Summary of Class Activities March 18

Activities:
Viewing of the documentary “Murderball.”

1. Discussions on its modern treatment:
   
   
   
   • Non-linear story telling
   
   
   • Pacing of the film between intervals of sports action, hard facts and diagrammatic explanations, quiet intimate moments and humor
   
   
   • Invasive and confessional insights about the subjects with raw language and emotions
   
   
   
   
2. Comparisons between devices utilized in this film (that are more in tune to today’s generation) and their parallels in feature writing:
   
   
   
   • Letting the subjects speak the most controversial assertions (quotes) and explain their condition with no narrator to manipulate viewer’s judgment (objectivity).
   
   
   • Literary approach to non-fiction (ala Truman Capote’s “novelized non-fiction”).
   
   


3. Imagining what goes into making a compelling, thorough and well-crafted non-fictional story such as this:
   
   
   
   • How does one make a compelling documentary about disabled? If you were given just the premise without having watched the film, would consider the subject matter as boring and as something you cannot relate with?
   
   
   • What was edited out to make the story more exciting and to give it a twist?
   
   
   • How different would this documentary be if it were done twenty years ago? Would it be still use a non-linear narrative? Would it pity or glorify them? Or would it still candidly portray the disabled with all their faults as this film does?
   
   
   • How did the documentarians gain the trust of the subjects to candidly go through their daily lives and attain uncontrived vignettes?

Objectives:

• To show the potential for a compelling story in even the most difficult subject matters.


• To illustrate contemporary approaches to journalism.