Winter has finally decided to make an appearance in Maine. I spent one very snowy day tucked in under the covers with my cat watching documentary after documentary. Very frequently in conversations I find myself suppressing the source of my information, otherwise I'm constantly saying “I saw in a documentary….”. It’s not that I don’t also watch sitcoms and dramas and fictional movies etc. But I realize that I have a similar trend in the way I consume a lot of media - I read non-fiction much more than fiction, and listen to science and news based podcasts far more often than pop culture discussion or comedy. My go-to favorite past time though has to be watching documentaries.
My media preferences clearly show that I like when something is able to be summed up with one object statement and then is backed up with lots of supportive evidence. Obviously in any collection of information there will be a bias and certain information will be purposefully omitted. What I like about documentaries is that it adds one more dimension than just text - when you get to watch an interview and be given information through the primary source (obviously taking into account it being a planned interview for a documentary with a camera crew) it allows you to make some further conclusions yourself based on the air of confidence and mannerisms etc.
I have always loved documentaries. I used to do a fair amount of video editing for fun. I remember documenting my high school jazz band’s competition trip to the Bahamas and doing reaction interviews with people attending my grandfather’s sculpture show. I definitely played a bit with it early in college, filming my friends and occasionally putting together finished video projects. The filming aspect was never my real interest, and I gravitated towards primary research in the biological and social sciences. Luckily, I went to a school heavy in the visual and performing arts so got to benefit from talented people around me creating things that I get to enjoy!
photo by Amanda Plunkett
One of my closest friends is very talented behind a video camera and has done a variety of mini-documentaries. She used to make great compilations of our friends and our antics and great school video projects, but now I get to enjoy watching the much more informative, interesting stuff she has been producing more recently. If you’re like me and can’t get enough of documentaries, check out some of Amanda's videos!