Blog Post 2 — Pitching Modality

I recently pitched an idea for a short Documentary called ‘A Place to Call Home’. I wanted the modality to be Participatory, where the filmmaker tends to become part of the subject of the documentary. Actively engaging with the situation that is being documented and asks questions whilst sharing the experience with the interviewee.

The reason for this choice was simply because of how close I was to the subject. I’d done a lot of work with the foundation I wanted to document since I was quite young, and wanted to be able to tell parts of the story from my own point of view as well, which I believe — if done well — adds another layer of truth to the film as a whole.

An example of a film that I believe does this really well is a short documentary titled ‘Howard’s Farm’ — directed by Ivan Cash — that I found on Vimeo while searching for inspiration for my own film. Right at the beginning of the film, the filmmaker introduces himself in a voiceover and explains his relationship to the subject of the film — a man named Howard. This, working with overlay of Ivan as child at the farm works really well to establish the closeness that the filmmaker has to the farm and to Howard himself. It makes the audience aware of how personal the film is to the filmmaker and gives it it’s own sense of value and importance.

Another thought I had tossed up was the idea of having moments of the film shot with an observational modality. The parts of my film where I would be following Chris around visiting the homes he has and seeing what a day in his life actually looks like — I felt would be best shown from a purely observational point of view. This way, nothing would seem staged or fake and the audience could be in some way, a fly on the wall. This idea however was somewhat disregarded by the pannel I was pitching to, and looking back, probably would have been a bit confusing to the audience.

-Beau.