In the media industry, there is an infinite battle for the attention of
various audiences, but the shock lies in how far they will go to concur the
view rating. Manipulating lies of the industry in your lounge room.
Fantasy is often described as
an escape from reality, but many are unaware that media claiming to be
“reality” is not entirely based around the truth and therefore creates the
question: Is reality just fantasy in disguise?
Documentaries are the soul of
reality film, educating society on an endless variety of topics. But, if you
are to realistically analyse the majority of documentaries, you discover that
most of what we are viewing is essentially fantasy styled dramatizations.
Does our viewing
pleasure thrive on fantasy?
A documentary that lacks somewhat
form of fantastical dramatisation or demonstration would not be able to attract
and maintain and large audience. The
industry is forced to insert theatrical influences in to everything they
release to create that emotional connection that captivates audiences.
The cove, a theatrical
documentary released in 2009, spread across the globe faster than the plague
proposing an analysis of the dolphin slaughtering situation in Taiji, Japan. The documentary successfully intrigues and
captivates audiences with a lethal combination of an
empathetic story of disaster
and perfected cinema verite` and editing techniques. To the untrained
eye, the cove is a precise commentator for social awareness of dolphin
slaughtering, but if you are to take a closer look you may discover that we are
merely being brainwashed by visually appealing special effects and irresistibly
enticing music.
The cove is powerfully mind-blowing,
with the frequent use of hand-held cameras and night vision, as an audience
member, you feel like you are right by their side. This raises my next
statement; when watching the cove we are captivated by style and hence forth
fantasy. If The Cove was presented in a basic interview style, would we be
equally captivated?
As an audience we hold the power to choose what we
wish to view. Most prefer to adapt to a film where they can find an emotional attachment
rather than being dictated constant information and therefore the industry is
somewhat forced to take advantage of this need. From this comes the creation of
realistic demonstrations and dramatisations to attract and maintain audience
attention.
With the release of The Cove, the controversy soon followed. There
has been much speculation on whether some of the content is
fiction
rather than fact. These rumours of deceit include the apparent
firing of Hideki Moronuki, the assistant chief of the whaling division in
Japan’s fisheries agency, when reality is he is still currently employed at the
agency.
Other rumours include:
Misleading edit techniques used to disregard the reputation of the professor of
the Health and Sciences University of Hokkaido and creating a false image of
“Sea World” in which misleads audience members to believe that Sea World
captures wild dolphins and contains them in captivity when fact is all dolphins
in Sea World are bred in the aquarium.
It is rumours such as these
that lead society to wonder how much of the information that is claimed to be
reality, is simply
lies and deceit.
Documentaries are often viewed
as educational tools, but what about this daily social commentator we call the
news. How much of the news can sincerely be claimed as realistic news?
News can commonly be categorised in to two sectors; editorial and
non-editorial. The difference is defined in the content. Editorial news is
content presented with an influence of the publisher and editors points of
view. Therefore non-editorial is simply pure unedited content presented
directly to the audience. Common editorial stations in Australia include
channel 7, channel 10 and channel 9 with non-editorial being the ABC, SBS and
local non-profit stations.
Stop and think, if both claim to be
“news” then why is it necessary to have two categories? The answer, editorial news is full of
mis-leading editing techniques, classy studios, special effects and perfect
presenters to captivate audiences and leave us wanting more. It is certainly
fair to say that in a race between editorial and non-editorial, editorial
snatches gold every time.
As a greedy society with high expectations, we
don’t like simply being told what is right and wrong therefore editorial news
stations take advantage of this philosophy in ensuring that what they present
has a combination of “news” and fantasy that will keep us interested.
With the increase in
technology over the years a form of animation called CGI (Computer Graphic
Imaging) has become extremely popular. By knowing how to take advantage of CGI
animation, you hold the power to create
chillingly realistic animations where the
difference between animation and reality is barely evident. The beauty of CGI,
is that realistically anyone with enough motivation and persistence can do
it.
“The Faking Hoaxer” is an amateur CGI artist who has become a viral
YouTube sensation. The Faking Hoaxer creates amazingly realistic animations
that often involve fictional disasters and in turn demonstrate how simple it
can be for news producers to take advantage of CGI and claim false content as
news. “The Sydney Incident”, a YouTube video produced by the faking hoaxer in
June 2010, sets a proposition of disaster showing realistic CGI animations of
Sydney’s main icons destroyed.
Optimising the use of voice
over, music and the local channel 7 news logo, “The Sydney Incident” is
incredibly realistic to viewers. If a video of this proportion can be produced
by and amateur in a garage, how can we be sure that the reports on the news aren’t
CGI animations?
We are living in a society
where we can never be completely sure that what we are viewing is the truth. We
are living in a society of fantasy.
All hope is not lost; there are ways to avoid fictional content in the
media such as:
Evaluating your sources:
Predominantly gather your information about current events from
non-editorial media such as ABC and SBS.
Train the untrained eye:
Try not to be captivated by music and editing techniques that may
switch your focus away from the relevant information.
Respect your trust:
Be careful what you trust, not all information in documentaries is the
truth.
Reference your research:
When researching something you are interested in, gather information
from multiple resources and weed out the facts from the fiction.
Tessa O'Neill
2011
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