Documentary — the evocation of a world

Abstract

This article sets out to describe the conceptual evolution of a feature-length documentary film from the first few words on paper through to a finished 35mm print. Central to the development of the project is a recognition that this film is an evocation of a world…and in particular a very personal world of the author. Placing the film within a critical, historical context, there is an exploration of precedents to this idiom of practice — documentary which interrogates the boundaries between its own supposed and assumed objectivity, and the subjective view of the personal, what one might term ‘poetic’ film.

Keywords:

• evocation
• documentary