At the last workshop we explored the transition from the early ethnographic documentary film movement of Grierson and Flaherty through to the Ethnosensory approach of the Harvard Film Lab and their recent film Iron Ministry.
We dealt with Cinema Verite and one of the arguments that Leacock & Drew made was that documentaries needed to be freed from the dominant word logic to a picture logic. This is the approach we would like you to explore with your Zero Project.
The post 1960’s direct cinema movement owes much to the work of Dziga Vertov who was active in post revolutionary Russia in the early 20th Century. The work of Vertov, Eisenstein and Kuleshov, and the Soviet Theory of Montage, are still relevant today almost 100 year later indeed some aspects are yet to be fully explored. This is a very simple but useful guide on soviet editing:
As you consider and film your Zero Project bear in mind that today the dominant mode of documentary and television is still expository (words illustrated with pictures) and that is something that we would like you to reject whilst on this MA.
Picture logic relies on the concept of montage so as you observe and film your character for your film bear in mind the shots you may need to build your picture edit.
MA 21st Century Media Practice 2017 