My film, The Documentary, falls in a weird grey area between reflexive and participatory. It ended up turning into a documentary about me trying to make a documentary. Even the original concept, to make a film where I’m the star in hopes that it will make me be able to act more natural in front of a camera, is hard to place.

 

Nothing is natural, everything is covered in artifice. But at the same time, everything feels real. I may not act natural in front of a camera, but who does? This representation of me may not be true to who I really am, but it is the closest I can do when representing it on camera. This calls out a fundamental issue with documentary filmmaking, that the presence of the camera affects the subjects in front of it—reflexive. Or it at least acknowledges it with all my glances at the lens, trying to make sure I am not being perceived in a way that will look bad. But at the same time, this artificial world I have placed myself in has become reality. Every decision I made may have been built on lies with the presence of the lens, but it cemented itself into reality the moment I acted upon it. Is that not the essence of the participatory mode, at least according to Rouch and Morin?

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My film was heavily inspired by Sherman’s March. I wanted to have an idea for my film then let the camera take me to wherever it was going to go, which is what I felt like Ross McElwee did while shooting his documentary. I wanted to capture that same nature of exploring what would happen.

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In almost every shot I am acknowledging that what is in front of me is a camera. One of the biggest examples of this is when I set the camera in a cabinet, close the cabinet, open the cabinet, see myself framed incorrectly on the screen, readjust myself to fit the frame, then comment on how the film equipment is the problem as if I didn’t just intentionally set the camera up like that myself. After that, I switch to a phone and acknowledge the shift in devices.

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When I call my friend on Discord and play a video game with him, it’s to try to distract myself from the fact that I am being conscious that a camera is recording me, but all we end up talking about is the documentary and the nature of documentary itself. My mind cannot escape the idea that it’s being filmed for this documentary no matter what.

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I mention that I want Scott to think my documentaries are cool and cinematic, but I also fail to attempt to show off any skills with the camera. It’s ironic to want praise for my camera skills then to only point the camera at an out-of-focus me, and to joke about my cinematic abilities throughout the edit. My documentary can be seen as a film representing my desire to be a good filmmaker and the self-consciousness inhibiting me from being one, while also being the film that is the product of what it’s representing, which the film indicates several times. These things make it so The Documentary is, although heavily participatory, ultimately reflexive.