Documentary film techniques

The explorer conditioning technique (ECT): Treat a new task as a quest for new discoveries. To be able to perform at your peak, you have to love what you are doing. Whether it’s acting, bartending or washing dishes, you have to learn to love what you do. One way to achieve this is to technically act like any explorer would, which is to be thrilled by something new every day (or treat everything as such even when it’s not new). It should be as if each task you were making were coming…

expel the tension in the tissue and restore comfortable movement. To preform this technique a PT will start by stretching out myofascial areas until the PT finds a barrier, or trigger point, that is stiff and inflexible (The Therapy Tree, 2016). Then, the PT will stretch that specific area and hold pressure for 90 to 120 seconds. There may be throbbing of the area before pressure is released. The object of this technique is not to break through the barrier; it is important to be gentle so not to…

The differences between documentaries and films can be observed when they share premise. Set in the 1970s, The Walk (2015), a film directed by Robert Zemeckis, is based on the legendary true story of tightrope walker Phillippe Petit and his plan to wire walk without a safety harness between the twin towers with the help of his team. The documentary Man on Wire (2008), directed by James Marsh, contains the same storyline as the film, however, it differs from it as the two are different types of…

different aesthetics. They do this so that people watching the film will become more immersed into the movie, and people will be able to connect and feel with the characters. Cloverfield and The Thin Blue Line use multiple realist aesthetics of to convey truth such as direct address to camera, on-camera interview, handheld camera, limited editing, and diegetic sound only. Cloverfield’s use of a handheld camera helps convey truth by the film being able to easily interact with the camera.…

The invention of photography has direct correlations to the notions of documentary. Historically, a photograph represented the means to preserve a snapshot of the world as accurately as possible. This suggests something in opposition to art, the photographer is not portraying his or her vision of the world, in so far as expressionist painters of the time would be. Instead, they are merely capturing and collating information, as a historian would. Slowly it can be seen that these notions began to…

The Economics of Happiness is a documentary film that was released in 2011. It is directed by Helena Norberg Hodge, Steven Gorelick, and John Page, and produced by Local Futures. The film features different voices from around the globe and they share their story. The Economics of Happiness basically focuses on the adverse effects of globalization on populations around the world. The film starts by telling the story of a small village in the Himalayan region of India called Ladakh. It describes…

science, art, application and practice of creating images by recording light or by other electromagnetic pulses. It can be done electronically by means of an image sensor. It can also be done chemically a light sensitive material like photographic film. Photography was a form of art that expanded and evolved between the 1840’s and the earl 19th centuries. Jacob Riis, and Dorothea Lange where two photographers that played a vital part in the evolution of photography at this time. Jacob Riis was…

The relationship between reality and forms of media has been obscured for many years. Most of the time, what viewers depict as reality is selected and framed situations chosen by producers and editors in reality televisions shows and documentaries. Satire uses irony, ridicule and humorous themes to discuss important issues in the world such as gender discrimination in the workplace. The following will demonstrate how media forms have framed reality and its impact on viewers’ perceptions of…

King Corn is an eye-opening documentary that highlights the huge role that corn plays in American society. The film was produced in 2007 by college friends Aaron Woolf, Ian Cheney, and Curtis Ellis, who together moved from their familiar urban city to an Iowa farm. The film follows Cheney and Ellis as they rent a one-acre plot of farmland and plant their own crop of field corn. The documentary serves to demonstrate the American food industry’s reliance on corn and how corn has come to be in…

Bart Layton’s documentary film “The Imposter” employs many film techniques in peaking the curiosity of the audience while telling the story of one man who managed to lie his way into America. “The Imposter” based on a true story, found Frédéric Bourdin, a skilled serial imposter sneaking into America by impersonating Nicholas Barkly, a boy who has been listed as missing for many years. In keeping the audience curious throughout the documentary Layton uses such film techniques as lighting where…