Imagining Reality - Research

In order to get a better grasp on how we should structure our dating documentary, edit it, and film it in general, we set off to do some research on other dating documentaries and TV shows. I looked at 3 different sources, and Student film in the style of an advert promoting a campus speed dating event, a short documentary about offline dating that my group was given to look at by our lecturer, and finally a channel four series of shorts about bad dates.


First I looked at the Student film. The Documentary is called Speed Dating (Documentary) on Youtube and is a promotion of a speed dating event for an American College/University. mainly the visuals of this film is a montage of a previous speed dating event that the campus has hosted showing happy dates and pleasant conversation bring a happy mood to the film and attracting people to the promotion. It also shows a lot of hustle and bustle, I feel this was used to shows people that this is a well known event that lots of people go too reassuring the view that it's not 'lame'. Although this could also put off shyer audiences. the film also have interviews scattered throughout of female contributors saying how good the event is. Overall this film works for what it is, an advertisement but it is also a successful documentation of the event and does it justice. From this I'd like to take how they integrated the interviews through sound bridges and kept the pace using  a jazzy tune running throughout, I don't think our film with have one song throughout the documentary but I like how there's kept the pace.

Secondly, I looked at the film provided to us by our documentary tutor. Its called Offline Dating and follows a man around as hes tried to date offline. I think this film is an interesting concept as it tackles the problem that people normally meet through online dating apps and websites. I like how in the film he starts quite head strong and go's straight up to people and immediately asks for a date, this is similar to how some people act on dating apps like Tinder. Theres even a dating app called Clover (referencing the 4-leafed clover symbolizing finding that lucky someone) where you can request strangers to set up a date and then you'll meet each other for the first time on said date. I've actually used this app in the past and its how I met my second boyfriend, although that relationship didn't end that great.

As the film progressed he slowly started to get to know the women he was asking out before asking out the girl. This is after he receives direction from some of the girls he asks out as they say that a man coming up to you and immediately requesting a date can be a bit jarring. Eventually in the film a girl invites him to a barbeque she's having and the film ends on a shot of them kissing. The music that this has in the background is a very uplifting guitar song that slowly progresses and gets more intense. the editing of this film is very heavy with lots of straight cuts to keep pace and only shows information that progresses the narrative. Its also littered with montage and because of this the film almost feels like a trailer and seems very rushed. Overall I like the concept and idea of this film more than the style that its portrayed in but would like to work with this idea around dating for out documentary.

Lastly, I Looked at the Channel 4 series of shorts called Bad Dates. This show simply follows the story of one contributor's tale of a bad (and often ridiculous) date. The documentary is in a Performative style (a theory by Bill Nichols), and personally I really love this style of documentary as it often has a very clean and cinematic look. This is best shown in the Feature Length 1988 film The Thin Blue Line. But the show (Bad Dates), has less of a cinematic style and personally I feel this is because its a British production and this fits the culture of English TV and media more. Although I still really like this shows style of performative documentary and it uses the recreations of the contributors story to bring a funnier side to the show. I also think this light hearted nature fits how this series is a series of shorts as its lets the joke of the story stay funny and not be dragged out. I feel My group and I could use this as our film has to be around 5 - 10 minutes and we could use this to our advantage by making the film funnier.


Overall I think I have some strong research and it has help me and my group refine our idea in to more of a solid concept that we can now plan easier in our Pre Production.