Jump to content

Documentaries - Well Photographed


Joe Taylor

Recommended Posts

hi, heres a link of my documentary i´ve shooted with a old arrisr1 16mm,BW

 

its a interesting small film with a own style...

 

i hope you liked it

 

"Thanatopraxie Der Letzte Weg"

 

11.Min, 16mm, 1:1.33, BW, 70MB., Good Quality

 

"Thanatopraxie The last Way"

 

Link : http://www.cinematography.com/forum2004/in...showtopic=16786

 

By

 

chris caliman

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I thought "Fog of War" was very well shot. Lots of slick table-top, slow motion, and persicope shots. The interview with McNamara looks great as well, as interviews go.

 

"Winged Migration" falls along the same lines as "March of the Penguins" IMO. It put some friends of mine to sleep, but I thought the shooting was great.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i would say "Africa Addio" is a really nice photographed documentary, its a very hard to see film, but with truly "technical" nice pictures. Directed by jacopetti and cavara. old but very interesting.

35mm, 1:2.35 :-)

 

and a other fantastic film with pictures i have never seen again,

 

"Le Sang des bêtes" (1949) by George Franju

 

by

chris caliman

Edited by chriscaliman
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Had a look at your documentry Chris Caliman, looked good - though perhaps its best to warn people of the explicit details they are about to see. I know you must have had to sit through it in real life, but I'm not sure if everybody can.

Edited by Andy_Alderslade
Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Tokyo Olympiad" is pretty stunningly photographed, it's available on DVD from Criterion. There's some amazing anamorphic long lens work, the director talks about shooting with 1000mm and 1500mm lenses and the operating on the film is incredible. And thinking about the Olympics, Riefenstahl's "Olympia" is brilliant as well. I think most of the Maysles Bros. films are well shot, "Salesman" and "Gimme Shelter" come to mind. Some of the early verite stuff like "Primary" is great, Wiseman's "High School" also.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

(Documentary? Maybe not, but thats what it was made to "look" like. No less a Doc than many M. Moore films)

 

Every documentry filmmaker I've met still regards a M. Moore film as a documentry, even if they don't approve of what he's doing.

 

Subjective or agitropic, it remains non-fiction.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Etre Et Avoir - is the first that jumps to mind.

 

I believe its shot on super 16.

 

The original segments for Capturing the Friedmans. - are quite nicely done.

 

If you have access to BBC documentries, some of them have been very nicely shot.

 

 

hi "capturing the friedmans" is a good and nice film, i dont know but isn´t it a fake documentary?

its a little bit to perfect to be real...

by

chris

Link to comment
Share on other sites

hi "capturing the friedmans" is a good and nice film, i dont know but isn´t it a fake documentary?

its a little bit to perfect to be real...

by

chris

 

Ha, I see what you mean, the gravity of the subject matter and the wealth of the material seems a little to good to be true.

 

However I seriously doubt that is anything but completly genuine

Link to comment
Share on other sites

hi

 

not just Mr. death but all Errol Morris movies are great in cinematography

 

also" tokyo GA" by- venders

 

"persona non grate"- Oliver stone

 

"what the blip do we know" - movie that change the way i look at life and exposed me to quantum theory

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

'Rivers and Tides' by Thomas Riedelsheimer is a great looking doc. 'Little Dieter Needs to Fly' by Werner Herzog is another. The former was shot on 35mm and I suspect the latter as well. It can still be done. Errol Morris docs all have a great look. Check out 'The Gates of Heaven', shot back in the 70's and before he went to the more stylized approach.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Every documentry filmmaker I've met still regards a M. Moore film as a documentry, even if they don't approve of what he's doing.

 

Subjective or agitropic, it remains non-fiction.

 

 

Very true. Twisting truth is not fiction.

 

What is "agitropic"? Where's my damn dictionary??? I'm familiar with "allotropic", meaning one thing existing in two forms. If that is what you mean it is a perfect way to describe Moores way of the documentary, IMHO. He mixes truth with inuendo, sarcasm, which eludes to a "point-of-view". I mean we could talk about this all day, "what is truth?", etc.,etc.,etc. After all, everything is subjective. My point is that TRIUMPH DES WILLENS records "reality"(staged as it was) and uses editing to force its opinion(more cinematic), whereas Moore uses words/speech within the frame, and in real expressed time and environment, to force his, like a sly interegator. He is very good at what he does and Leni was very good at what she did. This is really a very fascinating subject.

 

But your point is very valid, and true. I guess I just showed my inherent bias on two different fronts at the same time. :lol:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Very true. Twisting truth is not fiction.

 

What is "agitropic"? Where's my damn dictionary??? I'm familiar with "allotropic", meaning one thing existing in two forms. If that is what you mean it is a perfect way to describe Moores way of the documentary, IMHO. He mixes truth with inuendo, sarcasm, which eludes to a "point-of-view". I mean we could talk about this all day, "what is truth?", etc.,etc.,etc. After all, everything is subjective. My point is that TRIUMPH DES WILLENS records "reality"(staged as it was) and uses editing to force its opinion(more cinematic), whereas Moore uses words/speech within the frame, and in real expressed time and environment, to force his, like a sly interegator. He is very good at what he does and Leni was very good at what she did. This is really a very fascinating subject.

 

But your point is very valid, and true. I guess I just showed my inherent bias on two different fronts at the same time. :lol:

 

'Agitropic' is one of these new words formed from old ones that is floating about at the moment, its perhaps indecent of someone with my my spelling ability to try and use it. Its essentialy a word regarding a piece of work, be it a film, play that is made to 'agitate' or stir-up thought - polemical even. I remember the word being used a lot a few years ago when I worked at an arts-centre that was showing Tim Robbin's Embedded (Actually at the time somebody vandalised an outside wall, graffiting "Robbins is a traiter and all Brits are gay" lukily someone else had to scrub it off)

 

Many documentry filmmakers (the ones i've met) are somewhat more honest than the rest of us (non-documentry filmmakers) about actually how manipulitive and 'point of view' all documentry films are, so still regard Moore as a documentry filmmaker. In the end he hasn't crossed the line yet of fictionalising a scenario and then filmming it, though some right-wingers are under the belief he has - well there is Canadian Bacon.

 

He certainly pushes right up to the boundaries of what is thought of acceptable - but he was critised of doing that even before he did. Infact the great critic Paeline Kael on 'Roger and Me' accused his footage of failed locale enterprises (Hotel, Themepark) as being before the factory-closings and that he wrongly inserted it into the documentry in false context when its actually Moore's original footage made in reaction to the factories closing - infact if you watch it thats obvous.

 

You're right its an interesting subject, but I sense its perhaps best avoided.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...