Born to be Mild from Aeon Video on Vimeo.
Andy Oxley’s “Born to Be Mild” provides plenty of identifiable examples of visual language for a documentary newbie like me. The 15-minute film is fun to view, and also funny because of Oxley’s five characters, all men who are proudly dull, and anything but ordinary.
I viewed seven or eight different short documentaries for this assignment, but I knew from the get-go the first film would be my subject. Between the montages, shot compositions, interview techniques, voiceover narration, music, ambient sound and more, Oxley and crew made it difficult for me to choose what to explore and blog about.
One thing I found in common with all five characters: Oxley places them in shots symbolic to their hobbies during their indirect interview. The man (at 6:35) who collects thousands of milk bottles – but he doesn’t drink the baby nourishment – is placed in front of his collection site. Another man (at 9:09) who collects bricks. In the shot, he sits in his garden where he describes how his collection has frustrated his wife.
Peter Willis is a Dull Man of the Year nominee for the Dull Men’s Club, and my favorite character. He’s interviewed (at 4:31) while sitting on a chair in the lower left third a wide shot on a grassy lot by a street. A sharp red mailbox in the distant right upper third of the frame next to a tree.
Oxley introduces Willis (beginning at 3:45) first with tight shots of his sandals and socks before a montage of medium shots that show the dull man taking photographs of red British mail boxes. Meanwhile the viewer hears music reminiscent of what you may hear in an old-school elevator.
His mission in life: get a snapshot of every single unique letter box. But he acknowledges he’s taken only about 2,500 photographs of the roughly 115,000. However, he’s a proud, card carrying member of the Letter Box Study Group, and membership has its privileges.
To accentuate that membership, Oxley creates (at 5:00) a very tight shot of Willis’ hand holding his one-year membership card. The card awards him access to the club’s database of all mail box locations.
“With the help of my son,” Willis says, “I have been able to get those references into my GPS unit, and we set it so it would give me an alarm, a little ding-a-ling warning, when I approach a post box.”
Meanwhile the viewer sees a montage of shots, including tight shot of the side Willis head inside moving car while he hunts for his prey. Another close-up of his GPS unit in the console of his car confirms to the viewer of the device’s importance.
“I rarely leave home without it,” he says with his eyes closed in a tight shot of his head with a blurry red mailbox in the background.
The overall message Oxley delivers is that these men enjoy the very slow and non-complicated aspects of life. Forget cell phones, fancy cars, traveling to exotic places and overall busy lives, Dull Men’s Club members say.
“I like to take in as much of where I’m going or what’s in front of me as I can,” Willis said.
Is the Dull Men’s Club a movement?
“No,” said one of the characters. “It’s not a movement. We like to stay put.”
Tony Hernandez
MMJ Foundations