Gaines goes on to say that documentaries, or the form of
film, is more effective because films often make their appeal through the
senses to the senses, circumventing the intellect” (92). Through sight and sound, the “realism works
to align the viewer with a struggle that continues beyond the frame and into
his or her real historical present” (93).
Sounds believable enough and she does cite Einstein. Film documentarians then are able to frame an
issue with the purpose of generating, or eliciting, a strong emotional response,
which will potentially lead to activism.
There is a shock value to it, and then an empathetic response, which may
then turn into either a sympathetic or apathetic retaliation.
I think most documentaries now a days are not very successful
in terms of communicating objectives. It
is easy to communicate that the oceans are beautiful and that littering is
wrong, all you have to do is take a few shots with that expensive Nikon you got
for your high-school graduation. I watch a number of documentaries on Netflix, and I notice that most of these are usually less
funded than blockbuster films have really good shots and are well produced. I'm no film student, but Food, Inc. (2008) for example
has beautiful shots, and they are well edited, and some even have animations
that explain in detail, but with fun, the entire problematic process of the
issue. Food Inc, for example shows how
farmers grow their corn, then the corn goes to the livestock farmers, to the
chickens, to the cows, to the porks, and then these animals go to the slaughter
house, and then through some process and it comes out as a hot dog. Now see that was a long description, imagine
watching it, and then an hour and a half more of it. That is a bit exaggerated, as the whole thing is actually 93 minutes long. Don’t get me wrong, Food Inc was a dope
documentary and I learned a lot, but it hasn’t turned me organic or made me
actively seek out locally grown food. The
problem I am getting at, is the documentary is too long, it is very thorough,
and intriguing, and clear, but damn I get it. I think that in order for a
documentary to be successful in generating social activism, it has to be short
and almost pure shock, with very clear objectives, with bullet points of what
has to be done and when. I think a good
example of an effective documentary, was the Kony 2012 one. It generated a huge amount of publicity and a
lot of people felt for the cause and even donated money….until they looked
deeper into what was happening with the money, and the Hollywood scandal which lead to the movements quick...finish. Regardless though, it was popular and raised
awareness pretty well. I even saw some posters up around the city, that red Kony 2012 one. I give credit to
how it was able really frame the issue to really create an emotional response,
as well as being really well produced, and short enough for everyone to watch
it fully (less than 30 min), keeping people’s attention and intrigue with various shock
points. I also believe that short youtube clips, with
content that may or may not have been planned, may even act better than fully
produced documentaries in creating a buzz for social change because they have
the ability to go viral or gorilla. What does that mean? Idk, but its controversial. I point to the video of the when the Police pepper
sprayed those OWS-ers over at UC Davis. It was shocking, and lead everybody to
the same conclusion that what they were seeing was 1) real and 2) fucked. That video pissed a lot of people off but that seems to be what was needed to start some action.
My bad, I was confused on what I was supposed to read and write, I switched both days of week 4 with week 6, and this was about documentaries from the readings from the second class of week 6.
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