Collaboration Lecture: Preparation for Premise.
Documentary – Shockumentary, Mockumentary, Docudrama.
Brief
history into the scope of documentary:
1895 – Lumiere Brothers invent the Cinématographe motion picture system and ultimately one of the first to create a short film documenting a train pulling into a station called Un Train Arrivee (1895). This was filmed as a part of a travelling show to entertain audiences, as at the time it was created; motion picture was a new medium of capturing life events. Film shorts of this era were purely of documenting and experimenting with this new medium, so most things shot were of everyday life. It was only later that the medium was introduced as way of storytelling.
1922
– Nanook of the North – documents the day-to-day life of the Inuit’s and life
in the cold conditions. Within this film a lot of the events were staged, so
events in the film don’t necessarily line up with how the Inuit’s lived.
Introducing a fictitious documentary based upon/ influenced by facts.
1936
– Night Mail - was a film about the royal mail postal system. The 24-minute
film documents the nightly postal train operated by the London, Midland and
Scottish Railway from London to Glasgow and the staff who operate it.
1960
– first aired on BBC 1; Cathy Come Home deals with filming ‘true life’ and the
problems that face family life in the time it was made. It told the story of a
fictional family that was evicted from their home and bought viewers attention
to the disadvantage and the homelessness within society.
Bill
Nichols – 6 Modes of Documentary.
Expository
Mode: Is the most common, it emphasises verbal commentary and argumentative
logic. It commonly uses a narrator and it typically based on news/facts,
science/nature. Biography/history and looks at politics as well.
Poetic
Mode: Is a subjective and artistic expression in seeking ‘inner truth’. It also
emphasises visual associations and focuses on tone, mood and rhythm within the
piece. Often seen as poetic manipulation and is commonly shown without a
narrator voice over to leave interpretation up to the audience.
Observational
Mode: Is an edited documentary that observes things as they are (much like the
program Big Brother.) The 1950/60’s Cinema Verite (a style of film-making
characterized by realistic, typically documentary films which avoid
artificiality and artistic effect and are generally made with simple equipment.
E.g., Cathy Come Home) is another example of this. This Mode is also often
refers to a hidden filmmaker and enables the filmmaker to facilitate ‘realism’.
Participatory
Mode: Filmmaker interacting with subject and becomes part of the narrative. The
actions of the filmmaker are recorded and documented and is often Mission
Driven with an end goal in sight. This form of documentary can be Biased/Non-biased
(Unreliable Narrator) and can be seen as Crusader filmmaking (a person who
campaigns vigorously for political, social, or religious change).
Reflexive
Mode: Celebrates the nature of filmmaking and the making of the documentary is
exposed to the viewers. It expresses that this may not be the truth but a
construction of it and rises awareness of the process. The Filmmaker may be
involved with the subject but not become the subject. Example of this would-be
Louis Theroux documentaries, where you see him just observe and acts as a sound
board for his subject to bounce their ideas off in relations to his questions.
Performative Mode: Filmmaker as the participant and is a ‘Shock and effect’ style of filmmaking. It emphasises the ‘non-biased’ nature of the filmmaker and the social impacts and emotional impact along the way. Eg. Supersize me – filmmaker eats McDonalds for 30 days straight to see the impact fast food has on the body.
Other
types of Documentaries:
Shockumentary:
A documentary that exploits a subject. It is a film/ program that deals with
topics such as death or violence in a graphic way. E.g., Grizzly Man, Mondo
filmmaking.
Docudrama:
Real events as drama (Facts combined with fiction). E.g., 127 Hours, Zodiac,
Captain Phillips and Apollo 13.
Fake
Documentary: Filmed as ‘real’ (found footage genre) e.g., Blair witch project.
Mockumentary:
A parody of ‘real’ events (Comedic social commentary). E.g., Best in Show, Borat
and This Is Spinal Tap.
Adaptation, Transcription & Biography - From abstraction to time-based visual storytelling.
What
is a Narrative Adaptation?
A narrative adaptation is the transfer of a work, in whole or in part, from one type of media to another. It is a type of derivative work.
Adaptation
Sources:
Adaptations often come from Radio. Theatre, Literature and Television and are often created from what came before. For example, literature in books create full fleshed out stories, these stories are then adapted to suit the medium it is being adapted for; eg: either a play or film.
In Literature:
Sherlock
Holmes, Alice in Wonderland and a Christmas Carol could be considered to be
easy to adapt with over 374 + screen adaptations combined from the original
books. Bram Stokers Dracula is also another example that has been adapted over
the years.
Other
adaptation examples from book to screen include the Lord of the Ring trilogy,
the Harry Potter franchise and the superhero/comic book genre. In these
examples most of the content from the books were either cut completely or were
altered to fit the story within studio budget.
It
could be argued that Disney is well known for its fairy tale adaptations, as
most of their stories came from cultural tales and folklore. For example, the
brothers Grimm wrote snow white, Cinderella and Rapunzel that all ended in
unfortunate and sometimes dark endings; Disney used these tales and transformed
them to have a lighter undertone with happier endings instead of the darker
endings as portrayed in the Brothers Grimm tales.
William Shakespeare’s work is also another example of whose work is commonly adapted from theatre to screen. Granted it may not be the original script Shakespeare wrote but traces of his storylines can be seen in films to day. For example, Disney’s The Lion King imitates that of the plot in Hamlet; which is about a prince (Hamlet/Simba) whose father (Hamlet(senior)/Mufasa) was murdered. In the play Hamlet’s own uncle (Claudius/ Scar), his father’s brother, was the murderer. Another example would also be 10 Things I Hate About You which has been adapted from The Taming of the Shrew.
In
Theatre:
Over
the years theatre has also been adapted from books to film and from films to
plays, with the addition of musicals as well; this can be seen with Peter Pan,
Frost/Nixon and Sound of Music.
Cats is another example that was first adapted from T.S. Eliot Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats to a musical play then more recently to film.
In
Radio:
The Shadow 1930, The Lone Ranger 1933 and The Green Hornet 1936 were all original radio plays (1930s) that were then adapted for the screen later from 1994-2013.
In
Television:
Adaptation
from television is also becoming more common, as seen with the South Park TV
series being altered to a full-length film, Dr Who TV series altered for 3 full
length films and the Lord of the Rings which is soon to be adapted to be a TV
series. Another big adaptation would be the Star Trek franchise, which aired
its original series in 1963 and it 13 films and 7 series – in each of these
adaptations you will see different aspects change such as their clothing and
set. This is down to the studio and copyright of particular styles seen within
this film/programs.
Adaptations
don’t always come from mainstream films or books, but can come from short
sketches. This can be seen with some of the sketches from Saturday Night Live
(SNL) with the Blues Brothers and Wayne’s World.
Adaptation: Common problems & limitations in film.
Adaptations
can face multiple problems and limitations when it comes to transferring from
book to screen. Below are some of the problems adaptations can face.
Length:
Length of a cinematic is important as too long you and lose audience’s
attention, too short the general message of the story may not come across to
the viewer. Additionally, filmmakers may try to incorporate as much of the
books story plot to screen and ultimately create something too long to watch in
one viewing. Erich Von Storheim Greed (1924) Is the perfect example of this as
the first cut of the film was 9 and half hours long, his second cut was 4 hours
long and his final cut was down to 2 hours. This was because he tried to
translate every page from the book to screen and hadn’t considered adapting the
story for screen, meaning a good percentage of the film and plot had to be cut
in order for the film to be shown.
Others
include the Hunger Games Mockingjay part 1 and 2, which total to 4 hours and 20
minutes. As well as the Harry Potter Deathly Hallows that was split in to 2
films totaling up to 4 hours and 36 minutes. The Lord of the Rings trilogy and
the Hobbit trilogy is another example that has fallen into this trap of length;
this seen especially with the Hobbit as originally the Hobbit was one written
book that has then been expanded into 3 films (9hours+) purely for studio
profit off the franchise due to its wide fanbase.
Scope
and Format: Dune 1984 – story couldn’t fit into one film so would have been
better to have multiple films due to its broad scope the storyline faces.
Markets
and Rights: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 2003 – faced problems in getting
the rights for some of the characters that were in the comics, so the studio
had to implement others characters in place of others that were originally in
the comics.
Authorship:
Alan Moore – comic book writer – disowned some film adaptations that came from
his work due to the reworking of the story being so different from what he
originally wrote. It being so different that that it’s not his work anymore.
Examples of this include from hell (2001), League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
(2003), V for Vendetta (2005) and Watchmen (2009).
Another
author who has disowned film adaptations of his work is Stephen King, purely
because the screen adaptation is so different to the book. Where it is said to
work better as a book as it enables to reader to imagine the setting and
location in which his characters embody.
Location
and Setting: Noises Off (1992); originally altered from a play in 1982 and the
Phantom of the Opera (2004) - play in 1986 - although transferred to screen,
tend to work better with a live audience to create that interactive element
most plays use as a point of interest for viewers. With the screen adaptations
you lose that level of interactivity with the audience.
Saturation and Rebooting: Marvel comics universe is a well-known franchise that rely on their strong fan base to keep it going. So, they often remake/ add on films to build profit. Another would be the DC universe with the various adaptation of Batman ranging from comics, tv series and films and then reboots of the Batman films as seen with the 1990 Tim Burton films to Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins and Dark Knight duet.
What is a Narrative Transcription?
Narrative
transcription is the transfer of an abstract structure or emotional theme to a
creative media for narrative or storytelling purposes. For example, to music.
Types
of Narrative Transcription:
Musical:
Fantasia 1940 – A story to music. So they use the music as a base to then
visualise movements of that music, for example they may have a tune they has
repetitive beat so may do something that stomps or bounces to the beats in the
composition.
Art and Artistic: Destino 1945/03 – Took 58 years to complete by Walt Disney and Salvador Dali and looks at interpreting surrealism into a visual format.
Destino (1945/03)
Landscape
and People (myth/folklore): Lord of the Rings (1954 book) – is a combination of
writer JRR Tolkien experiences from the trenches in the world war and folklore
in Britain. So based his work on places that exist by added a mythical element
to his stories.
Culture
and Belief: Michael Wards The Narnia Code (theory/thesis) – Explores C. S.
Lewis’s Narnia Chronicles and how each book in the series marries up with medieval
cosmology and spiritual symbolism he believes inspires much of the books.
Theme
as Structure – Acts and Objects: Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948) – Scenes shot in
motion as you follow the characters from one place to another.
Theme as Structure – Rhythm as Pacing: Night Mail (1936) – the narration is based upon the trains ‘chugging’ sound as it moves along the tracks. So, the narrator talks to the beats creating a sort of lyrical and rhythmic voice over.
Night Mail (1936).
Theme as Structure - Game Rule and Mechanics: Using game play as inspiration for filming structure. For example; Super Mario Brothers (1993), Doom (2005), Assassins Creed (2017) – all games brought into a film format to make viewers feel like they are playing the game but as a passive bystander. Another example would be the film Clue (1985) – based on the boardgame Cluedo – where there were 3 films produced with 3 different endings; theatres would show these films and depending on the theatre you went to you would see a different ending to see who the murderer was. This was done purely to replicate the physical gameplay. Similarly Edge of Tomorrow (2014) follows this idea of gameplay with the live, die, repeat nature of action games and missions players may have to complete to get from A to B.
Biographical films:
Biographical films are mixture of documentary, adaptations and transcription. It adopts all of the positive and negative qualities and problems involved in the 3 areas mentioned above. Examples of this would-be Schindler's List (1993) and The Imitation Game (2014)
Other documentaries don’t always convey the truth as well as the films above as the history links may not be entirely accurate and don’t do the time period justice. This can be seen with Braveheart (1995) where although the story is fictional some of its historical elements may be questionable as to how true that may have been at the time it was set. Others like Patch Adams (1998) deviated so far from the person they were basing it on that the character in the film was nothing like person in real-life. And in U-571 (2000) they swapped the UK for the USA to who solved the enigma code; which we know is not historically correct.
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