The documentary Voyeur, directed by Myles Kane and Josh Koury, follows journalist Gay Talese as he reports on Gerald Foos, who bought a motel so that he could spy on the privacy of his guests while they had sex. Both of the main characters in this documentary, the peeping tom and the journalist, are eccentric characters and shameless about their lifestyles.
There is just as much of an emphasis on the journalist reporting the story as the peeping tom himself. Talese and Foos were in contact for over thirty years before anything was ever published on Foos’ lifesyle. The documentary covers the sexual development of Foos and how he developed a habit of what he considers voyeurism. Foos thinks of himself not as a peeping tom but rather a researcher and observer of people. He would observe of between 2,000 and 3,000 people a year according to his own records. Foos not only saw sexual acts but observed the tedious aspects of people’s lives and even witnessed a murder.
The story delves into some of the pitfalls of reporting and captures the challenges of how to separate fact from fiction in utilizing a single source for a story. Talese becomes challenged in discerning whether Foos is being truthful in regards to the stories he’s telling him and the relationship between reporter and source becomes strained. Small discrepancies in Foos journals and records of the motel reveal underlying flaws in the legitimacy of Foos’ entire story that the media latch onto to discredit Talese with.
Overall, the documentary was a little unsettling to watch but really interesting. It delved into the process of how stories are created and how some of them go viral. It’s really well edited, with good sound and supplemented by archived photos as well as interviews from both subjects. The documentary is a case study of how delicate the relationship between reporter and source can be. The plot of the documentary develops organically, from publishing the initial article to a book, and it’s a good example of directors following the story as it develops. When articles are published, feelings can be hurt, and people can feel betrayed, ultimately impacting friendships and relationships.
“When The Levees Broke” is an HBO documentary that was released in 2006. The documentary was directed by Spike Lee, and follows the events that happened after the destructive Hurricane Katrina that primarily affected the city of New Orleans.
I chose this documentary because of the significance of the interviews that were used in the documentary. New Orleans residents, the mayor at the time of the hurricane, police officials, government officials, actors, activists were all amongst the people that were interviewed for this documentary. Film from when the hurricane made landfall until people were able to go back to their homes to assess the hurricane damage was used. The documentary not only focused on the effects of the hurricane but it also focused on the controversy surrounding the Bush administration and FEMA’s failed role in providing timely aid to the people of New Orleans.
I also chose this documentary because of its authenticity and its realness. Lee really let his interviewees speak the truth on how they felt about the hurricane and how it was handled, and how they believed they were financially abandoned due to racial and class reasons. The four part documentary is told in chronological order and really makes the viewer feel as if they were there at the time of the hurricane. “When The Levees Broke” also won three Emmy awards as well as the Peabody Award.
This documentary follows the lives of three friends over the span of a 12 year period who bonded through skateboarding as an escape from their fraught home life in Rockford, IL. Throughout the movie we watch the young men transition from adolescents to adults and all the responsibilities that come with that. What seems to be a documentary about skateboarding youths turns into a deeper message of abuse. Unbeknownst to each other, all three leads had suffered abuse from their fathers/step-fathers growing up and skateboarding was their escape. Further into the documentary we learn that one of the young men was abusing his girlfriend/baby’s mother, which was a shock to the other two. The title “Minding the Gap”alludes to the exploration of the crossover from adolescents to adulthood.
This documentary is was filmed in an interesting way. Not only did Bing Lui direct, film and produce this Minding the Gap, he is also one of the three young men. What I liked about some of the filming is that a lot of the early footage was used from skate videos Bing used to film when they were kids. The movie mainly focuses on the the other two, Keire and Zack, and then Bing does something journalist/documentarist don’t normally do and comes out from behind the camera and shares his own story of abuse. This documentary had a wide positive reception and many thought it should have received an Oscar and was also on Obama’s favorite movie list from 2018.
One interesting thing I read in an interview with Bing Lui is that in 2016 one of the main characters Zack, Bing’s friend, became a Trump supporter and he wanted to build that into the arc. He thought it was interesting that Zack left home when he was young because his dad was becoming more conservative and ironically, Zack does the same in adulthood. Another filmmaker talked Bing out of building that arc because he said it would take away from the freshness and be a disservice to the film. I’m happy Bing was talked out of that arc because I do think it would have been a disservice and not as widely received since Trump is so polarizing.
The Documentary I choose is called Auschwitz: The Nazis and ‘The Final Solution Netflix .’ It is about the horrendous events of world war 2. More specifically the concentration camps in Auschwitz and other places in which the Nazis placed Jewish people. It is a series that spans six episodes and uses four principal elements which are barely seen contemporary color and monochrome film from archives. As well as interviews with survivors such as Dario Gabbai who is a Holocaust survivor and former Nazis Oskar Gröning. computer-generated reconstruction of big destroyed buildings as well as detailed, historically accurate re-enactments of the meetings and other events were used to in the documentary. These are connected by recent footage of locations in and around the site of the Auschwitz camp, which is neat because it gives an ariel view of the concentration camp and how it looks now relative to how it used to when thousands of people were placed in them.
BBC two British Broadcasting Corporation broadcasted it. One of the things I liked that the filmmakers did about the documentary was how they showed the aftermath of Auschwitz, and how horrible and sad it was they did not shy away from making the viewer uncomfortable either through words or images, and that is one of the aspects I look forward to when watching a Documentary. Not so much how much you are showing me its what is it that you are not showing me what is missing, moreover, Through witness interviews of Jewish survivors that returned to what their homes. And Records of the Eastern Europe liberation. I think the Documentary did an excellent job of giving you a Beginning a middle and end about the Holocaust and concentration camps in Auschwitz.
I have been hearing about this documentary for the longest, but haven’t gotten around to watching it until a few weeks ago. Abducted in Plain Sight is about the disappearance/abduction of Jan Broberg by a close family friend in the 70s. This documentary is just wild – it leaves you at the edge of your seat as well as thinking how crazy/bizarre the whole thing is.
Skye Borgman (the director and producer) did an amazing job with this crime documentary. I liked how it wasn’t just a person talking all the time: there were scenes that were pixelated to depict a flashback and emphasize the 70’s; the distorted voices to represent aliens; the sound of a typewriter to let the viewer know the timeline; and the black screen with a description which I guess was used as a buffer between interviews.
This is the last documentary I saw in theaters. The World Before Your Feet is a documentary about a guy, a self sustaining homeless, walking across every square inch of New York City available to him. What started off as ridiculous ended up very inspiring and heartfelt. I actually teared up in the theater at one point. This dude did a Reddit AMA and answered one of my questions.
Question:
Hey! I saw your movie! Great movie! It’s wild to think you’ve walked down my block at some point. When is your favorite season to walk? If you don’t have a preferred season, what kind of unique characteristic does each season bring to your walk?
Thank you!
Answer:
Yes, early on I realized I would walk by the house of every person who lives in NYC. That idea blew me away!
In terms of my own personal weather preferences, I love the fall. Cool and dry. Summer is a killer for me, way more than winter. It brings the unique and wonderful characteristics of profuse sweating and chafing. It sounds cheesy, but watching life spring up from the seemingly barren earth is a profoundly moving part of a long spring walk. And the peace and solitude of walking in the frigid cold in the depths of winter is far more soothing and meditative than I had previously realized.
But it’s important for me to see the city in all seasons, regardless of how much I enjoy the weather. Sometimes I almost like the most unpleasant days best, because they underline how much I love what I’m doing. If I feel really good at the end of a day of shitty weather, it must be all due to the walking!
Afghan Cycles:
I saw this about a month ago, and was beyond moved. It combines two of some of my favorite things, bicycles and social progression. It also made me tear.
MAD TIGER!
This is the documentary I just finished watching a few moments ago.
First up: Checking in on docs, camera availability, possible collaborations.
Discussion:
Moving toward longer-form filmmaking
It’s an exciting time in the documentary filmmaking world, especially with streaming sites getting in on the game and producing and distributing so many buzzy, prestige, high-production-value feature-length docs and docu-series. Think about how many documentaries in recent months and years have been talked about around the dinner table: Leaving Neverland, the R Kelly documentary, Wild Wild Country, Abducted in Plain Sight, The Ted Bundy Tapes, Icarus (about Russian doping in the Olympics).
In this class, you have been learning to do things more or less “one-man-band” style. On a well-funded documentary project, there are more roles available: DP (director of photography), B camera operator, lighting technician, sound technician, producer, editor, etc. If you continue pursuing this field, you may find that there’s something in particular you are drawn to. Maybe you love shooting but hate editing, or vice versa. Maybe you’re a fantastic ideas person and extremely good with people and making things happen, but not as strong with the technical parts of filmmaking.
All that said, there are still plenty of documentary films out there being made by one person.
Cartel Land: A film made mostly by one guy filming alone for nine months.
“As someone who [is] a director and a producer, and also shoots themselves, it makes it a lot easier to just jump in because I don’t have to necessarily raise money,” Heineman told IndieWire in a panel discussion at the Sundance Film Festival, where his first film “Ghosts” premiered. “Canon was very supportive of me — [they] give me a camera to help shoot this, so it was very easy to just dive in and start making this.”
Feature-length documentary shot by one woman: First to Fall
While there seems to be no shortage of cursory stories from the front lines of recent Middle Eastern conflicts, filmmaker Rachel Beth Anderson decided to dig deeper. During the Libyan uprising the duo smartly embedded themselves not with emotionally inaccessible military units but with two Canadian students – friends who cast away their safe and secure western lives to take up arms in the fight to overthrow their homeland’s dictator. The resulting documentary “First to Fall” is an unflinching look not just into the struggle that would eventually oust Gaddafi, but a cinematic, exacting account of how war turns boys into men.
Lauren Wissot: So how did this doc come about in the first place? How did you meet Hamid and Tarek?
Rachel Beth Anderson: I had been living and working in Cairo as a journalist prior to the Arab Spring. When the Egyptian uprising began in 2011 I found myself filming my own friends as they turned from everyday civilians into revolutionaries. Their world as they’d known it was quickly consumed by protests, teargas, and risking their own livelihoods for the hope of a better future. I was fascinated by how quickly they rose to this “call to action,” never wavering as the danger increased, until the current dictator was removed and they were celebrating what they felt was a victory at the time.
It seemed natural to me that I should cover the next country, which happened to be Libya, where everyday people were rising up. Following the youth in Libya was an entirely different experience than in Egypt, because they weren’t just battling teargas, but were up against Gaddafi’s army who had turned his guns on his own people. Specifically, I found myself fascinated with stories such as that of my main protagonists, Libyan expatriates Hamid and Tarek. They were young men my age, studying at university like I did, living a free and comfortable life – and had felt it their personal duty to give up everything, travel thousands of miles, and go to war as untrained soldiers. I knew they would be the perfect individuals to help reach audiences beyond the borders of Libya. Tarek was incredibly sweet and he always felt it was his responsibility to help me tell the story of Libya, and Hamid had one of those strong and silent personalities that magnetized the other young fighters – everyone flocked to be around him. He took on the role of big brother to Tarek, and you could immediately tell there was something to take from these young men who idealistically wanted to create change as freedom fighters, but hadn’t yet considered the outcome.
How do these kinds of solo independent doc films get made, financially speaking?
Depends on the film. If it’s a passion project and the filmmaker has the access, equipment, and time, they might be able to do most of it themselves. Or the filmmaker may start off covering expenses themselves, and then once they have enough footage to show people, they cut together a “sizzle reel” and either crowd-fund it on something like Kickstarter, or they apply for grant funding, find a private donor, team up with a production company, etc.
For next class, I want you to watch a feature-length documentary (some ideas here and here) and do a little research into how it was made. Write a short (roughly 300 words) blog post about the film, giving your personal thoughts on the storytelling, some of the backstory of how it came together, and how it was received/any impact it made.
On Wednesday, we’ll be having another guest speaker. Next week both days will be devoted to production on your docs, so make sure to bring in whatever footage you have so we can start editing. Class isn’t mandatory on these days if your time can be better spent out filming.
What medium (or media) are you going to be featuring prominently? Keep that in mind when choosing a template.
A portfolio website is basically an online resume. You’re selling yourself, so make sure you’re putting your best foot forward. Link to your various social media profiles, Vimeo/YouTube accounts, etc. You can even post your resume on there if you like. And write a good bio for your About page.
Some people choose to adopt a more formal tone, while others let a bit of their personality show through. Think about how you want to brand yourself.
Requirements for Final Portfolio and Reel
You’ll need at least three main pages on your site: a Video or Home page where we can view your projects, a Reel page, and an About page where you describe yourself and your work (names/sections can vary, but that’s the general idea). Some people put their contact info on this page, while others choose to have an entirely separate Contact page. Those of you who have work they’d like to showcase from other classes or personal projects are welcome to create a Photography or Audio page… or organize it entirely differently if there’s another system that works for you.
You’ll want a nice professional-looking headshot taken for your bio page, or a shot of you in action reporting. I recommend taking advantage of having your school cameras to do this. And please make sure you proofread. I want to see a sentence or short paragraph introducing each of your projects, on the portfolio site if the template allows space for it as well as on the Vimeo page where the video is hosted.
It is recommended but not required for you to link the website to your own domain name, because I don’t want to require any of you to pay a website subscription. Most of the site builders listed above have basic options that will allow you to host your site for free if you have a ____.wordpress.com or a ____.weebly.com address; often your site will show up with advertisements unless you upgrade (the monthly fee varies). It’s up to you whether or not it’s worth it at this stage to pay for the more polished, professional-looking website that a personalized domain will give you. A domain name will usually run you about $10 a year and it’s fairly simple to link your portfolio site to it by going into the settings and making a few changes. Let me know if you run into any difficulty here and I’ll be happy to help you.
Bearing in mind that since most of you don’t have a huge amount of material yet to work with, your reel doesn’t need to be very long. One minute long is plenty, and you should keep it under two minutes—basically you’re just taking your absolute best shots from everything you’ve ever filmed and cutting them together with music. Feel free to use this as an opportunity to showcase clips from old projects from past semesters as well.
Even if you don’t want to pay to subscribe to a site builder, it might be worth buying your preferred domain name sooner rather than later just to lock it down. (Depends on how common your name is.) Years ago it was somewhat more common to have some kind of creative website name, but that’s rare these days. I recommend using some version of your own name dot com because it will look the cleanest and most professional.
The process of linking a domain to a website varies slightly based on which ones you’re using, but if you are planning on doing this and having trouble following the instructions most sites provide on this, let me know and I can help walk you through it.
