Video Entry #16 - Shooting and Editing CONCLUDE PETER SECTION

As stated previously, I had gone back home for the Easter break and unfortunately, could not be there for the filming on the Friday. I had arranged with Punktured to be there for 12 on the Friday. I had lend my fetching red Panasonic DMC-GH1, Rode microphone and Zoom H1 audio recorder.

I had told the group chat 12 twice, however I made a mistake once and forgot to put a 2 at the end and George assumed it was 1. When he rang to confirm, they thought they were going in for 12. George persuaded them though to let us record on the Tuesday and they put on their website that they would let someone get a free piercing for us to film. Photo below of the Facebook post.

I gave a draft of questions to George which he then mocked them up to be the final questions that he asked during the interview:

- What is your name and role at Punktured?

- How long have you been working at Punktured?

- Can you tell us a general overview of goes on at Punktured?

- How many other people work here besides yourself and what are their roles?

- Why did you choose to go into this profession?

- Do you need any certificates or qualifications to work here at Punktured?

- Tell us about some of the tools you work with at this facility?

- What’s the most common piercing you do?

- What’s the most difficult piercing and why?

- Can you tell/show us how a piercing is done?

- What do you think makes Punktured unique?

- Can you tell us any interesting or quirky stories you have surrounding your time here at Punktured?

- What is your average day like here?

- What do people need to know before considering a piercing?

- Would you say you are the most popular piercing place in Brighton? If so, why?

- What do you think the reasons people get piercing?

- Why do you think people should come to Punktured?

- Do you think the success of Punktured is to do with location?

- What do you think the future holds for Punktured?

We had rearranged and were ready to film Tuesday. George and Roshana were the ones to go film. I don't know where the other member was but I was travelling back that evening. I was told they had done well with the footage. Myself and George then that evening at around 2100 hours tried to import the footage into our group media drive. Unfortunately, the files were AVCHD and the codec doesn't compile on macs. We left it for then as we had tried to do as much as we could.

The next day, I pirated some video converting software and converted the files to the highest quality H.264 I could. Myself and George then began to edit our footage.

Our first thing to do was sync the video from the camera with the sound from the audio recorder. Once we had done this, we then proceeded to cut down the interviews to usable clips. From then on, George became hard on what was needed and what was not. We averaged 2 minutes of Julie (owner of Punktured) and Alex (staff member) footage. We then developed the cutaways into usable segments. George made notes on what we needed and an image is provided below:

After splicing it altogether into a very rough edit. We realised that we didn't have enough relevant cutaways, so myself and George went into Brighton and filmed some more. 

We then polished it off by adding in intro and outro credits, music and colour correcting and grading the footage. Myself and George did all of this. We had asked the other two members to search for music and do the outro credits as they didn't know Premiere Pro well and we didn't have enough time. They didn't search for the music when we asked and the outro credits were looking poor and didn't fit into the style of the documentary.

We then had to export it but not before our consultant, Peter, had viewed it. 

Overall, I am pretty much happy with how it went. I enjoyed making my first documentary and realised the successes you can have and pitfalls. I have learnt that communication is key and that you need a strong team who are just as skilled and determined as yourself. If I were to do anything differently, I wouldn't have media practice and media communication students in the same class as I don't think the media communications people are as passionate about video as the media practice people. And I'd maybe plan a bit more. Mainly on the cutaways afterwards rather than the interviews themselves. 

Video Entry #15 - Shooting Reading Notes

Continuity

- "To experience a film as one complete story, continuity is essential. Dis-continuity, when shots, actions, sound or acting do not match, disturb the created reality of the programme. The viewer will realise that he/she is watching and posits him/her self outside the story. The most important stage for continuity is the shooting script, in which the film is broken down into sequences of shots."

- "If a director uses the master scene technique, a complete scene will be shot in one go from one camera angle. The same scene will be repeated from different camera angles, which will be used as inserts. Generally speaking, one starts with a wide shot and a variety of medium and closer shots will be shot afterwards. This way of working has many advantages, because always having a lot of material available makes editing easier. But continuity in the acting, props, light, etc. are essential."

- "So to make a decoupage of your scene and shoot only what you need might be safer when you follow the next technique: Triple - Take Technique. The simplest way to guarantee continuity in an action is to repeat it again in the new shot. This implies that you always shoot three different actions: the last one,the new one, and the coming one. You can get very experienced in this technique and especially in long scenes it has significant advantages"

Getting the right shot

- "A shot is a simple word that describes everything about the way the filmmaker has set up their camera and what it will be recording."

- "The framing of your shot will depend on a lot of things, but the first thing you must ask is what part of the story the shot is trying to tell. Close ups are good to show emotions on people and things because you can see their faces. Long shots are best to set up where your characters are and how many of them there are. If you are filming somebody walking into a room and it is most important you show how they look or react then you would use a close-up. If it was most important to see who else was in the room or what kind of room it was then you would use a long shot."

- "Action is everything that happens in front of the camera and how the camera is moved best to film that action. Even if you are only filming a door being opened in close-up, somebody has to be shown how you want that door to be opened: fast or slow, with a squeak or without. In most films actors are used to provide most of the action."

- "If everyone knows what they are doing and you have the framing and movement of the camera just right and the action that is going to take place just right, then you need to be able to tell the cast and crew when you want it all to happen. You have probably seen or heard about the director shouting LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION, well it is a little bit similar in our case."

- "When the actors are ready, the director will say…SOUND READY. The person doing the sound and holding the microphone will say that they are. The director will then say…ROLL CAMERA. The camera-person will then press record on the camera and when they are happy and ready they say that they are. The director will then call ACTION. Whatever is happening in front of the camera, somebody shutting a door, or a person walking into a room happens then."

Shooting on location

- "LIGHTING

• Keep lighting to a minimum.
• Avoid shadows on faces or dramatic shadows at the back.
• Avoid very high contrast.
• Make sure that the main subject draws the audiences attention in the shot."

- "ORGANISATION
• Keep in touch with your crew, discuss what you are doing and do not forget the sound technician.
• Communication is central, not only in relation to the task but also to the interpersonal relations. People need food and drink, chats, jokes and appreciation. Without their co-operation you will not succeed."

Video Entry #14 - Changing direction

We've recently ran into some troubles with our documentary assignment. We did record an interview with the manager, Julie, of Punktured Piercing. She was very good in the interview and I think it went really well. George and I did the majority of the work there. However, when we went to class Monday, we were told that we were leaving it too late to interview our other people. This was due to two of the team not pulling their weight and finding candidates to interview. So at the moment, I felt a little bit nervous on what we are going to do. Peter has said we should focus on Punktured and just do the documentary on them.

I liked the idea of this and so did the rest of the group. So I rang them everyday until I got reply from them on Friday. Their communication seems to be pretty bad as I rang everyday and was told to ring the next day to speak to the manager so that was annoying. I did speak to the manager though and was told we could film this coming week if I sent an email of who we wanted to interview and what questions would be asked. We then had to do some research on Punktured and ask more appropriate questions towards them rather than the mouth. Myself and George did go into town and pick up some of the flyers and inspected them.

But I haven't had an email back yet, so I'm getting a bit nervous as I'm going away Wednesday for Easter and I'm leaving it to the rest of my group, hopefully it goes okay. 

Video Entry #13 - Editing Reading Notes

Editing

- "Editing is where you take all the different pictures that have been filmed on the cameras, which is called footage and join them all together on an edit suite. Editor’s chop up the footage that they want to keep into smaller pieces, called shots and put them back together again in a different order using cuts. They also use fades to make cuts look nice and smooth, which makes the film look better."

- "Editing

• Spot all the material and make a logging list, on which you not only identify the takes that are not usable, but also identify the best takes.

• Write down the length of the shots. Try to identify the natural life span of the shot: the moment it becomes interesting until the moment you lose interest.

• Identify continuity problems and possible solutions.

• Make a paper edit and make notes as preparation for the commentary.

• Write down the duration of the film."

We will have to follow similar guidelines when editing and use the techniques outlined. 

Sixteen Basic Editing Considerations

- "Avoid having to cut between shots on the same camera angle especially if the shot is of a single person. You will have to match the action so perfectly that your alternatives will be severely limited. However, if the material is shot to take advantage of this 'shock' effect, it can heighten a dramatic moment"

- "Watch the pace of the action which has to be matched in cutting. Movement from the finger flicking ash into an ashtray to Indians attacking a wagon train must retain continuity of pace if scope in cutting is to be preserved."

- Don't use a shot for its own sake. Some shot may, within themselves, be superb, but may not for reasons of style, shape or just original intention, fit into the overall films.

- "Remember you can only cut the material you possess. If you are cutting your own film the editor in you must control the director you thought you might be -- if you haven't shot the right footage you can't make the film you originally intended."

- "Do treat your print and track with respect. Both are replaceable but only if you can afford it and are in a position to start again with the inevitable loss of impetus and enthusiasm. The machinery has its limitations but will serve you well if you use it properly. Remember, a badly scratched or damaged cutting copy reduces your ability to judge its quality."

If we do choose to cut different shots, we will have to bear this in mind, so it does not take the audience out of the documentary and we do not want to create a dramatic movement. Although our action should be slow paced, it may be with the cutaways that we will have match the speed. Again, not to take the viewer out of the documentary. We will then have to find appropriate cutaways for each scene. I will treat my print and track with the utmost respect. 

Video Entry #12 - Editing and Using the Vocal Booth

Our task in class was to record a voice over in the vocal booth to get to grips with software, just in case we wanted to use the "voice of God" in our documentaries. We would then save that audio file and then edit it in Adobe Premiere Pro with images, music and videos provided by Peter. We then had to edit it to reflect a narrative piece that told a chronologically sound package whilst implementing techniques from Ken Burns such as panning over photos to give them movement. The result of our group working together has been posted above

Video Entry #11 - Pre-production

After sitting down and talking with my group, we can up with a brain storm surrounding the mouth and the ideas that could go into it. We also then made a list of possible people to interview. We decided it would be best to keep in contact via Facebook as we had each other as friends on there. The images below document this.

After looking through and finding suitable people to email from our list, I received a couple responses. Although it's a lot less than I expected. I thought I sent out between 20-30 emails. But I've received 6. It's okay though, as most who responded were willing to help. I have screen-shotted the responses and put them below: 

Our group met up during reading week and we've talked about and narrowed it down to who we're going to interview. I've taken the piercing company, Punktured Piercing, in the Brighton. Other members of the group are going for the dentist and we're going to find a singer and someone who's in the linguistics profession. We will email professors on campus for the last two. We also talked about what cutaways were needed. Again, image below shows this.

At the moment, we do have a list of questions we're going to ask our interviewees, however I've been dwelling on something Peter said. He mentioned that our documentary just focusing on what the mouth is could get boring and dull. And I agree with him. We came up with the questions quickly but whilst interviewing people out in Brighton for my sound, people say a lot of the same things. So people watching the documentary will know the mouth is used for communication and eating, so why would we discuss the topic you know? Peter mentioned about throat singing, people using clicking to communicate and helping stroke victims by bringing their hand to their mouth. These are all interesting, so I will mention to the group that we need to know where we're focusing. 

I like the idea of exploring that the mouth can be used to decorate and make peoples personalities flourish. For example, a woman wearing black lipstick could be seen as being of the gothic crowd and she decorates her mouth that way. I think it would be interesting to follow this up, especially with the piercing company I've got as they could say a lot of alternate thinking people get lip piercings or maybe it's become more mainstream and that it used to more for the people who were classed as alternative. But again, I think we need a session where we just brainstorm where we're going and storyboard on how we're going to do it. 

Video Entry #10 - Pre-Production Reading Notes

Research

- "The nature of your subject will be influenced by a number of factors which will vary, depending on the context in which you are working which could be anything from your fist year at college to trying to get you first professional production off the ground."

- "Think about what media/articles/books already exists on your subject – don’t reinvent the wheel. How you can show the familiar in an unfamiliar light? The element of unfamiliarity might come from the style or from the point of view (i.e. showing a situation/event from an unexpected perspective). Try to avoid reproducing stereotyped or clichéd representations of topics, people and places. Your initial research should help to unearth unexpected aspects of a topic, person or place."

- "As you write your treatment follow your instincts – don’t forget what it was that interested you most about your subject. Have you got lost in unnecessary detail/padding? How can you convey what really struck you in images and/or sound? What is your point of view of on the subject and how will this come across?"

Research and Development

- "RESEARCH AND RECCE

• Every film needs it.

• Be open minded, be aware of your own judgements and prejudices.

• Talk to a diversity of people and record all interviews.

• Read and read

Read everything related to your subject: research, literature, poetry,

newspapers and magazines. You must aim to become an expert in the

subject you are dealing with.

Get your facts right.

• While on location, think in pictures, make the film in your head.

• Make notes on light and sound.

• Pay attention to the practical side of things, parking, availability of electricity,

pubs, toilets etc.

• The most interesting shots are those where things are actually happening, so

note the time of those actions you need for your programme.

• Do you need permission to film? Check?

• Keep a note book"

Doing a Recce

"These are the key issues you need to think about in doing a Recce.

Conceptual

• What will the location add to your ideas?

• What will its use contribute to how your subject(s) are seen?

• What visual possibilities does it offer?

• How might you use features of the space/ in your sequence?

• What aural possibilities does it offer? How might the various sounds

available be used creatively to convey atmosphere/meaning?

• How might background people feature?

Location Shoot Checklist

"Equipment:

1) Gun mic

2) Camera (DRS 250)

3) Tripod

4) TAPE

5) Lights, if necessary (and 4 way power splitter)

Set up check:

1) Set spirit level on tripod

2) Switch off auto settings on camera

a) Iris, front right.

b) Focus, back of lens left

c) Auto switches (ATW etc), body left.

3) ND filter set to ‘off’- indoors; 1 – outdoors; 2 – outdoors bright sunshine

4) Check white balance (set by holding white card up and flicking switch directly

under lens) White balance switch, body left, should be set to A or B for this.

5) Focus properly by zooming in fully first.

6) Plug mic into audio channel 2

7) Set audio ch 2 to ‘manual’ and ‘rear’.

8) Check audio levels with headphones plugged in to camera handle.

9) To adjust brightness of picture turn back ring on lens.

10) Gain switch, body left, should be set to Low (L) unless in low light conditions

(indoors without lights for example)

11) Make sure camera is set to 16:9 ratio (hold down menu switch and turn

camera power on – scroll trough menu until you find the 16:9 Wide option)

Remember to frame your subject properly, no huge gaps above the head and no

clutter or distracting objects in the frame. Zoom in to fill the frame well so they

don’t seem too far away."

- 

Video Entry #9 - Actual Presentation and Notes

Here is a link to our presentation: Mouth Presentation

This is the script we used for our presentation. All mine are underneath Ben whilst the others worked on their scripts individually

Idea Development - Slide 2 - George

The idea of making a documentary on ‘the mouth’ wasn’t put forward by anyone in our group. But we’re all intrigued upon the idea of the subject because of its great potential and numerous approaches to it. Since the mouth is part of a person, or a place on a person, the idea meets the criteria of the project brief. Now that we had our initial idea, we then had to develop upon this idea in terms of how to structure our documentaries narrative. 

Logistical Planning/Creative Development - Slide 3 - Ben

The first thing we did as a group to develop our ideas was to create a mind map about the mouth. That way, everyone’s ideas could be taken on board and associations could be made between peoples suggestions, sparking further ideas. As shown by the picture up on the slide. We also took into account of who we would have to find to go with the ideas and the practicality of it. For example, if we were wanting to interview someone with oral herpes, we would hope they'd provide an interesting view on the mouth. However it's unlikely we'd be able to find one and again, unlikely that they'd want everyone to know they have an STD. Ethical issues could also come into consideration. For example, it may be viewed we are exploiting someone with a disease for our own gain.  

Audience and Style - Slide 4 - Mariah

Hiring Crew & Equipment - Slide 5 - Roshana

Hiring crew and equipment is vital in the productions stages, so organization is key. Since our crew would consist of just our group, we have to share the roles between us and exchange them during the production process so everyone would get a chance to play a different role. Equipment we will be using shall be the Sony Z1 to film, shotgun mic with boompole attachment, if needed, for sound. One of the tripods in the Sony Z1 kit and Adobe software on the macs. 

Difficulty in booking equipment SISO

Edit Location/Freedom

Schedule the Shoot - Slide 6 - George

Scheduling the shoot is another important area in the production stage that requires a lot of organization. Sometimes your crew, equipment and cast may not all be available at the same time, so we worked out what days each of us were free to work on to film and edit our documentary. We concluded that on Tuesdays and Thursday afternoons and having the weekends to work with on stuff too. We aim to shoot all our footage we need in 3 weeks, but start on our post-production edit as soon as we start recording.

Budget/Finance - Slide 7 - Ben

Being students, none of us have much petty cash spare to fund a major production so we had to be realistic in terms of what impacts this could have upon our production. For instance, when choosing our interviewees or locations, they had to be people and places we could access with little to no expense as possible. Therefore, we knew our locations and interviewees had to be people based on campus, in Brighton or anywhere, which our group could sensibly reach. A couple of possible fees we'll encounter when filming are travel to and from Brighton, tapes for recording and other fees possibly such as food whilst out in Brighton. These are all small expenses due to not having to pay for the big equipment such as cameras and macs. Compared to Werner Herzog, the practitioner we have chosen, who had to steal his first camera for his first eight films. 

Researching/Sourcing - Slide 8 - Mariah

From our mind map and creative planning, we knew that we would want to interview people who had a profession that involved the mouth in some form. By doing research on the mouth this would gives us a better knowledge on who we could contact for an interview and what sort of questions we could ask them. 

Definitions of the mouth/dictionary

Relate it to Werner

Research on interviewees field of work

Scripting/Storyboards/ShotLists - Slide 9 - Roshana

When it comes to scripting and storyboarding, this stage of the production allows you to share your potential vision with others, saves you times and makes the product run more smoothly. 

Because of the uncertainty of the interviewees responses, we don’t know what cutaways we’d need beforehand, however with our interviewees, we’d always frame them appropriately with a mid shot to the side of the frame. 

Werner didn’t do storyboard...FIND QUOTE

We knew this would need some area of thought but not too much as we didn’t want to come up with our cutaway shot lists before we attained our interview footage. That way we could acquire more cutaways that reflect on the interview dialogue rather than constructing our dialogue around our cutaways. 

We have come up with a script for our questions, keeping them open ended so our interviewees could have a more detailed and less limited response to them. The storyboarding of our documentary is important as when it comes to filming our interviewees and cutaways, we will instantly know what shots we need and how to frame them, making the filming more time efficient

Casting - Slide 10 - Ben

As a group, once we came up with our narrative, we looked towards industries and professions that involve the mouth and could provide a good insight and knowledge on the subject. I contacted many different people from our list, asking if they’d be willing to be involved by being interviewed for our documentary project. I contacted local dentists, make up artists, biologists, tattooists, wine sommeliers, musicians, bi-linguists and so on. [change to next slide] We wanted as many options as possible so that we could choose who to interview rather than having limitations for our documentary, such as not having enough people to interview. This is because not all who have been contacted will respond, want to be part of the documentary or their availability to meet for our deadline. 

We have received one response already, confirming they're willing participant  

Recce - Slide 14 - George

Deciding on locations to shoot in for our documentary is crucial for the mise-en-scene as it signifies aspects of our interviewees. For example, we’d have the dentist in a dental practic clinic rather than a tattoo studio. For our cutaways, we knew they had to be relevant to the piece. Therefore, we decided that we wanted our interviews to take place in the interviewees place of work if at all possible, if not, then we would have to book out the studio on campus to interview them there instead. These are some of the locations we have thought of, taking into consideration our budget and available options. 

Narrative - Ben + George doing this

Werner Herzog is a 72 year old German filmmaker. He is seen as great figure in the New German Cinema movement which originated in the 1960s-80s. He has made both documentary and fiction films. His documentaries focus on heroes with impossible dreams, such as his film Little Dieter needs to fly. People with unique talents in obscure fields. Bells from the deep is an example. As well as focusing on individuals who are in conflict with nature. His most famous documentary, Grizzly Man, is one of these. 

[Change slide]

His style of documentary filmmaking consists of expository and participatory mode techniques. One of these is using his own voice as the voice of God, displayed in the Grizzly Man documentary. This film focuses on Timothy Treadwell, who lived amongst grizzly bears before he passed away. Herzog uses the expository mode technique by exaggerating the truth such as saying “Treadwell is as crazy as the bears” and using a series of assertions from friends and family members, backed up with visual evidence to gives his point validity.

From Herzog’s style to ours, we aim to convey the message that the mouth is a significant part of the body by raising awareness of the functions it has in our life. Therefore our choice of interviewees construct the evidence for our argument, whether this may be a good or bad thing as we no control over what they may say. If we do choose to convey a specific message, we shall use Herzog’s technique of voice of God to give authority and clarity to our argument.

From a narrative perspective, we aim to make a short length documentary feature the mouth and the implications it has by being part of our body. We want to engage our audience by making them critically think and be aware of the potential a part of their body has, for good or for bad by selection of whom we interview. Our interviews will consist of asking our interviewees open ended questions to our subject such as how their profession involves the mouth and hopefully then making a personal connection between our subject and interviewee, making our audience reflect upon the information given.. 

Visually - Mariah + Roshana

Video Entry #8 - Presentation

My group met a couple times before we had to give our presentation. Our presentation was on Werner Herzog. When we did do the presentation I think we did well but we don't get our marks back for about 2 weeks. So we'll see then. 

Our workshop was on transcripts and paper editing. I knew about transcripts as I was going to work for a transcript job but I didn't know what was paper editing. I could take a guess from the name but I didn't know fully. 

Peter talked us through what a transcript was. It's basically a written down version of your interview with time codes included so that it makes for easier editing. Peter told us it could save us hours when editing. I don't really see the point as I think the effort you put into writing up the transcript, you could put it into editing. But I'd like to try it and see if it works.

Transcript example

Peter continued on about editing with paper. This is where you write your clips down on paper, typically sticky notes as it makes it a little bit easier, and arrange them as if you would arrange your clips on a video editing software timeline. 

Example of paper editing

He also taught us to shoot with the edit in mind, so shoot how you want to edit it. And always capture ambient sound. This is to capture the sounds of the place where you're filming.

We were taught briefly about editing, but we have an editing workshop next week so we'll learn more. But we have been told to:

• Build up your timeline
• Start with rough interview edits
• Work to a rough timing
• Cut it down - take out the pauses and repeats. Which means no umm's or err's
• Select cutaways to cover cracks but not wallpaper it
• Piece of imagery must be integral to narrative i.e. don't have a dentist talking and cutaway to a piercing studio
• Work on an opening/ending that has impact

My group are going to meet today so we can plan what we're doing and hopefully shoot soon

Video Entry #7 - Reading Notes

Video Microphone

Using the fishpole

- Held high: Tiring if held high for long. Shadows of the microphone may be unavoidable

- Underarm support: Favoured for some situations, however can pick up background noise easily

- End on ground: Comfortable for sustained shooting. Best for stationary objects

Microphone distance

- Mirophone should suit the size of the shot

In our documentary, we aim to use a fishpole overhead or underarm to get the audio as most filming is going to be done inside, so things such as birds or seagulls above won't pick up on the audio. We will use a shotgun microphone to record the audio. We would like to use the lavalier microphone, however it is rarely in stock on SISO and I forgot myself to book it.

Practical Lighting

- "As we shall see, there are many situations where just one lamp, or a well placed reflector, is all that is needed to make a picture spring to life. Even where production is on a larger scale, foresight and imagination can often make a little light go a long way. It is chiefly a matter of knowing what you are aiming at, what to look out for, and what you can do about problems you meet."

- "'Lighting' involves a lot more than simply having enough illumination around to let the camera see what is going on. Light influences what your subject looks like, how people feel about what they see, what attracts their attention. So we need to think about not only where to put our lamps, but the sort of light we are getting from them, and how all this affects the quality of our pictures."

- "Because the sun is so distance, it behaves as a localized point source of light. Its rays are therefore very directional and travel to us in straight lines. They cast distinct sharp shadows, which emphasize the texture and contours of any subject, especially when the light falls at an oblique angle...Many, man-made light sources, such as a match, a candle or a bare light bulb, also behave in this way. Because they are of very limited size, they act as point sources and produce hard light."

- "Diffused light scatters in all directions. It occurs naturally, when the sun is obscured by cloud, and whenever sunlight is reflected from rough light-toned surfaces."

We don't intend to not use any other light sources that the ones available to use as they are bulky and we are wanting a natural feel to the documentary. If there are lamps available where we go, I'm sure we will take advantage of them, however it is not a necessity in my opinion. We will attempt to try to illuminate our subjects so they appear approachable and inviting rather than casting shadows on them from harsh lighting. As stated, we will be inside for the majority of the filming, especially the interviews so we will only need to diffuse the lamps, should be choose to use them.

Interviews

- "Try to choose an interviewee who is able to express themselves succinctly and who you think will not be unduly nervous in front of the camera."

- "Prepare your interview, think what you want to know and why"

- "Always introduce the interviewee...Tell why he/she is there or why you want to interview him/her"

When choosing an interviewees, we will go for the ones that seem friendly, have a good personality and appear to be natural when being filmed. We will have to gather as a group and write out questions on what we think we will need to add to the documentary. We will have them introduce themselves. This makes it so they're more relaxed to be in front of the camera as well.

Recording sound

- "Sound recording is often one of those most overlooked parts of the production process, especially in video production. Unlike radio, video and television demand that microphones are hidden away from the camera whenever possibly, but, crucially, you also need to keep your sound synced with the camera."

- "Sync sound means simply that what is being said synchronises with the movements of the mouth. When a speaker your audience can see is out of sync, you risk parodying all those badly dubbed Kung Fu movies, not (necessarily) good."

We will do our best to record the best quality sound we can. Obviously there will be hiccups as this is our first time but we plan to not let the microphones be seen as to appear professional. We plan to use the Sony HVR-Z1E which has the sound built into the video recording so it should be okay. But if we have to use a separate audio recorder, we will have to sync the audio in post-production. 

Video Entry #6 - Homework task "Pitfalls of Independent Living"

We were given a homework task to do a 2 minute mini-documentary on either the "Pitfalls of Independent Living" or "My first day at Sussex". Our group chose to do the "My first day at Sussex". We went out and filmed people we knew and some people who we just asked as they were walking past. I interviewed the person we did not know. It was quite interesting being in the position of interviewing people. Peter had taught us techniques of how to sit and use their body language, not saying anything but using facial expressions and nodding to communicate and how to ask questions. My interview did not go especially well, the girl was nervous and kept looking at the camera. We needed to have brought the camera closer to the interviewer. It was also a silly mistake but the microphone can be seen in shot. We could have cropped it out in post, but in the real thing, you don't want this to be happening. At least we did it in practice and not the real thing.

We then went and imported the footage onto the Mac from the tape which was a new thing to me and I was a bit tentative about pushing a tape which had our precious footage on it, into something I didn't know which way it went in. But we got it onto the Mac and tried to edit it in Premiere Pro. The footage was slow and lagging. When we dragged the clip onto the timeline, it said the settings needed to be changed to match the footage, and we did just that but it was basically, un-editable. So we will need to speak to Peter about that. 

We edited on iMovie though, just to get a hands on feel with editing software. I've used Sony Vegas and Premiere Pro in the past, so iMovie was something new to me and I disliked every bit of it. Editing was such a hassle on this software. But we tried to make at least a rough cut of our footage. Unfortunately when it came to the lesson, the map of what we had done was on the timeline but the actual footage wasn't so it was kinda awkward in class. But we just need to look at what we did wrong in the practice and learn from it and carry on.

Here's a picture of George operating the camera when we were filming

Video Entry #5 - Modes of Documentary

Whilst learning about documentary, we have been taught about documentary modes. Here are a list of them and explaining what they are with an example.

Observational

Observational is an unobtrusive camera which interacts with everyday subjects. This means the director can observe people's everyday lives without them acting unnatural or playing to the camera. An example: "Metallica: Some Kind of Monster"

Expository

Expository is to create an argument and have a voice over provide the assumptions and the images provide the evidence

Example: Any reputable nature documentary

Participatory

Participatory is where the filmmaker and subject interact. Similar to Performative. 

"The performative mode, the final mode Nichols discusses, is easily confused with the participatory mode, and Nichols remains somewhat nebulous about their distinctions. The crux of the difference seems to lie in the fact that where the participatory mode engages the filmmaker to the story but attempts to construct truths that should be self-evident to anyone, the performative mode engages the filmmaker to the story but constructs subjective truths that are significant to the filmmaker him or herself"

Example: "Exit through the gift shop"

Performative

Similar to what's written above

Example: Any Louis Theroux or Michael Moore documentary

Poetic

Poetic is where a documentary emphasis visual associations, tonal or rhythmic qualities, descriptive passages and formal organisation. These films can be called experimental or avant-garde

Example: "Night and Fog"

Reflexive

Reflexive calls to attention the assumptions and conventions that govern documentary filmmaking. An example of this is the mockumentary format.

Example: "This is Spinal Tap"

Video Entry #4 - Short film: Pockets and ideas

Having watched the short film "Pockets", I have gotten a general idea about what a short film is to be and ideas on what to make my documentary on. An idea I might submit to the class is the photography project of a friend last term in my class. He did his photography project on a group of people who live in house boats by Shoreham-on-sea. They seemed really interesting as they use whatever they can find to make their houses which makes their house a bit wacky and wonderful. For example, I was told one of them used an old WW2 bomb shell as a letterbox. I've attached a couple photos below to show examples of them (that I got from Google):

Video Entry #3 - Framing

In our lesson this week, we didn't do any practical. We did the whole lesson of theory. It was quite a bit to take in but I knew a little about it. So, we talked about:

Rule of Thirds

This grid is display to give help to showing where the points of interest need to be. For example, in the image above, it is the bee. The inter-sectional points around the middle square are what our eyes are drawn to and it makes for a more natural viewing. The example given in class was this image:

It can also be used to place the eyeline on the point of interest making him the focus and his focus the secondary focus.

180 Degree Rule

The 180 degree rule is where the cameras must stay in the arc around the actors or person's otherwise if you go on the opposite side without letting the viewer know by a camera shift. This makes again for a more natural viewing of the subject.

The Golden Ratio

This is something to keep in mind whilst filming. It makes an image appear better. I find it hard to explain this as Peter did but I think a photo would explain it better;

The focus is all relative and good, to put in a terrible way.

Matching Eyelines & Matching Cuts

Peter mentioned that whilst filming, we should have the eyelines of all the people we interview should have the same eyelines. So when switching between shots, it feels natural. Same with the cuts.

Natural Transitions

We were told that to make our film better, we could use natural transitions. Natural transitions are when you don't cut to something and take the viewer out of what they were just watching. For example, say you had a shot of a woman entering a building and then panning up the building to the sky and then panning down to reveal the woman and friends coming out of the building. That's a natural transition. 

Dramatic Arc/Curve and Aristotle

 Aristotle was the first to say that a story has a beginning, middle and end, which coincides by using the dramatic arc. The dramatic arc is shown below:

Replacing exposition, climax and denouement with beginning, middle and end respectively. Most films seem to follow this dramatic arc in terms of story telling. However going against can be well done but it is difficult. Eugene Scribe was the first to ask, "why do we have to follow this outline?". So films like Memento have followed Scribe in his way of thinking. 

I don't what dramatic arc our documentary will take. We are still talking and researching about ideas we can do. We talked about maybe interviewing an arts, medical and psychology professor to give us their definition of what a mouth is to them. Hopefully giving us new perspectives that we can feature in our documentary. We also talked about the primal and essential extinct our mouths are used for. For example eating. It was also brought up about, maybe non-essential but our mouths are used to show love, compassion and used in sex. So again, it could interesting to talk to someone who knows a lot about sex, i.e. a sex psychologist or maybe a porn star, to see what their opinion is on the mouth.

In our groups, we also have to present on a practitioner of documentary. Peter has pushed us away from doing practitioners such as Louis Theroux and Michael Moore and asked us to find someone not on the suggested practitioners. George has given us the idea of German documentary maker, Werner Herzog. He seems interesting and I would like to do the presentation on him. Although we will have to meet up and discuss it further. 

Video Entry #2 - Equipment

We have been split into our groups for our documentary. In my group are; George, Mariah and Roshana. Our documentary is going to be on the mouth. A couple of suggestions for what the documentary is going to be about is what we use our mouths for, how they're used as a communication tool but in recent, they've been replaced by keyboards etc and Peter gave us the idea of, when stroke victims are recovering. They put the hand to the mouth and a primal instinct happens when they try to eat. Again, this can lead to so many possibilities which is why I think it was a good idea and documentary.

The first two weeks were just getting use to the equipment we will be using. We are going to be using:

Sony HVR-Z1E

Manfrotto Tripod (Similar to one pictured)

Gun Microphone

We are also allowed to access other equipment such as a fish pole or clip on microphone.

We had a chance to get used to the equipment. We went out in our group and listened to how the outside world affected our sound recording. Here is a photo of us doing it:

Video Entry #1 - What is Documentary? Reading notes for "What is Documentary?"

Reading Notes

Documentary is important:

"You will see that documentary is that rare medium in which the common person takes on large, important issues and shakes up society"

Documentary cannot be defined rigidly

"Get two documentarians together, and the chances are high that they argue about what documentary is. Even though documentary has evolved continuously from its inception, its preview and methods remain ambiguous, and its parameters keep enlarging...The disagreement arise over allied issues:

- What any given actuality really is

- How to record it without compromise and without injecting alien values

- How to honestly and truthfully convey something that, being more spirit than materiality can only be discerned subjectively"

Documentarians think highly of themselves

"People who make documentaries put a high value on the joy, pain, compromise and learning that come from being completely alive. No wonder they make great company"

Documentary is socially critical

"Documentary always seems concerned with uncovering further dimensions to actuality and at the same time implying social criticism"

Documentary is an organised story

"Successful documentaries, like their fiction counterparts, tell a good story and engaging characters, narrative tension, and integrated point of view."

True documentary goes beyond and incites more in the viewer

"True documentary reflects the richness and ambiguity of life, and goes beyond the guise of objective observation to include impressions, perceptions, and feelings. Human reality under pressure becomes surreal and hallucinatory, as you see so memorably in Errol Morris' The Thin Blue Line (1998). Modern documentarians must be ready to represent not just the outward, visible reality of those they film but also their inner lives, because thoughts, memories, dreams and nightmares are the inside dimension of their lives"

Documentary must be fair and balanced

"Fairness. In a world of ambigiutiies the documentarian's responsibility is to be fair...A film may be accurate and truthful, but it may fail unless it is perceived as such"

Documentary is

"a branch of the expressive arts, not a science"