Documentary Evaluation

 Evaluation for Documentary

When I first started this project, I set out to create a psychoanalytical documentary on graffiti. The theme of the documentary was to get an insight into why graffiti writers do what they do and in some cases what makes them risk their life to do it. The start of the project when I was planning went very well and I organized everything quickly, got in touch with some people I know who actually do graffiti and most of the planning part was done. Looking back on the planning side of things, if I was to go back and do it again I would ensure that even though it is hard to get in touch with them as they are quite mysterious characters, I would try and get more graffiti artists involved in the film. This way I would gain mixed reactions to questions and it would also give me a deeper insight into why they do it.

Not long after planning I started filming. The first bit of filming I did was in Birmingham. The reason why I chose Birmingham as a place to film was that it has one of the biggest graffiti scenes in the country, especially in the Digbeth area. What I wanted to get from Birmingham was lots of different shots of different pieces of graffiti. I wanted to do this because I had planned for a big montage at the beginning of my documentary that would be a really quick paced edited montage of lots of graffiti. This day of filming actually went quite well and I got some good footage from the Digbeth area.

Once I had got footage for my montage sorted I arranged a day for filming the graffiti artists. On the day of filming what I set out to do was film them doing graffiti in normal and night vision so that there was a good mix of different shot types. This part went really well and I got some really good footage. After we had finished filming at that location we went to another to shoot the interviews. The location I chose for the interviews was a place called “Stoney Road” which is an abandoned part of a quarry that has turned into a key location for graffiti artists to display their work.  The shots I filmed for the interview turned out to be some of the best bits of filming (framing wise) I’ve ever done. The downside to the footage and what I could have done better was the sound. It was a really windy day and for some reason I didn’t take the boom mic or any external mic with me, and I simply relied on the mic in the camera, which isn’t great. So, reflecting on that day if I could go back I would most definitely take a boom mic with a windshield to go over the top as well, even if it was not windy.

As well as the footage I had taken so far, I put in my production log that I would get some interviews with people from the general public and/or business that have been affected by graffiti in different ways. One person I was supposed to interview was the landlady of the Railway Tavern Pub in Nuneaton. The reason why I chose her to interview is that there is a few graffiti artists that go down that pub and a few have been “tagging” the toilets there. This means that she has to keep paying for the toilets to be re-painted over and over again. Because this keeps happening she has spoke to a few of the respectful graffiti artists about how to stop it and they have devised a plan to turn one of the walls in the pub into a legal graffiti wall so that people can paint on that and display there work legally without fear of getting caught and also it means that they will hopefully stop doing it in the toilets because there is now a place for them to do it and are allowed to do so. I realise that it was a huge mistake not to take advantage of what could have been some great interview footage for my documentary as it could have helped get to the point of why they do it. I really regret my decision and if I could go back I would take advantage of the opportunity.

Once I had got all my footage done I started to edit. Whilst editing I encountered a few problems. One of which was the sound of the interviews which I didn’t notice until it came to editing. To solve this problem I spoke with my teachers and we decided it would be effective to use boards with the questions in script on them and also the answers the artists gave.

Before I started filming I was doing research into other documentaries with a psychoanalytical theme. One of which was “Grizzly Man”. This documentary is about a man called Timothy Treadwell who was obsessed and had a great love for bears. He spent over 13 summers out in the wild living amongst the bears risking his life to get close to them. Unfortunately Treadwell died from being attacked and eaten by a wild grizzly. Whilst watching different documentaries and psychoanalytical films I learnt a few theories to apply to them. One of which is what Lacan talks about which is the Lack. By learning this and other theories I could analyse the films a lot better and I gained a deeper insight into why some people in the documentaries do what they do. To this documentary I applied Lacans theory of the ‘Lack’. The lack is when some one has a missing piece to their jigsaw of a life and strives to find this missing piece or void. In this case Treadwell did not know what his missing piece was which is why he became obsessed with the bears because he thought this was his lack. By replacing his real lack with the bears and the extremes he went to fill this void ended up with him being killed by it. This theory of the Lack is what I wanted to apply to my documentary as graffiti artists go out every night painting their name on a wall in the hope of finding the “perfect spot” to display their work. I found it very difficult to apply this theory to my film and remember to do so whilst filming. It was also difficult to get good answers from the artists themselves on why they do it which could also mean that they don’t really know why, it could just be that they feel they need a purpose. 

I applied the theory of “The Lack” to my documentary because I wanted to have a conclusion as to why Graffiti artists do what they do. Why go out in the middle of the night to spray your name on a wall? I believe it is so that they feel gratified by seeing there name in big letters on a wall where everyone who goes past that place will see it. It could also be argued that it gives them a sense of fame, which leads to the art being a form of escapism. Maybe it is their own way to escape there boring everyday lives and break free from the rules the government and society expects them to follow. By applying this theory I believe that they do it for a purpose, they don’t want to abide by the rules and regulations set for them so rather than being a “decent member of society” they decide to be the “menace”.  This role gives them a purpose in life or a role to play in society, which could be argued to be the reason behind them doing this.