The Face of Time - POV - Aarhus Universitet

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116 p.o.v. number 13 March 2002 groups). Before the shoot starts make sure you have agreed on certain principles for operating the camera (of course this is of special importance if the camera is operated by more than one member of the group). A set of rules was drawn up every time [ed. that we were making films] – as a sort of denial of being able to have everything. I simply believed – and still believe – that the more precise your choices are, the more things you have excluded, the more inspired you can be within the framework that you have set for yourself. [...] Rules: To choose to give up something or other. To choose some simple moves, some simple means (Jørgen Leth in Leifer, 1999, p. 89; our translation). It is a good idea to draw up a set of rules, some aesthetic narrative guidelines for what you can and cannot do. This will save you many discussions during the shoot and will ensure you a fairly coherent style (it easily becomes rather mixed with more than one director). For instance, you can make rules about the interviews and the rooms where they should take place; whether or not the interviewer should be visible in the picture; whether the camera movements should be calm or swift; in which rooms or situations the camera should be on a tripod or handheld; whether the persons should be filmed from below, at eye-level, from above; if the interviewer's questions should be cut out (in which case a certain interview technique is required); whether you want to use voice-over commentary, and so on and so forth. Note that one of the dangers of operating with a set of aesthetic rules (like using the storyboard method) is that the interviewee may become too "stiff" and tense. The rules are only meant to be guidelines – not dogmas – and you should be willing to change them as you go along.
A Danish Journal of Film Studies 117 There are many ethical questions involved in the production of a documentary. From the beginning you must consider whether you are portraying people appropriately. Are you twisting in any way the image(s) of your subject(s)? What should and should not be shown? (Is it essential to show a very messy kitchen?) Are you crossing their boundaries? Are you invading or exposing their privacy? Will they feel good about the film afterwards? How will the film influence their lives? and so on. Along with a documentary film project come some moral obligations, and the responsibility for the people involved goes beyond the finished film; you also have a responsibility for the emotional aftermath of the film. Respect for the people involved (which includes an honest representation of them) must come before making a great film. In his article "The Voice of Documentary," Bill Nichols writes: Documentary displays a tension arising from the attempt to make statements about life that are quite general, while necessarily using sounds and images that bear the inescapable trace of their particular historical origin. These sounds and images come to function as signs; they bear meaning, though the meaning is not really inherent in them but rather conferred upon them by their function within the text as a whole. We may think we hear history or reality speaking to us through a film, but what we really hear is the voice of the text, even when the voice tries to efface itself (Nichols in Rosenthal, 1998, p. 52). It is important that you reflect on what sort of "voice" you want in your film already in the preparation phase (before working out a storyboard). For a theoretical background you might want to look into Nichols's four "Documentary Modes of Representation" (in Representing Reality, 1991): 1) The Expository Mode: The viewer is
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The Face of Time - POV - Aarhus Universitet

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