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CDM 301
Documentary Making
Introduction
In our previous unit (CDM 304)we were tasked with generating two documentary ideas, which are below.
The two ideas I thought of for my documentary were about my grandad and living through WWII and my uncle who creates hip-hop music. I would create a portrait documentary about my granddad so he could share some important history with people. I am going to create a portrait documentary about my uncle and how he got to share his music with audiences all over the world.
Mind Maps
Elevator Pitch
00:00 / 03:48
For my elevator pitch I had to pitch two ideas for my portrait documentary. The first idea was to create a documentary about my grandad and what it was like being a teenager during the war.
My second idea was to interview my uncle and ask him about his music career and his stories about performing all over the world. I have chosen to create the documentary about my uncle as I think it will be more engaging and a bit easier for me to create.
Documentary Pitching Powerpoint
Pitch Video
Click above to access pre-production documents
Pre-Production
B-roll
I already knew what the space would look like and knew that there was a huge record collection and lots of DJ'ing equipment. I thought that filming the equipment in close detail would be good B-roll as many people usually don't see it up close. I used pintrest for inspiration for shots, colouring and angles of these shots, I also used pintrest to create a B-roll mood board to give me and idea
Questions
In this documentary I knew the person very well as he is my uncle, which allowed me to have some extra knowledge of questions and prompts to ask. I had already known that my uncle has some really interesting stories, travelled to lots of countries and has met many interesting people, which gave me some ideas of questions to ask. I also aimed to ask the basic interviewing question so the viewers could be introduced to the person and the subject that they don't know much about.
During the interview I also let my uncle speak as much as he wanted during each question as I could get more length and more exciting stories from this
Lighting
I had planned for this shoot to use panel lights to light the subject and set. I had planned to use a warm colour as I wanted to achieve a retro look on this documentary.
Day of the Shoot
When I arrived to the shoot the first thing I did was set up the equipment and make sure that everything is working. I checked that I had put my memory card into the camera and that the microphone was picking up noise. Shortly after setting up the equipment I sat down with the person being interviewed and explained how the interview would run so it can run as smooth as possible and so they knew what to expect.
The interview was the first thing I filmed as I wanted to get the longest part finished as soon as possible. I think it was helpful getting the story from the interview and then being able to film B-roll to reference it. The majority of the B-roll I filmed was music equipment and the record collection, which was also the same place as the interview. I managed to capture around 1 minute of B-roll footage which was enough to cover the 3-5 minute brief, this was because I already knew I was going to also use archive footage. After filming the interview and B-roll I exchanged my email address because my uncle said he was send over some archive footage (photos & videos)
On the day of the shoot there were a few things that didn't go to plan, which meant I had to change a few things last minute. The main issue was not having lighting equipment due to no availability, this meant that on the day of the shoot I had to use lamps to light the subject and set. This wasn't ideal for me but I still managed to light it and it also gave off a yellow/orange retro look to the footage.
Post-Production
The post-production process was quite long and difficult for me as I don't have much editing knowledge or experience, however this project did get me to learn new editing skills (even though they are still quite simple).
Sorting Footage
The first thing I did after getting the footage was sorting through the 40minute+ interview and finding b-roll and archive footage once I had done that I started to seperate the interview. To make this process a bit easier I put the questions in a timeline so I knew exactly where to put each segment. I then listened to each answer and cut each section down to a minute each, once I had done that I had created a timeline for my documentary so I would know where each section would go and how many questions would be included. I pieced together the documentary and watched it back multiple times so I would know If there are any boring bits, bits that didn't make sense and audio issues.
Audio
Editing the audio for this documentary was difficult as the speaker would constantly change how loud he was speaking throughout the whole shoot. For me this meant that I would have to adjust the audio for each sentence so the overall documentary was the same volume. Another issue which made editing the audio difficult was having to cut lots of pauses and "ums" out of the middle of a sentence, having to cut out these meant that when I would join the clip back together there would be audio pops.
I then started to add the background music into the film, I wanted something that was fairly upbeat for the beginning of the documentary to make it exciting. I started adjusting the audio level for the music and the speaking to make sure the music didn't overpower the speaker.
Effects
I didn't use many effects during the editing of the documentary, this was due to the fact that it wasn't needed much and that I have a small amount of editing experience on PremierePro. The one effect I did add into my documentary was a few polaroid pictures stacking on top of each other. To create this effect I had to photoshop the original photos and create a white border around each one, then I would import the edited photos into PremierePro. Next I had to decide the order of the photos and then position and angle them onto the documentary, each time I would add a picture I would create a new layer on PremierePro to create a stacking effect. Then I added camera shuttering noise each time a photo would appear to create a cool effect.
Archive Footage
for this documentary I had collected archive footage from different places, I had lots of photos sent to me from my uncle and I also used some archive footage that I had found on Youtube. To find the archive footage I had search up my Uncles stage name (Sir Beanz OBE) and lots of music videos and radio interviews had appeared. I decided not to use the footage from the music videos as I though it didn't look that good and it may be copyrighted. The videos that I had taken from youtube was one of him DJ'ing in a small club in the 90's and another video of him performing a few years ago. I really liked this footage as it gave the audience a feel of what it was like being on stage and it also linked with the story quite well. One of the archive videos was filmed on VHS which complimented the old-school feel to the documentary.
Evaluation
Overall I am quite happy with my documentary as it's the first toime I have made one and it's also the first time I have done a project completely on my own. Looking back now there are things that I would change about it, but there are also things that I really like. There were a couple of issues that I encountered during the production and post-production of the project.
There were a few issues on the day of the shoot. One of the main issues was the lighting, which I didn't have access to, this was due to not having enough equipment to go around on the same weekend. I think that if I had access to lighting on the shoot it could've helped make the documentary look more polished. I had to continue the shoot without it which was ok, overall it didn't look too bad on camera. Next time I am filming for a project I will make sure to have the lighting booked up earlier so I have more choice of equipment. There was also another issue during the shoot., which was having a vacuum cleaner behinid the subject. I completely forgot about the dressing of he set until it was too late. It is not extremely obvious but it is slightly annoying, but I've learnt from this mistake and next time I will take more time to make sure the set is exactly how I want it on my next shoot
Final Edit
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