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."