Who Directs Whom: Film vs. Humans

I traveled out to the film fest in Durham, North Carolina, to observe the festival and the audience that it attracted. I was interested in watching people respond to the documentaries and see the amount of people that would come out to the film fest. Furthermore, I was interested in discovering how this medium impacted its audience, especially the community of Durham. I blended in with my environment to understand the culture and social norms of this film fest and interact with various publics.

After parking in a public parking deck conveniently located in the middle of the film fest in Durham, I walked out to a road filled with orange traffic cones and police cars, both of which would help smoothly transition the public from parking decks, to tents, to buildings, and even to a local park where the documentary I watched was located. I believe the city employed these precautions to make the public feel safe to travel from various areas of the fest. The Carolina Theatre and a convention center were directly across from the parking deck. Around these buildings were a huge water fountain that people were sitting around eating and talking and various sculptures. One sculpture that I photographed was a sculpture of a man made out of wood planks. These interesting sculptures added to the artistic feel of the film festival. A reoccurring theme in this film festival was portraying the work of artists, which predominantly people think of as producing paintings and sculptures, but film can influence emotion and filmmakers must have creative strategies just like other artists.

Moving on, the incredible buildings enhanced the artistic theme of the film festival. The neoclassical architecture of the Carolina Theatre was beautiful and I immediately gawked at the architectural style of the building. The outside of the building had detailed carvings in half crescent moon shapes above large, long windows. Located outside of the Carolina Theatre were ropes that could separate the lines of people and above this area was a banner that welcomes the public to the Full Frame Documentary Festival. Additionally, directly outside the building, there was a Carolina Theatre sign promoting the film festival. I thought that the banner and sign was very welcoming to the public and would explain to curious people walking by the festival what was going on. Above the entrances to the Carolina Theatre was a canopy with lights strung along the perimeter of the canopy. I arrived at the festival in the evening and the lights were starting to illuminate the darkening sky. I associated these bright lights with vibrate shows and classical theatres that promoted films as a dazzling source for entertainment.

The inside of the Carolina Theatre matched the exquisite style of the building. The carpet that stretched across the theatre popped and was composed of an interesting pattern with different colors. I always associate bizarre carpet with movie theatres and the Carolina Theatre did not disappoint with the elaborate carpet scheme. The first thing that grabbed my attention as I ascended the theatre’s stairs to the second floor was a huge sign displaying “Carolina Cinemas.” This sign was extremely bright and irradiated the already well-lit floor. The sign, beckoning the public to wander into the area, resembled typical movie theaters. Using the word “cinema” instead of “theatre” evoked a classical feel. This entire festival portrayed a classic style of film; personally, I think using the word “film” instead of “movie” detracts the modern feel of the medium. The outdoor theatre which I visited to watch the documentary (Dis)Honesty: The Truth About Lies was an amazing experience and transformed the way I view watching movies.

Durham Central Park, located a few blocks from the Carolina Theatre, was used for a free viewing of a documentary during the film festival. Food trucks were parked around the large screen to feed the public, since the screening started around 8:30 p.m. As the sun set, lights turned on around the food trucks, which lit up the area around the screen, and helped people find their way around the seating area. The audience was able to sit directly in front of the large screen on a huge patch of grass. People brought blankets and lawn chairs to sit in and some even brought their dogs. Young and old alike gathered around the large screen waiting for 8:30 to come. Couples and families found perfect spots in the grass to view the documentary at the park. Once it was almost time for the documentary to start playing, the lights around the food trucks were cut off so that the screen was the only thing lighting up the park, and an announcer welcomed the audience and described the documentary that we were about to watch.

These documentaries were supposed to be portrayed in a professional way in an area that appreciated film and art. Durham provided exquisite buildings and a comfortable, local park that created a positive atmosphere and would accommodate to film fanatics and first time guests of the festival. The Carolina Theatre with its bright signs and unique interior made the people watching the documentaries feel like they were in a classic movie theatre. Since these documentaries might not have been extremely popular with the mass public and required going somewhere besides a typical movie theatre, these films needed an environment that made the audience feel like they were watching a film just like any normal movie goer at a movie theatre. The outdoor showing in Durham Central Park was to accommodate the community of Durham and in contrast, transcend normal movie viewings in the comfort of an indoor facility, and show a film outside. The outdoor showing of (Dis)Honesty: The Truth About Lies was able to bring the community together in an uncommon form of movie watching.

The film festival’s workers and volunteers were extremely helpful, especially to confused first timers like myself that needed a map, and very considerate to the public. There were stands located outside the Carolina Theatre full of volunteers from documentary clubs that welcomed the public and advertised their organization. These stands had “I love Docs” pins, white and dark chocolates, and ChapSticks for people that signed up to learn more about their organization. Despite my chocolate addiction, I was drawn to these tables because I was fascinated with these organizations and I wanted to learn more. This film festival was a great avenue for documentary clubs to reach the public with their club’s objectives and meeting schedules. Besides these volunteers, the festival’s workers were extremely friendly. Inside the Carolina Theatre was a help center that provided a booklet with information about the weekend’s show times, a map of the film festival, and surrounding restaurants. Workers were located around the halls of the Carolina Theatre to direct the public to the correct rooms for the documentary viewings and to assist with questions. These employees and volunteers were able to provide direction to the festival’s audience and insight about documentaries being played. The employees were well informed about each documentary and could suggest a documentary that was tailored to a person’s interests. Employees had to work around time constraints of people’s schedules, different documentaries were offered at various times and dates, and choose a film that would be interesting to the festival’s guest.

In the Carolina Theatre, guests were expected to line up outside of the rooms that the documentaries were being played thirty minutes before the documentary would start. There were velvet ropes that started the line and there was a line attendant to provide assistance for the public. Guests must pay for tickets to see the documentaries before they line up at a ticket booth inside the theatre. There was a last minute line for each documentary for people to line up at and if there were open seats after guests who specifically purchased tickets for the film were seated, these guests could purchase a ticket for a deducted price, but this was a gamble. Once the documentary began playing, guests were supposed to turn off their cellphones and put away any cameras or video recording devices. In order for the audience to fully understand and enjoy the film, silence was encouraged throughout the duration of the documentary. The Carolina Theatre had more formal norms for watching documentaries than the local park. The Durham Central Park was bustling with food trucks, children, and dogs. Before the film, the area was loud with voices, dogs, and cars passing by; whereas, in the Carolina Theatre, guests would whisper before films and there was no pets allowed in the building. Additionally, the seating area was more casual than the Carolina Theatre. The audience did not have to line up before the outdoor showing thirty minutes before the film, but if you wanted a close seat then it was essential to get to the park early. Also, blankets and lawn chairs were brought to sit on and they were located throughout the grass area in the park. Durham Central Park’s audience wore casual clothing, including comfortable jackets because it was a cool night. In contrast, the Carolina Theatre’s guests dressed up more and did not wear, for example, pullovers or leggings. Lastly, guests brought their dogs to enjoy the documentary (Dis)Honesty: The Truth About Lies; one dog did not even have a leash on. Durham Central Park had a more laidback atmosphere than the Carolina Theatre.

After observing the norms expected of guests from the Carolina Theatre and Durham Central Park, I conclude that the audiences attracted to documentaries at the Carolina Theatre were members of documentary clubs and film enthusiasts, filmmakers, and/or professionals interested in the film industry. These groups of people respected the film industry and understood the expectations of the Carolina Theatre. The film festival tickets were costly, which promotes the idea that the Carolina Theatre guests were financially well off and could afford day passes or weekend passes for the event. However, the guests at Durham Central Park were mostly families, couples, and other members of the community. This audience was most likely locals and went to the documentary as a family or social event. This outside theatre was free and open to the public, which attracted individuals who are interested in films but either unable to afford passes for the other events or less invested in documentaries and was looking for local entertainment.

Despite previous inventions and movements to begin motion pictures, the film industry boomed in the early 1890s with the invention of the kinetoscope and improvement of moving picture photography (Czitrom, 2011). Films in the 1890s were extremely short and lasted approximately fifteen seconds (Czitrom, 2011). This invention was short lived and was abandoned around 1900; however, the kinetoscope sparked a fascination with the film industry (Czitrom, 2011). According to Lev Manovich, the cinema was founded on recreating reality (Manovich, 1995). The early days of motion pictures required filmmakers to paint and draw images by hand; additionally, the film’s slides had to be moved manually (Manovich, 1995). This process contrasts modern motion pictures that can be created, edited, and played electronically with various, innovative software. Manovich compares the cinema to a form of painting and describes film as “painting in time” (Manovich, 1995). In summation, Manovich argues that cinema has shifted to digital film making in which computers can alter action footage with special affects and 3D animation to create a whole new live scene. This manipulation of filmmaking alters reality. Bizri (2003) exposes the digital recreating of landscapes as a way to enrich realistic depictions in a film but instead of providing clarity this editing misconstrues reality. Bizri (2003) asserts that altering reality creates a film’s language; this language could mean the filmmakers’ interpretations and utilization of editing effects to enhance a film. From traditional filmmaking develops digital filmmaking, which is composed of an entirely new film language that is reliant on filmmakers’ decisions.

Franceso Casetti cautions in his article Sutured Reality: Film, from Photographic to Digital the consequences of digital filmmaking. Casetti (2011) argues that digitally enhanced images can confuse an audience on things that exist and things that are nonexistent. Digital filmmaking transforms images into a process’ outcome instead of a piece of reality. For example, software like Photoshop alters images to satisfy a filmmaker’s vision. An interesting point Casetti suggests is that the public is well aware of the use of Photoshop and understands that the image they are seeing may have been tweaked and represents a misconception of reality (Casetti, 2011). Software is key to understanding media and one of the most popular editing software used in digital filmmaking is Photoshop (Manovich, 2011). Photoshop is composed of a multitude of different operations. In order to understand the ways media and software impacts an audience and shapes reality, one must understand editing software in its entirety (Manovich, 2011).

Patrick Deneen compares cinemas to Socrates’ Allegory of the Cave. This allegory depicts people descending into a dark area from a long hallway. These people are facing forward fixated on what is in front of them. There is light shining from behind them and objects carried by people, some speaking and some not, are being projected above them. Deneen (2002) relates this allegory to the modern cinema where people walk down a long hall to reach the dark room where they will watch a film that is projected above them against a wall. Thus, a movie theatre room is compared to a dark cave. Deneen (2002) suggest people go to a movie theatre to escape reality and urges his audience to decipher between reality and illusion, keeping in mind what is reality and what is fiction. Film was not created on the basis to deceive the audience with faux realistic images. On the contrary, early leaders in the film industry sought to create a realistic representation of the world to an audience. André Bazin describes the idea of the total cinema, which is an idea that cinema’s would effectively portray reality to its audience. Bazin highlights early inventors’ wish to pair moving photographs depicting people and scenes with the phonograph’s ability to record voices (Bazin, 1967). These inventors wanted to provide a clear picture of reality and life to an audience (Bazin, 1967). In theory, cinema was supposed to imitate reality so perfectly that each innovation and contribution would propel the cinema toward its basis: reality (Bazin, 1967.) Bazin challenged this idea and labeled it as a myth that early inventors imagined during their attempts at creating motion pictures.

A subcategory of the typical cinema is a group of films labeled as documentaries. The public assumes documentaries to be educational films and considers this form of film an entirely different genre than normal films shown in movie theatres. In an interview conducted by Ann Louise Shapiro of filmmaker Jill Godmillow, Godmillow calls for documentaries to go beyond their stigma of educating and enlighten an audience, perhaps even challenge the public. Godmillow insists that one of documentaries’ fundamentals is to strive to produce the truth and she encourages documentary filmmakers to use their talents and vision for “service of ideas” instead of a compassion seeking composition that attracts a feeling of community in the audience. Godmillow urges filmmakers to direct documentaries to the individual. The documentary shown at Durham Central Park was vastly different than most films offered at modern movie theatres. First, the environment was completely different. Instead of being in a dark enclosed cave like a room in movie theatres, the documentary was shown outside in the open. This produced a natural atmosphere and made the audience feel less restricted. Next, the type of film that the audience watched was different than regular movies because of its lack of special effects and outrageous action scenes. The documentary seemed to be more credible and was appealing because it was portrayed as unscripted, especially in the beginning when individuals, not actors, providing their own quotes about dishonesty and examples of dishonesty in their own lives. Lastly, the documentary was attracted to an individual audience like Godmillow encouraged. Instead of evoking a sense of community throughout the audience, this documentary made individuals reflect on themselves and dig deep into their morals while watching the film.

References

Bazin, A. (1967). The Myth of Total Cinema. In Hugh Grey (trans. and ed.), What is Cinema?: Volume 2. Berkeley, CA: The University of California Press, 23–27.

Bizri, H. M.. (2003). “City of Brass”: The Art of Masking Reality in Digital Film. Leonardo, 36(1), 7–11. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.prox.lib.ncsu.edu/stable/1577271

Casetti, F. (2011, November). What is Digital Cinema? October, 96–106.

Czitrom, D. (2011). Early motion pictures. In D. Crowley and P. Heyer (eds.), Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society (6th edition). New York: Routledge, 161–168.

Deneen, P. J. (2002). Escaping the cave: On film, reality, and civic education: Introduction. Perspectives on Political Science, 31(2), 69. Retrieved from http://proxying.lib.ncsu.edu/index.php?url=http://search.proquest.com.prox.lib.ncsu.edu/docview/194697039?accountid=12725

Manovich, L. (1995). What is Digital Cinema? Retrieved from http://manovich.net/index.php/projects/what-is-digital-cinema

Manovich, L. (2011). Inside Photoshop. Computational Culture: A Journal of Software Studies. Retreived from http://computationalculture.net/article/inside-photoshop

Shapiro, A. L. (1997). How Real is the Reality in Documentary Film? History and Theory, 36(4), 80–191. doi:10.1111/0018–2656.00032