Conclusion

Conclusion 

Now my group and I have finished our documentary, this post will evaluate and conclude our final project that we created. The documentary I have created explores themes that I have never looked at before and although I have created short films before, I have never created a non-fiction documentary. This meant that researching into themes was important as I had no previous experience or ideas. Choosing to base our documentary on international students at university turned out to be successful as it looks at an issue that not many British students would normally think about. Also, the fact that our target audience was also students was useful as it meant we could relate to how we were making it. 

One of my favourite moments of the documentary is the opening as we portray the location and settings with establishing shots of the University of Sussex. These panning shots work well with the non-diegetic background music and voice over. 

The fact that the three interviewees then introduce themselves portrays to the audience who the main speakers will be. It also makes it seem more catchy, as in our rough cut there is a lot of diegetic dialogue from the interviewees, which means it is harder for the audience to follow what they are saying.

Another part I find interesting is the screenshots of newspaper headlines that relate to Brexit. I really like this bit as originally we planning to film headlines from hard copies of newspapers and these would be black and white. Furthermore, the bright and bold headlines work really well as they draw the audiences attention to what they say. The final headline we display is this:

I believe this is really effective as the papers are moving apart from each other and this is the last one that appears in the middle. The fact that the papers are splitting apart links to the headline 'A Tragic Split', along with the tear in the centre. 

One thing I don't like is the non-diegetic background music as the acoustic piece is quite simple. It does go with the tone of the documentary, as it is neither to happy or sad - however, it is not how I imagined. If I were to improve on my documentary, I would change this as we ran out of time and were unable to compose our own piece. Doing this would have been ideal as we would have been able to get it exactly how we imagined. 

To conclude, I am happy with the overall mise en scene, editing, camera work and sound in our project; believe that we linked our documentary to the brief given successfully. However, if we had more time then there would still be some improvements to make. 

Editing #4

Editing #4

As we are nearing the deadline of our documentary, we spent today finishing off the edit and cleaning up any small bits that weren't right. Our edit has really come together now and we made sure there were no obvious jump cuts in the interviews that distract the audience. We hid these with cut aways on the university and interviewees in their everyday lives. 

We also added non-diegetic background music to the edit and we used a piece of royalty free music from YouTube. This acoustic guitar music goes with the tone of the documentary, as well as the pace of the panning shots. 

In terms of the credits, we used a plain black background with a white font as the simplicity matches our documentary. 

We included the film title, our names, and the interviewees who were involved in making of the documentary. This concludes the process of editing in the post production of our documentary 'Why England?'. 

Release Forms

 Release Forms 

Here are signed copies of release forms from the interviewees:

Editing #3

Editing #3

Since screening our rough cut and watching other groups documentaries, we decided to make some changes to our own. We noticed that other groups used a lot more interviewees in theirs than we did so we experimented with the different interviews we had and added in a new one. 

These are the three interviewees we have chosen to include in the final documentary. We have also changed the structure as now all the interviewees introduce themselves at the beginning and then go on to answer the questions after multiple cutaways. 

Screening Feedback

Screening Feedback 

Today we screened the rough cut of our documentary to a small group of 18-21 year olds in order to gain some feedback and ideas of how to develop the product. 

Here is the rough cut: 

As our product is unfinished we explained the music we were going to insert and that we were going to add a voice over to introduce the topics. We received some positive feedback on the interviews and the transitions weren't noticed due to the cut aways we used. People also liked the panning shots that the documentary starts off with. 

As we are unsure on what music to insert, it was suggested that we use some ukulele instrumental as non-diegetic background music as this will be more upbeat and neutral that piano music, which comes across more sad and dramatic. 

Fonts

Fonts 

In terms of fonts for our documentary, we want to use one that is simple for our main title as this introduces the film to the audience. I have been looking at sites that allow you to use fonts for free, including DaFont.com. I have found this font that I like and think looks effective with our film title, as well as in the credit of the documentary. 

Voice Over

Voice Over 

We have decided our voice over will be spoken by an international student in our group so that they can speak in first person about their experience at Sussex. They will go onto introduce the interviewees as students at Sussex and this will start the question of why they choose to study in England. 

Sound Research

Sound Research 

We have decided that in terms of sound in our documentary we are going to have non-diegetic instrumental music. This is because if the background music has lyrics, the audience will be distracted from what the interviewees are saying. I have been researching into royalty free sounds in order to find the perfect track for the documentary. One is called 'Energy' and the guitar music gets with our documentary, however it is quite fast paste so I will have to see how it works with the edit. 

Another piece I find interesting is called 'Memories' as this has a slower pace and matches the tone of the documentary. 

Moodboard

Moodboard 

As I want to get a better idea of how the final documentary will look I decided to create a moodpboard. This has allowed me to look at how the final shots will look and if we need to film any more to add. 

We have used establishing shots similar to these displayed above to portray the settings of the documentary to the audience. The interview screen grabs from Google above are similar to ours as we positioned the camera to the interviewee in a similar way to this. We also have them looking off to the side as this creates continuity and the shots will all flow in this direction. 

Editing #2

Editing #2

Now we have filmed the majority of our documentary, we have edited the cut away shots that introduce the documentary and establish the location. We have also edited one of the interviews with an international student. The interview starts with the student introducing himself whilst looking at the camera and then he goes on to answer the questions. We have edited in cut away shots of this students doing work to create more action in the documentary. 

This editing session was very successful as it allowed us to come up with a solid structure of the documentary and now we have a much better vision of how it will look at the end. When we next edit we are going to finish the interviews and then see if we need to film any more cut away shots. It is likely that we will need to do this as we want to fill some gaps in-between the interviews. We also may need to record a voice over to introduce the documentary. 

Voice Over Practice

Voice Over Practice 

As we are going to be using a voice over for our documentary, we decided it would be useful to get some practice in the voice booth so we can get an idea of the sound quality and how we would edit this with the non-diegetic soundtrack. For this task we were given a script, along with a video and a soundtrack. After we recorded the voice over, we edited this together of Premier Pro. Here is my final product:

If I were to improve on this task, I would turn the volume of the background music up as this appeared louder on the editing software, than watching it now. I feel like we cut the voice over clip to the right places of the clip as the voice over matches up with what comes on on screen. This task allowed us to practice editing a voice over with the clip as we will need to do this for our final documentary. 

Filming #3

Filming #3

Today we filmed three interviews for our documentary and these were with international students from China, Luxembourg, and Germany. We filmed them in each of their flats as they were happy for us to do this, and we also filmed cut away shots of them in their everyday lives. These included shots of one of them reading and one playing bear pong with flatmates. 

Filming these interviews was successful as each interviewee had interesting things to say about the topic and the different settings made it look more interesting. We will edit these interviews and cut aways during the week. 

Filming #2

Filming #2

Today we filmed some establishing shots of the university to use to introduce the location of the documentary. This included panning shots of the whole campus using a high angle, a time lapse of the main square in the university, and a shot of the main 'University of Sussex' sign. These were our plans for todays filming:

Filming these shots was successful and we are happy with the result of the quality and content. One particular shot I was very happy with was a shot that panned across to the 'University of Sussex' sign. We will start to edit these shots during the week, with the interviews that we are filming over the next couple of days. 

Contacting Interviewees

Contacting Interviewees

As we want to film more interviews for our documentary, I contacted the international student officers  in order to arrange an interview. 

We're hoping to receive a response so we are able to interview them as this is a big part of our documentary due to it introducing the topic.

Editing #1

Editing #1

Since filming an interview with the first international student in our documentary, we attempted to start the edit. However, we came across some problems in our footage and the sound quality was very fuzzy meaning the audience would be distracted from what the interviewee is saying. 

As we want our documentary to be high quality we have scheduled to re-film this interview during the week, this is because the content is still high quality so want to include this in our final product. 

Filming #1

Filming #1

Today we started the filming for our documentary and we chose to film an interview with an international student first. We thought this would be a good idea because it would allow us to look at what direction the documentary would go in, in terms of what the interviewees would discuss. 

We interviewed an international student from Brazil and I found this very successful as we asked the questions that were planned and he told us everything we wanted to hear in our documentary and more. He specifically discussed the effects of Brexit effectively in the way we want it to be portrayed in the documentary. We also filmed some cut away shots of him cooking in order to convey the fact that he is a student an university. 

Moving on from this, for our next filming day we are going to focus on establishing shots of the university, including a time lapse and a high angle shot of the campus. These are important shots for our documentary as they establish where the documentary is set at the beginning. We are also going to contact the international students office in order to try and get an interview with them. 

Story Boarding - Continued

Story Boarding - Continued 

Since previously starting to storyboard, we have now continued by sketching some ideas for the beginning of the documentary as we will film this during the week.

 Here are some sketches:

The beginning shots establish the location of the documentary as we are going to start by film the university and this will include a time lapse. We have then decided to interview someone working in the international students office to introduce the topic of the film. In these story boards we have also to include some cut away shots, such as a long shot of a student we are interviewing walking to their lecture. 

Practicing Editing - Adobe Premiere Pro

Practicing Editing - Adobe Premiere Pro

For this task I was given a set of clips that were all recorded to be edited together, along with some still images and audio clips. We needed to decide how we would edit the clips in a particular way to the audience to portray the message we wanted to. This task was really useful as it let me get to grips with basics on the software. I have never used the Premiere Pro software before so it is new to me, however I have previously used both IMovie and Final Cut Pro X therefore I know some basics that are similar. 

Here is the video my partner and I created:

Over all, I am happy with the overall video and my favourite part is the beginning as I like how the music kicks in at the particular point. This emphasises the start of the video and makes it seem upbeat. The music throughout the video as an empowering feel to it and this links to the topic of feminism. However, there is one cut towards the beginning where the shot changes as the speaker is talking and this makes it slightly jumpy. If I were to improve this video I would make the transitions smoother in-between the diegetic dialogue so they flow more and match the non-diegetic background music. In terms of the music, I would also lower the volume of this whilst she is speaking so that the viewer focuses more on what she is saying. 

To conclude, I thought this task was very helpful because it made me think more about the way I will be editing my interviews together in order to create continuity and a flowing documentary. 

Questions We Will Ask

Questions We Will Ask

As we are currently planning the filming process of our documentary, I started to think about questions we are going to ask the interviewees. This is important as we want the questions to be open enough that they know what to talk about, however not so open that they talk too much and about irrelevant subjects to our documentary. The questions need to framed in order to get the interviewees to talk about what we want them to talk about. 

Some questions to ask the students as sussex are : 

What did you choose England/ Sussex? (This is a good starting point as it references the documentary title)

Do you feel that the university has helped you settle in?

How do you feel about the cense of community? 

Have you joined any societies/ taken part in any international student trips? (This clip would be after the officer talks about what they provide)

How did Brexit effect you? - Did it have a negative impact? 

Some questions to ask the international students office members:

How many international students come to sussex? (we want the statistics of international students to be discussed)

How do you help new students that have travelled a long way? What do you provide?

Offer any trips/ events?

Shot List

Shot List 

As I have started to create a story board, I also decided to start a shot list in order to help plan where, how and when we are going to film particular shots. This shot list is unfinished and has gaps towards the end, however it has helped me get a better vision of how I want the final product to look like and what types of shots will be used. 

Story Boarding

Story Boarding 

As we are going to start filming soon I have started to storyboard some shots that we will be using. Here are some examples:

I will carry on creating more storyboards, however this start gives us an idea of how they shots will look and allows us to think further into the composition we will use. 

Screen Grammar - How we'll use it

Screen Grammar - How we'll use it 

Screen grammar covers decisions in filmmaking, which include the way you frame things in shot and how the film will look aesthetically. In our film we will use techniques like the rule of thirds to create a visual impact for the audience. Furthermore, in our interview shots we will be framing the subject on the right hand side and will match the vertical lines across their eyes, whereas the right horizontal line will be down the centre of their face. 

Something else we will be using is the 180 degrees rule and this is used to help continuity in films. It is when there is a line of axis and the camera should stay on one side of this line; it is very important whilst filming conversations. We will be using this in our documentary to keep the continuity flowing in a successful and effective way. 

We will also be using narrative devices in our documentary, as symbols have metaphors that connote information to the audience (sign= signifier + signified). In our documentary we will be using symbols such as cultural references to the interviewees country, for example if they have something relating to their culture in their flat that we will film this for a cute away shot during their interview. We are also planning to film a world map, or globe to relate to the international students office as this suggests to the audience that the university is culturally diverse and a friendly place. 

Communicating Techniques

Communicating Techniques 

Editing

In terms of editing, the majority will be continuity, however there will be elements of montage editing as we will busing cut away shots whilst the interviews are playing. For example, there will be shots of each interviewee doing what they would do in their day, for example going to a lecture. 

Camerawork 

To film the interviews themselves, we will be using mid-close up shots of the interviewees and these will be located in places such as their flat to make it more homely. Having their bedroom or kitchen the background makes it more personal and also portrays a more relaxed and informal environment to make them feel comfortable. 

Sound

 

The interviews will be diegetic dialogue, however we will also have non-diegetic music in the background and this will be something acoustic and calm. Furthermore, we found that interviews with no non-diegetic music seem quite uncomfortable as the silence is unnerving. The music will also get louder in the cut away shots when there is a break in the environment. 

Mise en Scene 

In terms of mine en scene, the interviewees will be wearing their everyday outfits, hair and makeup as it is a documentary and we want to portray as much realism as possible. We will be using natural soft lighting to also make it appear more natural and as a documentary style. Out interviews will be located around the university as our documentary is a portrait of the place. We will also be filming one interview in the international students office, to show the advisors everyday working environments. 

Initial Ideas - International students

‘WHY ENGLAND?’

We have decided to call our documentary on international students 'Why England?'. It is going to be an observational documentary and will include interviews from both international students and an international student adviser. The focus of this documentary is to discover why international students choose England as a place to study for higher education/ university. 

Narrative structure 

This is the dramatic curve of our documentary: 

We will start with the interviewees introducing themselves and talking about why they choose England. The climax will be discussing Brexit and how this effected them. In the falling action, there will be an interview with one of the international students adviser. 

'Pitfalls of Independent Living' Task

'Pitfalls of Independent Living' Task

For this task, we created a 1 minute documentary on the Pitfalls of Independent Living to introduce us to the Sony X70 camera and Adobe Premiere Pro software. My group and I decided to approach this brief by storyboarding our ideas and mind mapping what we wanted to film. We decided that we wanted to film close up shots of different aspects of everyday life and use a selective focus. We also wanted to do a point of view shot of someone walking around a supermarket doing a food shop. We wanted to highlight the things that you have to do whilst living independently. 

Here is the final documentary: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xfKo2riL0s

We wanted to make the video slightly humorous, instead of serious and to do this we decided to shoot  a sequence showing someone failing to cook and opting for cereal in the end as this shows the failure of independent living. We also used a close up shot of washing up to portray something else that you will need to do when living independently. 

If I were to re-do this task and make improvements then I would film more scenes and not just focus in the kitchen. I also like the idea of following someones life in a day living independently, furthermore editing continuity shots in chronological order of someones day. 

Issues in Documentaries - J. Chapman

Issues in Documentaries - J. Chapman 

In Jane Chapmans 'Issues in Documentaries' text, she discusses how documentaries are a "rather unstable category" and that they are more safely applied as an adjective than a noun as they are challenging to categorise. The use of techniques between documentaries and other categories overlap and this makes it more difficult to define and recognise a documentary, as well as weakening the 'status of the genre'. 

The evolution of the genre started in the early 1920's when films captured real people in everyday situations. Documentaries used 'a creative treatment of actuality' and digital manipulation is used in action, however not documentaries as this can manipulate whats real. In the 1970's onwards, camcorders and digital manipulated equipment allowed documentaries to be more portable and easier to make. The development in technology also allows non-interventional documentary, known as direct cinema to be more popular, for example Goggle box. 

Journalistic news values were integrated with educational values in order to reach TV audiences. Documentary on television has a popular range of formats which include: docu-dramas, chat shows, undercover video, and drama based on facts. 

Cinema, Television + Docu-soap

Documentary can have an impact on cinema audiences, for example wildlife films provide content for cinematic appeal of documentary on the big screen. Docu-soaps on TV have had influence on the factual landscape and the uses of observational documentary techniques combines with drama style editing. Direct cinema and observational filming are aimed not to influence events, however in 'docu-soaps everything is pre-arranged for the cinema. Documentaries also tend to make an argument, however in docu-soaps no questions are asked and the format depends on the narrative. 

Fiction/non fiction, Genres + Categories 

Applying the label 'non-fiction' to a film doesn't mean it doesn't have fictional elements to it. A documentary may have elements on non-fiction by how social actors perform as the camera has an influence. Furthermore, the events of a documentary could have taken place anyway, but the placement of the camera results in a level of performance by the social actors. 

Sub-genres have emerged from documentaries such as fusions with soap opera's. Even Channel 5's facial department has been organised into different sections, which include: popular documentaries, features, popular factual TV series and reality formats.

Realism 

Perceptions of reality change according to period and this effects what realism is; in the 1920's when Strike was realised, this was portrayed as a documentary style film as the actions of the workers were what happened in everyday life. However, now this film is taken as cinematic fiction. Realism gradually became an essential tool for documenting the daily life experiences and is now embedded in real life. 


Chapman, J. (2009) Issues in Contemporary Documentary, Cambridge: Polity. Ch.1: Definitions: Issues and Influences.

Experimenting with Sound

Documentary Sound 

This week we began to experiment with sounds that we will be able to use in the documentary and we were introduced to the gun/riffle microphone. This is used typically for outside location work as they are directional and aimed directly at the performance. 

In our group, we filmed each other taking it turns to be interviewed, in charge of the camera, and in charge of the sound. This allowed us all to start getting used to the sound settings and how to use the correct input. We experimented holding the microphone in different positions to listen to where the sound is best and most effective. We found that it sounded better when the microphone was held above the interviewee as the dialogue was a lot clearer. 

Do's/ Don't's in an Interview

Do's/ Don't's in an Interview 

As we are starting to plan questions for our documentary, we have been researching into how to talk to the interviewees and what to do and not to do whilst filming and editing our documentary. 

1. Preparing open questions and asking one question at a time will allow the interviewee to take time to answer the question and we will get an answer that can be edited without any interruptions.
2. Phrasing the question in a way that they will tell us the information that was want to know and include. 
3. Using appropriate body language prompts the interviewee talk less or more than you want them too. 
4. Film ambient sounds separately as this ables us to change the volume of it so it doesn't interfere with diegetic dialogue.
5. Keep boom microphone, wires and cables out of shot and make sure the boom doesn't cover the light source. 
6. The interviewee needs to feel as relaxed as possible, so don't crowd them with equipment and behind the scenes team. 

Preparation - International Students Documentary

International Students Documentary 

Once my group had pitched our ideas together, we have decided that we are going to create our documentary around the theme of international students at university. We've decided to do this as we are all interested in how international students find living abroad and starting afresh. We also have an international student in our group who gives us opinions on how she feels about the new situations. 

Now we have the base of our idea we will start doing background research on our idea and this will include looking at both on and offline articles, journals, films, and asking students and experts both within and outside the university. We will also need to talk with our interviewees to make them more comfortable talking about the chosen topics. 

In terms of questions that we will ask, we will need to rehearse with the interviewee before filming the final cuts incase there are problems with shots and sound. We will also need to plan questions that are not too broad, but not too narrow in order for them to answer the questions in a way we want them to. 

Pitch Research

Pitch Research 

This week my group and I researched into ideas for the documentary individually so we were able to pitch these two each other, then choose our favourite. For this research I needed to consider what aspects of the topic need to be covered and not covered; decide the focus, sources and depth of research; who is the most qualified to speak on the topic (historian/interviewee); where the filming locations will be; will the topic engage the audience; will it reveal, record, analyse, or question; and finally, who the intended audience will be. 

Brighton West Pier 

My first idea was to research into the Brighton West Pier as I was interested in the fact that I knew it was destroyed, however did not know how this happened. I started to research into the 2002 storm that partially collapsed when a walk way fell into the see. Months after this, the concert hall over and the structure collapsed. The fire in 2003 in the pier pavilion is what I find most interesting as the cause of the fire remains unknown as the investigators were unable to enter the site. There was a following fire later on in 2003 in which the cause is still unknown, although rumoured to be arson.  

If my group were to choose this documentary idea I would want to look into the possible theories of the fire causes as this is a factor I am interested in as they are unanswered. This would allow us to gather different options from professionals and the public to engage the audience and include an interview. The purpose of this documentary would be to question what actually happened and reveal facts to the audience. This would be a participatory documentary and the intended audience would be people interested in Brighton's history and landmarks. 

Brighton I360

Another idea I had was to base the documentary on the new tourist attraction in Brighton which is the I360 as this has had a lot of controversial press since being built near the sea front. This is the highest landmark in Brighton, also being taller than the Spinnaker Tower and Blackpool Tower. It took 18,000 man-hours of welding to manufacture the cans and 1336 bolts were used. 

I find this topic interesting due to how controversial the attraction has been and some local Brighton lovers believe that it ruins in the seafront views. This would also be a participatory documentary as the interviewer would interact with the audience by asking their opinions on the I360. A voice over would also be used as the presenter would need to inform the audience with facts. One shot I would love to experiment with would be a worms eyed view shot of the 360 to show the large scale of it. The intended audience for this documentary would be people who live in Brighton and are interested building. 

What is a Documentary? 

There are six main documentary modes and these include the observational, expository, participatory, performative, reflexive and poetic mode. However, for my documentary I will either be making an observational or participatory mode so I will be focusing on these two in this blog post. 

Observational Mode 

The observational mode is referred to direct cinema by Erik Barnow and this stresses the nonintervention of the filmmaker. They invalid direct engagement with the everyday life of subjects and an example is observing a lifestyle with an unobtrusive camera. This gives the viewer an opportunity to look n or overheard something of the lives experience of others and the viewers gain some sense of the distinct rhythms of everyday life. An example of an observational documentary is Gogglebox as there is an unobtrusive camera watching families activities, however this has been argued that it doesn't inform the audience with any information, it's main purpose is to entertain so does this make it a real documentary? 

Participatory Mode 

In the participatory mode, the filmmaker does interest with the subjects and the interaction is present within the film as their is usually meaning create through the collaboration between the filmmaker and contributor. An example of a participatory documentary is Lift by Marc Issacs as the description for this is: "A quietly fascinating meditation on the mundanities of London life. Installing himself inside the lift of a high-rise block of council flats, Isaacs and his camera patiently observe the residents as they go about their daily business. As each of his subjects enters the lift, it's interesting to note their reactions to him being there; some are suspicious, others curious, and then there are those who seem more comfortable in his presence."