Final Project: Final Intermission

As my last project for this class approached I knew I wanted to create a short documentary. I have never created one before, and as I contemplated what to create I remembered that my sister in eighth grade was practicing for her upcoming musical, Aladdin. I knew that this was going to be a once in a lifetime opportunity to film and document, so I decided to create Final Intermission.

The film takes place in Houston, Texas at Trinity Lutheran Church and School. I used to attend this institute and I knew that my sister Catherine is about to graduate from there this year. The school has been hosting a spring musical for the past 10 years under the direction of Mrs. Cheryl Mangles and her husband Jason Mangles. I asked permission from them to follow Catherine around behind the scenes since other minors would be in the documentary. Thankfully, they were thrilled that I was taking this opportunity to showcase the hard work and dedication that goes on behind the scenes of a two hour musical.

In planning my approach to this documentary I reflected back on what kind of documentary films that had stuck out in my memory. I realized that the films that gave me the strongest impression were in the style of the anthropological mode. I wanted to emulate films with good storytelling such as N!ai: Story of a !Kung Woman, in which characters develop and the plot is linear.

However, I did not want to film myself interacting with other subjects. There are of course instances in Final Intermission where I interact with Catherine, but since she is my sister I would sometimes have to express myself to her so I could get an understanding of what I was experiencing. I tried to use Bill Nichols basic definition of the observational mode to create the style of Final Intermission, which is creating a film in which the filmmaker “looks on as social actors go about their lives as if the camera were not present” (Nichols 150). I originally chose this mode because I thought that it would best fit with the environment I was going to film in. I knew that if I wanted to film for both weekends leading up to the musical that I needed to keep out of the way as much as possible and not be a distraction for the actors. This meant that I could not interview any students or adults involved, as they were all busy and had a tight schedule.

The anthropological mode is further developed in the relationship that is created with the main subject, Catherine. It is apparent that she is aware of the camera following her, but she interacts with it as if it is another person next to her, meaning that she acknowledges me as a filmmaker within her environment. In creating a “record” of the experience that we shared over two weekends, I entered the world of her acting career and social life (Nichols157). Her friends would sometimes acknowledge the camera, but I would not engage back with them through interviews or subplots. This reason was due in part to my ethics of creating this film. I knew that I was not going to send this video out for everyone to see, but I wanted to make sure that the privacy of students involved was put in as little risk as possible.

In an unusual take on modern documentaries, I decided not to do voiceovers in the film. This was in homage to the film Surname Viet Given Name Nam, in which a lot of text was displayed over filmed images and scenes. I chose this method so that the audience would understand what was happening in the film and be able to follow along with the plot of Final Intermission. This documentary is not purely observational, as most films are actually a combination of different modes. My mode in this film is anthropologic because I entered into a world that I was not a part of. I had never been to a rehearsal or read Catherine’s script before this project, so I followed her around to better understand the culture and efforts that produce musicals. The theater is a unique setting in which people are constantly trying to hide their true identity onstage. I wanted to document Catherine’s transformation in this, as an anthropology documentary follows a “informant to provide access to the culture studied” (Nichols 152). I think Catherine did an excellent job at showing all aspects of behind the scenes work, and that this carried over into Final Intermission.

I learned from this project that the mode does not merely show up in the end result of the project, but that it must be a part of the film from its creative idea to its final form. The anthropological mode was the best one to take in this case because it allowed me to document events that only some are privileged to see in a manner that allowed me to keep as true to actual events as possible. I named this film Final Intermission because I know that my sister wants to continue doing spring musicals in high school. However, as she has done musicals for the past four years, she will only have four more years to perform. This year marks her “intermission” between her middle school and high school musical career, and I wanted to create a film that reflected her passion and hard work for the stage.

Works Cited
Nichols, Bill. Introduction to Documentary. Bloomington, IN : Indiana University Press, 2010., 2010. ST EDWARDS UNIV’s Catalog. Web. 8 May 2014.