Figure 2.8a,b Like the
changed since then, and few folks would make this kind of movie today, but at the time intellectuals ate this stuff up. Now, you have to remember this guy was a soundman, so it’s understandable that his focus should be on what people say. Indeed, the film was little more than a series of talking heads, consisting mostly of out-of-touch university professors and fellow radicals. In one scene in front of an auto plant in the Midwest, a union foreman roundly lamented his low wages: “Capitalism is all about f—-ing the working man!” he proclaimed. Not surprisingly, the message and film played well in the Soviet Union where officials were eager to broadcast it on state television. The show when it finally aired drew a large appreciative audience much to the delight of government apparatchiks and the filmmaker, but not for the reason they imagined. In the scene featuring the union foreman, the labor leader came across as compelling in his tone and choice of words. His remarks sounded sincere. But Soviet TV audiences were focused on something else. Something visual. In the background of this scene filmed at the entrance to the auto plant, Soviet viewers could glimpse a section of the parking lot where the workers’ cars were parked. This was unfathomable to Soviet viewers at the time—that workers at a car plant could actually own the cars they assembled. To Russian audiences, the workers’ parking lot in the background, full of late model vehicles, told the real story—in direct contradiction to what the union foreman was so eloquently articulating. The DV Storyteller
clatter of a city subway, visual noise can be just as deafening, as evident in the cluttered LA streetscape above. In framing a scene, the DV shooter must first identify, then exclude the extraneous elements that can undermine clear and effective storytelling.
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