For my final project, I decided to do a short film about my brother and his family. The idea came to me when I went to visit them in North Carolina for thanksgiving. O try to go there every year because some times that is the only time in the year I get to see them.

The time my brother has to spend with us is very limited because, first of all,  my dad got divorced from his mom, so he went to live to Costa Rica with her. He lived there most of his life. Nevertheless, he visited us very often. It is crazy when I think how close we are for not having lived together for most of our lives. His mother is an excellent woman that always told him to love his father and all of us. So now, he is the biggest family lover in my family. For him, family is the first thing; and I am not talking about wives, siblings, and children, but the whole family: cousins, nephews and nieces, uncles and aunts, grandparents.

When he was 30 something years old, he met a Hawaiian girl named Luz.  They fell in love, got married in Hawaii, and went to live in Chapel Hill North Carolina, where my brother got a job as an architect. They now have two little girls, and a baby on the oven. So, he has to divide his time between my family, his mom’s family, and his wife’s family. Nevertheless, we see each other about once or twice a year.

I came with the idea of this documentary because I have always been interested in diversified cultures. It is interesting to see the interaction in their house. My brother is fully Latin. He is probably the most Latin person I know. My sister-in-law is Hawaiian. She looks very Hawaiian, but her experience in Nicaragua changed her, and besides falling in love with my brother she also fell in love with our culture. So their challenge now is to make the Latin culture a part of their children’s personality. My brother and his wife speak to them mainly in Spanish. However, the little girls, who are 3 and 5, can speak both languages fluently. My brother is really trying to transmit the values of this culture to their children. It is kind of hard though, transmitting the values of a culture while living in a completely different house. Leaving the house is like leaving the country.

The approach I took to do this project is a combination of biographical and anthropological. I start by giving a little bit of background history about my brother: The relationship he has with us; the things he values; how he met his wife; and what they are doing now. I do all this through the use of pictures and a voiceover narrating a storyline that leads to the point of the documentary, which is pointing out a culturally diversified house. This part is the biographical part because I am giving a description of my brother’s life and some of the factors that lead him to where he is now. The second part of the documentary is when I go to North Carolina to visit them for thanksgiving.  This part fits better in the anthropological documentary mode because I am having first hand interaction within their house. I am able to see how they mingle with each other, and see little parts of different cultures. I hear my nieces say something really Nicaraguan, followed by a sentence perfectly structured and pronounced in English. In this part of the documentary, I “immerse” myself in the little, unique culture of their house, and observe the way things develop in that little, exotic world.

This documentary reminded me of “Stories we tell”. In that documentary, the director had a close relationship with the storyline of the documentary. It was about her, about who she was and where she came from. In that case, the documentary fit better in the autobiographical mode because she was directly affected by what she was doing. She came up with realizations, some of them really intense, about who she was and about her life in general.  In my case, the documentary was not about me exactly, but my brother. Still, there is a close relation between me and the subject, in this case my family.

I really enjoyed filming and editing this documentary, probably more than with all the other ones I did this semester. I felt identified with what I was doing. Even when it wasn’t me, I can see myself reflected on the personality of my brother, and I can totally see myself in a position like his in the future. It made me feel a little nostalgic about my own country and culture, but I still thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience.

You can watch the video here. Enjoy.

Currently, 95% of students in public schools are required to take standardized test to evaluate their own progress, as well as to hold schools and teachers accountable for it. Many people argue that the current law, called No Child Left Behind Act, is harming the overall quality of the education system, and that a different approach is necessary in order to achieve the standards that the US strives for.

In this essayistic documentary, I explain the topic a little bit better, giving some insight on how the current situation is development. Hope you like it.

No Child Left Behind

The Act of Killing is a documentary directed by Joshua Oppenhaimer. I found it to be very interesting and meaningful. It made me inquire about subjects such as the subjectivity of morality and the conflict of values. It also made me think about the essence of human nature; are we born evil or is evil induced in us through socialization.

The film takes place in Indonesia, where the director follows some high profile gangsters in a city of the country. The thing about this city is that, unlike societies that hate murderers and gangsters, this society applaud and express obvious admiration for these serial killers. Even though each of them murdered a massive amount of people, media keeps praising them and television keeps debating about them, creating this “untouchable” almost semi-god like figures that enjoy an unlimited amount of freedom, power, and respect from society.

After introducing these murderers and giving the audience a background information about their wrongdoings, the film follows on of the killers, Anwar Congo, as he reenacts through musical numbers his most infamous (famous?) mass murders. It was shocking to see his relation with the town people as he is performing the scene. On one hand, the people are terrorized by this guy and do not dare to keep him away from whatever he requests; on the other side, it appears like he is sort of a hero in the community to. They cheer as he pretends to kill tens of people, scene that a couple of decades ago took the life of many innocent citizens. I couldn’t believe what my eyes were seeing. What type of sadistic, value-conflicted society is this? How is this type of people regarded so highly, instead of being locked up in jail for the rest of their lives. I was impressed by the role of media in this situation.  People hear the radio, or watch propaganda film or television, where the actions of these people are said to be great, fun, beneficial for their society and human race in general. The impact media has on any society is strong and almost inevitable, and when it is used as a propaganda medium the repercussions it can have are catastrophic. That is what happened in Indonesia, media  twisted the story of the happenings, and creating a value conflict in where right and wrong are blurred and mixed.

For a long time I thought the movie was going to be somehow linear. I thought that it was going to see Anwar Congo joyfully reenact his murders with the intention of creating a movie that would terrorize anyone who is not on his good side. However, halfway through the movie, as the scenes he is reenacting become more realistic, Anwar seems to undergo a sort of “humanization”. It appears that he is being taken over by remorse over his actions,  to the point of even experiencing physically sickness. The movie is left with that open-end, not knowing he his remorse, or at least what it seemed like remorse, actually was strong enough to make a change in his life. In short, The Act of Killing is a very good documentary with a interesting twist that makes you think about the nature of evil and the conflict of values that factors like propaganda can have.

For this blog, I decided to give a brief context on the situation that is currently developing in Venezuela. Not so long ago, Hugo Chavez, ex-president of Venezuela, passed away. He left a country deeply polarized and with a hatred between its social classes. The current president, Nicolas Maduro, has ignited these hatred even more, resulting in a chaotic environment where most Venezuelans are both victims and perpetrators.

I decided to use an expository approach for this video assignment. I tried to appear neutral my voiceover, as well as providing the audience with several facts about the current situation. I also interviewed a Venezuelan citizen with the purpose of getting the opinion of someone directly affected by this situation, and this way giving more credibility to the video assignment.

I hope you enjoy it.

Venezuela: A Brief Situational Context

There are many ways a documentary can get its point across. Sometimes, what the documentarian is trying to say is better articulated in a specific manner: photos and videos might be good for ones, while others might have to rely on interviews and voiceovers. Something that has particularly influenced the perception we have about documentaries is the introduction and application of the expository mode. The expository mode, unlike other types of documentary, emphasizes verbal commentary and argumentative logic. This type of documentaries make use of tools such as narration to give the film a sense of objectivity and omniscience.

Before the expository mode became a revolutionary way to think about story-telling, documentaries relied heavily on the director’s perception. This mode, called “poetic mode”, portrayed the subject as an interpretation of the director, and usually not in a clear meaning. Many films of Dziga Vertov, for example, are more interested in the synchronization of rhythms and footage while leaving the message to the subjective interpretation that each person may have.

The expository mode changed the way people felt about documentaries. In this mode, a voiceover is used on top of footage, and the audience is directly influenced by what this voice is saying. There is no longer subjective freedom since facts are being stated and reinforced with footage. The director is able to articulate his or her opinion in a more clear way that at any other moment in the history of documentaries.

The film “stranger with a movie camera”, directed by Elizabeth Barret, is a great example of an expository documentary. The use of words in this film is vital. In previous films, like “man with a movie camera”, audio was an important part of the film; however, the essence of the film was in the footage taken by the man with the camera. In expository films such as “stranger with a camera”, the audio of the film plays the most important role, since every message that is being said is transmitted via words, either the voiceover or personal interviews, and of course, complimented by footage that correlates with what is being said.

Nichol’s discusses five different elements of rhetoric that allow an expository documentary to have a strong impact on its audience. These elements are: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. Invention refers to the actual words being said; what is written in the script being read. Invention works directly in forming the argument and giving evidence to prove it right.  Arrangement is the order in which the distinct parts of the documentary are organized. In “Stranger with a camera”, the director decides to give out the end of the story at the beginning by telling the audience that the “stranger” with the camera was shot dead. The film then goes back in time and tells the story leading to that event, making strong use of voiceovers and interviews. Style is the way the voiceover speaks and transmits emotions. The sound of an unbiased voice, for example, might give a stronger feeling of neutrality than if we felt some sort of prejudice. Memory is also important to deliver the facts and to make a line that the audience can follow. Finally, the last element of rhetoric that Nichols discusses is delivery. Delivery is important in the expository mode because it provides nonverbal cues that the audience picks up and assimilates, even when no words are being said. Making an appropriate use of delivery, a director could, for example, convey the emotions of the subject without explicitly articulating them.

To watch the film “Stranger with a Camera”, click here

For this blog, I decided to deal with the subject of human trafficking. This is a subject of deep importance, since over 20 million people are directly affected by it. Every continent and every type of economy is currently being affected by this $31.4 billion enterprise, which is guilty of trafficking 1.2 million children per year. Most victims of human trafficking are women who are forced to prostitute themselves, or are forced to work under sub-human conditions. Currently, there are more slaves in the world than at any other point of the history of humanity.

To approach this project, I used an expository mode of documentary. Instead of a voiceover I used titles in a way similar to the titles used in the film Nanook of the North. The titles and captions help to understand what human trafficking is, how it works and who is affected by it. It gives very basic information, meant to create awareness of the crime rather than giving a solution to it. I tried to develop it in an essay-type of narration. I begin the documentary by explaining what human trafficking is. After this I get to how people are kidnapped and what they do to them. At the end of the documentary I give statistics taken from the UN; I do this to attribute veracity to what I am saying, as it is done in many expository documentaries.

Instead of videos, I decided to use photographs and black slides. I tried to relate each photograph with what the title was saying as the photograph appeared, or relate it to what the black slide before a photo stated. The purpose of doing this is complementing the statement with a related picture to create a stronger emotion than the emotion they would create if looked separately. Furthermore, I use audio to mark even more the tone of the documentary. At the beginning of the documentary, before any words appeared, I added the audio of a woman crying, in relation to the topic. The song that I chose also has a mellow and sad tone, which I though went really well with the captions and pictures.

This is the link to the video. Enjoy.

Human Trafficking

Filmmakers have different approaches when creating a documentary about a particular subject. Some directors try to, for example, interview people with hidden cameras, or at least in a way where the effect of the camera is diminished. Some of them might want that the audience observing the documentary forget about the camera, and have a feeling of omnipresence during the movie. On the other hand, some documentarians want to record the effect that the camera has on people. They believe that the reaction of the camera becomes part of the “truthfulness” of the picture. Nonetheless, all these forms try to portray a perfect representation of reality, taking that at the interpretation of the director.

Both the participatory and the reflexive modes of documentaries acknowledge the presence of the filmmaker and allow the audience to be aware of the filmmaking process. Unlike the observational mode, in the participatory mode the audience can see how the filmmaker and the subjects interact. It might be the recording of a date that the filmmaker has with a long lost ex-girlfriend, or a personal interview, like the ones we see in several Michael Moore’s films.

The reflexive mode, on the same line, acknowledged the constructed nature of the documentary and it allows people to reflect on the idea that what we are saying is the way the director sees it; an interpretation of reality; a single “truth” in a whole spectrum of veracity. In this type of films, there are moments in the film that remind us that what we are seeing is a fabrication and not meant to represent an absolute truth. A good example with this is the late 1920s film from Dziga Vertov “Man With a Movie Camera”, when we become aware several times of the presence of the filmmaker and the mechanical camera. In fact, in many times the importance and the presence was exaggerated, as when the filmmakers use edition effects to make the camera look immense.

The difference between reflexive and participatory modes resides in that in the reflexive mode, the filmmaker tries to make the audience aware that what they are seeing is a movie, however, the filmmaker doesn’t have to be directly involved with the subject. We can see, for example, video of the editing process of the film process, but not necessarily the face of the filmmaker. In the participatory mode, differently, we can see the director interact with the subjects, as it is the case with Michael Moore’s film, where he is the most seen character in his documentaries.

Alain Resnais is the director of “Night and Fog”, a film documenting the evils of the Holocaust. The film is very crude, presenting disturbing images of the inhumanities that Jews suffered under the Nazi regime.

Night and Fog is different from other Holocaust movies and documentaries. The horror lived by Jews during this time is incomprehensible; nevertheless, most movies and documentaries about it try their best to make the audience understand the magnitude of this dark story. In “Night and Fog”, Resnais acknowledges that nobody can understand the horror and fear that Jews lived during the Holocaust, except for the people that lived through it. As a scriptwriter, Resnais chose a Jew who lived through the concentration camps. Resnais agrees on the importance that is for humanity to remember this era, learn from our past and avoid this type of evil in the future. Acknowledging that he couldn’t make people understand the magnitude of the Holocaust is one way this documentary is different from others. Resnais doesn’t try to exaggerate things or make it a horror story.  In many instances, the voiceover in the documentary explains how “words are insufficient” to convey the reality of the Holocaust. Crude images of piled corpses and children’s skulls or finger scratches on the cement walls of the gas chambers only provide the audience a superficial understanding of what happened in the concentration camps. This voiceover, filled with doubts and not giving room for opinion is different from other voiceovers or background narration, such as the one used by Flaherty. Flaherty, as opposed from Resnais, put himself in the commentary, the way he perceived and understood things. In “Nanook of the North” Flaherty also “created” scenes and portrayed a somewhat inaccurate eskimo’s life.

Another strategy that was developed by Resnais in this film is the superposition of colorful “current” images with the raw black-and-white footage taken during the Holocaust. These shifts keeps bring the audience back and forth between the postwar “tourist world” and the black and white reality where the dead corpses and tons of women hair are shown. Resnais complements these images by asking questions that allow the audience to have an inner reflection and to internalize what they are seeing and feeling. For 32 minutes, this documentary gives objective information and facts about the concentration camps, and this information is delivered in a form of an essay and filled with questions for inner thoughts.  I believe that the present images are used to represent the passing of time and to remind the audience that we have the need to remember this story. He objectively shows the areas where the concentration camps were, not trying to show the evil in them, but to display the emptiness left in those places, with walls that vibrate with remembrance and that a lot of people have forgotten about.

How should we value the veracity of documentary? According to some directors, such as Dziga Vertov, the purpose of motion pictures is not to portray a fictional image, which is based on a theatrical tradition and, as Vertov considers, is a “scabby substitute for life”. The purpose of a documentary is to depict an accurate portrayal of life; to teach the audiences about realities that they might be unaware without the need of them to experience them, at least on a first-hand basis.

An issue arises when we talk about documentaries. How objective can a documentary really be? How much veracity should we, as the audience, assume the documentary has? What is the documentarian trying to say, and what methods he is utilizing to get his point across? After all, we are seeing this “reality” through the scope of the filmmaker. Through a “mechanical eye” that shows us an edited, at least to one point, version of the truth. According to a study made by Center for Social Media, for documentarians, “ethical behavior is at the core of its principles”.  They try to “honor the viewer’s trust.” However, sometimes we just can’t tell how “real” the reality on our screen is. Filmmakers, reporters, and editors use certain “tricks” before releasing their work to the audience. These tricks, such as jump cuts, b-roll, and cross-cutting, give these professionals the flexibility to arrange different shots that might be of different people, scenarios, or time, in a continuous, coherent form that delivers the point in the form they want. How should we feel about this? On one side, because of these “tricks “, we understand what we see in a way that might not be the exact way it happened. What we think might have been a 3-minute work could have been filmed in a span of several hours or even days. On the other hand, the use of these “tricks” create a visual impact that the audience might find easier to digest, or more interesting, creating a bigger impact yet keeping a direct relation with reality. Furthermore, a documentary is not a news report. A documentarian relation with its topic and/or subjects is way more profound and intimate that that one of a reporter with its news.

Ever since the beginning of documentaries these manipulation of content has been happening. In “Nanook of the North”, recorded and edited by Robert Flaherty, we see what is supposed to be the everyday life of an Eskimo family. Traditional hunting with bow and arrows and fishing hooks. Isolation from society. But in reality, by the time Flaherty recorded this film, the actual life of Eskimo families was not exactly the way he portrayed it. Eskimo families were more civilized, more influenced by the “white men”. Hunting with rifles and being up to date with technology. Flaherty was trying to show the audience the traditional Eskimo family, the one he saw with his dad, who was an explorer, and this way Flaherty manipulated a reality and up to some point “tricked”  the audience, raising contradictory opinions when it comes to analyzing this film in its own time and

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