Inspiration

I've been trying to watch as many short documentaries as I can the past week and try and understand them and learn from them. I want to post some here and say what I like about them. Some were very powerful and moving which is extremely inspiring.

 The Heat Short Documentary

The first short I wanted to write about is The Heat. It's about a single mum in Brooklyn who wanted some focus in her life instead of having a kid and falling into a marriage. She wanted something to do in her life. It's an incredible short and very inspiring. The doc features a lot of voiceover but visually, it's stunning. It's very good near the end where she talks about the effect of Hurricane Sandy on her life and how she and everyone came through it and rebuilt their lives.

I love her story and how the doc was made. The images where there is no voiceover for about 20 seconds and we see people embracing after the hurricane and her training, to people rebuilding their lives and her winning fights. It's a simple message that people can overcome and do anything if they put their mind to it, regardless of the situation.



This documentary is quite short, around 3 minutes and is about Reindeer Wrangling. It's a different kind of short documentary with no voiceover or anything. It is all visual and dependent on the natural, raw sounds of the surroundings, very much like the documentary we are going to shoot.

It's a majestic short because of the reindeer in it because they always seem to appear only in fiction, but this time they are real. The film was shot in Finland in -18C temperatures and shows the work of these herders that they have done for generations. It's hard to relate to as we know nothing of this process but it is stunning to look at.

Youth - A Documentary Short 

This last documentary is called Youth. It features footage of a photographers friends that he filmed over 4 months and made a short out of it, highlighting the innocence and fun of being that age.

It stands out to me and others I would guess because it makes you think of a time gone by. Being older, you realise that a good part of that time is over. Admittedly some are around my age I would think, it still makes me think of when I was around 16/17. It is a very moving short that jut features strong and powerful visuals.