The vibrant act of looking

ABSTRACT

In this paper, I dissect how the filmmaker looks at the world around them, and the recorded images of that world, when they are filming and editing. I suggest that this is a different act of looking than how a non-filmmaker looks at their surroundings, primarily because the act of looking is a conduit intended for an audience, rather than an act merely for the self. I analyse this act of looking as a new materialist one in which the camera equipment and images have vibrancy. When filming, the cameraperson works with the camera to carve the world into frames. When editing, the editor falls into sync with the images, creating a dialogue with them where the images suggest edits via what they depict, but also via the materiality of the image itself.

KEYWORDS:

• Documentary
• filming
• editing
• new materialism
• looking

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Further discussion of my critique of the auteur approach to documentary can be found in ‘Presenters’ (2019a).

2 Some of this footage can be seen in ‘A River as a Character’ (2019b) at 3:46 min.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Catherine Gough-Brady

Catherine Gough-Brady is an award-winning documentary producer and director who has published on the emergent use of video as a method of academic discourse. She has produced and directed of six ABC TV documentary series, include Legal Briefs (2016) and Ethics Matters (2017). Catherine created 11 radio features for ABC Radio National. Catherine’s recently completed PhD explores the relational nature of documentary filmmaking. Her PhD experimental film Expect Delays (2018) won 2018 SAE Atom Awards Best Tertiary Experimental Film, and her experimental film Rivers (2019) was a finalist for the same award.