Evaluating my Documentary

Evaluating the success of my documentary

- ‘A common experience for the spectator when watching a documentary is to be manipulated by the filmmakers.’ How far is this the case in my documentary about education?

Documentary teagan waymouth finished.wmv

Manipulation and telling 'a truth' to an issue plays itself out as soon as my documentary starts, mainly owing to the way I manipulated and layered sound to intensify the spectator's experience and response matched with the visuals that give a one-sided bias to my issue surrounding 'overcrowded classrooms' and its impact on learning/teaching. At its core, I did not research intensely and based the 'truths' around my own biases and manipulated the interviewee's responses to fit my agenda, with carefully selected tabloid - in itself something that serves to influence viewers through preconceived biases - statistics to act as the anchoring evidence preceding the bulk of my documentary. This expository 'voice-of-God' mode is the most manipulative aspect of my documentary because it is anchoring the interpretation of the spectator's response by wording the on-screen text to be a factual statement rather than a question I was going to investigate, which creates the impression that my documentary has strong foundations on truth, even though I did minimal research and heavily edited the context out of a lot of the interview responses. I am also - although unintentionally when editing - manipulating the spectator to perhaps view the school in a negative image because, by choosing to display the on-screen information against a wide shot of the school I 'investigated' my issue at, I am making the spectator associate the school with this issue and the negative statistics on-screen, and so the footage within the school is more likely to be viewed critically as a result of this. Combined with the provoking magnitude of the statistics, I purposely layered multiple recordings of both corridor and classroom audio to overwhelm the sound for the spectator in order for the anchoring statements to be emphasised, (reflecting how I intended to project the feelings (of how I intend it to be framed) of both pupils and teachers experienced in an overcrowded classroom onto the spectator, helping my focused issue to have a clear intention for how I want the spectator to approach it from the start) something which is perhaps more performative than truthful to the source material. I found this approach of involving the spectator in a supposed (not truthful depiction because it was edited and thus intensified for dramatic effect) overcrowded classroom scene through sound more successful than just letting the statistics be read - the use of J and L cuts places the spectator into the school environment and helps the rest of the documentary flow naturally - something (editing) which I have considerably improved on since my last film. 

As mentioned, I heavily edited the chronology of interview responses and played around with the possibilities of framing the interviewees in a certain way to create a 'character' or narrative. This is most evident during the second interview footage with the art teacher, succeeding the montage of the school art department; this montage helps the spectator to understand the context of the audible classroom dialogue. I found introducing a 'character' this way through this observational method presents their 'personality' (of how I intend it to be framed, therefore manipulated) better than the interactive (therefore filtered/forced presentation) interview footage at seeming authentic to the spectator, so there is a contrast between the 'real' observational presentation and the interviewee's presentation to the camera. By making this distinction clear to the audience, I was able to manipulate how I was able to frame these two presentations, which would perhaps gain an entertained response. For example, when introducing the first (art) teacher, I used classroom audio which involved her telling off a student overlaying the montage footage of the art department, already portraying this image as a negative one. To manipulate this presentation further, I edited the shot that shows a poster 'Art makes children powerful', to be onscreen as the telling-off becomes obvious to the spectator, therefore attempting to create irony for the spectator, before showing footage of the teacher and students (as they are being lectured) from an observational angle (purposely framed so the classroom is bustling with students - showing that 'overcrowded' classrooms have a negative impact on student-teacher relationships as supported by the audio) where I have manipulated the audio to match with the visuals even though they were recorded at different times.  I knew that by showing the teacher as she is telling off a student to the spectator, I am attempting to prove the 'truth' of her 'character' and the negative environment of an overcrowded classroom before conducting the formal interview in a much more conscious and filtered setting, where I have edited the chronology of her responses as she discusses 'reluctant learners'; by this point, the spectator sees the interviewee in a negative light, and combined with the ironic imagery beforehand, the subsequent interview responses she gives are seen much more critically by the spectator as a result of my manipulative editing. 

One interesting part of my documentary occurs as I introduce the first 'character' - the sixth-form student. Before I showed the visuals to this interview, I presented the reflexive aspects in the audio - the 'behind-the-scenes' as the interviewee asks me to 'start again' because she made a 'stupid face in the video', to which I retort 'no, it's fine, I'll edit it out anyway'. Well, that is partly true because I didn't match the visuals to that audio, but, by including this reflexive information, I have revealed a grey area regarding the truthfulness of my documentary to the spectator, bringing attention to the documentary having been edited and perhaps raising the question, what else has/hasn't been edited out? I chose to show these interactive/reflexive aspects within my documentary, such as footage of the interviewee setting up the camera and the attention to editing, to manipulate some authenticity to the spectator, as well as entertainment as I let the student be seen the way she was filmed - so any light she may be regarded under has not been manipulated by me. 

In contrast with how I manipulated the former parts of my documentary,  I have edited the interview responses talking about the benefits of smaller classes and disadvantages of overcrowded classes over footage of the same classroom, therefore presenting it as neutral once this has been realised by the spectator - I am not anchoring this particular class to be viewed in a specific light, therefore I have not manipulated the spectator. I decided to do this to experiment with how this approach would be responded to, making the latter parts of my documentary less manipulated than the former. In the latter parts, I have only truly manipulated the information being said in interviews than the visual footage (of which at this point it mainly serves as a neutral visual interest rather than guiding the spectators' interpretation of the audio) by only choosing to include interview responses that frame large class sizes as having a negative impact of learning/teaching and the benefits of small classes sizes, particularly with the art teacher as I edited the context out of her responses in order to suit my agenda. I knew it was important to interview a student so the spectator is given the impression of a wider, perhaps more authentic and younger perspective in contrast with the teachers who (are seen to) present a more formal image. In this sense, I was able to widen my ability to individually characterize the interviewees for the spectator by carefully tailoring the most interesting parts of their interview to make my documentary more entertaining, overlayed with interesting observational footage, and edited with J and L cuts so the documentary flows naturally - an important aspect that made my documentary successful engaging the spectator - mostly through manipulation by creating entertainment in relation to my chosen issue.