MDA1400 - Second Class

After critiquing the group's variety of responses to the 'Space' brief, we discussed the film form of 'documentary', and looked at the different approaches to documentary, including:

• Poetic
• Expository
• Observational
• Participatory
• Reflexive
• Performative

I found the session interesting, as I honestly hadn't thought much about the different types of documentaries, so it was interesting to see some examples and learn about different types and their main (but not the only) characteristics and themes.

The main type we focused on was the Observational Documentary, and we watched Molly Denevue's 'The Heart of Angel' and Mark Isaac's 'Lift'.

out of these two, I found Lift the most entertaining, as while both had relatable character's and were interesting, I really enjoyed the humour in 'Lift' and the huge range of characters.
Also, the fact that it was set in one block of flats with the same people living there, and not a busy London tube station, meant that the same people were seen repeatedly, so you became attached to some of the characters, as you would in a narrative film almost.

This weeks brief is to make a short observational documentary.
While I am excited about the opportunity to do this, I feel that as it's a new genre I am working with I may find it difficult to come up with workable ideas, so I will have to start discussing possibilities with my parter for this week, Mayang, as soon as possible.