Documentary Screening: When Lambs Become Lions
https://www.docplus.com/details/when-lambs-become-lions/RpYz4UCD/
While you’re watching, please note down how the components of this film fit into the basic elements of storytelling we talked about last class. Which of the two frameworks we looked at fit the story told here? (Does one fit better than the other, or do they both/neither work?)
- THEME
- MOTIVATION
- DRAMATIC ARC
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- EXPOSITION
- RISING ACTION
- TURNING POINT
- FALLING ACTION
- DENOUEMENT
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- You — A character is in a zone of comfort,
- Need — But they want something.
- Go — They enter an unfamiliar situation,
- Search — Adapt to it,
- Find — Get what they wanted,
- Take — Pay a heavy price for it,
- Return — Then return to their familiar situation,
- Change — Having changed.
Please write a brief (200-300 words) blog post analyzing the scenes, editing, and structure of this film and how it aligns with one or both of these two frameworks.
Hi Professor, I am unable to make it to class so I will screen the doc from home
There’s a lot of creative choices in “When Lambs Become Lions” that allow it to have a striking, cinematic, and cohesive story throughout. For one, there is color correction used in establishing shots that may be cooler or warmer depending on whether to make the viewer feel lonely, or optimistic, or brooding. Additionally, we never hear the document makers ask their questions in the documentary itself, rather it is simply filled with the answers of the poachers and rangers to their questions. This makes the documentary feel closer to a first person perspective although it is obviously told by a third person perspective. This is because without the likeness of the author, the viewer is left to make sense of what the Poachers and Rangers are saying. Not only that, but the film is majorly filled with shots simply pointed at both groups’ faces, and the narrative seems to be told by their facial expressions. The visual story telling and the amount at which is being told with little to no words at times is what makes it feel so real.
A Dramatic Arc framework is used in this documentary. The poachers are introduced, then the rangers, then their adversity to each other, then attempted poaches are shown to introduce the stakes, with various poachers getting caught. Lukas and X are then shown trying to attempt an inside job poaching which goes wrong, right after they had clients attempting to buy ivory from them no less. The ‘finishing blow’ is dealt to them when they see the Kenyan government perform an ivory bust on TV and tell the poachers that their “days are numbered”, forcing X and Lukas back to normalcy for a time. These events and the way they are presented elevate the viewing experience (especially the switches between the poachers and rangers’ perspectives) because they present forces of good and evil and progress a story with a beginning and ending with winners and losers.