top of page
CREATIVE PROCESS
First Steps
When the assignment of creating a documentary was first explored during the seminars, many students had no idea what they wanted theirs to be on. I was one of those, and spent hours drafting ideas and exploring my mind, trying to find something that stood out as truly important to me. I felt like I was at a turning point in my life, where I was only just figuring out the difference between things I felt like I had to do, and things I truly wanted to do. So, when I looked back over my experiences and tried to decide what I wanted to create a documentary about, most things that came up fell into a grey area of indecisiveness.
I decided to come at this task from a new angle. I looked outside myself and towards documentaries I had watched that stood out for me, and why I felt that way about them. The three main documentaries that came to mind were Earthlings, Cowspiracy and Dominion (trailer). I realised that this was because they addressed a topic that I was growing to care about more and more; the industry of animal agriculture. These documentaries had a strong impact on me because I could either relate to the narrator, or because the footage and sound combined were extremely powerful and emotionally evocative. This is when I decided that my documentary would be on this topic, too.
Although I had just gone vegan in December as part of my dissertation research, I had never engaged with it further than the diet change. I had never been to an activist event, I had never knowingly been close to a slaughterhouse, and although I had grown up in the countryside, the only livestock I had spent time with were horses, cows and chickens. Over the last few months I had seen an increasing amount of animal rights activism taking place in my area on 'facebook events'. I thought to myself that if I was ever going to do a documentary exploring the anthropological side of veganism, then I would almost certainly have to film one of these events.
The Event
Deciding the particular event was challenging. Initially and without much thought, I assumed that I would be filming multiple activist events and compiling the information into one narrative. This thought was in the back of my mind until filming my first event, when I realised that I would not capture the emotion and essence of the slaughterhouse vigil if it were mixed with others.
I had chosen between two main events: A slaughterhouse vigil or a Cube of Truth. Slaughterhouse vigils are part of a larger organisation called The Save Movement. The Save Movement is split into hundreds of Chapters around the world, as members of the public can create their own 'saves', for example The Essex Pig Save. A save chapter contains a group of activists that attend a particular slaughterhouse in their area in order to bear witness to animals arriving in trucks. They have particular arrangements with the slaughterhouse owners, truck drivers and police in order access the animals. It is often the case that the police will stop the trucks for 2 minutes while activists take footage, comfort, or give water to the animals in the trucks. The intention behind this form of activism is to spread awareness about the sentience of animals, the nature of slaughterhouses and the condition of animals sent to slaughter.
The second event was The Cube of Truth. The Cube of Truth is part of a larger movement called Anonymous for the Voiceless, and similarly to the saves, there are numerous chapters around the world for this form of activism. The Cube of Truth is an event where activists stand in a public place, for example Canterbury City Center, in a cube formation facing outwards. They wear masks to demonstrate that they are anonymous for the voiceless (animals), and hold laptops or tablets that play slaughterhouse footage on a loop. A small group of activists will then engage with outreach, whereby they will talk and inform members of the public that approach them. This form of activism intends to show the public what is involved in meat production, the reality of 'humane slaughter' and provide information on what can be done to help.
I chose to film the slaughterhouse vigils because I found that by having the animals present, it had a prominent impact on the emotive side of the footage. Although I would have liked to film discussion between activists and the public, I felt that mixing this footage with slaughterhouse footage in such a short documentary would have diluted the intensity of each event.
Seminar Input
Once I knew the focus of my documentary, seminars aimed at giving feedback were extremely helpful. After first expressing my ideas to my peers, I felt a little uneasy. My documentary idea seemed to give off controversial and almost confrontational vibes. I'm not sure if this was due to the reaction of peers or my own self-conscious thoughts, but by me saying I wanted to do a documentary on slaughterhouses, I was worried that I was indirectly challenging others ethical standpoint on meat-eating. I wanted people to engage with my documentary rather than turn away from it because they felt it was confrontational. This worry was in the back of my mind throughout the entire production of the documentary, but it would eventually lead to the final style of narrative (see last sections).
Symbolic Camera
I created my symbolic camera with a surprising free-flow of creativity without much conscious thought. Although the lack of thought probably sounds bad, the finished product provides interesting insights into my finished documentary. As I was creating the camera, I already knew I wanted to call the documentary Glass Walls. The name resembles a change in knowledge, from a metaphorical opaque wall to a transparent glass wall. It also represents a phrase I heard a few months prior, "if all slaughterhouses had glass walls, the majority of the world would be vegan". To symbolise this, the lense of the camera (being the main vehicle of insight for the photographer and the images seen by viewers) was made from a transparent plastic cup. The 'walls' of the cup were then smeared with red paint, representing the nature and brutality of the industry. The body of the camera was made from a box covered in a real fur glove that I had been gifted as a child. Projecting from the shutter button area was a birds feather. I wanted to show that these items don't provoke much thought in day-to-day life, as so much of our material goods are made from animal products. It only becomes not normal when we are shown where it came from, which is when most people feel the urge to look away. To subtly hint this message, I used a photo of a happy family eating dinner as the flip out LCD screen. Then, I used a photo of a pigs eye that was taken through a slat of a slaughterhouse truck as the LCD screen underneath. A photo of a cow and dog divided face was used as the viewfinder screen to show that they have the same level of sentience, but we care for one and mass-slaughter the other.
One of the seminar exercises required us to interview people using our symbolic camera as a point of interest. I asked two people I had never met before "what do you think this camera represents?". One person said it represents all the ways in which we exploit animals, which was very close to my mindset whilst creating it. The other took a different view of the camera, and said that it appears safe and soft on the outside, but there is something about the hard edges of the lense (plastic) that create a sense of unease and danger. I thought this perception was very interesting, and later integrated it into the film-making process by creating a relatable and safe narrative, combined with harsh imagery.
bottom of page