Critical Readings Photojournalism in Film This thesis is an overlook into photojournalism and how they are generally stereotyped in films due to ethical constraints. McDaniel says about how in the 1930’s, photojournalists and journalists were often portrayed as drunks, scoundrels and gossips, how films like Bridges of Madison County made the profession looked “easy, relaxed and simple” and finally how films like Apocalypse Now portrayed photojournalists as drug addicts. Because of these negative connotations related to photographers, that’s when photojournalism ethics came around to boost public opinion. The thesis goes on to state that some of these ethics that were adopted included “Truthfulness, fairness, accuracy and respecting the integrity of the sources”. This is important to remember when it comes to my own work as these ethics still apply. Documentary – Trigger Sheet http://www.godnose.co.uk/downloads/alevel/documentary/docutrigger.pdf This trigger sheet basically shows the functions of, the types of and gives a brief history of the development of documentary. From this I have learned that the functions of documentary are to educate audiences, artistically express oneself, record events, entertain audiences and persuade audiences to agree with certain opinions. It also goes on to explain each form such as expository mode and reflexive mode. These are all highly important to me as I will need to be aware of all these forms so I can correctly identify what modes my documentary is. Responsibility and photography http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/1472586042000301656 Sliwinski in this piece talks about the responsibility all photojournalists hold. She talks about how photographs are essentially truth and within that lays responsibility. She also talks of other practitioners such as John Berger and Roland Barthes. She talks about how Berger wrote how photos can affect us as people. How “we are filled either with despair or indignation. Despair takes on the other’s suffering to no purpose. Indignation demands actions”. This means people will usually accept images as truth and read into them in certain ways. Autobiographical Journey http://learn.winchester.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=38267 In this piece, the author discusses the idea of "Source-path-goal". The source being the instigation factor, the path being the journey of the film and the goal being the end (following along the ideas of Todorov's theory of equilibrium). This is a very interesting concept as all documentaries told in the first person generally follow this rule. The film maker come up with the ideas, he goes about filming it and when he completes it he reaches his goal. Honest Truths Documentary Filmmakers on Ethical Challenges in Their Work This thesis talks about the ethical challenges documentary film makers are presented with since television boosted the demand for documentaries. It discusses how far certain film makers are willing to go to get the best shots for their film and whether or not it is right for them to do this. This makes me think about how will I go about filming for our documentary and what we will be willing to sacrifice for the best shots. Aesthatics of realism http://learn.winchester.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=38275 This article is based around the idea that the rise of digital technology has set new grounds between the hybrid style of fact and fiction. As the digital technology became more sophisticated, people began to distrust documentaries more. This idea that people can distrust documentaries means that we will have to careful when it comes to creating our own films. We must make it as clear as possible that what we are showing in the truth. |
