Analysis of Observational Documentary: Dougie Wallace: What do artists do all day?

Dougie Wallace: What do artists do all day by Jack Cocker is a wild and visceral ride through the mind and work ethic of photographer, Dougie Wallace. At first glance Dougie just seems like an average normal guy but as soon as the following few seconds of the opening of the documentary progresses, that opinion is gone within a flash. As we see Dougie rise up from bed, completely naked and heading into his living room to get ready to take to the streets. Dougie has a very different and ethically questionable technique of getting the photographs and art that he wants; he’ll go up to random people on the street and stick his big DSLR camera in their faces and snap up a picture. Some may laugh, some may just give him a weird look and move on or some will become hostile and try to attack and destroy Dougie’s cameras.

Dougie reminds me in particular of street artist and documentary filmmaker Thierry Guetta who was the focus of the 2010 documentary “Exit Through the Gift Shop”, a man who will stop at nothing to get exactly what he wants in the name of the art he pursues. In contrast to Thierry though, Dougie seems to take art less seriously in that he isn’t trying to make something highly provocative. He’s really just doing it because he finds what he’s doing funny and amusing. He is told mostly more by the people around him that his art is fantastic and clever.

Director Jack Cocker uses very interesting techniques to invite us into the world of Dougie, two Go-Pro action Cameras are placed on Dougie’s Camera and one on what seems to be his arm, whilst Cocker follows behind with what seems to be a DSLR attached to a gimble. This all adds on to the insane feeling of hustle and bustle that comes with Dougie’s way of working, it’s chaotic and unpredictable. It reminded me of Ceri Levy’s 2008 Music Documentary “Bananaz”, a film which really takes use of Guerrilla filmmaking techniques to capture artists at their most frantic and capture their hectic and wild lifestyle.

This all takes place in a big buzzing and busy city and we then move to London which still shows Cocker making use of some Guerrilla techniques but mostly just handheld camera shots. In fact, things become even more slowed down when Dougie goes to Blackpool to revisit places from an older project he worked on, this makes sense as Dougie becomes more reflective and relaxed in this part. Maybe almost overwhelmed with the surroundings of drunken parties in Blackpool. It seems that he could be feeling overwhelmed like this which just goes to further how crazy and insane the area is that a man like Dougie finds it draining.

Dougie then meets with the person who is going to put his book for his new project together and everything becomes more of a traditional regular documentary for a minute, we get opinions from other people on Dougie, they talk about the art and how Dougie feels about it. It’s a nice way to close things and sort of symbolises a subliminal journey in that Dougie started off the journey of this project in his usual chaotic work frame, but then came back down to earth for the normal everyday part of things.

In relation to our documentary, I will be taking inspiration from how the camera is used to capture the hecticness of ones chosen form of artistic expression, used in the case of Zoe Harisis, a dance teacher. I feel this will fully capture the world of dance she lived in Pre-lockdown.

Bibliography:

Bananaz (2008) Dir. Ceri Levy

Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010) Dir. Banksy