Documentary brief and ideas

 Lesson Task - Find a documentary text and animated film and add it to the class list

Before we had the briefing for the project, I knew I wanted to do a documentary based on mythology. I chose a text about the spectrum of Norse Mythology, from it's origins to it's complexities. It's an old book so it avoids modern interpretation, and is available to the public. 

The LEGO Story was a rather mainstream documentary about how Lego and its company came to be. It was very popular on all Freeview channels and has been aired multiple times since 2014, now appearing in full on YouTube. As it is quite popular and recent, I think it definitely relates to viewers today and how they enjoy watching documentaries and their structure. Treating this as a story with animated Disney-like characters makes this feel like a fantasy, much like you would create with the bricks themselves. 

1 to 1 tutor chat

Is mythology history or a legend? The topics for this module that we can make a documentary on are: Sustainability, History, Science, Politics. We had a discussion about whether exploring the topics of Norse or Greek myths were in fact on the topic of history. 

Norse mythology can be considered as a large part of Germanic and Scandinavian history, but can also be told as myth, fictional stories in books. 

If I am going in to this project in a group on my own, don't use character animation. Try some experimental styles and mediums. Style wise, an idea is maybe like Norse ruins and looking at the patterns and designs on Viking ships for Norse Mythology, Greek looks at urns and architecture. Experimental mediums might be hard during covid, especially in my home with orange lights and no desk. But one of the examples in last years' show reel was (I think) Florence Nightingale and used lots of watercolour transitions and that could look interesting - especially if I'm exploring the idea of myths being fantasy or not. 

The topic me and Michaela discussed taking on was convincing people for or against if mythology is history or fiction. Possibly because it was a rather interesting debate. My worries are nit knowing what to animate until after I have spoken to professionals. 

Reflexive documentary types will be best for this, interviewing people and using them as the narrators instead of myself as an anxious speaker.