Film is a masterful art, it is like a book, a musical composition, and a painting all rolled into one. It has a beginning, middle and an end, it has a rhythm, a cadence, and a beat, and it can be visually stunning. It has a dénouement, a grand finale. It can bring great notions to many, it can change things and change people, it can create a movement or it can move people to tears or laughter to refresh their soul.
It is unlikely that any filmmaker would tell you any different. It doesn’t matter if you have made a one-minute film or a three-hour epic; they all engage the same basic elements. And every filmmaker labors over each frame, every second, every angle, artistically as it relates to the whole in order to create a moment, a feeling, or a truth, in order to engage the viewer. Filmmaking is a series of creative nuances, utilizing sight and sound and inspiration. “Cinematographers use the same compositional guidelines as artists, with an added twist—their work is constantly in motion.”
As a documentary filmmaker, my job is slightly different from the other film genres, in that documentary films seek to engage a viewer via an honest message that documents reality. The documentary film genre, originally called “actuality films,” has a different mission than a narrative or avant-garde film, but still maintains the creative core.
I take my job seriously in regard to the art form as the medium for the message. The primary goal in documentary is to honor the subject matter truthfully with integrity while engaging an audience via creative elements.
The artful challenge of taking a series of stills and fashioning them into something beyond what they were originally, beyond what they were even as a completed sequence of sights and sounds i.e. a one shot, or an interview, and forming them into a visual message linked to the next visual element or message, created in much the same way. Like a giant 3D puzzle it takes time and care and love. One must love the medium in order to be truthful to the art.
In general filmmaking is a collaborative art, utilizing the creativity of direction, camera work, and editing as the foundation for the final outcome. However, low budget independent filmmakers often play more than one role at the same time.
Once a framework is established and the thread of shots and interludes is ready, the rough cut is made — which is then followed by the last and most challenging, albeit rewarding, final edit — then a film is born.
Of course the final edit of a film is rarely a simple task, and even though great rewards are to follow, it is a complicated and time consuming effort for the artist who is making the final decisions on what stays and what goes. It’s the terrible conundrum of sacrifice for the film’s greater good.
Eventually the film’s creator must give way to the creativity gods and accept the inevitable fact, that an artist is never really finished with a piece, they just choose when to stop working on it. This is where the rubber meets the road for a filmmaker; you leave your ego at the door and let the film tell you what to do.
Sandra Pfeifer is a social issue documentary filmmaker and media artist who has lived in southern Illinois for 40 years.
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September 16, 2020 at 02:09AM
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Community Spotlight: Film is a masterful art - Alton Telegraph
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