Subjectivity in Documentary Filmmaking - Research Paper Example

? ivity in Documentary Filmmaking ivity In Documentary Filmmaking Language fluctuated as human cognizance developed, so it is expected to find that the utilization of the terms “objectivity” and “subjectivity” has varied through history. The term “subjective” used to mean “as things are in themselves” whereas the term “objective” used to denote “as things are presented to consciousness”. In other words, the word “subjective” referred to the actual fact while “objective” used to refer to the way a situation or scenario were perceived. However, with the progression of time, the definitions for each term also changed as “objective” was then used to mean “fair-minded, factual, fair-minded and reliable” whereas “subjective” was then considered as something perceived and therefore unreliable as being an impression instead of facts (Renov, 2004). According to Dictionary.com, subjectivity refers to “the state or quality of being subjective; subjectiveness, a subjective thought or idea, intentness on internal thoughts and internal reality” (Dictionary.com, n.d.). This paper attempts to explore subjectivity in terms of documentary filmmaking and the way subjectivity changed with the emergence of new digital technologies. Since documentary filmmaking employees the way a director wants to capture the event or story, this medium is more inclined towards subjectivity instead of objectivity (Nichols, 2001). Digitalization, with the rapid increase in globalization, has become an important phenomenon in the modern world. New technologies have altered the potential of production of documentaries as well as the way artists are presented thus increasing subjectivity in the matter presented to the audience. These new technologies have impacted powerfully on the artistic process in the filmmaking and possibly more than on most other innovative attempts. For instance, as a newest tool provided by the digital technologies, the digital color is making cinematographers and directors into keen painters that are eager to explicate their individual doctrines about color. Moreover, the digital still cameras provide the power to camera operator to capture images and then instantly view them similar to Polaroid cameras. But the most significant role is of the digital technology is in the make-up and wardrobe departments, which are able to make various images through different angles to ascertain which will be the most suitable, and this particular ease was not provided by the Polaroid cameras. While digital cameras are maybe competing with their celluloid equivalents, digital non-linear editing extended an entirely new construct to the manner images could be edited together, similar to a great extent in the way text in a document can be cut and pasted within the word processors available. It can be accounted for the post-production department to embrace digital technologies in computerized non-linear form of editing (Elsaesser, 1998). In the documentary filmmaking world, capturing truth has always been a complex task. According to tradition, appreciated in non-fiction erudition for its unbiased and impersonal capacity to reflect the pro-filmic without any fictitious ruse, the documentary film has been experiencing substantial formal alterations since its early primitive days of omniscient narration and observation, by and by deserting its efforts to stress objectivity in a picture. With the modernistic form of the self-referent essayistic cast to its recent performing construction, the documentary has been incessantly revitalizing concern in the rhetorical images of fiction and subjectivity, thinking about arguments on the basis of incompleteness and uncertainties instead of prioritizing discorporate facts and knowledge (Nichols, 2001). Often perceived as complex evidential assertions regarding the theatrical of the world, digital technology has been playing a substantial role recently in developing new aesthetic bases for establishing a mixture of fiction and fact in cinema. John Grierson is known as one of the earliest and maybe most significant of all theorists and makers of documentary film. He provided the leadership to the 1930s documentary film movement in the Britain. This movement was aimed to mainly educate the public on the functioning of society (Grierson, 1932). Most eminent examples of their production include Coal Face, showing the methods and structure of the coal industry (Grierson & Cavalcanti, 1935), as well as Housing Problems that intended to look at the slum environment and the introduction of new housing schemes to fight the environment (Anstey & Elton, 1935). In the initial period of documentary production, expositional was the most usual form of documentary that entailed material on the historical period intended to offer an argument or impartial knowledge. Although these documentaries often utilized techniques from the poetical mode, like experimental techniques in the utilization of montage and sound editing to improve the dramatic potential of the story, most of the films produced were expositional. The production houses’ ideological bases as well as the attendance of the filmmaker were significantly unappreciated, and therefore the films produced were considered by the public without any reservation as actually similar to the news. The restraints of large equipment intended that till the initial years of 1960s, the scope of documentary filmmaking persisted to be limited by circumstances it could possibly capture actuality within. However, the camera along with its images would always contain the impression of some sorts of human intention and therefore will always remain subjective (Nichols, 2001). With the arrival of motion cameras, the still world of photography was brought into existence, collapsing space and time permitting all the units of individual consciousness to ponder into other realities instead of our own, evolving self-awareness by molding subjectivities as a species. It is a well-known fact that anything captured by a video camera is whatever its operator intends to show. Whatever is considered relevant by the camera operator is captured such as expressions of feeling, thoughts, or any incident. Therefore, it can be regarded as to record the human consciousness to the extent humans want to record. The subjectivity is then embraced by the world of documentary filmmaking since the ending years of 1960s, and therefore, the recording of human consciousness has become truer and richer in actual life experiences. Now the digital technologies have shifted the way events or issues were captured. It is the age of digital technologies that enables any lame individual to capture an event in the way he/she wants. The technicalities have been made easy by the rapidly developing editing software. Now it is in the hand of any citizen to capture an issue and present it as a documentary. Since it is always the human intention and consciousness behind certain attempts of documentary making, therefore the subjectivity of the material covered cannot be denied. The digital media for any consumer include consumer camcorders, cell phones or digital SLR cameras. The world of documentary filmmaking, which used to include cumbersome cameras and excessive scripts, has been evolved as the directors have started using compact and comparatively lightweight cameras of 16mm film and fewer crew members. These directors captured events using their observations instead of following a conceptualized script and nurtured the use of filming with high footage-to-final-running-time ratios. The evolution of digital imaging technologies imparted with it enhanced apprehension of fakery and image manipulation. At the end of the nineteenth century, the photography was considered as an imprint of reality being able to capture or create a physical imprint of actuality while later a new motion pictures medium was introduced in the form of documentary and ethnographic representation. During the post-war period, documentary filmmaking was amalgamated with the television journalism, and therefore, the documentary practices became exceedingly burdened with the journalistic criteria of objectivity, balance and fairness, and responsibilities to the viewers. These attributes got associated with the documentary filmmaking as it was considered to assist in maintaining its position as a representative and social player in the checking of democracy (Winston, 1995). The philosophic breaking of the treatments of scientific objectivity caved in to a more personal, subjective, relative and contingent discernment of documentary ‘truths’ encountering parallels to the heightening political reflexivity of practices of documentary filmmaking. This new discernment of reality claims or truth became the center of attention for the matters of representation, relating to reality as style or a ‘position.’ With the development of computerized imaging technology in the 1990’s, specifically CGI of green and blue screen technology, film theorists started to inquire if the digital image had brought them into the era of post-photography as the digital images were found to be basically different from those developed through the traditional photography (Winston, 1995). It is clear that digital technology is by and by changing the manners in which documentaries are captured, exhibited as well as edited. Put differently, the operation style of digital video camcorder announces and simulates an identifiable and well-accomplished aesthetic custom, which people have started to learn and assume over the years grounded on their acquaintance with other portable devices. Innovative ways have been sought by filmmakers by the use of 3D computerized animation and innovative ways to expand capacities for reconstruction, explanation, and illustration (Rabiger, 1998). The aesthetics of documentary filmmaking are experiencing finishes, for instance, increased intimacy, discretion, and immediacy of digital video cameras. The increasingly affordable digital video cameras are constantly decreasing in sizes and are easy to be used, popular for the ease with which they allow to broadcast a video on the Internet or record it on DVD. Relatively to this, people have gone through an outburst of digitally-created observational, autobiographical, and personal representations. This correlates with the manner the truth claims of documentary are being fabricated and novelized in the present time. The solemn discussion of scientific objectivity appears to be collapsing to a more personal, subjective, relative and contingent discernment of documentary ‘truths,’ as individual ethics progressively become involved into the truth equation of documentary. References Anstey, E.H. (Director) & Elton, A. (Director). (1935). Housing Problems [Motion picture]. UK: British Commercial Gas Association. Dictionary.com (n.d.). Subjectivity. Retrieved May 15, 2013, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/subjectivity Elsaesser, T. (1998). “Digital cinema: delivery, event, time.” In Elsaesser, Thomas and Hoffman, Kay. Cinema Futures Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Grierson, J. (Producer), & Cavalcanti, A. (1935). Coal Face [Motion Picture]. UK: GPO Film Unit. Grierson, J. (1932). “First Principles of Documentary” In Aitken, I (ed). (1998). The Documentary Film Movement: An Anthology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Nichols, B. (2001). Introduction to Documentary. Indiana: Indiana University Press. Rabiger, M. (1998). Directing the Documentary. Massachusetts: Butterworth-Heinemann. Renov, M. (2004). The Subject of Documentary. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. Winston, B. (1995). Claiming the Real: The Documentary Film Revisited. London: BFI Publishing. Read More