Introduction:

The goal for this week was to study the documentary Time, and consider how the characters might translate from a factual representation into a fictional context. I decided to keep my initial notes as a part of my submission to help expand on my conclusions and to show what I was thinking when I watched the documentary.

 

Fiction from Documentary: Characters and Story – Time

 

General notes:

• A Character fights against an unjust world.
• They are part of a persecuted minority.
• The character made a mistake. (Robbed bank)
• She is fighting against the system.
• It’s a fight for justice.
• A fight for family, so that the children will be able to grow up with their father.
• It’s a woman fighting to hold her family together through difficult times.
• Religion and community play a part in helping her persevere.
• Her son went into political science to help her.

 

The characters’ main struggle is shown through a series of observational type pieces combined with to-camera speeches/rants, lectures to students and interested parties and voice over. In Time there are not many major revelations bar the ending, we know the status quo. Most of the character development in Time appears to come from reactions. We are told some of the issues she faces when trying to get her husband resentenced. This is where the conflict appears and it becomes a fight against the system.

Growth is somewhat tricky to track as the documentary shows footage from different parts of her life out of order and while her character talks about learning it is difficult to determine how her attitude and outlook change. We learn the most about the character from the mix of voice over and speeches.

It is quite easy to tell how this story would play out as a fictional drama. It would start with the bank robbery and sentencing and then develop into a pretty standard legal drama that ends up spanning two decades. We would see snippets of the family’s troubles as she keeps trying to force a re-sentencing and the story would build-up to the final part when the father is finally released from the penitentiary and gets to be with his family.

 

Conclusion:

My bullet-point notes are what I observed and thought about when watching the documentary. I think having them there to compare to my conclusions helps show how my thinking progressed from observations to analysis. I believe that I successfully managed to identify the elements of this documentary that could be used to inform and or create a fictional character and situation and how the documentary could play as a fictional piece.