702



What to say about making a B-movie?

I’m the kind of academic writer who theorizes on the fly; I never have any clue what I’m going to write until I start writing it. I was really shocked to find that this was true with making this mockumentary, too. What we set out to do was make a movie that commented on the nature of documentaries, and then a movie that commented on the nature of zombie movies. There was a lot of conversation about what we were saying with the project in the script revision process (and here I need to thank Tim for an amazing script that he happily adapted, Saralyn for coming up with concrete additions, and Eric for raising a lot of questions that sparked more nuanced thinking for me), and up until the day we were continually discussing how we were going to communicate our theoretical viewpoint within the framework of the film.

This did not prepare me for the actual filming. I’ve only been involved in two student film projects (in 1998 and 2002) and never in any sort of creative capacity, so I had no idea what I was getting into. There were two aspects I found particularly surprising when we filmed: 1) the unexpected thematic shift, and 2) the seeming reality of the experience.

For some unknown reason, I had not considered that filming a group of men talking about a world that is devoid of women (except for the one filming them) would bring up really interesting gender dynamics. Luckily, we ran with it. A lot of the boys’ fantasy vibe that the finished product has is, I think, a product of editing. There is something in the repetition of seeing men on screen talking to a woman and about women, but never actually seeing a woman, that we really didn’t anticipate but which added a dimension of commentary on the genre.

The other effect of letting the camera run and having the “actors” speak for themselves was how authentic the story started to feel to me, as a filmmaker. I always hesitate to use the word “authentic,” but the juxtaposition of real events from our actors’ lives with this completely fabricated but apocalyptic situation made me very hesitant to do a project that would involve me asking questions like this of real people. The process of provoking emotionally heavy or volatile reactions from subjects is one that I found too manipulative. I’ve never had a problem watching documentaries that tackle difficult subjects, but I don’t know that I could participate in one.

Overall, the project accomplished more than we anticipated. And there were only a few injuries.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cristen:

Many feminist theorists have figred the way out of the ethical power dimensions of doc is fake doc, the questions you couldn't ask otherwise, yet as you see, you all walked the line so close that things got real, and hard, in that doc way anyway. The gender stuff (unintended) is my favoriate in your piece as well (and lots of the best of art-making happens in those uninteded place, much more so than paper writing, at least for me).

Carole Standish Mora, Ph.D., M.F.A. said...

Cristen: It has been interesting reading each of your reflective pieces about making this mockumentary. It is interesting that the gender piece just happened. Your describing that aspect here in your post helped me understand something I'd been thinking about since reading Tim's post. The question he posed regarding making documentaries in general is interesting, but especially interesting is "what is the point of higher education when people are dying?" Then unexpectedly all the 'women' begin to be killed, or die off. How does this tie in with your title: "702: It's Just The World We Live In" ... and, it's interesting that your production co. name is "maple leaf productions". It seems to me that something else related to your initial question is waiting for more attention. Watching the piece is one thing, but reading each post regarding the team effort, is really interesting. A lot of work went into this project, and I think it is less mock underneath than you may have intended, considering all the reflective thoughts I've read.

Carole Standish Mora, Ph.D., M.F.A. said...

P.S. 'maple leaf productions' is a Canadian emblem, and is not the same as 'fig leaf', geez, sorry I was stuck in a gender issue interpretative frame of mind which blurred my thinking.$%#@!!

Unknown said...

I found your piece hilarious and rather aesthetically pleasing. I liked it a lot! It certainly highlights issues in documentary filmmaking.

I loved the moment when the one guy turns to the camera and confronts the camera person/documentarian head on about her role in bringing danger to their home. There was mental camera spin that happened in my mind that both pointed to the person behind the camera and the person/people watching the situation unfold through the camera lens (us!).

For me, that moment raises ethical questions about both the practice of making and the practice of watching. Are we viewers (without direct influence on production) really neutral in watching? What influence does the imagined audience have on the production of the documentary? Does the filmmaker's audience influence the filmmaking in such a way that they do indeed agitate the arrival of life-sucking zombies?

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