THE ESSENCE OF DOCU-FILM
Quoted from Sir Nick de Ocampo from his lecture in DOKYUPELIKULA: “We are creatures who need meaning…” A man with a rational mind may search for his life’s purpose and the truth behind his existence for him to have a reason to live. Alan Badiou recollects that the art of producing truth is not simply representing the reality, but through hard work and struggles in making multiple analyses of the real. To tell a story with a sense of mission is one of the purposes of the documentary film. The mission of telling the truth that unfolds along the process of storytelling is one of the reasons why the documentary film still exists and evolving.
The documentary film is one of the avenues that is consistently evolving through time not only because of the innovation of technology but also because of the portrayal of the reality of life. One may compare it to fiction and animation because of the portrayal of reality, but still, it is authentically different from these two types of film. The former involves a script and actors that will act according to the director’s command who controls the message of the story and the latter involves an artist or animator and a writer who makes the narrative. The documentary film, though there is also a story and people who make the story, is different from these two types of filmmaking. The filmmakers who work on a documentary film may have access to the lives of their characters but have no control in the unfolding of events in the lives of their subjects. Bordwell and Thompson define the documentary as the result of the filmmaker’s decision to give up a certain control for his/ her subjects. A filmmaker is looking forward to where he will lead by the subject’s journey. Filming a documentary is like uncovering your better half or you’re the whole identity. You are learning while observing your subject, the same goes with the audience.
Discovering the social mission behind a story is one of the social functions of the documentary film. It may tackle the issues about gender, class, beliefs, and so on. Through the use of different cinematic forms that are interconnected to the content, it is easily conveyed that it is a documentary film. One prominent form is the use of a handheld camera in following the characters which can be conveyed as to how the spectator views the subject. A wide shot or long shot is commonly used to establish the setting while a close-up shot is used to convey emotions. Most cinematic forms use in a fiction film may also use in a documentary, but the function of it may differ in some ways. Like how wide shots and long shots may use in a documentary film as conveying the real place and situation of the subjects. The function of the cinematic form in the documentary is to show the true state and authentic behavior of a real person surrounded by his real environment.
