Music-Thanatology: Songs for the Soul - ID# 140
Glenbrook South
Documentary
Entry Description
A documentary highlighting the professional field of Music-Thanatology and the peaceful and serene effects it has on its patients. Music-Thanatologists play harp with vocal accompaniment for patients in hospice care providing a therapeutic, emotional, physical, and spiritual experience at the end of life.
Copyright Info
Recent Teacher Comments
- 4/22 8:51 pm - KEEPERS: This was a beautifully done documentary. Phenomenal job to all. Music is such and important part of so many lives and I honestly never knew it could be used in such a cathartic way to aid end of life care. The mature and delicate way you handled this story is really impressive. Excellent production value in terms of the cinematography and sound design. The original score was also powerful. The pacing of your edit was perfect. Truly inspired work. IMPROVEMENTS: As much as I thought the collection of nature-driven broll was appropriate, I wonder if you could have made the broll a bit more personal to each person who interviewed for the story. By this, I mean, could I have see some shots of the woman grieving looking reflectively within that beautiful outdoor environment? Could I have seen the two thanatologists playing together in a wide shot, rehearsing perhaps? Caring for their instruments? I think this might have hellped a bit and freshened the look a bit for the broll. As powerful as the original score is, could you have asked for 1-2 more songs and layered them to matche the different story beats? All in all this was a very moving documentary and you should all be very proud of it. Keep telling stories!
Judge 1
Positives: -Great way of dodging the limitations around end filming a difficult subject to film -Color grade was impressive as well as framing in the cinematography -Very interesting topic
Improvements: -for the next step, try to incorporate some sound design such as sound effects timed to visual effects -personally not a big fan of the structure of the opening, emotional pull at the beginning followed up by "my name is" is cliche, no one cares what his name is yet. this is an emotional story and you should play into that more by keeping it more abstract
Judge 2
Positives: Its a beautifully lensed documentary. I can tell time was taking into the composition. Rule of threes. The pastel color palette. Everything is tastefully paired, dignified. I felt at ease watching this. wasn't hard to get through because of subject matter. That sensibility can be really helpfully, because often it's employable.
Improvements: A little backstory wold be helpful, but I can also respect your choice in leaving something like that out. The editing also felt a little lengthy, but also, I can tell if that was a style choice as well. Otherwise great job! This is not constructive nor positive, its just observational: this is what would be considered an ethnographic approach to documentary sorry telling. There is no sensationalism. Your are delving more into the document, itself, than the emotional feeling generated by the images. Keep exploring!
Judge 3
Positives: I liked how the story was presented and edited. The pieces of the interviews fit well and came to a good conclusion. The harp playing in the background throughout was nice. Interesting topic to learn about.
Improvements: A few shaky shots.
Judge 4
Positives:
Improvements:
Judge 5
Positives:
Improvements: