Mini Documentary
Smile- :)
EvaluationIm really pleased with how my overall outcome for my documentary has came out, I have achieved the happy up beat vibe that I was attempting to portray. Along with some personal images and videos, to make the viewer think about times they've been happy. In the end, I didn't stick to my story board due to me changing some of the scenes to make it more personal and generally less structured. As well as this, I attempted to get an interview with someone of one of the mature general public however all of them said no. One of them I described the means of my documentary; she said "I'm not happy" which really saddened me. An issue that seemed to be recurring, is the sunlight causing eye squint In order to combat this issue I shot during later times as when I shot when it was around about 12 the sun was overpowering. In one of my videos shooting outside, the audio wasn't great due to wind I tried to save the cut by editing it in iMovie to no success. Some of my peer review feedback, was that I spelt memory wrong obviously me being dyslexic doesn't help In future I should ask my tutor to review before publishing.Feed back that I received from my tutor, Hayley is that one of the scenes is to long so to improve I need to add some extra videos of smiling except from having one. Some critical feed back that I give to myself, is sometimes my voice was shaky especially in earlier footage due to nervousness being on camera however towards the end of the documentary this nervousness dispersed. If I had more time I would reshoot this portion of footage once I gained more confidence I think the audio is perfect; the music doesn't over shadow any dialogue said and I think it fits the happy vibe I was going for. I added certain aspects, such as pictures to break up my documentary and keep the viewer engaged throughout. I didn't shoot this with a film camera, I instead shot it on my phone camera as it was more mobile to shoot and would attract less attention. In order to improve, I need to proof read any text incorporated in the mini documentary to make sure SPAG is correct. I could also, put more thought into composition considering different shot types and positioning of subject.
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For my documentary filming I decided to use my phone camera instead, due to the possibility of me being clumsy and breaking equipment and no possible safe storage. I also found it a lot more mobile, and didn't gather as much attention as one of the college cameras. 21/03/2022-I attempted to go up to multiple mature citizens today for a short interview, unfortunately all of them said no. Although I didn't gather any footage of others outside the college grounds , I found this day of filming to be a good to improve my confidence as I'm a bit more comfortable approaching people. I've also managed to capture interviews of my tutor Emma and a Caretaker, asking them various questions about happiness and smiling. Both interviews were of the same format, shot from a close up straight on angle. 14/03/2022I shot some footage today, with the accompany of my girlfriend to be my designated camera woman. There was a beautiful array of sunshine, hanging quite low due to it being towards the evening which in turn made it difficult to eliminate eye squint. Even though this problem persisted, I found a way to minimise this issue another problem we had was my girlfriends shadow was in the shot this was solved by minor repositioning. I also filmed a B-Roll shot, but just one because I filmed way to many previously. 7/03/2022For my shoot, I thought that I would tackle the thing I was 100% certain would be in my documentary which was sunny B-rolls. I filmed various B-rolls outside my house where there is an open patch of land, and I also filmed some in a wooded area not to far from my home. I filmed a diverse range of subjects, some being of the sky and some being of plants.
A problem for my first shoot was my hand wasn't very steady, however with a lot of retakes my phone camera handling and stability improved What I wanted to achieve while researching smiles, is how it affects us and others around us. As well as the improvement it has on mental and physical health. While researching I came across these facts:
Children smile 400times a day on average A Happy adult smiles 40-50 a day on average ReferencesDeWitt, A., 2022. 11 Facts About Smiling. [online] Lifehack. Available at: <https://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/11-facts-about-smiling.html> [Accessed 21 March 2022].
Norwood, E., 2022. Surprising Health Benefits Of Smiling. [online] Henryford.com. Available at: <https://www.henryford.com/blog/2017/10/health-benefits-smiling> [Accessed 1 March 2022]. For our story boarding we were given advice to split scenes into different chapters, focusing on certain aspects of our mini documentaries. We were given a template to either, draw our story board on or digitally put images in; however I decided to find a website to make my story board. I used the website Storyboard That to make the vision for my mini documentary.
In todays session, with Emma we were told to generate a mind map with an array of ideas for our subject of our mini documentaries. I put down some interest of my own, along with ideas I thought would be interesting documentary ideas. From this selection of ideas, I chose to go with a more happier subject of smiles. I thought it would be an interesting concept to talk about, as it is a day to day thing we as humans do. In todays session Calum came into the session to show off some of the luxurious film cameras, which was really exciting. I had never seen a film camera before, so I was intrigued straight away when Calum started handing them out. Calum explained what all the little buttons did, so It took a while because there was a lot of them but also meant I learnt quite a lot. This labelled image above, points out all the different buttons and there purposes which Emma had made which I found really useful as its is hard for me to memorise them all. The week after, which I thought relevant so I put it on the same blog post Calum brought the cameras in once again for us to have a play around and shoot some film. He brought 3 different types of cameras varying in different sizes for different ways of shooting.
We got the smaller pocket camera, which was really interesting however the focus setting was really hard to understand so we had aid from Calum. I also took some pointless video footage, practising different camera techniques so I can utilise them in my documentary. Title:Brighter Tomorrow Subject:I will compose a mini documentary about happiness and the way a smile can make you and others happy around you. My main purpose of this documentary is to get people thinking about how a smile correlates with general happiness, and to add some personal examples to make the documentary more meaningful. Audience:I want my target audience to be broad, keeping obscenities out to make it more child friendly and make it viewable from people of religious back grounds.
In order to get some knowledge on composing a mini documentary, I used Shortoftheweek and found two interesting documentaries on two different subjects to gain an understanding on shot types and techniques I could use to aid me with my documentary. We were told to observe not only the story of the documentary, but the camera shots and angles that are used in the two mini documentaries we selected. Believe in ghosts
Her documentary is about her life as a farmer, and her struggles of being a farmer who is a woman and of a darker skin tone. In the documentary It begins with her alone on the farm, but as the documentary goes on it shows her with her family as well as the community which really gives this sense of unity. Through out the documentary we see Dixon in an interview set, using a close up shot which really does make you engage in what she saying and makes you feel connected. I want to grasp this in my own documentary using camera angles, shot types and distance to create an emotional connection.
Irregulars
His documentary is about a refugee, which shows the horrors of the global immigration crisis. Throughout the documentary there is eerie music in the background, this is something Irregulars have utilised that Believe in Ghosts hasn't which could possibly be something I want to incorporate.
They have also used the mannequins for visual representation of the voice over. For example the man says he "could not feel my hands and arms anymore" as it cut to mannequin hands. I think this documentary is a very good example of a good documentary however it is very different to what I want my documentary to be. |