#capturingreality

Capturing reality is not new to me. My first contact with the experience was in 2011, I think, when I was starting to work with documentaries myself. My friend  had the DVD and showed me this documentary about documentaries that was interactive: no definite time, no definite order, without most of the rules we are used to when making a movie. of Course in the DVD there is also the feature film it self, which I have to to be honest and say that I ended up never watching.

I remember being fascinated by such an innovative idea, and thinking that I would love to have such a clever idea. 

Today, after many years I came to revisit this experience. I confess that "Capturing reality" wasn't something I remembered anymore, and it was beautiful to find out again. I think more than an interactive documentary, this works as a master class. You can watch about the topics you are interested in right now or the director's speech you admire, and it's a huge learning experience. 

The way that I experienced it was first, searching by topic, and watched everything related to editing, as we are currently editing our short and I am particularly interested in this. Following I wanted to watch the lines of Coutinho, Brazilian filmmaker that I admire immensely.

Then I realised I was curious to know more about the project, and suddenly I was watching the film for the first time. In fact I was extremely curious about how they edited it so that it wasn't just talking heads on a black background. But the answer is pretty obvious, in fact, they use excerpts from the movies the characters shot, of course. The score is pretty great as well. But I think what touches me the most is simply the fact that they are very passionate people talking. There is no way not to connect with their speech... 

And finally, I was curious about the logo on the top centre of the page, and I didn't know what it related to. It stands for "NATIONAL FILM BOARD OF CANADA" and ultimately is a free streaming service where "Capturing reality" is available as well as many other movies I've never had a chance to watch. so it has just become a new channel to watch Canadian movies :)

Capturing Reality - An Interactive documentary experience

I have realised that I prefer listening to filmmakers talking about their experiences rather than watching their movies. My heart sings and I feel whole-- there’s just so much magic and a lot of teamwork behind that process. 

German-Canadian filmmaker Manfred Becker opened the idea of the editor in the interactive documentary called Capturing Reality. Sure, we all know that editor is there to serve the director but more importantly, they should have a creative and open dialogue -- it’s a back and forth process. There shouldn’t be a hierarchy between the director, writer, and editor. It has to be an open communication because the main goal is the make the best possible film. Also, editor’s responsibility is to encourage and embrace what we already have in our cut, he or she not only has to serve the filmmaker but also the material.

Furthermore, Manfred Becker added that editor’s role is to show what dreams his/ her director can chase. We might not be able to chase the exact dream as we had at the beginning of the process but we can build that house, that view... And it will be as pretty, deep and rewarding to an audience.

I genuinely like this kind of a platform where filmmakers can share their ideas and reflect on their previous work. This feels real and I don’t sense any pretentiousness which can easily be seen in the world of film industry.