Final Project

This last assignment has been interesting being a host of a documentary. With the little amount of time I had to get this recorded, I did what I could to make this appear as a talking head documentary that is both performative and participatory.

The main reason I find this short documentary to be performative is how I shared some personal experiences when I took horseback riding lesson as a kid to establish the common ground between me and my subject. I may have never competed in an actual race before, but the fact that we have both ridden horses before opens a small truth about what a person typically goes through in order to gain the experience to be professional enough to compete with your horse.

Nicoles states, “Like the poetic mode of documentary representation, the performative mode raises questions about what counts as knowledge” (Nicoles). I consider my interactions with my subject as something that could potentially form questions in the minds of my audience by encouraging them to wonder if they would perhaps have an experience very similar to hers, how long it takes for a horse to trust you, what you need to do to take care of a horse, etc. I know these are questions that I wanted to ask but did not have the time to ask. The author also mentions that performative can show how knowledge can be revealed to us when it is actually being experienced. A perfect example of that is the footage of her barrel racing with her horse. Not many of us know what it may look like to participate in a competition or how difficult it may be. This scene gives us as the audience an idea that “It sets out to demonstrate how embodied knowledge provides entry into an understanding of the more general processes at work in society (or in equestrian society)” (Nicoles).

There is also a reason I presented shots of the horses in their stalls. It is to emphasize the overall topic of the documentary since it was about horses. After all, “[p]erformative films give added emphasis to the subjective qualities of experience and memory” (Nicoles). Each horse represents a different memory that my subject has experienced. Whenever she would give answers to my questions, I juxtaposed my B footage with her dialogue to not only keep reminding the audience that this is the topic but to also provide a little exposure to what it may feel like being surrounded by horses.

It is like this film History and Memory: For Akiko and Takashige. This documentary contains real footage of the Japanese American internment camps during WWII and objects that some of the prisoners made. I also had some real footage of a barrel race that was provided by the subject’s father. I knew that this recording was necessary in order to make my documentary both realistic and achieve more of the elements of performative.

My film also contains some elements of participatory in different ways. One of them is how involved I was with my subject as I asked her questions about what sparked in interest in horse competition along with how to form a proper relationship with a horse.

I also shared some experiences that I had with horses growing up as I took horseback riding lessons and my most challenging horse. I also briefly mentioned how my mother grew up with horses and how such a love for them has been passed down to me.

Another reason I claim this to also be a participatory is the fact that I stood beside my subject near the end and had a face to face conversation together. The reading mentions that another element of participatory is exactly how a talk show host interacts with the guests of the show and sometimes the audience. “The participatory mode has antecedents in other media and several disciplines. Radio has long featured direct interactions between talk show hosts and guests, a form that migrated readily to television before taking root in cinema as well” (Nicoles).

I feel that being on camera makes this film more creditable. When a filmmaker is seen being involved in the creation of his or her work, it can make the message more powerful. “Like the performative mode, the filmmaker’s presence and perspective often contribute significantly to the film’s overall impact” (Nicoles).

Participatory can also be slightly observational when a filmmaker records random moments that happen in everyday life like Man With a Movie Camera. With footage of horses in their stalls and an open field shot, I intentionally used those shots as well to show how, “[t]his mode inflects the ‘I speak about them to you’ formulation into something that is often closer to ‘I speak with them for you’ as the filmmaker’s interactions give us a distinctive window onto a particular portion of our world” (Nicoles). Not everyone may have the chance to see the landscape shown or inside of a ranch of horses, so I provided a way for the audience to take a glimpse into another world.

This class has been a unique experience when it comes to the genre documentary. There were many things that I never knew about it till this semester. I have gained a better appreciation for different kinds of documentaries out there made and how they are used.