ABSTRACT
The participants in documentary filming, both crew and subjects, shape their behaviour in relation to an imagined eventual audience. They will have differing notions of how that eventual audience will perceive the documentary encounter, but their imagination of what that audience will be is a considerable consideration in the framing of their actions. They will be framing their actions in relation to an absent third party in the exchange, and will be engaged, to varying extents, in attempts at communication with that imagined eventual viewer. So during filming, both subjects and filmmakers have an imaginary film in their minds, the thing that will result from their present filming activity. Sometimes this is a clear and shared concept; sometimes two radically different visions can exist; sometimes one or both parties lose sight of their imagined eventual film to some extent because the immediate events being filmed become overwhelming. In the case of The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off (see box p. 65), it is clear that both the director, Patrick Collerton, and his subject, Jonny Kennedy, shared a clear vision of the film they were making and of its purpose. In the case of Rough Aunties (see box p. 75), it is equally clear that the relationship of trust built up by Kim Longinotto with her subjects led them to have few concerns about Longinotto's eventual film. To a significant extent, Longinotto enables them to ‘ignore the camera’, or rather to ignore any anxieties they might have about the eventual film. Instead, they concentrate on dealing with the traumatic events that took place during the filming.
