Category: Project 2: Documentary

Premise Project

For my premise project, My primary goal was to explore different aesthetic animated interviews, with conflicting visuals and tones. The first is a more serious, darker and atmospheric idea, which is a reference to police interrogation rooms. The second is a more abstract and personal stylisation which pushes more performative and fantastical elements of subjective accounts.

Showreel

Below is a short showreel which goes through the different steps to create each project, particurarly breaking down the process of creating the 2.5 D and the layers it required to create.

Critical Reflection

Over the past 10 weeks of this premise project, I was able to get an understanding and apply old methods and learn new ones to see where I want to expand my visual identity as a documentary filmmaker. I think my main successes lay in the personal adaptation of ideas, particularly in the visual stylisation of the 2.5 D tests. However, Since this is only a premise, I can largely see and understand the various aspects that need improvement in order to be a completed film. Firstly, regarding the first interview, I feel that if I had adequate time, I would have improved the animation to be much more lifelike and fitting to the visual surroundings. I particularly feel that the lower body animation was much too stiff at points, and did not flow as naturally as the facial movements. Going forward with this in mind, I will allow more contingency time for these styles of interviews, or opt for a simpler animation style.

The secondary issue I noticed was the quality of the blend between the 2D and 3D assets in the second interview. I feel the AI toon shader creates a much cleaner and smoother line which evokes a much more computer-generated stylised look to it than the rougher lines of my Tiff image. I also feel that the alpha channel cut some of the detail from the edges, causing the lines to look clipped at parts. I think going forward with this idea it will be important to consider aspects such as 3D modelling all aspects of the scene but creating a 2D-looking render, upping the quality of my line drawings, and applying hand-drawn textures to the 3D models using brushes that are consistent with my 2D assets.

Taking these two visual explorations forward, I wish to pursue finding a middle ground between these two ideas and create a coherent and fixed visual identity that uses the more clarified and detailed facial expressions of the first design, with the stylised and abstract nature of the second.

Project Schedule Plan

Below indicated my project schedule plan for creating my short animated documentary film, including time over the summer which will be essential to get a kick start of animatic creation and character modelling attributes. My main goal is to finish all pre-production, modelling and main aspects of rigging by mid-September so I can really focus on character performance from that point on.

I have also laid out and indicated a technical pipeline for myself, so I can consider which order things will need to be completed in for the most efficient time management going forward.

Relevant Blog Posts

• FMP Proposal: https://esmeduncan.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/06/22/final-major-project-pitch/
• Week 1: https://esmeduncan.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/04/23/week-1-premise-project-idea-and-execution/
• Week 2: https://esmeduncan.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/05/01/week-2-premise-project-research-and-preparation/
• Week 3: https://esmeduncan.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/05/07/week-3-character-animation-development/
• Week 4: https://esmeduncan.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/05/17/week-4-dcoumentary/
• Week 5: https://esmeduncan.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/05/18/week-5-character-animation/
• Week 6: https://esmeduncan.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/05/25/week-6-2-5-d-animation-test-development/
• Week 7: https://esmeduncan.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/05/31/week-7-environment-development/
• Week 8: https://esmeduncan.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/06/14/week-8-2-5d-animation-design/
• Week 9: https://esmeduncan.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/06/17/week-9-animation/

Finalising my 2.5 D animation style tests, I felt to tie the feel of the section together I have created a title card, which reflects and matches the overall scene environment so that I can create a somewhat convincing transition between the title card and animated shot.

Title Addition

The main thing I wanted to achieve with this is exploring a way I could integrate the questions into the scene without using any additional voices. While I am considering leaving my own interviewing voice into the film overall, I think it somewhat takes away from the isolation of the interviewee in a sense, which is the overall tone I am going for. By addressing filmmaking techniques directly within the film, I am taking away from the performativity somewhat, which is something I want to test within my thesis studies. So for this premise project, I really wanted to hone in on the re-enacted aspect of animation. By including this question I am introducing a context for the speech while maintaining an aesthetic identity.

Interview 2 (2.5D Style Premise)

Below is the finalised shot for my secondary interview, which included the rendered animation from the previous week’s posts. I feel the final outcome along with the edit works well enough for the time being to get the idea across. However, I think in future, I would not create a cross fade cut and would create another pan down to the character, in order to make them feel like they are further part of the same scene.

Interview 1

As well as completing the first interview, I was also able to edit together the first interview process, in which I really tried to stress the ‘crime noir’ aspects of the overall tone, and with the addition of the ‘typewriter’ sound and visuals and the flickering lights. I wanted this style of ‘part 1:’ and ‘part 2:’ to potentially compartmentalize the different sections of my documentary and the questions they regard. When all of the footage has been collected, I believe this will be a good way to help shape the narrative focal point that all the interviews stress when put together, and figure out exactly what the message I want to convey is. I think this will be an effective way to express the general topic without trapping each person to specific questions, and let the spotlight fall more on the subjective experience without the audience’s expectation of response.

creating the finalised edit for the submission next week, I will have time to revalue and critically asses my next steps going forward with this project.

Added AI Toon Shader

One of the key parts of the visual success of this shot will be to try to effectively blend the 2D assets with the 3D ones to make a visually convincing and sustains its aesthetic credibility. In order to create a line-drawn effect within 3D space, I researched Arnold toon shaders, which add this exact effect but retain the 3D element of specular texture. Looking into this I found several tutorials that helped me understand that the Arnold render filter needs to be changed to ‘contour’ and line elements can be changed and adapted within the attribute settings, similarly to aistandard surface materials.

Applying the above tutorial to my 3D character model, The line effect works well for the stylisation of my shot, as it blends it into an aesthetic world in which key elements are outlined. Hence why I did not apply the toon shader to background elements such as clouds, as I really wanted to visually accentuate the foreground and key elements to draw the viewer’s eye.

I also added this to modelled elements of the midground and foreground for the same effect. However, where this visual look falls short I believe, is the drastic different line quality between my exported tiff drawings and the 3D models. I think going forward with this project, I will 3D model all of my drawings into 3D space, but apply them to toon shader to get a cleaner, higher quality effect that I was not able to reach its full potential during this premise project’s experimental period. I also think that going forward, I should apply artistic lighting and colouring theory to the rendering, as objects in the front should be more saturated than objects in the background, as this ruins its sense of depth.

Completing the modelling process, due to the specific bit of dialogue which expresses a long car journey, I thought I would directly visually convey the speech within this, creating a more ‘observational’ documentary mode, however, place it in a wildly unconventional world to separate its aesthetic tendencies from the mundane. To upkeep this stylistic direction, I modelled the car assets in a very flat and almost ‘cardboard cut-out’ style to maintain and keep inspiration from the shadow puppetry style Lotte Reiniger researched earlier on in the project. The feel of objects being made from plastic (accentuated object specularity) and ‘ cardboard’ 2d stylisation adds a hyper superficial like aspect to the world that once again stresses a visual landscape that forcefully attempts to push itself into fictional realms while tackling non-fictional subjects.

Animated Facial Performance

In order to be time efficient during the animation process, and also exemplify stylistic independence and reference to computer-generated imagery, I decided to try and test using the audio node within Maya MASH editor to convey speech. This would take place of creating and animating a mouth rig on the character for the time being, and allows me to explore the visual identity of my potential film.

By applying the mash editor node to the mesh, it created a computer-generated audio processing effect which makes my character appear robotic, which I think adds a visual performative element to the mix that forces viewers to acknowledge that the character is fake, in contrast to the voice behind it, which will aid in my thesis survey research into the performative re-creation of subjectivity.

After using the real-life footage of my interviewee, I tried to follow and adapt the expressivity of the eyebrows and eye movements, and apply this to my 3d model adaptation of the concept art below. Due to time constraints, this animation came out very minimal and not overtly accurate due to loss of performance in stylisation. However, this has allowed me space for stylistic considerations going forward with this visual exploration and has led me to decide upon making and adapting more detailed facial rigs for future models that are more reminiscent of the original footage of the interviewees. This will potentially include not using the Mash node editor in future, but creating different ‘square’ mouth shapes that will operate with blend shapes to create the illusion of movement. I am also considering applying 2D draw facial elements to 3D models as a stylistic choice in future, which accentuates ‘paper drawn’ visuals.

After completing the facial animation, I decided that in order to engage audiences with the visual world-building, I wanted to keep the speech as one continuous shot that does not include shots, which also provided the challenge of aesthetic consistency. Going into next week, I will try to merge and asses these aspects to make the aesthetic design work together.

3D Style Environment Research

For my 3D style piece, I wanted to look at environments that accentuate character performance with harsher and more stripped and focused lighting that will bring to detail the nuances of the character’s facial performance. Considering this, I thought of contextual applications of real-life interviews to help ground this documentary in its more realistic and serious nature. My initial environmental idea that was conceived in my head was a simple, minimally modelled room reminiscent of a police interrogation room where nothing draws massively the viewer’s attention away from anything apart from the subject that is speaking.

In a similar light, I thought the use of an office which includes each individual’s nameplate and objects that seem relevant and symbolic of different elements that represent them as people or what they are saying to the audience to give them a further sense of personality without having to inherently speak it.

3D Environmental Concepts

Expanding on this design idea, I started making some simple models of this harsh metallic table and chair, without creating a surrounding environment so it is easier to single in on the character performance.

The main element I wanted to focus on with this environmental piece was the overall lighting. My plan was to make it very intensely focused and bright on the character’s face, by creating a slight downcast to make prominent the sharper points of the face. In the book Aesthetic 3D Lighting: History, Theory and Application, states how “moods are often triggered by particular lighting scenarios” and accentuates the example that stylising lighting of horror movies light can be “placed at unusual locations so that the lights create exaggerated highlights and shadows” (Lainer, 2018, pp. 4). As this is similar to the overall tone I wished to create within my render, I started my testing with the most primary light in the scene. The overhead light.

As clearly visible in the above picture, I was able to create an effective-looking mesh light with enough dimness in the bulb to create a gloomier, overcast look. However, I still needed to populate the scene with additional lights to add clarity to the overall setting and massively reduce the noise.

Creating a ‘3-point’ lighting set up, I added a main frontal area light to reduce noise and light up the front of the scene, a light on the character’s left, to help increase the shadows cast over their facial features, and a backlight to help form a slight rim light around the silhouette of the character.

As stated by Lanier, it is important to consider the reflection, transmission and absorption of light (2018). They state how when the wavelength of light interacts with a material surface, the light is “absorbed and the light energy is converted to heat” (this seems to appear on darker surfaces), or it can be absorbed and re-emitted, creating reflection (Lanier, 2018, pp.7). Since the hue of the material tends to be lighter on a reflective surface, I created a backplane with a standard grey tint, so that aspects of the area lights would reflect and light up the back of the chair, creating an object separate from the background and foreground.

When adding my character performance into this set-up, I really wanted to focus on upping the texture specular so that the character would reflect on the surface of the table, exemplifying the idea of coldness and of solitude further.

Below is the finalised look that I was able to create, I wanted to keep the character’s specular level higher to give them a ‘glossy’ and toy-like appearance to separate it from reality in a way that purposely feels performative and intentional. I feel for this premise project adequately portrays the mood and overall feel I am aiming for with visual conveyance. However, if I do decide to push for this visual there will be many more things taken into consideration, such as further detailed texturing of both assets and character, and more extreme lighting set ups (Perhaps with the inclusion of colour theory) to convey further emotional expression.

References

.Lanier, L. (2018). Aesthetic 3D Lighting: History, Theory and Application. New York, New York: Routledge.

Stylistic Inspiration

My initial inspiration for motion and stylistic interpretation derives from 2D ‘puppet-like animations such as South Park and the works of Lotte Reigner. For example, below is the piece ‘Cinderella’ by Reigner (1922) the works rely strongly on the flat silhouette to imply motion. An idea I wish to expand upon outside of my premise project is to create puppet-like movements within 3d space, essentially creating a 2D rig within Maya.

Below highlights the setup for such a 2D rig, In which all of the different manipulatable limbs are separated into layers, in which they will be exported separately and exported into photoshop, where alpha channels will be created. After assembling these into Maya, the rotation pivots will be moved similarly to the motion of the puppet, aesthetically.

Environment

A big inspiration for the concept of the more cartoony and 2D reminiscent background was work from the series Adventure Time’ and ‘The Midnight Gospel’ which capitalizes on a rounder, softer and colourful shapes to accentuate its otherworldly-ness and fictional nature. I think the contrast between fictional audio and the unrelated crazy magical world that is presented in work such as the midnight gospel creates a very interesting individual use of the animated documentary which Is something I would like to test and consider for my own project. I think, by confronting a viewer with something so crazy and unrelated to the real world, it forces the animated documentary’s performative nature to be so evident to a viewer it does not try to be fictional and embodies the relationship between the real world and the experimental and how they can combine to address something of importance. I feel I can use this contrast to create an ironic distance between people’s time spent locked inside and their address on the mundane and the bright and colourful world they wish or intended to live in during this time.

Environment Drawing

Similarly to the earlier mentioned character, the environment will need to be created in layers, so that a foreground, midground and background can be extracted. This is essential as, in the process of movement, different parts of the environment move at different points due to distance and eye recognition. For this to look achievable I will need to create a ‘parallax’ in which the foreground, midground and background do not move as a single piece of geometry, but move as separate layers to create the illusion of distance.

An important consideration when creating the illusion of distance is colour saturation and shadow, as the foreground will be the most focused and saturated, and the opacity and shade will cascade into the distance.

Placing the character into the environment, I want to make it clear to audiences that this environment matches this interviewee’s character by stressing square shapes, that match his face and tonally the whole world is engulfed in tones of blue.

3D Environment Integration

Placing these into Maya, allowed me to experiment with layering and distance as well as camera angles and movements. For this process, I integrated temporary placeholder 3d objects to allow for early composition considerations.

I also discovered early on that my drawings were not long enough to cover a large distance of space since I decided to create a shot that pans to the right. In this light, I decided to duplicate and extend the road to allow space for a car to travel downwards since a car journey is directly referenced in one of my interview audios.

below is the initial playblast test that helped me understand how the camera and environment parallax will work within 3D space and allows rough composition set-up for environmental modelling.

Below are some added 3D assets such as clouds and tree models to help start integrating the 3D assets within the ‘2D’ scene. I think this process allowed me to understand compositionally that some 3D objects will need to be moved to allow for further depth of field, and highlights considerations down the line of using more 3D models than 2D planes to build a more convincing animated world.

Issues and Solutions

While in theory, I understood the concept that PNG files do not render within Arnolds render, I initially struggled to be able to get differing file types such as Tiffs and Jpg to work cohesively with alpha channels in Maya. My initial problem was exporting the alpha channel somehow invertedly, which highlighted several issues with my understanding of exporting photoshop alpha channels.

Starting fresh, I created an image plane, added an Arnold texture and added a UV Planar unwrap. I created a UV Snapshot and opened this file within photoshop.

Following the below tutorial helped me understand where my previous issues were lying, and it was predominantly related to the aistandard surface settings. When extracting an alpha map from photoshop, once loaded into the ‘geometry’ tab of the aistandard surface, it utilises the alpha map and applies the alpha channel to the image within Arnold’s renderer.

After following the tutorial I was able to successfully apply and render the image plane within ‘Arnold’ with the alpha cut applied. This allowed me to go on to create several render tests to understand how I will assemble and blend the 2D and 3D drawings together effectively.

Below shows the initial render test with some of the stylised models I have created, and indicates some important steps for me to consider going forward next week.

• Firstly, I think learning and applying the Aitoon shader will help blend the models into the background more effectively.
• Secondly, Applying earlier 2.5D tests of utilising the 3D model’s adaptation of my 2D drawings will allow me to animate to the lip sync.
• Assets such as the ‘car model’ need to be created
• Further render tests

Abstract Lines and Colour

While not explored for my premise project, I have brainstormed potential background ideas that expand on the abstract nature of ‘fantastic’ environmental representation. I could adapt pieces of work by artists such as Kandinsky to create floating shapes and colours to accentuate the contrast between reality and subjectivity in the background of the animated performance.

Initially starting the first of my adapted animated interviews, I wanted to use this footage to explore my more ‘realistic’ animated portrayal, as I felt the content in which she was speaking felt more serious and fitting for my initial aesthetic idea.

What I particularly found really interesting about this video is the subtle movements. She does not move around drastically, nor are her mouth movements very pronounced. A lot of the expression is in the eye movement, which I wanted to explore how to communicate emotions with eye movements. Since eye movements make up most of the emotional facial expressions, this should help with selling the performance (Tinwell, 2015).

Blocking

An essential part of the facial performance is the blocking of key jaw bounce/ viseme poses that time correctly with the audio. Due to the context of using pre-recorded footage as a reference, I felt it may be considered insensitive, particularly to the subject issue at hand. This brings to attention one of the slight ethical dilemmas of the animated documentary and its re-enacted nature. Due to this, I tried to interpret the original footage into a somewhat realistic portrayal of the performance.

One of the main things I did after blocking what Kenny Roy describes as the ‘core poses’, I tried to interpret the eye and eyebrow movements from the footage, but exaggerate them ever so slightly so the expression and intention are clearer. However, it came to my attention that one of the main issues is that they move too uniformly together when they should be slightly offset to add more realism. The same can be said about blinking, as this is a technique often used within CG animated films (particularly Pixar) to add a realistic quality. This is something I intend to add to the splineing process.

Smoothing

Creating the smooth and splined facial animation created leeway to add additional details, such as subtle cheek and nasal movements to help sell further the mouth and eye movements. During this process, I also added some slight subtle body movements, as even during a mid-shot the movement of the rest of the body needs to be considered. I think what draws back the realism of the shot is the lack of hair movement, however, the chosen rig did not have easily controlled hair, and the volume would have wildly changed and looked even more unconvincing. Looking into this as a future potential, I have found a few hair rigging tutorials that may be beneficial for the cause. I may also look into using N hair for more detailed simulations in future.

Finished Shot

Referencing the animation in the modelling environment, I had to adjust and re-analysed the movement now that she was sitting down. One of the main issues I had again regarded the rig itself, as their IK switch option did not work correctly, and therefore I could not convincingly place the hands on the table without them following the lower body movement. In order to sell the shot better, I kept the hands up the table and tried to animate the shoulders and arms within FK settings, to give them the appearance they weren’t just plainly following the body. I think this added largely to the unconvincing movements of the body itself, as I felt I could not move it too much without also affecting arm movement. I think in I future I will be warier of my rig choice, and when going forward with the documentary I will most likely model and rig my own characters so that the style is consistent.

References

.Roy, K. (2014) How to Cheat in Maya: Tools and Techniques for Character Animation. Abingdon, Oxon: Focal Press.

. Tinwell, A. (2015). The Uncanny Valley in Games and Animation. Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press.

Introductory Edit

For the initial premise project, my intention is to use three people to explore performance, style and storytelling devices in order to get a better scope when focusing on my final piece. Looking at how I intend to start my documentary, set the pace, and scene and introduce the interviewees in a way that cross-examines and compares the drastically different days that ended in months of confinement within one’s own home.

Documentary and Relationships to Video Game Landscapes

While not directly explored within my premise project, some of my recorded content involves people’s experiences with video games and lockdown which I find a very interesting visual identity to explore within the realm of animation. Below highlights a clip from The Midnight Gospel (Trussel, 2020) that discusses a person’s experience playing video games, and while they are recounting it there is violent imagery showing that matches that of the description in a way that visually matches the identity of playing a game without directly matching the spoken content.

In this light the film Molotov Alva and His Search for the Creator: A Second Life Odyssey (2008) utilises the video game space of second life to address a mans experience within the game itself. I like the idea of taking direct videos from video games and incorporating them into my film also, showcasing directly the virtual world within a virtual world.

Documentary Footage Edits

Below is a rough edit of my introduction to start considering how and what the overall tone of my film will be. I intend to explore and use this cross-story cutting to answer specific questions one at a time to allow for aesthetic contrast between different interviewees but similar content.

However, adapting these interactions for my premise project, I have decided to use these specific clips and turn them into animated works over the next few weeks to start exploring different visual concepts and narratives.

Interview 1

I feel this clip has a lot of potentials to explore my first aesthetic consideration of utilising police interrogation rooms as the overall tone is more serious and dark in nature. For this, I intend to adapt the performance to a semi-realistic world where there is real-world accuracy to the approach of overall character performance, however, remains stylised enough that it does not breach into aesthetic realism. I still wish to present this world as something that feels ‘fake’ and plastic but resembles reality in its direct mimetic substitution.

Interview 2

I feel this video leaves space to explore the secondary and alternate aesthetic test as it mentions travel and different locations which allows ample room to explore my visual environments from last week. Due to this, I want to try and explore the incorporation of 2D and 3D virtual environments and how I will effectively work on this going forward.

Documentary films watched for further Consideration

The New York Times // Conception // Yael’s Story on Vimeo

The Rent We Pay – StoryCorps

In order to effectively shape and style my animated documentary, it is imperative to hone down on a particular style and overall theme to match my documentary topic and address it with an ethically correct yet thought-provoking standpoint.

Interview in Documentary

Traditional documentaries such as ‘The Social Dilemma” highlight the use of interviews and animation in their way of conveying the dangers of online social media presence. the documentary itself uses re-enacted scenes that depict serious scenarios of being overtly online and I think this draws to attention an interesting relationship between the tonality re-enactment can provide within context.

Subjective Experience in Documentary

Some Protection (1988) Could use jerky, not animated frames to convey ideas of things that are occurring in time and space.

The Expressive and hyper stylisation of both some protection and Yael’s Story is something I want to consider utilizing for my documentary while having ‘rudimentary’ art styles that replicate pencils, pens and mediums that can be associated with childish natures, they both take themselves seriously and do not make light of their topics. Due to the serious nature of my own, I want to adopt this.

The New York Times // Conception // Yael’s Story on Vimeo

Set Design and Concepts

Taking this into consideration, and comparatively looking back at my portfolio there is a particular drawing I created in which I would like to see how I can develop this style, given its bright colourful and fun nature and see how I can use this in a more serious context.

Adapting this to my Three interviewees

Taking on some of my old pieces of conceptual art, I wanted to translate the different interviewees into stylised animated characters that I could translate into 3D models or 2D rigs later date. I wanted primarily wanted to explore shapes, and differentiate between the characters and their environments.

Animation Test Style

In order to explore the 2D to 3D translation, I created a quick 2D animated gif that visually represents a speech bubble, giving a visual and graphic indication of which character is speaking at any given moment. Due to the graphic and sketchy nature of the style produced here, I found it an interesting challenge to try and produce this in 3D.

3D Development Tests

My first very rough and initial test for this style was produced by using polygons with manipulated vertices to try to make them appear like a line-drawn piece of art. However, I feel this rendition looks particularly lacklustre and does not have the same graphic feel to it. Researching further into this, I found I could use an Arnold shader called the AI Toonshader, which I intend to explore in the following weeks to see what effect I can create.

My ideas surrounding the ‘looser’ and floating pieces of mesh were that they could metamhorpsise into various shapes that are contextually relevant to the speech. For example in one of my interview auidos, a person states how they packed and bag and made a very long road trip to go and spend lockdown with a specific person. In this light, the speech bubble could turn into a bag. However, I do not think this will be the most effective method when using 3D software, as it complicates the way in which mesh is formed. I am potentially thinking, however, that I can utilise blend shapes to create this, and model two separate meshes that blend into one another to create the smoothness of a 2D transition.

Associating with Bill Nichols’s expansion on the treatment of ‘Performative’ Documentary, I aim to try and expand the documentary idea to be more than simply facial performance. Considering this, this leaves the potential for aesthetic inspiration in a multitude of areas of films created previously.

Film Noir Inspirtaion

Due to film Noirs association with crime and detective stories, I thought it might be a good idea to play into this and create a scene that is inspired by film noir. A name vital to the film noir scene is Louis Feudillade, whose “Crime films in the silent era are a productive venue to explore as the genre’s predecessor” (Pettey and Palmer, 2014, pp.16). Looking at the below episode of ‘Les Vampires’ (1915), there are many cuts to black screens to showcase the spoken word, and letters that showcase the plot visually. As Pettey and Palmer state in reference to Allan Sekula how “the photographic image has ling been at the centre of the crisis of bourgeois culture, which simultaneously claims that the world is a collection of visible, ‘knowable and possessable’ objects'”, which in their eyes “transform the alienating machine of science/ rationality and its economic handmaiden, capitalism” (2014, pp. 17). By acknowledging this and that imagery is associated with the middle class in film-noir history, it extends itself to a particular aesthetic. This includes particular associations with men in suits and heavy detective coats and hats which indicate wealth.

Considering this for my documentary, I would take aspects of the film noir culture, such as lighting, the faded look of real film and lower quality of voice recording, but transport it into the modern world. What I enjoy aesthetically about these films is due to the dated technology there is an ambiguity created by the overall black and white tonality which is still present in the genre today.

1980’s ‘Tone Poem” Documentary Films

An interesting documentary film that uses referential techniques and imagery to convey the effects of modern technology on the earth is Koyaanisqatsi (Reggio, 1982). It uses juxtaposing and contrasting imagery o create and set its tone that documents the world’s demise with only the use of a soundtrack. It provides an excellent example of Bill Nichols’s performative documentary’ in the way it “stresses subjective aspects of a classically objective discourse” (1994, pp.95). It is described as a visual tone poem that as it utilises moving images and sound to create the language of poetry in a visual format.

Aspects of this interpretation of representation I have considered for my own documentary are questioning people on various key objects that were vital to their experiences in lockdown and recreating and rendering these in a way that accentuates them over direct mimetic performance.

In a similar light, the documentary ‘Night Mail 2′ makes reference to the original “Night Mail” (1936) but with updated technological influences such as trains and planes. It appears to utilise music and sound in a similar way to Koyaanisquatsi (1982), in which it directly times with the imagery presented. This documentary behaves in a way that references the “expository documentary” (Nichols, 1994, pp. 95), however, utlising some artistic impression with the inclusion of Blake Morrisons’ poetry. This documentary is reminiscent of the works of Grierson in its focus on working-class society, who has important historical influence over the documentary movement within the UK (Hardy, 1946).

Considering this, it makes me think about which group of people should be highlighted within my film, as the different social classes and ethnicity will change the perspective and experience of lockdown. This coincides with the overall Bourgeois of film noir as its overall aesthetic creates a particularly visual implication of class standing.

References

Nichols, b. (1994). Blurred Boundaries: Questions of Meaning in Contemporary Culture. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

Hardy, f. (eds) (1946) Grierson on Documentary. London: Collins

Pettey, H. B. and Palmer, R. B. (eds) (2014) Film Noir. Edinburgh University Press.