Experience of Pine Point - Assignment Example

Pine Point How does the experience of Pine Point compare to scanning a friends timeline on Facebook, tumbler, or etc. (besides the fact that these were strangers as opposed to people you know)? Scanning a friend’s timeline on Facebook or any other social site is interesting and simple. One only needs to look for the friend’s activities, photos, updates, or interactions. The Pine Point experience is quite engaging and confusing. At the beginning, it is not easy to tell what it is all about.

I only got to understand the narrative at the end of it (Shoebridge & Simons). The Pine Point is detailed and complex. It contains different categories like ‘shelf life’ ‘Pine Pointers’, ‘what’s weird’, ‘the remains’ and so on. Within the ‘Pine Pointers’ section, for example, one is told who the people were in teenage life, and what they have become. The site also provides additional information that can be used to guess one’s personality. There is also a difference in authenticity.

The pictures look authentic unlike in facebook where one can take a photo in any place and note it down as his home. There is a story behind every picture or video. It is also a continuous story, unlike these other sites where one’s timeline depends on updates (Shoebridge & Simons). 2. In what ways is the NFBs Pinepoint similar or different from other traditional formats of documentary, such as films, TV news and informational docs, academic reports and books, etc.? The Pin Point narrative is mostly similar to the traditional documentary formats.

It is expository. Expository documentary formats have voiceovers accompanied by videos or images that counter point or prove a point. In the Pine Point documentary, for example, under the title ‘Ends and Odds’, there is man’s voice describing the features of the town of Pine Point. There is then a video showing these features as the voice speaks. The videos and the images that are shown during the voiceovers provide evidence of the features and activities of Pine Point (Shoebridge & Simons).

The Pine Point documentary also has observational mode sessions. Observational mode is where there are no voiceovers, no interviews, the documentary maker is not shown, and the subject pretends that he or she is not being filmed. Under the title ‘town’, this mode of documentation is evident. There are just video shots of the location (Shoebridge & Simons). The documentary is also similar to a book format. At the end of the presentation, it is indicated that the documentary was meant to be a book.

Even so, from the beginning to the end, one can recognize the introduction, and the chapters which are typical of book writing or academic reports (Shoebridge & Simons). 3. What did the experience make you feel about the town? I feel confused because I do not understand how a whole town could just vanish. In one of the chapters, a Pine Pointer revisited the town and found out that not much had changed. The houses were still there. This could only mean that the lost town story is fiction. The experiences and the stories however, make me feel that the Pine pointers love their town.

They may have moved on, but still remember even the bully (Shoebridge & Simons). 4. What did you find successful and not successful about this narrative? Why? What I find successful is the fact that the protector of Pine Point was able to trace Pine Pointers to document a detailed narrative about the town. A description of who the Pine pointers are and were, during teenage life makes the narrative believable. The presentation is also successful. The documentary format adopted makes the story almost authentic.

There are interviews of pine pointers and photos of them during their Pine Point life. There are also videos of Pine Pointers in their current lives providing proof that the town really existed (Shoebridge & Simons). Works Cited Shoebridge, Paul and Simons Michael. Welcome to Pine Point. National Film Board Website. The Goggles. N.d. Web. 11 Sept. 2015.