Take a look:

Take a look:

Some notes on Sheila curran bernard’s  Documentary storytelling:

How do you find a story within a chosen subject for a documentary? First ask yourself what it is about the topic that grabs you.

When you’re very close to a subject you’ll have to take an impartial view as you determine wheather or not it would make a film that audiences will want to see.

It’s not unusual for filmmakers to begin one project, only to be drawn by the characters and situations they encounter toward a film that is both different and stronger than they anticipated.

Knowing that this might happen doesn’t mean you shouldn’t approach a general idea by looking first for the best story you can, giving the subject as you then understand it and understanding what you need to make the film.

Films move forward in time, taking audiences with them, You want the storytelling to move forward too and to motivate the presentation of exposition.

This means that you want the audience to be courious about the information you’re giving them.

Films generally appeal to our emotions before they appeal to our heads.

The reason to tell a story for maximum emotional impact is so that you can appeal to people’s heads.

Another key point was….

Good documentary storytelling depends on good research “I began where I always begin, with a tremendous amout of research, with a passion to understand the total landscape of the subject”

•  Dont be afraid to ask basic questions, if you are confused, so is your audience.
• The input of academic and nonacademic advisors can be crucial, they have insight.
• Be prepared on the subject and try to know as much about it as possible
• Fact checking, any fact stated needs to be verified through two credible sources
• Detail; details will enrich and inform your storytelling

The making of this documentary was interesting to say the least. The different subjects that we interviewed were very insightful and I will say that I really learned a great deal about the situation of lead that is within our community.

I feel like that this experience has really allowed me to grow as an individual and to grow as a documentarian. As many group projects will have, there were a lot of disputes and a lot of disagreements; however, at the end we were able to create a documentary that was appealing and informative all together.

I feel like we could have tweaked with the sound a little bit and made some edits with transitions; however, if we would have made those little edits there would be more edits and it would have never been done, so I am satisfied with what the ned product came to be

The most interesting thing about this film in general were the interviews and the reenactments of the different situations. I never seen a documentary that has reenactments within the film and made it work perfectly within the flow of the overall film.

I really appreciate how Errol Morris did not have any restrictions on how he would have the film to be like or how the interviewee looked on the film, leaving little mishaps in the interview when someones messes up or forgets a situation.

This film allowed to take a different approach on how I should view documentaries and whats the true meaning of ethical and what I think ethical means.

One of the best documentaries that I seen at Lafayette to this day. I cannot believe how beautifully set up this documentary was and how vulnerable the subjects were to topic overall. I love the flow of the documentary, I love the individuals who were willing to talk about the situations, I love the camera placement of the films, specifically the face-to-face camera placement. I felt that the close-up was extremely necessary to the mood and tone of the documentary in general!

I wish that i could say more, but to be honest, there’s really nothing much more to say than…

Amazing Film Kim!

I had am amazing time with both brothers, with the whole experience that I had with them and the opportunity to explore and experience a day of how it feels to be around them when they are expressing their art.

They are truly amazing individuals who has a great future a head of them. When conducting the interview i was experiencing what they where experiencing and realize that the best way for me to be able to fully display their experience and give the audience a feel of what it feels like to be able to be around them when they are in their element, I could not change anything that allowed them to be in their element. That included the lighting, the sound, the comfortability of the artist, etc.

I knew that in order for audience to experience the artist, they would have to have a glimpse of what an experience around them would be like and I feel honored that I was able to have that opportunity to do that

It was really great to see another alumni of the class display one of their collaborative works that they did. I felt very honored that she gave us the opportunity to see what she did over the summer and was very inspired to pursue opportunities that will allow me to expand upon my art and improve in it.

Some things that i would like to talk about would be the subject and story in general. I really like the topic of the film and really admired how thorough the piece was; however, I felt as if the subject matter could have been more condensed, and still would have told the story the same way.

This statement is just a small feedback that doesn’t really take away from the film in its totality. It was a really good film and I hope that they win awards for their piece

Just to reiterate what I said already, ever since I was in elementary school, I always got bad vibes from documentaries. They always left the same impression on me. Sure, there was a rare occasion where I found one that I actually really liked but other than that, I didn’t really care for them. I didn’t care for the ones especially the in History and English class. Those subjects were always my worst and I think it was partially because of the topics we focused on.

Additionally, so frequently I would hear different backstories from friends, and even strangers, about why they chose this odd eating style, that some call vegetarian, vegan, etc. “I watched a documentary called (blank).” You could fill that in with: Food Inc., Cowspiracy, Forks over Knives, and Supersize Me. I’m sure there’s more that I haven’t even heard of. As you can see, all my knowledge was of documentaries were English, history, and saving the animals. Not a great basis if you ask me.

Interestingly enough, two of my closest friends were in this class at the start of the semester and I needed something for my humanities, so I decided to look into this class. From what they had told me, it sounded pretty interesting. Sure enough, I was enlightened by things I never imagined. I was faced to tasks on path I would have never otherwise ventured down. This class showed me another side to documentaries that changed my perception. Now when I hear documentaries, I don’t necessarily want to cringe. I wonder what it might be about, and whether or not it’ll fall into the “Seems interesting to me” category. I appreciate this new idea I have about documentaries because now I can be more open to new subjects.

I think the film Newtown was a pretty good film. I really appreciated the fact that the author decided to focus on the victims as opposed to the shooter himself. Someone actually made a point of that in the question-and-answer session. I believe that the fact that the author made the film about the victims sort of gave the whole thing a new scope. In order to really focus on the subject at hand, she chose to focus on the children and the families and the community of Newtown. In addition, I appreciated the fact that we were able to really see the aftermath of the whole incident. Sometimes when things like this happen, after the person is killed or discovered the whole situation kind of goes under the rug. They sort of just forget like the people around the world would tend to forget about what happened on that incident: how many people were taken away, how many innocent lives were lost? So with this film it kind of made people remember and really recognize them for what they’ve done in this world and that we did lose some really amazing lives. It also showed how the community of Newtown came together to unite and support one another. Even though they may have not known each other they still decided that the only way to get through this was together as a community. On another note, I was amazed, to say the least, about some of the shots that were taken. I think the movie opened with the video from the police car that was on the actually on the scene. They were driving somewhere and then they got the call so then they reported to the school, Sandy Hook; we could actually see that all in the police cam. There was another shot where the director of the movie decided to get an aerial shot of the whole town and I just found that pretty neat just because it’s not a typical shot you would see. It was of the area of Sandy Hook in Newtown and you can see the whole community, including the housing developments. Another shot if I recall correctly was the shot of the shooters house and I guess it gave us an idea of what was essentially going on in their mind. We could get an idea of how they were thinking and how they were acting. You could see that they had a lot of bullets laying around there’s a gun in the closet so it was no surprise honestly. Overall, I really enjoyed this evening.