Performance in documentary film: Characters’ performance or acting in the short documentary film “Windkeeper"
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School of Arts, Design and Architecture |
Master's thesis
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Date
2024
Department
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Elokuvataiteen maisteriohjelma
Language
en
Pages
40
Series
Abstract
This thesis explores the performances of the documentary film characters in the short documentary film “Windkeeper”. Being provoked by the author’s idea that a documentary filmmaker is in no position to record and transmit reality with his presence, because his presence unintentionally or intentionally will intervene in the reality of a subject, thus only giving opportunity for a filmmaker to record and transmit his interpretation of reality of his selected subject, this research questions to what extent a documentary character acts or performs their presence in the documentary film. The thesis is based on literature review, involving the works of Bill Nichols, John Grierson, Paul Henley, Linda Williams and several other practitioners in the field of documentary film theory. The author’s own short documentary film “Windkeeper” is used as a case study as well as his experimental approach to performance of the film’s characters which is later analyzed by the theory of “On acting and not-acting” by Michael Kirby to determine the level of the characters’ performances in different episodes. As a result of this artistic research, it is evident that the documentary characters do not act – they perform and will always perform because we all perform as social beings and it is the beauty of human nature. However, a documentary filmmaker has to understand whether this performance of his filmed subject is good for him and if not, then he has to find a mechanism how to control this performance of the subject he has filmed or how to get behind this performance. In the “Windkeeper” I went through three different stages of director’s intervention intensity position, starting with total intervention and ending with almost none. This process helped me find the best approach to my character and, most importantly, to my film.Description
Supervisor
Delgado Pereira, ArturoThesis advisor
Delgado Pereira, ArturoKeywords
performance, acting, documentary film, presentation, reenactment, imitate