This is a review of the actual documentary, not the extras with all the great lectures.
The essential problem with this documentary on TED (a powerful, though provoking conference) is that the creator and host, Daphne Zuniga, doesn't have any motive.
Which brings me to the most glaring problem: Daphne Zuniga. She is the aimless force behind this stuttering, unfocused mess. She is the mildly accomplished Hollywood television actress from a string of impactful and provocative series and films such as "One Tree Hill", "Beautiful People", and of course who could forget "The Fly 2". And yet, her resume is not the issue. She is the equivalent of a wealthy, culturally bankrupt American traveling through Africa in the 1950's trying to understand the native's ways: The TED Talks are all so alien to her and she, frankly, just doesn't work on the same level as these people - so she is unable to really relate or spark any interesting conversations whatsoever. Because of this, her interludes consisting of interviews with incredibly interesting people end up being frustratingly boring. Although some of those being interviewed are so revved up on all the amazing ideas that they spit out a bunch of really interesting stuff anyway, but it is clear that Daphne doesn't know what to ask them. It's on par with a nightly news anchor interviewing a brilliant Genetical Engineer about "Why Science Is SOOO Fun!". Something along the lines of:
DAPHNE - "So Al Gore, are you liking the conference?!" AL - "Uh... yes of course, it's amazing that we can all get together and share powerful ideas with one another and by doing so, literally change the world." DAPHNE - "Nice! Yeah, it's great isn't it! What a wonderful thing! UhMuhGawd Right?!"
Along with the interviews, she wastes valuable time with many completely useless narrations and voice-overs that consist of her kindergarten insights and feelings about the conference. Often they are filmed on an actual set with lighting: the whole nine yards. Just Daphne Zuniga sitting in a chair talking to us about her experience. Are you that vain? Put it in the bonus features and make more time for the grown ups to talk.
For example: A theoretical physicist is considering fairly basic ideas regarding the possibilities of dimensionality, and our narrator literally cuts her off mid sentence to tell us "Okay, so it's not that easy to follow, but don't you just love that somebody knows what's going on the universe?!" - Is that a joke? Why are you telling us this? Is this an infomercial for TED, trying to sell it to people who don't want to hear words with more than two syllables, like "Dimension"? Are you just video blogging your thoughts about the conference hoping that someone might actually be interested in your feelings about TED Talks? Do you think anyone actually cares about how you felt about the TED conference?
I ask all of this because this movie costs money. Money they clearly didn't make back because it got no release nationally or world-wide. I can bet that if they organized a sectional documentary on these lectures it would have had a much bigger release. If you downloaded or bought this documentary, there is a strong possibility you are aware of the TED Talks, so why are you stuck listening to someone documenting her experience? This is filmmaking 101, kids. Know your audience. No wonder no one has seen, or cares to talk about this documentary (as important as the lectures are). Because there is absolutely no audience out there who are asking themselves: "I wonder what Daphne Zuniga from 'One Tree Hill' thinks about Theoretical Physics??"
Granted, a moderate amount of time is given to some of the interesting lectures, which you can find in the extras, but because she places the clips in at random and with absolutely no reasoning, we feel disjointed and uninterested. The lack of interest also stems from the fact that we don't see their topics and theories develop, only snippets in the middle of them. I didn't even know what a lot of them were about in the midst of the documentary.
There are some basic film grammar mistakes that make it much worse than it should be. We often don't hear what question she is asking people but get the answers. And there is no beginning, middle or end, just a chronicling of the events as they went along. Just because there was a beginning, middle and end to the conference doesn't mean that you can put that stuff in (very) loose chronological order and call it a day. We need to feel impacted. You need to use the format to express ideas and show us things in the confines of structure and purpose.
One shot sums up the entire experience of the documentary. It is a shot after one of the lectures is over when Daphne Zuniga walks out (her camera man waits for her to exit from the lecture hall) and she wipes off the imaginary sweat from her brow and lets out an indicative "Whew!" - or something along those lines. Every other person is walking out in deep thought, or conversing energetically with others, but our Daphne is just worn out from all those big words and ideas.
The essential problem with this documentary on TED (a powerful, though provoking conference) is that the creator and host, Daphne Zuniga, doesn't have any motive.
Which brings me to the most glaring problem: Daphne Zuniga. She is the aimless force behind this stuttering, unfocused mess. She is the mildly accomplished Hollywood television actress from a string of impactful and provocative series and films such as "One Tree Hill", "Beautiful People", and of course who could forget "The Fly 2". And yet, her resume is not the issue. She is the equivalent of a wealthy, culturally bankrupt American traveling through Africa in the 1950's trying to understand the native's ways: The TED Talks are all so alien to her and she, frankly, just doesn't work on the same level as these people - so she is unable to really relate or spark any interesting conversations whatsoever. Because of this, her interludes consisting of interviews with incredibly interesting people end up being frustratingly boring. Although some of those being interviewed are so revved up on all the amazing ideas that they spit out a bunch of really interesting stuff anyway, but it is clear that Daphne doesn't know what to ask them. It's on par with a nightly news anchor interviewing a brilliant Genetical Engineer about "Why Science Is SOOO Fun!". Something along the lines of:
DAPHNE - "So Al Gore, are you liking the conference?!" AL - "Uh... yes of course, it's amazing that we can all get together and share powerful ideas with one another and by doing so, literally change the world." DAPHNE - "Nice! Yeah, it's great isn't it! What a wonderful thing! UhMuhGawd Right?!"
Along with the interviews, she wastes valuable time with many completely useless narrations and voice-overs that consist of her kindergarten insights and feelings about the conference. Often they are filmed on an actual set with lighting: the whole nine yards. Just Daphne Zuniga sitting in a chair talking to us about her experience. Are you that vain? Put it in the bonus features and make more time for the grown ups to talk.
For example: A theoretical physicist is considering fairly basic ideas regarding the possibilities of dimensionality, and our narrator literally cuts her off mid sentence to tell us "Okay, so it's not that easy to follow, but don't you just love that somebody knows what's going on the universe?!" - Is that a joke? Why are you telling us this? Is this an infomercial for TED, trying to sell it to people who don't want to hear words with more than two syllables, like "Dimension"? Are you just video blogging your thoughts about the conference hoping that someone might actually be interested in your feelings about TED Talks? Do you think anyone actually cares about how you felt about the TED conference?
I ask all of this because this movie costs money. Money they clearly didn't make back because it got no release nationally or world-wide. I can bet that if they organized a sectional documentary on these lectures it would have had a much bigger release. If you downloaded or bought this documentary, there is a strong possibility you are aware of the TED Talks, so why are you stuck listening to someone documenting her experience? This is filmmaking 101, kids. Know your audience. No wonder no one has seen, or cares to talk about this documentary (as important as the lectures are). Because there is absolutely no audience out there who are asking themselves: "I wonder what Daphne Zuniga from 'One Tree Hill' thinks about Theoretical Physics??"
Granted, a moderate amount of time is given to some of the interesting lectures, which you can find in the extras, but because she places the clips in at random and with absolutely no reasoning, we feel disjointed and uninterested. The lack of interest also stems from the fact that we don't see their topics and theories develop, only snippets in the middle of them. I didn't even know what a lot of them were about in the midst of the documentary.
There are some basic film grammar mistakes that make it much worse than it should be. We often don't hear what question she is asking people but get the answers. And there is no beginning, middle or end, just a chronicling of the events as they went along. Just because there was a beginning, middle and end to the conference doesn't mean that you can put that stuff in (very) loose chronological order and call it a day. We need to feel impacted. You need to use the format to express ideas and show us things in the confines of structure and purpose.
One shot sums up the entire experience of the documentary. It is a shot after one of the lectures is over when Daphne Zuniga walks out (her camera man waits for her to exit from the lecture hall) and she wipes off the imaginary sweat from her brow and lets out an indicative "Whew!" - or something along those lines. Every other person is walking out in deep thought, or conversing energetically with others, but our Daphne is just worn out from all those big words and ideas.