Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

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was an interest in discovering what people are like as we’re filming them”, a conception
of filming as a process of discovery that seems particularly relevant to In Spring. 488
Ward identifies the standard television practice of set interviews where the subject is
seated and fully lit as one he wished to avoid for the reason that: “It is often far more
interesting when the subject speaks to us in the course of his or her daily routine.
Likewise, it is not necessary to light someone unless there is particular visual
information that needs to be seen”. The additional advantage of natural lighting was
that it added atmosphere and gave the audience time to explore the face of the subject.
Ward was, however, aware of the disadvantages of using a cinéma vérité style: “Once
you remove narration, music, set interview, manipulation of the subject and
manipulative editing and replace it, in order to get the same effect, with high cutting
ratios and long periods of research and shooting, you are left with both an expensive
and time consuming project”. 489
Some compromises therefore had to be made in taking this approach to In Spring.
Ward did, “on a few occasions”, ask the subjects to do something for the purposes of
the camera. The rationale for this was: “These requested actions were things I had seen
them regularly doing before, and without the request I would not have been able to
record them”. Ward acknowledges that it was not possible to take a completely purist
approach, but he says he did attempt “to project their situation as honestly as I could on
film. It is based on a continual re-evaluation of their situation over the six month period
that I lived with them”. Above all, he felt that “the filming has been possible only
because time was spent building up a friendship between the people being filmed and
myself”. 490
Ward stated in a recent telephone interview that what the film had in common with
cinéma vérité – in particular, the use of small lightweight cameras, portable sound
systems and small crews, which allowed the crew to capture reality “on the hop” – was
the result of technology rather than intention, and that the aims of In Spring were quite
different to those of a documentary such as Grey Gardens. He felt that unlike the
Maysles Brothers, he intended not to represent social reality, but to “aim for truth in
relation to that person and that reality”. Granted some viewers would also describe
488 Ward, “A Documented Account of the Making of In Spring One Plants Alone,” Introduction.
489 Ward, “A Documented Account of the Making of In Spring One Plants Alone,” Introduction.
490 Ward, “A Documented Account of the Making of In Spring One Plants Alone,” Introduction.