Whilst educating ourselves on Poetic Documentary types, we were introduced to a film 'Listen to Britain' (1942) created by Humphrey Jennings. Jennings films a number of events/scenes representative of wartime Britain, however, he does not use any narration or commentary, he doesn't even use a musical score.
Jennings recorded sound alone often more amplified to convey a mood. These sounds are the narrative drive for the film.
The film was produced by British Government's Ministry of Information to support the allied war effort, this film was used as propaganda, but Jennings chose to hide this with ambiguity. From the visuals, Jennings wanted to show allies that the British people were fine and they don't need any help, they were infact coping with the viciousness of the world war. Jim Leach, a writer and editor for the book 'Reading Documentaries', quotes, 'Humphrey Jennings films have been recognised as key examples of 'poetic' style whose beautiful images and striking montage effects seem to challenge John Grierson's emphasis on the social purpose of Documentary. ' Also in the book, Jim leach quotes Edgar Antesy, one of Humphreys colleagues, who said, ' This film is a work of beauty which "will not encourage anyone to do anything at all'.
Looking at this type of documentary made me think about what we are trying to perceive with our work. We were defiantly not trying to cause/create propaganda. We needed to think about what we want to perceive to our audience, what we are trying to show them.
Meeting
We had another meeting and I brought up 'what we are trying to show our audience', do we want to stir an emotion, create an opinion, prove a fact?. With our two minute poetic piece Hannah (being Director) wanted a narrator talking about Tango Man. We dont reveal this character but just show parts of his face, his legs and arms. The narrator will tell us (the audience) about some emotional facts about this mans life, whether it be he lost a loved one, losing his job, why he is single, what he wanted to be when he was younger, did he achieve it?, is he happy and so on. (We have asked permission from Tango Man if he will be okay with us asking these questions and he is more than happier to help). We want the audience to be confused and quite ambigious as to who this man is and why we should be talking about these quite morbid facts. This will last for 1 minute.
For the next minute of our piece, the narrator will finish the commentary and the camera will look up at the 'Sheffield Wednesday Ground logo'. The narrator will then say Tango mans name and we will have a full portrait view of who he is, revealing him to the audience. We will then add a montage of footage viewing Tango Man as he is embraces with fans. We want to show him being loud and taking off his top, we will then view him goading on the crowds in to an innocent chant and showing him drinking with his friends, throughout this we will be viewing from a distance not invading his space as he may not act this way with a camera in his face.
Hannah came up with this idea because she wanted a contrast of two sides to 'Tango Man', for this we will be looking at more in the longer project. One side will show him away from the fans and football, and another side embraced with his friends and showing why he is so famous with everyone.
We worked out that we want to show the audience this mans way of having fun and his love of supporting a football team, some people are negative towards him but we want to show/prove to them that he has a softer side, and that deep down he is a hardworking man who likes to have a bit of innocent fun now and then. We want an interview with him to understand why he does what he does, does he know hes famous among the crowds and his opinions and views.
Inspiration
Whilst watching the Humphrey Jennings 'Listen to Britain' it made me think about the atmospheric sounds of a football match. Apart from the interviews the atmos sounds are mandatory to record. Without these sounds the film wouldn't have its football feel and I was keen to make sure we gathered plenty.
A lot of the time the sounds are jumbled and its
difficult to pick out one sound. But having been to match days before there is
a multitude such as chanting, singing, swearing, peoples talking, whistling,
instruments played, and the band. You also hear women screaming and children
shouting with the referee blowing his whistle. Even though these seem
simple the crowds change their shouting when something happens on the pitch,
for example if someone falls down or gets tackled the crowd either heckle or
the shouting gets intimidating. If the crowds think a fowl is wrong they begin
to shout and swear and jeer. I want to capture each of these if possible and in
order for me to do so I will need the rifle mic to directly pick up each source
in the grounds.
I found a youtube clip isolating some of these sounds.
References
Keith Grant, B. and Sloniowski, J. (1998) Documenting the Documentary: close readings of Documentary Film and Video, Detroit, Michigan: Wayne state university. (pg. 154-158)
GoProZz, 2012. Football Match- The sights and sounds [video online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwIy-8zATgU [Accessed 4th May 2013]
YouSoundTube88, 2010. Football Sound (Sound Effects) [video online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FUGsIHd-WA [Accessed 4th May 2013]
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