Assignment Code: BSOS–184/Asst /TMA /2021-22

Course Code: BSOS –184

Assignment Name: Techniques Of Ethnographic Film Making

Year: 2020-2021

Verification Status: Verified by Professor

Assignment – I

Answer the following Descriptive Category questions in about 500 words each. Each question carries 20 marks. 2 x 20 = 40

1. Briefly discuss the dimensions of sociological film making.

Ans) The dimensions of sociological film making are:

The First Category: Sociological Life

No matter which of the four classes the sociologist might belong to (i.e., professional, policy, critical, or public sociologists), what is important is adherence to the originality of the sociological imagination. A sociologist must unveil the hidden realities of society with creativity, patience, and an awakened conscience. These factors depend on whether the sociologist integrates the common sense with sociological thinking and turns this into a routine fact in his life. His main objective is to establish the dialogue between society and individuals instead of relying on major theories and abstract empiricism.

The Second Category: The Dissection of the Relationship between the Actor and Structure

Social structures draw boundaries for the freedom of activists. Understanding these structures could help the actors to get rid of the pressure imposed by structural implications. Of course, the structures do not merely hamper and restrict our lives. Rather, by relying on this dialectical thought, we find out that we are the actors in charge of social construction while we are produced by communities, societies, and cultures.

The Third Category: A Critical Perspective

In social life, we encounter facts which are presumed to be sacred, and, on the other hand, we face affairs which are so close to us that we consider them natural and evident. The failure to deal with these two issues critically is one of the factors that prevent deliverance from structural implications.

The Fourth Category: Academic Awareness

Sociology must maintain its connection with the academia. A sociologist must be fully aware of the scientific framework and methodology and constantly pay attention to the achievement of knowledge and academic sociology. Nevertheless, the attitude towards knowledge merely as a way of obtaining information is insufficient and might also distract the sociologist from the main course. The sociology should be engaged in the world around him and increase his personal experiences by augmenting this knowledge.

The Fifth Category: Understand the Fluidity of Meaning

Time and space have a major role in creating the social order and meaning. Meaning changes over time and its interpretation is different for each interpreter. Thus, there is no single fact for a certain phenomenon and different realities constitute the meaning for each interpreter. However, what is important for us here is giving the same value to these diverse contrasts and commonalities. With that being said, the relationship between the past, present, and future should be considered to raise awareness and understand the existing facts better. The link between individual accounts and history ought to be discovered and the role of history in raising awareness should be stressed. This sensitivity makes us focus our attention on the discontinuity in the history of science, thought and culture.

The Sixth Category: The Promotion of Sociological Imagination

Sociology should address the society that is its main goal and initiate a dialogue between the studied groups.  To expand sociological imagination in the community, we should use a language that is comprehensible to everyone. Moreover, the historical conditions should be noted and ascertained properly. An appropriate manner should be used to mingle with the groups of people and spread this reality-based imagination instead of the fictional stories of the modern age.

2. Explain the various mode of film making.

Ans) There are various modes of filmmaking as follows:

Poetic Documentary

The poetic mode was introduced in the 1920s. Such a move is not a linear mode of filming. The filming style moves away from the simple factual telling of a story. The actors are not cast as full-bodied characters. The poetic mode gives us alternative forms of reality. For example, if you must show an actor crying then in the poetic mode the filmmaker could just show rainfall. If you must show a person running, then again you could just show the beauty of a horse racing. In order to highlight the importance of a game for the nation one could just show the game with patriotic music playing in the background. It gives us an alternative form of reality instead of just telling us about the reality in a straightforward manner.

Expository Documentary

Arose in the 1920s and is still very popular. It is used in television news and reality television shows. Nature and science documentaries too use this mode extensively. Biographies too are largely shot in this mode. This mode is also often referred to as the Voice of God commentary mode in which the speaker is heard but not seen for example think of several films in which there is a voiceover. As we can see from the examples of the voice of God commentaries given above that the expository mode was dominated by professionally trained male voices.

Observational Documentary Filmmaking

This mode arose from the availability of 16 mm cameras and magnetic tape recorders in 1960s. The observational mode found the poetic mode too abstract and the expository mode too moralizing. The observational mode relies on facts and often has no voiceovers and music. The actors behave as if no film maker was there. The people were observed as it is in their natural surroundings behaving spontaneously. Observational films give the sense of real time. The filmmaker shoots in a way the experience is lived.

Participatory Documentary

Anthropology and Sociology have advocated the use of participant observation for observing the lives of people. Participant observation involves the filmmaker being in the field for long periods of time and becoming one with the subjects being observed. The filmmaker can be present in front of the camera and can even provoke the subject in terms of a stylised interaction. The role of the camera is always acknowledged. The audience gets a sense of what it means to negotiate the relationship between the filmmaker and the subject. We get a sense of who controls.

Reflexive Documentary

This style of filmmaking calls attention to the process of filmmaking. It draws the viewers’ attention to how a particular representation gets constructed. In the participatory mode we saw process of negotiation between the filmmaker and the subject. In the reflexive mode the focus is on the negotiation between the filmmaker and the audience. For instance, the audience assumes that in a documentary make up and costume are not important. But that is not really the case. They are of importance in the process of filmmaking.

Performative Mode

This mode of filmmaking raises the question of what knowledge is and how it gets constructed. Performative mode stresses on how our understanding of the world around us stems from our personal experiences. The way that we view the world stems from our subjectivity. The meaning that is attached to the process of knowledge construction clearly stems from the experience and memory of an individual. The performative mode helps us understand how the world around us is constructed through our emotions and affections.

Assignment - II

Answer the following Short Category questions in about 250 words each. Each question carries 10 marks. 3 x 10 = 30

3. Distinguish between participatory and reflexive documentary.

Ans) The two most recent modes of documentary that have been discussed in class are the participatory and reflexive modes. The main characteristic of the participatory mode is that it emphasizes interactions between filmmaker and subject.

In a participatory documentary, relationship between filmmaker and subject becomes much more complex and personal. Nichols explains it very well in saying that a viewer can sense that the images they are seeing are “not just an indexical representation of some part of the historical world but also an indexical record of the actual encounter between filmmaker and subject” (157). In this mode, the filmmaker is entering into the social actor’s world and does so through conversation, interview, provocation, etc. I really enjoyed Chronicle of a Summer, a participatory documentary that does an excellent job of pulling information from complete strangers by confronting them and engaging with them in the middle of the streets of Paris, posing the question: “Are you happy?” It is very interesting to see how the camera can cause people to react differently.

On the other hand, the reflexive mode, the most self-conscious and self-questioning mode, “calls attention to assumptions and conventions that govern documentary filmmaking” (Nichols 31). This mode is known to increase our awareness of the way a film is constructed to represent reality in some way. Man with a Movie Camera and Stranger with a Camera are perfect examples of this mode. Stranger with a Camera, as Nichols puts it, prompts a reflexive awareness, one of sociological assumptions that involved fieldwork – research on the film’s two main subjects – Hugh O’Connor, filmmaker who travelled to film Appalachian residents, and Hobart Ison, the local resident who shot and killed him. Filmmaker Elizabeth Barret instinctively questions how misunderstandings and stereotypes across cultures can potentially lead to unnecessary deaths. She does an excellent job of taking away viewer’s assumptions about the poor and disadvantaged residents as well as the “entitled” filmmaker, and instead, stimulates a deeper contemplation and reflection of any and all underlying issues.

4. What is the similarity between production of a text and a film?

Ans) When we gather data, it is in a rough format and is often referred to field notes, the collection of data is dependent on our interest and the research problem at hand. The researcher may spend a few months or a year writing down observations in a notebook. The ethnographer may also record interviews using an audio device. The researcher then goes the field notes and transcribes the interviews. Once that is done then the researcher analyses the data and starts to put it in a structured format depending on the research problem. There is a lot of writing and rewriting of the data. Each time the researcher writes she will refer to her field notes and write and rewrite the data. The rough notes get translated into sentences and paragraphs. The researcher must work with the data that she has. The only way that she can get new data revisiting the field and gathers fresh data. What we finally read i.e., what is available to the public is the final edited version in the form of a book or an article. What we read is a smooth finished narrative which is not patchy but finished product.

In a film the ethnographer may begin with an idea and a script. He then shoots a footage, edits a footage, and finally produces a film. The film that we see is again a reconstructed version of the raw footage. A film is a final product like the written text that is made public by the ethnographer in the form of a book or an article. In a film too the production of a film too involves shooting of a film which we call footage. This footage is then edited and re-edited much like the writing and rewriting of a text. The final story that the film tells us is a finished smooth portrayal like a book. Much of the construction of the film takes place on the editing table and footage shot at different points of time is put together and presented along a continuum.

5. Explain the relationship between film makers and filmed.

Ans) While following the soldiers into many battles and recording the terrible fear and tension, never knowing what would happen next, many Directors/Filmmakers have expressed that while following the soldiers into many battles and recording the terrible fear and tension, never knowing what would happen next, many Directors/Filmmakers have expressed that while following the soldiers into many battles and recording the terrible fear and tension, never knowing what would happen next, many Directors/Filmmakers have expressed that while following the soldiers into many battles and recording the terrible fear and While directors are injured while covering fights, there are certain limits placed on filmmakers, such as the military's prohibition on filming wounded soldiers. According to Wanda, the filmmakers purposefully avoided any graphic depictions of violence, believing that it would detract from what they wanted to show. Although some documentarians believe their work on the film to be journalistic in nature, their main objective is to counteract numerous film representations of war that are "restricted and can't properly reveal the hilarity, boredom, and bewilderment inherent in fighting."

While the subjects vary from major ethnic groups to the most exotic members of subcultures in the United States, the majority of these filmmakers are focused with the relationship between the filmmaker and the subject. Interaction with subjects is not usually emphasised by documentary filmmakers. On the other hand, there was a time when the documentary filmmaker's objective was a detached and solely observant mentality, as exemplified by the expression "fly on the wall." In contrast to this scenario of the filmmakers' past detachment, one might notice a deeper sense of relationship between the filmmakers and their subjects today.

Assignment - III

Answer the following Short Category questions in about 100 words each. Each question carries 6 marks. 5 x 6 = 30

6. What are challenges of a sociological film maker.

Ans) The challenges of a sociological film makes includes:

1. Like many film genres, the exact definition is often in the eye of the beholder; however, Hollywood did produce and market several topical films in the 1930s, and by the 1940s, the term "social problem" film, or "message" film, was conventional in its usage among the film industry and the public.

2. Many characteristics that have grown to define the social problem film revolve around the perceived consciousness of the nation about a certain social issue and integrating that issue into a narrative structure.

3. Social problems such as the horrors of war, suffering of the poor, addiction, the rights of women, and the inhumanity of a certain world are often put on display.

4. The problem with defining this type of film as a genre lies within the ability it must separate itself from films that display similar style, as a lot of films do address social issues.

5. Furthermore, the social problem film allows further immersion into a certain issue than other genre films.

7. Elaborate the consent of ethnographic film making.

Ans) The filmmaker takes a fly on the wall approach, presuming that his presence is almost non-intrusive due to the lightweight camera and synchronised audio. It does, however, present the ethical issue of indirect interference. The sheer presence of a filmmaker may have an impact on the participants' behaviour. The consent of the persons being filmed is also a problem in the observational documentary. It's also a question of whether the consent is written or oral. Consent differs from scenario to situation as well. Observational films convey the feeling of being in real time. The director shoots in a way that allows the audience to participate in the experience.

8. Elaborate the dimensions of ethnographical film making.

Ans) An ethnographic film is a non-fiction film, often similar to a documentary film, historically shot by Western filmmakers and dealing with non-Western people, and sometimes associated with anthropology. Definitions of the term are not definitive. Some academics claim it is more documentary, less anthropology, while others think it rests somewhere between the fields of anthropology and documentary films.

The dimensions of ethnographic film making are:

1. Discipline: features related to the discipline of anthropology (e.g., films made by anthropologists)

2. Norms: features related to the norms and practices of ethnographic research (e.g., research ethics)

3. Subject: features related to the topics and peoples discussed in the anthropological literature (e.g., films by or about nomadic peoples)

4. Genre: features related to the various styles associated with the genre of ethnographic film (e.g., “reflexivity”)

9. What do you understand by oral testimony in film making.

Ans) Oral testimony is very much useful to the historian of today. If oral testimonies are used carefully and treated it like any other kind of evidence, we can find out a lot about the past. Oral testimony can tell us what life was like in the past, what people thought about various subjects and even how people talked about a particular event. It is also important to recognise that bias is not found just in secondary sources, primary sources like filmed oral testimonies can also be biased. Bias is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it can be very useful as it allows one to find out about what people believed or thought about a particular subject. Historians are required to find evidence from lots of different sources including the filmed sources so that they can form a balanced opinion themselves.

10. Explain the features of a documentary.

Ans) The features of a documentary:

1. A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education, or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterised the documentary in terms of "a filmmaking practice, a cinematic tradition, and mode of audience reception [that remains] a practice without clear boundaries".

2. Early documentary films, originally called "actuality films", lasted one minute or less. Over time, documentaries have evolved to become longer in length, and to include more categories; some examples being: educational, observational, and docufiction. Documentaries are very informative and are often used within schools, as a resource to teach various principles. Documentary filmmakers have a responsibility to be truthful to their vision of the world without intentionally misrepresenting a topic.

3. Social-media platforms have provided an avenue for the growth of the documentary-film genre. These platforms have increased the distribution area and ease-of-accessibility; thereby enhancing the ability to educate a larger volume of viewers and broadening the reach of persons who receive that information.