Response to Rasheena

One of Rasheena's questions today is about collaboration within our competitive and, ultimately, capitalist world. It seems to me that, while cooperation can provide a lot of great things and valuable insight, most people are motivated to go above-and-beyond the norm because they want to excel. There are always going to be people with different talents, and people better than others, so why not collaborate through competition? It seems like the best way to insure success is to let people do what they're good at, and then put in the stuff that other people are good at.

Ede Questions

1. Do you think that a more collaborative environment would be beneficial to the college educational system? Why (not)?

2. How do you perceive the collaborative structure? Is it really as useful as all these people seem to think? How does it interact with our naturally competitive natures, and what effects do you think it would have in the non-artistic world?

3. Does the Ede piece mean to say that there is no such thing as an "author", per se? Rather, do you think, in light of that work, that there actually are authors, as opposed to communities?

20 Things

-a girl wearing a Northface jacket and furry boots
-my door mysteriously opening
-there was a man at the UGL who looked like a Red Devil mascot
-I was asked to participate in an survey for two guys from a church
-Walgreen's is advertising "theater candy"
-a man was getting a tattoo on his ass when I walked by the parlor
-a homeless man I've seen once before greeted me quite courteously
-Brinks truck stopped in the middle of Green St.
-family taking an incoming freshman's picture in front of the Illini Union Bookstore
-someone attempting to steal a shirt from Gameday Spirit
-two girls trying to lift a keg outside of Piccadilly's
-someone from my other class at Borders
-Ford GT driving through Champaign
-Jon's Pipe Shop
-Bombay grill introducing a grocery store
-Big Mouth's sign outside
-park on Springfield and 2nd is almost finished
-"anti-racism, anti-chief" sticker on a car
-train stopped on the tracks
-twenty guys on motorcycles driving through downtown

Response to Megan

Megan's second question is about whether or not sound evidence is really all that important, if the visual evidence alone can make the argument. In my opinion, it is. The point of structuring a documentary or film so that the visual cues present the same argument as the language isn't redundant, to me. Rather, it simply cements what's happening. We usually wouldn't rely on those visual cues as heavily except for when the sound is off, but when the sound is on, having such strong optical evidence sort of subconsciously affirms what's being said.

Question

1. Thinking about what Hampe says, what kind of advances in film technology do you think represent real breakthroughs? Is there anything done these days that you think is revolutionary compared to previous years?

2. Hampe also alleges that editing is at the heart of communication in a documentary. Do you find this to be the case? What's a good example for/against this?

3. How would you structure an interview to demonstrate the truth (or falsehood) of what that person interviewed is saying?

Response to Dan

Dan's first question is about the development a documentary would need to go through prior to filming and finalizing it. It seems to me that, unless you have a very specific argument to make, it would be a good idea to get an idea, and then go through and film everything surrounding it, before you tried to establish a huge over-arching theme. Take Katrina documentaries for example: it would have been very difficult to say what the film-makers argument would be beforehand, seeing as they had no idea what to expect when they started shooting. In that case, they knew sort of what they wanted to look at, but the real interest drawn into the documentaries only came after really examining the situation.

If, on the other hand, you wanted to create a very specific argument like "An Inconvenient Truth" it would make sense to have a very well-thought-out argument designed for the purpose, and utilizing specific footage to add to that. Though some of this takes place in every documentary, via editing, this is the kind of project where every assertion needs support, something you can't necessarily just hope to find while filming.

Hampe Questions

1. What do you think is the best way to capture "truth" in a documentary? Hampe says it's not a matter of just showing the truth, but making the viewer empathize with it, so how would you do that?

2. Do you agree with Hampe's assertion that stories are what matter?

3. What kind of documentary would you prefer to make? Do you think more can be achieved with a documentary than with the simple presentation of facts? Why or why not?