The Problems of Documentary Producers and the Audience in Jamaica ER and Head on the Block In this piece of work I will show the principles behind this documentary filming method. As an example for fly-on-the-wall filming I chose 'Jamaica ER' and 'Head on the Block' to show, which problems occur to documentary producers and the audience. 'Jamaica ER' is a fly-on-the-wall documentary, which presents the Kingston Public Hospital in Kingston, Jamaica. In this series the hospital weekdays, with all their emergencies and problems, are shown. The doctors are playing a significant part. They are not only shown during their work, but also in their 'private' life, which is very limited, because of the place of the hospital. The area around the hospital is shown as a dangerous slum, 'where you cannot even get a pizza delivered'. Moreover, bad circumstances and overcrowded hospital rooms are shown, and the staff do not seem very qualified. When a serious casualty is treated and a woman tries to put a hose into his lungs, the doctor says that it is a very difficult matter, and that the nurse is doing it for the first time. Apart from the hospital activities, they are showing pictures of streets and people, which strengthen the image of the poor country. Besides there is a voice-over of a local radio programme, in which a woman speaks about the circumstances in Jamaica. It seems like a speech, because her voice is passionate and not monotone, and she uses rhetorical questions and images of death and violence. But is this series a real fly-on-the-wall documentary, when they use all these techniques? With the help of them the director is manipulating the viewer's response. Moreover the viewer gets a wrong image of the hospital and its surroundings. The hospital is standing right next to the university, and it is not right, that it is so dangerous, that you cannot even get a pizza delivered. The hospital plays a leading role in research of … and belongs to the university, which was not mentioned in the series.
Bridge to Freedom provides the historical documentary behind the events that served as the narrative for Selma. Instead of a drama, the viewers receive an actual documentary that shows the confrontations between the marchers and the government. Like Selma, it highlights the violence, the deaths, and the beatings, but also goes further back in time to show society’s treatment of African Americans.
...lly has a critic. To strengthen the arguments and persuade viewers to their side of the debate, film makers tend to present only one side of the story. Specific placement of an object, the choice of words and the selection of scenes are possible elements that could be woven into documentaries to shape viewers’ perspectives on certain issues. Fat Head is a great case in point, which is likely to convert some public opinion about the ideology of healthy eating. Documentaries may contain biases that mislead the viewers; presenting ‘facts’ but perhaps not revealing the entire picture. Therefore, in a sense, documentaries can be truthful, but also fallacious. It is imperative to evaluate the techniques used in documentaries, in order to distinguish readily from what is fantasy. It could be concluded that Fat Head and Super Size Me are two version of the same reality.
Throughout the US, millions of POC students exposed to the traditional, rather outdated version of US History. Never do the textbooks explicitly mention and/ or explain the terrorizing, constant stripping down of others’ cultures and appropriating it into the dominant group of predominantly white, Anglo-Saxon and protestant. For many Mexican American students, they can’t relate to anything in the text, nor do they share an interest in the coursework provided. The way US history sets up doesn't teach and somehow excludes Indigenous backgrounds or for the most part was never taught in the classroom but, rather briefly mentioned in one or two paragraphs. Immigrants from diverse groups built this country yet their culture is consistently shown
Through Deaf Eyes is a documentary conveying various aspects of Deaf life, such as school, culture, and deaf history. It was filled with information and provides a great overview. Although my reactions varied throughout the movie, I really enjoyed it. The parts about how segregation impacted the black and white deaf communities interested me; I hadn’t considered how that would affect deaf culture.
I watched the documentary called, “The Power of an Illusion: The House We Live In”. The documentary talked about how the laws and policies in America create a racial divide; in addition, the documentary talks about how our federal housing policy has oppressed people of color throughout our culture. This was an interesting documentary that certainly talks about how our policies and laws in America have always been to benefit the whites and to exclude people who are non-whites.
When the documentary was produced, media exposure was limited to private and expensive mediums such as television, movies and radio. These outlets were plagued with marketing agendas designed to sell products under the guise of authentic music and entertainment. Formerly non-existent cultural archetypes such as the boy band, pop diva, and gothic artist were created and promoted by corporations with the intent to profit from their fame. This systematic fabrication of teenage culture was achieved through the monopolization of popular media by people and companies with money. This created a narrow and one-dimensional mainstream cultural media, limiting the prefere...
Documentary has been heavily associated as a representation of the truth and reality due to its absence of fictional elements and control by the filmmaker (Chapman, 2009). It aims to entice the audience perception of the information presented as fundamental and legitimate (Beattie, 2004). With today's technology, the question of manipulated facts and proclaimed evidences presented in documentaries has heightened concerns in providing the audience with the truth and the real. Hence, with reference to the documentary on "Biggie and Tupac" (2002) directed by Nick Broomfield, we will explore how the documentary has managed to capture the real in terms of structure, style and modes of documentary.
As a viewer, the documentary’s intention to inform is more completely fulfilled by research conducted beyond the scope of the camera lens. Had I never written this paper, for instance, the reason for all the violence embedded within the subject matter would remain as enigmatic as the documentary itself.
With the advent of television, films start progressing "by leaps and bounds." One kind of cinema is a documentary film. Thanks to the documentary film, which is simple, concise and understandable form, tell us about nature, culture, history and science, and replenished our "body of knowledge." This is the positive role of cinema in which the means of the common man gets a huge amount of information without losing its finding and processing of your precious time. It increases the overall level of culture. The story of “Australia” makes us closer to the problems of Australian native people, and still, it tells us a beautiful story of Australian people which would be erased if it had any other form except film.
Often times people neglect the fact that the things- such as films- that they see and hear day to day can actually be worthwhile in teaching them. They come into contact with them purely for the purpose of being entertained and, sometimes, do not even realize that they are being taught valuable life lessons in the process. In conjunction with this theory, Professor Michael Taylor once said, “We don’t often think of the value of media beyond its entertainment, but there is a whole area that has to do with education through entertainment. As filmmakers, the work that we do has a huge impact on our culture. With that comes an opportunity, and may be even a responsibility, to use that impact for greater good.” Many French and Francophone films
An indigenous documentary is a documentary that is made by the members of an indigenous community, or in close interaction with the indigenous community. This native media is slowly becoming a form of entertainment and communication between present day tribes and their members. These newer forms of media aim to disassemble the mainstream media’s stereotypes about Native Americans. “They both preserve knowledge for future generations and communicate the group’s identity to the wider public,” (Leuthold; pg. 193). Although currently, many Native American media producers have tried to push their work further into the mainstream media, they face many difficulties with money, as most of the money for production of native media is loaned to producers through the government. However, the main goal of native media is “…focused on the concerns, practices, and beliefs of specific tribes…” (Leuthold; pg. 208), and “…indigenous media has, to this point, avoided the homogenizing tendencies of mainstream mass media,” (Leuthold; pg. 208). To prove that native media can become a popularized and common place form of media, three popular native media movies that have proven success include: Smoke Signals directed by Chris Eyre, Skins also directed by Chris Eyre, and The Business of Fancy Dancing directed by Sherman Alexie. What whitestream media does not understand is that they “…have a great deal of power in shaping—not just reflecting—public opinion, and, as such, media outlets must bear some of the responsibility of perpetuating racist images wherever they occur,” (Johnson; pg.
Oscar Wild once said, “The truth is rarely pure and never simple” and he is right. But no matter what the outcome is, or how complex the truth is, we will always strive for the truth. The concept of truth is no stranger to film documentaries, and one filmmaker that certainty was aware of that was Dziga Vertov. During the 1920’s Vertov created a newsreel series to promote the concept of ‘Kinopravda” which translated to English mean “Film truth.” Unfortunately, Vertov was ahead of his time, and this concept disappeared along the filmmakers’ path. It wasn’t until the 1960’s that other filmmakers around the world once again recognized the importance of the truth. Two movements with the purpose of revealing the truth of life, emerge in different parts of the world, Direct Cinema in North America and Cinema Vérité in France. Although, both had the same purpose, their approaches towards getting the truth make them completely different. Cinema Vérité’s approach gave the filmmakers a chance to manipulate and distort reality by participating and observing at the same time, while Direct Cinemas approach was strictly observational, and there is no better way to find out the truth than observing without interfering.
2. Nichols, Bill. ‘Documentary Modes of Representation (The Observational Mode).’ Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary. Bloomington & Indianapolis; Indiana University Press. 1991. 38-44
This is a critique of" Roger And Me", a documentary by Michael Moore. This is a film about a city that at one time had a great economy. The working class people lived the American dream. The majority of people in this town worked at the large GM factory. The factory is what gave these people security in their middle working class home life. Life in the city of Flint was good until Roger Smith the CEO of GM decided to close the factory. This destroyed the city. Violent crime became the highest in the nation, businesses went bankrupt, people were evicted from their rented homes. There were no jobs and no opportunity. Life was so bad that Money magazine named Flint the worst place to live in the entire nation. When news of the factory closing first broke, Michael Moore a native of flint decided to search for Roger Smith and bring him to Flint.
At just a quarter of a century in governing regulations, listening to complains and making recommendations, while maintaining the standards of the laws of Jamaica as it is concerned with the media. There is one inevitable aspect the Broadcasting Commission has to continuously keep abreast with, and that is change.