During my paper, I wrote about the absence of identity and how the filmmaker never actually states what the diver is doing. This element of not being straight forward about the mission of the diver keeps the audience guessing and grabs their attention to figuring out what this video is all about. However, during this section of the film, is the first and only time that the viewers get a glimpse into the heart heavy task that the diver is carrying out. Once the audience sees this scene they are being pulled by the element of pathos, in a way that everyone can connect to in some way. The reason for this is because during this part of the film the audience sees the diver retrieving another fellow diver and bring them up from the bottom of the ice. After this scene, the audience can start connecting what the rest of the Op-Doc has been showing and the directors statement. When the viewers see that they’re retrieving a deceased diver the information in her director’s statement about “the grave” and “the object” starts the become clear. Also, there is some clarity for the first scene shown of the ice when there were two objects below the ice and the audience is trying to figure out what these objects were as if the director was foreshadowing what was to come.

The image above represents the activity we did in class that made us break down the Op-Doc in a way that we had to answer three questions. The questions were How,Why, and So what. This meant  how did the director carry out their message, Why did they use that technique to do so, and so what did that do for the readers and the film. This activity helped me figure out a way of how to approach the assignment. Before we looked at how to break down the video with these three questions and take it deeper I had no clue of the direction I wanted to take this project. Once I was able to answer the questions about the whole video I then could answer these three questions about more specific parts of the film such as the visuals, sounds, and in my case the absence of certain elements. With having the three questions in mind I also could create my main idea and they became the bases of development for my whole paper. Since I completed this task I was able to see what I was going to focus on throughout my analyze.

I chose this image of people with no faces and an empty chair becuase this shows the absence of idenity and language. My thesis for this paper discussed the absence of idenity and the use of visuals and sounds that heightened the intensity of not knowing what is it that the director is filming. The people in this picture have no faces/heads which means they have no idenity and the empty chair symbolizes the absence that I discussed within my thesis. The director also never used dialog in the film, which become unnesscary by the visuals and angles she used within the film. The picture above displays this with not having a face.

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