dbcinema_wk6.doc

big questions:

WHAT IS THE LINE BETWEEN DOCUMENTARY AND ART FILM?
HOW DO COMMONWEALTH DOCUMENTARIES AND ATHAMAREISE FICTION FILMS INFLUENCE ON ANOTHER?

faceless, silent except for music or sometimes narration, "exquisitely boring"
pok: like the kind where your instructor brings out one of those big wheely-cart consoles when she's sick? / mmq: yes exactly (NOTE TO SHESS: you'd think that with how hard pok goes at rec nights he'd realise that those movies only get brought out when the instructor is hungover lol)

let's define 'documentary:' a genre of nonfiction filmmaking which shapes +/ interprets factual material abt a subject

usually we say 'maza', and it means a witch (or 'mazo', if she is a woman)
technically word is athmaza (spell-maker) and maz is just a spell but like... context clues
(NOTE TO SHESS: wait does that mean athmuranar i zhas literally named himself 'wealth-maker'?? that's SO funny. what a power move.)
word order matters → athrevetha = executioner, reveth-ath = execution (lit. corpse*-making), reveth-atha = guillotine. athmaza = witch, maz-ath = spell-making?, maz-atha = magical focus/spell components, etc
*"rightful and righteously created corpse", technically; 6 different words for death in ethuverazhin

easy way to tell if manufacturing documentary is documentary or advertisement is if the title is just (object)-making or it tries for a more eye catching title. (osmin michean and friends vs tea-making)

banning DISTRIBUTION of faced films rather than banning faced films ALTOGETHER has benefits, but also downfalls

ex. people are free to make faced films so long as they are not distributed, not true censorship but also yea functionally it's censorship just lighter
ex. those without religious/ otherwise faith-based objection to faced films are not made to feel they are being oppressed by those who do have those objections (on a broad scale; individual basis is not possible to judge precisely)
by elf standards(!) ehas7's decision is basically so centrist it risks failing to appease anyone

a risk appears: people have the equipment to make faced films, but without a clear direction they might end up trying to replicate the caloperaneisei and just create an underground distribution system where ehas7 cannot see

He Does Not Want To Have To Try And See It. He Is Famously Not Excited About That Level Of Government Interference
explicitly criminalised enterprises more dangerous because they're underground; potential victims fear legal blowback if they seek assistance

pardoned for the execution photograph incident but cannot cross the athamareise border due to complications with athmuranar i's crackdown on """criminals""" from the commonwealth immigrating, even tho zhikarmened was born in amalo
surprisingly, does not leave cetho (city where the imperial palace is). instead gets immediately to documenting the conditions of manufactories

if he makes it clear that he is doing this to demonstrate poor working conditions, no one will let him into their manufactory. so instead he documents the process of manufacturing specific goods + promises to thank the manufactories in the end credits
manufactories which his teams note as specifically dire are investigated, but investigation is not tied to documentary, and not all manufactories end up getting investigated

though living in cetho, z still considers himself an amaleisa. once pardoned, he writes to longtime friend p-t for information about state of amaleise film industry

these letters continue for the rest of their lives! p-t's films cannot make it into the commonwealth and z's simply don't make it into amalo until right before p-t's death in 9 ehas9 (!), but they can describe the landscape to one another
we have (most of) these letters and we do know that they traded information
most influential figures in early elven cinema "an oddly incestuous bunch" - zhikarmened apparently ends up on ehas7's payroll and highly trusted, and anti-film advocate thara celehar (ehas7's best friend) independently knew p-t and THEY had a lifelong correspondence. keep your friends close and your enemies closer?
(NOTE TO SHESS wait i went on your friend from celvaz's blog after you gave it to me and saw a lengthy post about how p-t like wrote his final film about celehar and how they were like. lovers? or something? is that just a rpf thing? i know celehar is your friend's fave haha)

p-t develops special effects method involving partial mirrors, now known as the 'zhikarmened process' after z popularised it. basically a mirror is used to reflect one image while the subjects are filmed through a glass insert in the mirror, making it look like the subjects are inside the reflected image.
zhikarmened introduces p-t to animator's ink that can be painted directly onto the cel. z mostly used it for subtitles/bringing the viewer's attention to small details/last minute edits. p-t takes advantage of this for special effects, esp. mazwork, and builds on the visual language established by the ink's use in documentary (mmq: we'll get into metakino in a few weeks, just you wait)