In order to analyse the best way to demonstrate someone’s attachment to an object that they care about deeply, I decided to use the example of a guitarist for if I were making a documentary about a musician. I wanted to take two photos, one that would represent footage that could be used as B-roll footage of this person playing on the guitar and using it, and the other for the interviews and how I would want the set around him to look in order to portray this person’s infatuation with this one particular object.
In this first image we can see them playing on the guitar. The reason that we can see this person’s attachment to the object is firstly through the angle of my shot. By having the camera at a low angle situated toward the end of the guitar, it ensures that the guitar is taking up most of the frame. I wanted to do this to show the importance of the guitar in his life. The guitar takes up most of his life, as it does the shot.
Another thing I paid attention to when taking this picture was my focus point, rather than making focus point his hand playing the guitar, I drew the attention instead to the centre of the guitar. This way the audience is as is sharing the amount of focus that our main character has for this object. Whilst this is subtle to notice, if I had a proper lens for my camera then this idea would be far more effective.
The next thing I did is extremely subtle but still necessary. I ensured that there was a prop of some sort in the background that helped to demonstrate the fact that music is such a large part of this person’s life. The prop that I chose was a Ukulele. I figured that it is a perfect direct representation of his passion for music, and in particular, the guitar.
This photo is how I would have him staged for any interviews that I wanted to do with him. As I did in the previous photo with the Ukulele, I wanted to make sure that the Mise en scene in this shot all pointed towards his love for music and guitar. So, to do this I stacked up some old apple boxes to use as shelves and filled them with all the musical objects I could find to create a nice backdrop. I also had the guitar we saw in the previous shot resting on the wall to show it as if it is something that he is never without.
This is similarly seen in most documentary’s about musicians, where the backdrop to an interview will be an old stage, or a recording studio. It is about keeping the audience constantly in an environment that suits the theme of the film.
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