Stories We Tell (Dir. Sarah Polley)

Sarah Polley is a filmmaker from Canada, she is also a known for writing, acting, where she was first recognised as a child actress on a show titled 'Quimby'. Polley's directing style focuses on a more intimate and personal stories, which comes into play, when producing 'Stories We Tell'. She uses conversations to build a film, which creates the idea of intimate. 

Polley would use camera shots, where they would focus on emotion, showing vulnerability. This could conclude; 

• Close ups/medium shots,

• Handheld camera work,

• long footage takes/camera movement.

• https://filmandmediaportal.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/stories-we-tell.pdf (04.11.2025).

https://www.500daysoffilm.com/storieswetelldocreview/#:~:text=In%20her%20blog%20post%2C%20Polley,Which%20story%20should%20we%20believe? (04.11.2025).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GepFTH7X1xE (04.11.2025).

https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/stories-we-tell#:~:text=Chan/flickr%20cc.-,Background,post%20on%20the%20NFB's%20website. (04.11.2025).

This documentary was directed by Sarah Polley, who wanted to investigate for the truth behind the conflicting stories her family told her about her mother, after learning her biological father was not he one who raised her. Polley also wanted to produced this investigation in a film documentary way, as she learned about a journalist was going to publish her story without getting her perspective.

This documentary became an observation on how people remember narratives between their relationships and their lives. This story plays with this by recreating scenes, making it feel like footage from the camera the dad used to record her mother. This is shown, where the mother is on the phone, which is after one of the family members recalls this event. This is a sneaky way, which could draw the viewers into the film, visually, as it is almost to perfect of moment in time, where the dad happens to record the moment, one of the family members is talking about. 

Waltz with Bashir (Dir. Air Folman)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1185616/ (04.11.2025).

https://www.sonyclassics.com/waltzwithbashir/aboutAri.html#:~:text=Between%201991%2D1996%20Ari%20directed,his%20second%20feature%20in%202001. (04.11.2025).

Air Folman is a film director and screen writer from Israeli. Folman is known for his written work and directed documentaries for tv, from feature films like 'Saint Clara (1996)'. Folman would often work on events he has passion for. Folman went on a different route for his documentary, Folman went for a recording from a bar of a interview and would animate over the audio to create a visual outcome, which could draw viewers in his documentary.

Folman decided to make this documentary in particular to oppressed his memories of his time in the Lebanon War as a soldier, to show his participation in the Sabra. Folman was also inspired by his friends recurring nightmares, which prompted him to work through his own amnesia for that time. It was created to shown as a anti-war movement from people who worked thorugh the warzone.

Baraka (Ron Fricke)

Ron Fricke is a film director, born in America. Fricke is known for his cinematography, specialising in time-lapsing and cinematography, which he is known for his none narrative feature films, often like a moving pictures style.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vAiAjw0720&rco=1 (04.11.2025).

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103767/ (04.11.2025).

https://britishcinematographer.co.uk/ron-fricke-samsara/ (04.11.2025).

This documentary was directed and filmed by Ron Fricke, who is a known cinematographer, who produced the first time-lapse, where he would mix this with slow motion to create a strong visual observational film with no narrative ('Baraka'). This film emphasis the word 'where'. This allows the viewers to interpret his work in the viewers way, creating a more personal film without breaking someone's personal space/privacy. It starts with natural landscapes in the morning establishing the time of day by using still shots of the mountains before closing up on wildlife, like monkeys, which establishes the location of where this film could be set, teasing the viewers into the film, without jumping straight into the film.

(Comparison)

I picked these three documentaries for this purpose of them all having a unique spin on documentaries. 'Stories We Tell' uses handheld cameras with soft colours for lighting, which could convey the viewers to be part of the family and draw them into the homemade film aspect they wanted to go for with a faked b-roll clip and adding behind the scenes footage at the start. Which could be used to get the viewers to investigate with them, using mainly close ups and wide angle shots to to capture the family's emotion and as a group and as a solo shots. However, 'Waltz with Bashir' plays a more documentary style we use today, by using cold colours to create tension, which could get the viewer hooked as the scripts builds more and more going from flashback to flashback, increasing the music. Bashir also puts his spin by animating over a tape recording. This creates a visual idea behind Bashir's documentary over the 'Stories We Tell', as Polley uses home footage to add a personal touch, whereas, Bashir uses animation to represent their intended target demographic. Bashir could be targeted at teens to give them a visual guide to the story, as they will normally have a shorter attention span compare to adults. Polley uses homely-like style, which could target towards a more mature household, 'when the kids are asleep' and they have nothing else to watch. When comparing Baraka by Ron Fricke, he uses visuals to document different places with no narratives to allow viewers to interpret his documentaries in their own way, which could get the viewers to want to watch but also don't want to watch , almost like look away, but can't sort of film. If I was to pick one to watch, I would watch Bashir's Waltz With Bashir', as I enjoy a good visual documentary, recreating certain scenes, such as the dream of the first guy they interviewed with shooting the dogs, recurring in his dreams from when he was in the military. 

Seaspiracy (Dir. Ali Tabrizi)

Ali Tabrizi is known to be a British filmmaker, best known for his documentary 'Seaspiracy'. This documentary focuses on Tabrizi passion for dolphins and whales. Tabrizi started his obsession for dolphins and whales by watching people like Jacques Cousteau, David Attenborough, and Sylvia Earle. "Watching their films opened a whole new world for me, filled with an abundance of beauty, colour and life." After college Tabrizi would work on many documentaries before focusing on his own, exploring the sea at age 22. 

https://viva.org.uk/lifestyle/living-vegan/celebrities/actors-directors/ali-tabrizi/#:~:text=Ali%20Tabrizi%20is%20a%20British,the%20lens%20of%20a%20camera. (05.11.2025).

Tabrizi uses whimsical music at  the start of his documentary, underscoring his narrative of a monologue about how and why he wants to explore his passion for Oceans, following with facts after. Tabrizi would use graphic overlays of text with the colour red. This could grab the viewers attention to read first, if they don't pause to read the text and would use white colour font under the red to display more information, if they wanted to. Tabrizi would use a extreme close up of his face, seeing the reflections of his glasses of  the screen. This could act as a filler to change how a scene feels, as he goes to talk about how learning about Oceans, changed his perspective of the romance of the Ocean. Following this, Tabrizi would use the same graphics as before, but to display news headlines with news-ankers over scoring the music, which could suggest Tabrizi wanted to build up suspense to tease the viewers into the documentary. Tabrizi would use primary audio from clips to, as well as Broll to create a professional-like style without losing the personal reason behind the documentary for Ali Tabrizi.

This documentary starts with one question and ends with the same the question "do fish feel pain?" This same question mades me wonder what I could do to help the planet and the Ocean. This documentary is so impactful, that I became vegitarian because of this. They also question "What is sustainable fishing?" and try to get an answer from big corporations that promote sustainable fishing, like MSC, who profit on selling blue ticks to fish brands (which is 80% percent of their revenue).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Q5CXN7soQg (05.11.2025).

https://www.seaspiracy.org/ (05.11.2025).

Typography

I was tasked to merge text and photographs in photoshop to add depth to the photograph. I did this by adding a text layer to my chosen photograph, capitalising the letters and swapping the margin around to match the face shape of the photograph. I would select the text (ONLY) and hide the text layer to copy the photograph then paste it onto my photoshop workspace. I would then add a black box around the text layer to show half of the photograph on the right, without impacting the readability. 

I wanted to create a purpose to my work, I found this famous photograph of a man, dressed as a woman, smoking. My main point was 'an addiction can be replaced with a new addiction'. If I was to do this again, I would flip the photography to balance the overall product.

ref: https://thephotoacademy.com/en/magazine/20-famous-portraits-photographers-you-need-to-know (12.11.2025).