Haoran Zhang

Citation: Rosenthal, A., & Eckhardt, N. (2016).  Writing, directing, and producing documentary films and digital videos  (Fifth ed.). Southern Illinois University Press. Annotation: In the fourth part of the book, the author talks about the use of narration in documentaries First-person or second-person narration helps to engage the viewer and better brings the viewer into the situation of the documentary (first person is mostly active voice). Third person narration will be more objective (third person is mostly passive voice) In personal documentaries, filmmakers often want the audience to feel better about themselves, so using the active voice can make the whole film more dynamic. Here the author mentions the idea that changing the first person narration to second person - changing "I" to "you". It would better place the viewer in the context of the documentary and align their perspective with that of the filmmaker. By changing the audience's perspective f...

Citation： Nichols, B. (2017).   Introduction to documentary   (Third ed.). Indiana University Press. Annotation： In the third chapter of the book, "What gives documentary a voice of their own?", the author mentions three modes of voice in documentary: rhetorical voice, poetic voice, and narrative voice . Narrative voice is the mode of storytelling to express the content, which helps to engage the audience and is most often used in personal documentaries. Narrative Voice: Stories have a beginning, middle, and end. (Each story has specific characters) Beginning: presents issues, needs related to the character (not related to society, mainly related to the individual) Middle (adds complexity to the story): elaborates on issues and challenges (shows conflict, emphasises characterisation). Films are character-driven, show how the protagonist faces challenges - character-driven documentaries conflict often stems from other characters (family or friends) Ending: not necessarily a ha...

  Citation: Walsh, S.(2024). The documentary filmmaker's intuition: Creating ethical & impactful non-fiction films. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003320296 Annotation: In Chapter 16, Post-Production, the author mentions that the use of music can help film creators balance subjective and objective perspectives in personal documentaries. The article mentions that editing without music allows the viewer to better listen to the sounds in the frame, helping to convey the message. Too much music can detract from the audience's audiovisual experience. Also music should not be used before the rough cut. Music can create a strong subjective mindset in the filmmaker, which ignores the objective point of view and leads to an imbalance in the use of perspective in editing  (the creator should listen to the dialogue in the video before deciding on the music). Music can overemphasise emotion and should be used in moderation. Good use of music can guide the viewer's emotion...

Citation: Walsh, S.(2024). The documentary filmmaker's intuition: Creating ethical & impactful non-fiction films. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003320296 Annotation: In Chapter 5, "Ecstatic Truth & Elusive Fiction", the author mentions six documentary modes of Bill Nichols. Among them, "Performance Model" highlights the director's personal emotional expression, and the audience pays more attention to the director's views and emotions. Meanwhile, the filmmaker is often the main body of the film, and the audience will look for answers according to his voice and behavior. This fits the mold of a personal documentary. In this chapter, the author also mentions two modes of Cinema: "Cinema Direct" and "Cinema Verite". "Cinema Direct", the subjects are not aware of the presence of the camera (hidden shooting), which reduces the pressure on the subject to express their emotions more naturally, and the audience can b...