A2 coursework - documentary research

By watching the documentary on tourettes it helped me further understand the conventions of documentaries. During the course of the documentary they have lots of examples of interviews. All of these involve just one person to give the film a personal feel. The camera is usually positioned straight in front of the person being interviewed.










Camera shots and angles
Editing
Voice over
Interviews
Location sound recording (diegetic sounds)
Non-diegetic musicStructure (what comes where in the documentary and why)
Archive footage (footage taken in the past).

Shooting Schedule

Available filming time - tuesday pm , wednesday am , thursday am

Classroom scene - tuesday - lessons 5 & 6
Uploading footage - wednesday - lesson 1
corridor scene - wednesday - lesson 2
corridor scene - thursday - lesson 3
uploading footage - thursday - lesson 4
corridor scene - tuesday - lesson 5
uploading footage - tuesday - lesson 6
edititng footage shot so far - wednesday- lessons 1 & 2
Bedroom and Bathroom scene - thursday - lessons 3 & 4
tuesday uploading footage -tuesday - lessons 5 & 6
editing - wednesday - lessons 1 & 2
Recording sound - thursday - lesson 3
uploading sound thursday - lesson 4
General editing and checking - Any available lessons

Shot List

Scene where Melvin gets up was a high angle shot which we intend to last 7-8 seconds.
Melvin in bathroom is an over the shoulder shot which should last 7 seconds.
Classroom scene is hopefully an over the shoulder shot to last 30 seconds.
Corridor scene uses mid shots using 2 cameras lasting 20 seconds.
Girl scene starts with a long shot moving to a mid shot hopefully lasting 15 seconds.

Storyboard 2

Storyboard 1

This is the original storyboard that i drew up to aid in the
production of our two minute film.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

One thing in particular i learnt from our preliminary task was that if we spend more time planning it would be easier for us when we eventually came to filming our piece. For example, when we did the preliminary task we didn't do things like make a script which for this final piece we found to be vital if it was to be a success. A schedule was also devised so before we went into each lesson we knew what we had to do. This came about because when we did the preliminary task sometimes in lessons we didn't do alot because before hand we didn't know what we had to do that lesson. At the start of the preliminary task we only had one idea of what the footage was going to include. Also we produced a script and a camera angles plan to further aid our piece. This helped us because when we came to film it we knew exactly where the camera had to be so we could complete our filming quicker allowing more time for editing etc. Overall i think i have learnt most of all that a good preperation is key to a successful film.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

There are many things i have learnt about technologies while making this film. I learnt a lot more about the editing program adobe premier. In fact i had never heard of the program before i used it in this project. By using it during my editing process i learnt that many editing techniques are easily achieved. The main thing i learnt was how to add music to clips. I didn't know you could stretch the music so it plays over longer distances in your film. We used this particular technique to great effect in our two minute film. Another piece of equipment i learnt how to use was the sound recorder and microphone. We had to record a voiceover to go over the top of our film so i had to use the sound/voice recorder. I learnt how to record a clip and then replay it to see how it sounded and as we kept changing the script this function became an integral part of recording the piece. I do know how to use the internet!!! but i had never heard of a site called freeplayermusic which was the website where we got our music from. We had to choose music from that website as it is all copyright free which is good as its the only type of music we could use!. After hours of careful attention and after sifting through thousands of tracks we found one that was suitable for our piece. We then copied it onto a memory stick and put it onto the computer that the video was saved on. Also i had never transferred music from a website onto another computer via a memory stick so that was something new i learnt about technologies from doing this project. Another thing i learnt about technologies is to do with adobe premier. I learnt that you can add text to the top of a video. We initial tried that but then found it might be better if we added a voiceover instead. Nonetheless it was still a learning curve for me with regards to the functions on adobe premier. All this will help me in similar projects in the future.