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BLACK FISH

                (2013)

   Black Fish, made in 2013 is a killer whale captivity documentary. The movie focus's primarily the issue revolving around SeaWorld.  The documentary first grabs you by putting in the 911 call, creating the intensity and just setting the scene for us about what the rest of the movie will be like. This film was made because of the most recent killer whale incident involving Dawn Brancheau. Dawn was a killer whale trainer who in 2010 was killed in while in the water with the whale. The documentary continues to go on into detail that OSHA lawsuit was filed stating that trainers should not be going into the water with the whales because of unpredictable acts.We later are showed more perspective of how the whales are captured causing the viewer of the film to feel much emotion watching the workers rip the pods of  whales apart. Hearing them cry out to the youngest who are primarily taken by the organizations. 

   I think the most interesting scenes in this documentary is that they were able to put in the real videos of the whales attacking the trainers. Not necessarily killing them, but pulling them under water. This to me brought my full attention to the film connecting me to the issue of what captivity does to animals like this. However, these clips are hard to watch, without them we would be left imagining these events not understanding the complete conflict.  The hardest scene for me to watch was actual footage of a trainer in the 80's having his foot in a whales mouth being dragged up and down from the bottom of the tank to the top, over and over. The trainer ended up surviving this event, but just barely. 

   Moving onto more cinematic views of the film, the interviews of former trainers, former directors, and CEO's all resembled footage how a 7D would film. I have been playing around with 7D's this week and adjusting the blur and focus. The shots includes the rule of thirds, changing the range of distance a lot of the time. I like how blurred out the background of the interviews were because it looked very clean cut and easier to focus on the speaker.  There was no "narrator" in this film, all of the B-roll was covered by the trainers being interviewed which I thought gave a more fascinating view for the film. 

   Overall, I really enjoyed watching this film. Not taking into consideration Orca Whales are some of my favorite mammals, but how easy it was to attached during this film. It made me feel passionate for the issue of whales in captivity and I am sure other viewers feel the same way. I was aware of this issue, but seeing actual footage of how crazy these animals are driven realistically makes me connect to the tragedies. It was very easy to get sucked into the stories of all these trainers and whales. I would definitely recommend this documentary to anyone who is interested in the ocean, and animals in captivity. 

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