The Documentary About Nothing: Tokyo Part 1

An exercise in methodology on the making of documentary films. A number of technical and logistical setbacks plagued the production of the project, making dedication to any particular subject or theme difficult. The project was restructured in order to incorporate these deficiencies into a representation of the creation of the documentary itself: it is, in other words, a meta-documentary. The project employs the faulty material directly in an attempt to display a spectrum of presentation possibilities, as well as expose the contradictions inherent to any effort to reproduce reality. An audience will interpret image quality, editing quality, technical imperfections and content quality in varying ways. The aim of this project is to string together these failed mini-documentaries into the narrative of a single day to highlight the tenuous relationship between reality, its representation via a medium, and specifically, the process of that transformation itself.

There are 6 major elements to the documentary: 5 short segments of varying lengths, and a dramatization of the 'going to and from' sites to create a fictitious sense of time and place throughout the segments. These in-between shots use the best camera I had available in an effort to drive home the different sensations of 'realness' that result from the quality of the image itself. The effect is less pronounced on youtube.

Roughly, the first segment is intended as a very basic 'on the ground' interview - with a twist.

The second is a dramatized improv 'real' conversation about creating the documentary itself. The couple was not planted.

The third is the most traditional documentary, revolving around an interview of a musician.

The fourth and fifth are presented as video travelogues. In the first, the excursion itself was a failure, and included in an attempt to portray the very 'real' aspect of failures and useless material which is often discarded as inefficient in an attempt to portray the subject matter clearly and without distraction.

The final segment is similarly a travelogue, and is little more than an amalgamation of short clips, shot with two different cameras due to technical problems. The second camera used is the best I had available. Hopefully the jump from usage solely for dramatized segments to usage in a 'real' segment will highlight the arbitrariness of image quality interpretations regarding the authenticity of the material viewed.

Finally, none of the mini-documentaries are intended to sniff out big happenings or expose unknown pockets of culture or society in terms of their content. Staying true to the 'one day' theme, ultimately the documentary is 'about' nothing: it is simply a foreigner in Japan wandering around Tokyo and recording what he sees, talking to his friends.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• tokyo
• japan
• documentary
• curb your genki
• waseda
• gundam
• kichijoji
• shuffle
• menpla
• tsukiji
• anthropology

[TakumiSoldier]

日テレの人にこれ紹介しといたよ

[TakumiSoldier]

なつかしいな