Response to Intro to documentary by Harris

Before I read the article, I always think that documentary is just a video or film that chronicle what’s happen around us like those TV programs in Discovery channel. However, Introduction to documentary gave me a comprehensive introduction of what is documentary by breaking it down into six different genres.

One interesting knowledge I gain from reading this article is that documentary could be bias, which totally contracted to what I used to perceive documentary as media that maintain objectivity. But this article made me redefine how documentary could be, to some degree, manipulate by filmmaker base on his/her opinion.

On the other hand the documentary can observational but at the same time, it could be editing and arrange in a specific pattern to help reinforce, or directing the audience on a subconscious level.

SAMSARA food sequence is an example of how filmmaker manipulating the shots and arrangement of the video to convey his/her opinion or message to audience. The concept of the video is simply to depict the process of harvesting food, processing food, distributing food, however the shot and the music that the filmmaker choose at the first part of the video make me feel disturbing and the ironic ending scene illustrate filmmaker position or attitude throughout the whole piece . This kind of documentary is my favorite, it not only add a knowledge to our stockpile, but also enriched our perspectives by bring it up an issue and share it with the audience.