of headspace (granted they did not give me a lot of time before they walked away). I don’t know if I’m suppose to put their hair just out of the frame, or what, but I do think I’ll figure that out more once I get behind a camera. This project made me curious about the different aspect ratios and how Wes Anderson does the things that he does. Composing shots proved to be cumbersome with cardboard, I hope it is easier to do with a camera.