Blog #4 - Kazuhiro Soda

During our guest lecture with documentary filmmaker Kazuhiro Soda I found his rules or commandments to be a bit puzzling. As someone myself who is very structured in their approach to creating content (note that I’m former military so, structure is important to me) I found the discussion to be quite the opposite in terms of the material covered in this class, but also while I’m following along with my current Developing the Documentary class where research, universal themes and pre-interviews with main characters or experts is important prior to even picking up a camera and filming. Clearly, Kazuhiro is more of an experimental or as he calls himself an “observational” filmmaker and the rules that he’s developed over the years have made it easier for him to not be restricted in telling his stories.

I am also one who appreciates different genres of filmmaking especially “the fly on the wall” cinema verite style of certain documentaries. And, with those films, I feel it’s important to at least find a common interest or theme to a project so, it was a bit stressful to hear that one of Soda’s methods is not to come up with a theme during the principal photography, but during the post-production/editing phase of his films.

In the end, the film he screened for us “Peace” worked out with its message of coexistence. And, I especially was more engaged and focused in the storyline of Mr. Shiro Hashimoto, the elderly World War II veteran. Again, every filmmaker is different in their own style and approach, and every filmmaker has a genre or niche audience that favors that style so, it was interesting that there are different models and practices to follow along to when creating your own content.