Notes on documentary filming and editing

ARCHIVING THE PRESENT We try to see the present as an archive. Seeing only the past as an archive can result in depoliticizing and devaluing the present while mystifying the past.

COPYRIOT AGAINST COPYRIGHTS The rights to the images must be vested in the subjects whose images are recorded.

IMAGES ARE NOT REAL Any attempt to make cinema mimic "real life" is not just misguided; it is our greatest adversary. An image is an image and must remain so. The camera moving around the room or in nature with dollies in awe does not make the image more real, on the contrary, it suffocates the image in the guise of sublimity. That's why the so-called 'slow cinema's tactics to make cinema seem more sublime, authentic, or unadulterated are not convincing to us. The image must always emphasize its construction: The power of the image is not in its ability to resemble the abstraction called “real life”, but in its ability to reflect its own construction.

CAMERA, POOR IMAGE AND BEAUTY It is assumed that the camera should remain static and possess a landscape-like quality when portraying the "big picture" or something "sublime". There's also a presupposition that the camera should shake when "in the action", that it should have a more "intimate" feel. We think it is important to break these assumptions in documentary filmmaking. These assumptions bind us to an "aesthetic standard" established by Western cinema authorities, prevent us from meaning-making through montage using images from different sources. The camera can also remain static during the events, or it can risk a "poorer image" in order to record the events as they happen. That's why we prefer not to polish images too much. But this is not exactly a praise of "poor images". The image may also look "beautiful." But a beautiful image should not be there to create a sense of transcendence, inspire admiration, or fetishize destruction. We are in favor of using the "beautiful" images that are willing to abandon their own beauty, that are open to being undermined by other images and forms.

CONTEMPLATION IS A MYTH We don't desire an audience that gets caught up in the flow of the film. We imagine an audience that gets interrupted and confused by the images. On the other hand, allowing the audience to contemplate is a mystification; it's not a merit on its own. When the space of contemplation is opened too much, it activates the dominant ways of thinking. We should not give the audience too much time to think, but should confront the audience with a flow that they will have to work on or play with. Rather than offering the audience a safe space where they can stop and relax, offering a space for reflection that confronts them with the constructiveness of our own thoughts. Not an audience that merely thinks, but an audience that is not afraid that their own thoughts will come to naught is active.

POWER OF COLLAGE The logic of traditional documentary making rests on a colonial aspiration: to go somewhere and reflect and uncover its “hidden, eccentric reality”. But in fact, you don’t need to travel to reflect the injustice that permeates every inch of the nation-state. You don’t have to go to places—and the reality is in fact not hidden! It’s everywhere you look. The logic of collage enables you to see this. Just by reordering things, you can show people that there are different realities.