Todays lecture was introduced by tutor, Eldon Booth. He spoke of his interests with moving image, and how he liked the idea of blurring the line between fact and fiction. These two values can easilly merge together in film and television today to create a realistic sense of fiction. This is done with the use of camera transitions and techniques. The film "Elephant" which we viewed today is a film which clearly portrays this.
For Eldon, fact vs fiction seemed to be something strong which drove his moving image pieces. He spoke of how old "handy cam" videos from the late 90's on programmes such as "worlds dumbest criminals" were easilly packaged programmes, (as they were merely sent in by viewers and needed no extra filming) portraying a strong sense of reality television. This was because these tapes were filmed by every day people like you and me. They were not of high quality and often portrayed camera shake, out of focus shots, natural lighting, or background noise. Today in the film and television industry, they have used these ammateurish techniques to mimmick the feeling of a false sense of reality. For example, In Eldon's work "withdrawl" each of the scenes are fake, and have been acted out by his brother and grandfather. However, because he chose to film this with the "handy cam" in mind, it enacted reality fimling, creating visual trickery. THIS is how the line between fact and fiction can gel together.
The film "Elephant" uses the exact same techniques to trick the viewer into thinking what is happening is reality. Of coarse, the storyline WAS based on a true event, but as they have put their own interpretation onto this event (tried to fill in the missing view points of the collumbine attackers, students, ect.) they need to make this as believable as possible. This has been done throught the use of natural lighting, blurred camera shots (eg. when the boy in the yellow shirt sits down at reception, his face is blurred out for a few moments) and as much background noise as possible. Also, shots are long and drawn out, which make the films pace a lot slower - like in real life. We see all view points of students and the attackers, which are repeated but shown at a seperate view point each time. Each view point,continues for quite some time, showing where that particular person is going and doing at the same time as everyone else. This cut up, repetition has been used to create a sense of mundane daily routine. The essay "Sublime Anarchy in Gus Van Sant's Elephant", touches on this idea. It states from the film that -
"John's dad is drunk again. With a resigned air, John insists on taking the wheel and drives himself to school, where he runs through what the viewer learns is routine: car keys are deposited at the office, safely out of dad's hands; then john phones his brother to come collect their father."
Kenny was a "mockumentary" film about Kenny Smyth, a chemical toilet cleaner, played by actor Shane Jacobson. This was a laughable documentary spoof, which had no real fact involved.
"Funnier than bum full of m&m's! This mockumentary is great for a laugh. it's the sort of movie you go to with a group of friends and have some good out-loud belly laughs. There are so many one-liners in here that I'll have to wait till its out on DVD to note them down. However, amidst all the hilarity and pooh, Kenny is a sensitive bloke who has family problems like all of us. He is a real, regular bloke! This film also stands as an indictment on society. It brings the silver-tails back to earth with a resounding "plop" After all, everyone has to cr*p!! The final scene (not counting those in the credits) is a re-make of an old classic revenge prank that looses nothing in it's reworking. Loved Kenny's dad!" - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0822389/
This film most certainly blurred the line between documentary and fiction because even though they made his life look real, and documentary-like through the ammateur techniques, there was in reality no such toilet cleaner living in a trailer park.
ER is a television programme which also decided to use these techniques in order to involve the viewer into the programme itself. In one of the test shows (filmed live) they had the camera shoving itself right up against doctors, as if you were in the film itself. The jerky camera movements, actors eye contact with the camera, and following panning all made the television show look realistic, just like "Elephant", "withdrawl" or "Kenny", again using the "handy cam" techniques of the late 90's. But no matter how real it looked, It was all a fictional plot. Simply a fabricated existence.
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