Prior to creating our documentary we watched a documentary, Exit Through the Gift Shop, by Banksy. This documentary explored the passion behind street art while also capturing beautiful works of street art. I think this aligns with our documentary as our documentary focuses on passion (of the theatre) while also capturing beautiful works of art (performing). Unlike Exit Through the Gift Shop whose focus somewhat changed throughout the piece, our documentary from planning to post-production had the same topic. One way our documentary The Show Must Go On challenges genre conventions of documentaries in that it does not include a voiceover. Instead, our interviews almost act as a voiceover. We did not feel the need to include a voiceover since we believe our B-Roll being chronological from pre-production to post-production of a show was able to be understood without narration.
Our documentary represents the theatre social group which includes people of all ages, genders, ethnicities, backgrounds, etc. When choosing interviewees we wanted to make sure our subjects were at varying stages in their theatre experience. From our youngest interviewee who was participating in her first show to our oldest interviewee who has been directing shows for years. We knew not everyone has the same experiences and we wanted this to be shown. One of our interview questions discussed whether or not the interviewee planned to pursue theatre in college so we had multiple interviewees around the about to go to college level age and one who was in elementary to show how your want to pursue theatre can change as you age. Also, we made sure multiple genders were represented since males and females do not share the same experience in theatre. Our documentary also represents social issues, which are the stereotypes people place on theatre people. Through interviewing we found the theatre community had varying beliefs on these beliefs, some being that the beliefs are rude and wrong, and others that find the beliefs true. We made sure to share these varying beliefs to increase representation.
Our documentary is very engaging for the audience. Our target audience was people who enjoy theatre, whether that is being in productions, working on productions, or watching productions. Since we were documenting the creation of musicals the topic alone we believe would keep people engaged. We did not only want to engage our target audience, we wanted to engage non-theatre lovers who were interested in finding out why theatre people are so dedicated to their craft. Our documentary impressively features nearly endless amounts of B-Roll covering a variety of theatre-related topics whether this is a difficult choreography that is engaging to look at, a cast wearing bright costumes, stressed faces as final makeup preparations for the show are being completed, or rows that could go on forever full of seats. Multiple camera angles are used throughout our piece not just for closeups of scripts or pans of a stage full of dancers, but also for the more relaxed aspects, the interviews. The addition of multiple angles to a few of our interviews adds depth in that it looks more professional and makes audiences feel as if they are talking to the interviewee. Not only is our piece visually engaging it is also auditorily engaging. Our sound was layered over the video so there were no times when audiences just watched B-Roll in silence, There were no pauses in the piece, and there was always something for audiences to listen to and look at.
