1. Video Production: Documentary Project

2. Documentary styles:
1. Interview: you ask questions and they answer them (you can be on or off screen)
Example: most Michael Moore (Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, Sicko) documentaries have frequent interviews along with #2 and #3
2. Cinéma vérité or fly on the wall: just video of real events (you can also have archive footage)
Example: BBC’s Planet Earth:
3. Voice-over (narration; voice of God): explaining things without being on screen
Example: An Inconvenient Truth
4. Re-enactments: trying to film real events that have already taken place (the re-enactment is not real though)
Example: The Thin Blue Line (find clip - The Thin Blue Line –MrMorrisalan)
Usually documentaries mix all four of them together or leave one out.

6. Important Questions to Consider
What is your topic?
How will you present it?
Do you want to tell your audience what to think or will you show them?
Will you interview real people?
Will it be comical or a serious documentary?
What visuals do you need to plan to include?
Are you going to try to convince your audience of something?
Make them feel something?
Will you simply provide information?
How will you make your documentary seem credible?

7. Documentary film: (5-10 minutes) Due February 15th
Documentary film: (5-10 minutes) Due February 15th. We will learn about the different techniques to make documentary film: interview, fly-on-the-wall or Cinéma vérité, re-enactments, and the use of voice-over narration. During this we will also learn about Aristotle's way of making arguments: pathos, logos, and ethos since you will be persuading your audience to believe, agree with, and even feel whatever you want them to feel about your topic. This will be a non-fiction film, however, any film plays with reality and it is your job to make that reality as believable as possible. Need video production plan and shot list.
Requirements:

8. Sample
Life of a Plastic Bag