Soda And His 10 Commandments (blog 4)

When Soda worked as a documentary director he felt that the documentaries were not raw enough. He’d had to write scripts for them, direct them, have pre interviews, research and come up with question. He also thought the titles, music and editing were too imposive. He also talked about the meaning the word “observation” carries for him. He said, to him, observation is not about watching and listening as the third party; rather, about listening and looking closely/attentively. I wasn’t exactly sure what he meant by that but what I got was, it’s about being on the receiving end or being the second person in a conversation. With all those in mind, he came up with his 10 commandments which he joked had a religious ring to it and he’d, indeed, follow them “religiously”.

Soda’s 10 commandments:

1. No research

2. No meetings with subjects

3. No scripts

4. Roll the camera yourself

5. Shoot for as long as possible

6. Cover small areas deeply

7. Do not set up a theme or goal before editing

8. No narration, superimposed titles, or music

9. Use long takes

10. Pay for the production yourself

By creating the 10 commandments, Soda believes he’s able to maintain integrity and deliver raw, neutral documentaries. For example, by covering small areas, he was able to come upon the story that we watched and by doing long takes he got to give the audience the authentic first hand experience, by not conducting pre-interviews or doing research he the took out the element of leading questions.

I’d use most of these commandments for myself because I like the idea of producing non-imposive documentaries.