Soane111mc's Blog

Final Documentary & Reflection 4.

soane111mc — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 23:31:15 +0000

Our finished documentary about Abdul the taxi driver:

Reflection 4.

I found this module Researching for Media Production very enjoyable as I have learnt many new things about the industry, firstly, I never realised how much research is put into creating a piece of media. Consequently, I feel that I am now more prepared and know what to expect when beginning my career. Furthermore, we came across a number of problems during our production process that I feel will help me during the next 2 years of Media Production, as I now know that efficient planning will make my task a whole lot easier. This is because our first attempt at filming an interview with Abdul went terribly wrong due to the wet weather conditions. This then resulted in a dark and miserable impression on our documentary. Therefore, we decided to re-shoot this scene on a day that would be sunnier as well as an earlier time so we don’t risk dark footage, yet Abdul didn’t arrive until the late afternoon which still created an under exposed film. Nonetheless, after receiving feedback, the darkness in the background worked well with the context of the documentary and anchored the frightening experience Abdul went through.

Other than that, I feel everything else ran smoothly through the production process as we finished the editing process with plenty of time for alterations and we worked well as a group, bouncing of each others ideas and allocating roles fairly. In terms of the roles, I found myself the photographer for all of the production process, capturing it in images so I could post them on my blog, I also spent time filming, for instance, I filmed the scenes at night that have the slow shutter speed to create the stringing effect and also a couple of angles whereby we filmed Abdul within the taxi. When editing however, I found that we did not allocate roles, but rather worked as a group and each put our opinions across at what we believed would look better. I feel that my knowledge in editing is quite good as I am fairly confident when using Avid, however, my editorial judgment is rather the opposite as I feel that I cannot make accurate decisions during the editing process on my own and I need someone with me to either confirm or alter the decisions that I have made. Consequently, my teamwork skills are high as I work well within a group when making decisions and going through the production process, yet I can still work effectively as an individual emphasised through the work on my blog as it shows the research I did towards the module and also my contribution towards the production.

Overall, I found that I am now more aware about the sheer amount of effort that goes into creating a film, even before the production process. Furthermore, because I was able to contribute more towards the editing procedure, I now feel more confident when using Avid and also I feel that my skills have developed. Lastly, this experience I have gained through documentary making will be very helpful towards my future career.

Draft Documentary #2

soane111mc — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:00:21 +0000

After filming the last shots last night, we were able to incorporte these into the scenes whereby Abdul describes his experience at gun point. We chose to do this because we felt that the eerie and dark atmosphere of being alone within a city at night, anchores the emotions Abdul felt during this time.

We then showed this to our lecturers for feedback on any improvements. Overall they found the structure of our documentary was good and it included effective content, however, there were a few shots which we will change. For instance, near the beginning there is a moving shot looking out the back window of the taxi, our lecturers found this inneffective as it gives the idea that Abdul is driving away from something, contradicting against what he is actually saying. Furthermore, the first night scene does not have anything interesting happening, therefore, may cause our audience to lose interest, so we will change this to another night shot whereby the shutter speed is slower to make the image as a whole, more interesting as it is different. Lastly, Abdul is introduced to quickly giving no time for the audience to register the information, consequently, we will improve this by possible including a still image at the beginning rather than going straight into the documentary.

Individual Assignment – Screening.

soane111mc — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:00:25 +0000

After researching the possible venues and websites where I can screen my documentary, I have finalised them to these 5:

Youtube – I chose Youtube because it is the most popular and widely used video sharing website, therefore, I feel my documentary will be viewed by many due to the sheer amount of viewings every day.

Archive.org - This website will be more useful to me as it covers a wide range of media types, therefore, increasing the audience who are available to see my documentary. Furthermore, its international documents emphasises how these videos can be watched world-wide along with the professional and technical vocabulary, showing how Archive.org is more serious about the film industry and will be genuine about my documentary.

Sheffield Documentary Festival - I found that this festival would be an ideal place to screen my documentary as it focuses on documentaries only, therefore, mine will be looked at professionally and with enthusiasm by fellow documentary makers. Furthermore, this festival holds a variety of activities that can be educational and great help towards your dream of becoming a successful film maker through masterclasses and conferences whereby you can pitch any ideas you have.

Ellen Terry Room ETG34 - After using these international screening opportunities, I decided to choose a more local venue whereby I can gain insight from my fellow students and lecturers along with the local public.

Warwick Arts Centre - Similar to my decision to screen at the Ellen Terry building, I found that Warwick Arts Centre is local, but not too close that it clashes with the Coventry people. Therefore, I found that Warwick not only has more students and lecturers than can give me decent feedback, but also it’s venue being a cinema, emphasising the more upper class screening opportunities rather than a simple lecture theatre.

Documentary Review.

Our documentary follows the story of a taxi driver named Abdul who has been within the business for 15 years. We find out how he came across this industry along with the good and bad points of the job that are anchored by the various shots and visuals presented throughout the short documentary. Overall, an interesting look at what happens behind the scenes of a taxi driver.

Screening Research.

soane111mc — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:30:03 +0000

We have been set the individual assignment to research possible venues in which we can screen our documentary. Therefore, I began by checking out the popular 3 minute wonders on channel 4, fortunately, I came across a page that gives advice to upcoming film makers and how to get their movies into the open, this website was:

http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/F/fourdocs/how_to/where.html

However, this page only showed how to upload your movie via the internet, it did not state any actual venues and upcoming festivals that would be appropriate to my documentary. Nonetheless, it’s a start, so I went on to research these internet based cinemas:

Youtube.

The most widely known video database that allows people to upload any video, any length, any content onto its website. I feel Youtube would be a good site to upload our video as it is watched by millions everyday throughout the world. However, I am also taking into account, what my trusty website FourDocs warned about Youtube, was that it would not be suitable for a documentary due to the video’s poor quality once uploaded and squashed to fit the size of Youtube. Yet I will still keep Youtube as a possible site for my video.

Myspace Film.

Your typical social network site with extra features such as this Myspace film maker. However, I feel this is more of an amateur site for users to upload personal videos rather than serious documentaries. Furthermore, because the security settings on my Myspace page is set to private, only my friends can view my video, rather than the public who can give me feedback.

Blip.tv

Now this website is more like what I am looking for. It has been an ongoing website since 2005, enabling the public to upload their short films, documentaries, reviews etc and be viewed worldwide. Furthermore, this website enables you to view your dashboard that shows your uploaded videos and the statistics of views, so you know how well your videos are doing. However, Blip.tv is not as widely known as Youtube or Myspace so my documentary may not get as many views as I would hope, yet it is still a good website to publish my video.

Archive.org

This website is very similar to Blip.tv as it holds more professional style videos of shorts, documentaries etc that can be viewed by the public. However, Archive.org differs from Blip.tv through the content in which it holds, Blip.tv surrounds the style of short films where as Archive.org shows media from full-length movies to broadcast and cartoons. Furthermore, I feel that this website is more widely known than Blip.tv but not as famous as Youtube, yet it could help my documentary become very successful. Archive.org includes thousands of videos and they are constantly being watched, so I see that these viewers are eager for some new work and will give decent feedback.

I then went on to research possible festivals to show my documentary. I did not want to look at a full film festival as I feel the documentary work would not be as widely acclaimed as the full-length films that would be shown at the same time and the attention would be directed away from my work. Consequently, I decided to focus on a festival dedicated to just documentaries:

Sheffield Documentary Festival.

I discovered the Sheffield Documentary Festival that will be held from 3-7 November. Not only does this festival screen documentaries, but it is also a market place, discussion forum, a place to pitch your own ideas and a classroom whereby it offers in-depth masterclasses on film making. Therefore, I feel this festival would be the perfect place to screen my documentary.

London International Documentary Festival.

I also discovered another documentary festival within London, this may also be as helpful towards screening my documentary as it is within the capital of England, therefore, it may get more viewers than Sheffield. However, the LIDF has only been running since 2007, where as Sheffield has been holding this festival since 1993, therefore, I believe that it will be more active. Nonetheless, the LIDF runs on a longer period, from 29th April – 8th May, offering similar information: workshops, discussions and a variety of international documentaries.

Cinema Screening – Warwick Arts Centre.

I decided to research Warwick Arts Centre as my possible cinema screening because another cinema within Coventry such as the Odeon is too big and does not cater for short films. Therefore, I chose this cinema because it has previously shown short films and documentaries plus its venue being within Warwick University would be ideal for my target audience of students, not only Coventry students. Consequently, I would be able to receive feedback from Warwick art students and lecturers along with my own.

More editing 08.03.10

soane111mc — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:26:45 +0000

We have now completed most of the editing process as the introduction and end is finished, however, we have taken on board the feedback we were given about the scene where Abdul describes his experience at gunpoint and will be filming more scenes with the view point out the car window. This time however, we will film at night as we feel that the darkened scenery will add to the frightening experience Abdul describes.

Reflection 3.

soane111mc — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:20:49 +0000

Now we have finalised the basis of our documentary, we begin to film. This took time as our first attempt at filming didn’t go so well due to unforeseen weather circumstances, consequently, the footage we captured was poor and Abdul was clearly miserable because of the cold and wet surroundings. Furthermore, I found that we rushed through the production process, giving ourselves no time to alter the procedure. Nonetheless, we arranged to meet the following week and re-shoot the interview, this time the whole production went extremely well, the weather was bright and sunny, we filmed plenty of footage and I feel we worked well as a group. The only downfall was the time of day in which we shot the documentary because Abdul told us he was not available until 3, however, he did not arrive until 4, leaving us with a short amount of daylight. Consequently, I was afraid the footage would appear too dark, however, this darkened atmosphere created an interesting effect that worked well with our documentary. In terms of the roles allocated to each team member, I found that these roles stayed the same for all filming days and only varied slightly. These were: Laura was the interviewer, Yasmin controlled the sound of the documentary, James controlled the PD170 camera while Aaron controlled the PDX10 camera and I captured the whole production within photographs. However, these roles did change, especially when we moved on to film the inside of the taxi as myself, Laura and Yasmin took on this role, as well as editing the final documentary through Avid. The equipment we used during this production was:

PDX10 camera.
PD170 camera.
Boom microphone and pole.
Clip mic.
Wireless clip mic.
Headphones.
Tripods.

In conclusion, I found that we worked really well together when filming and editing as we each put in ideas and suggestions throughout the process enabling us to see every possibility and direction our documentary could go through. However, if I could re-do this whole project, I would plan my production process more accurately so we do not lose a weeks worth of filming opportunities due to bad weather conditions and poor communication.

Feedback.

soane111mc — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 14:55:58 +0000

After viewing the draft of our documentary, we were given plenty of feedback to work on. These points were given by our lecturers.

Ken’s Feedback:

The variation of shots we use works well.
The street shots that we use outside the window of the travelling car could be darker to link with the dark exposure on the shots of Abdul speaking by his taxi. Furthermore, we could use more of these shots.
Do not swap from the 2 different angles of Abdul speaking as they contradict eachother through both the sound and the exposure being totally different.
We need to make sure that Abdul is in the middle of the shot to emphasise his place as the main character.
The story of his experience at gunpoint is too sudden, therefore, we need to phase it in through stories that link to this experience, maybe about bad customers.
Lenthen the beginning shots.
Good content.
Beginning shot does not look right so possibly start with a still image of Abdul himself.
Overall good visuals.

Steve’s Feedback:

Focusing on what frightens him is good.
Don’t keep using the same cutaway shot, add a bit more variety.
Possibly use a still as a beginning shot.
Introduce the documentary by saying what he likes about the job first.
Give the audience chance to take in what has been said by including gaps between certain parts of information.
In terms of narrative, there is a good use of equilibrium through the gunshot scene as we see that the equilibrium is where he drops someone off in Hillfields, the disruption is when he is held at gunpoint, when Abdul panics and revs the engine is the attempt and finally we see the enhanced equilibrium whereby Abdul has escaped.

Overall, i feel these points are very helpful towards improving our documentary and we will begin to work on them.

Editing.

soane111mc — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 19:39:43 +0000

Myself, Laura and Yasmin spent most the day editing the footage we captured yesterday into a brief draft to show our classmates and lecturers what we have done so far. Also, we feel that feedback on our documentary so far is crucial to making it the best it can be, as we still have time to make improvements.

Nonetheless, we decided for our draft, to include Abdul introducing himself so our audience know straight away what our documentary will be about and then move onto a few questions with different snap shots of Abdul driving within his taxi. We decided to create our draft this way because the visuals are what we plan to incorporate into our final 3 minute documentary and therefore, feedback on these ideas would be helpful.

Here is the draft documentary:

Reflection 2.

soane111mc — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 11:21:58 +0000

So we now have our main character Abdul the taxi driver, we begin to research and design the storyboard for our 3 minute documentary. In terms of the research, i found it very difficult to find various facts to research about the taxi industry, however, the artefacts that i feel correspond with this theme were:

The test’s taxi drivers must pass in order to achieve their taxi license.
Abdul’s taxi company Trinity St. Taxis.
Crime statistics on taxi drivers.

For the moment, they are the only points i feel i can research, however, as we progress through our documentary, i may find more interesting points to research.

Aspects of motivation and inspiration i feel i have gained so far include the motivation from my own group members as we are working extremely well as a group and therefore, we lean on eachother for help when it comes to a certain aspect of media production that i am not as confident in. Furthermore, i feel part of the inspiration stems from the channel 4 documentaries named 3 minute wonders, whereby we use the style of their documentaries as guidance towards making our own 3 minute wonder just as successful.

Additionally, i feel our group as producers have been great encouragement towards Abdul’s shy characteristics infront of a camera, as he has become more confident and articulate as our documentary progressed. Therefore, improving the visuals of the documentary.

As we began creating our 3 minute documentary, each member of our group put in valuable ideas and information towards the storyboard, which i have posted onto my blog. In addition, as we began filming we went through a trial and error stage as the beginning was a disaster whereby our footage was ruined through the wet weather and our mistake of filming by the busiest road in Covetry during rush hour. Nonetheless, we have now learnt our lesson and by filming these scenes again on a bright, sunny day, we have created an excellent amount of successful footage, through simply planning our process of production before hand.

Take 2.

soane111mc — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:27:01 +0000

After the unfortunate events last wednesday, we felt the need to film the same scenes again today. Fortunately, the weather was fantastic which worked extremely well with the overall visuals within our documentary and therefore, enabled us to have a successful day of filming.

During our filming session, we were able to film the kep part of our documentary where Abdul answers our questions without any problems. During this stage Aaron and James controlled the cameras, Yasmin controlled the boom mic and Laura asked Abdul the questions while i captured the process within images. We then went on to film the taxi itself, taking shots of the Abdul and the taxi in different view point. We decided to film Abdul inside the taxi as we feel that these variations in camera visuals will work well with Abdul’s voice overtop. Due to the size of the taxi, only myself, Laura and Yasmin went to capture Abdul within his taxi, while James and Aaron packed the rest of the equipment away. This equipment we used was:

PDX10 camera
PDX170 camera
2 headphones
1 clip mic
1 boom microphone and pole
XLR cable to attach the boom microphone to the camera
2 tripods

The last part which we filmed today was Abdul’s taxi rank whereby we met 2 other employees of his company Trinity St. Taxis. These were just as helpful as Abdul and were happy for us to film the main offices as well as themselves which we were extremely grateful for. Overall, an excellent day of filming and i look forward to editing the footage we captured.

Here are the images i took today of the process of production, including Abdul’s interview, within the taxi and inside the taxi ranch: