Documentary Production
Synopsis
Documentary Production is our first film in the FdA Film and Media course, when given this brief I didn’t know much about documentary films other than the generic ones that you could commonly see on the TV or Netflix. I didn't know anything about the different types/styles of documentary that were out there or that they portrayed different meanings. I did have a few ideas of what i wanted to do but wasnt sure how i wantedit all to be potrayed and how i would make it into a film.
6 'Modes' Of documentary - As said by 'Bill nichols'
Poetic : Shows "inner truth', uses visual association, works on moods, no verbal connection
Expository : Verbal comentary, Logical 'Right and Proper', also works with manipulation
Participatory : Direct engagment, film maker gets involved, rough almost ameture look
Reflexive : Constructed but made obvious, A reconsruction of the truth
Performative: Evocation and affect, Film is centered around the presentor doing something
Expository : Verbal comentary, Logical 'Right and Proper', also works with manipulation
Participatory : Direct engagment, film maker gets involved, rough almost ameture look
Reflexive : Constructed but made obvious, A reconsruction of the truth
Performative: Evocation and affect, Film is centered around the presentor doing something
Research & inspiration
My documentary is centred around 'Car Culture', I chose this as it is a subject that I know fairly well about and I feel others don’t so much, I didn’t watch many documentary’s to get inspiration but more YouTube videos as this is what I watch on a day to day basis.
The start of my film will follow a poetic structure as seen in 'Man with a movie camera'. I want to use this as an example as my film with be all in black & white and have a backing track to it, it will then lead onto having interviews but just verbal as I do not want any film of the people involved. i will then move onto a more up beat soundtrack as I bring the mood around the subject up.
Mood board
I have found that I really like the use of Black & White or mono with high definition footage as it gives a very different feel to films, I believe it will work well with this film as it works with the unknowing and people not knowing about the subject or situation. Unfortunately, due to the content that I am filming most of it will be at night, this means most of the footage will be very dark unless I push the ISO which will create grain, I have also thought of this and it think it may be an interesting effect to work with as it will give it a very rustic look. I will then move onto daytime shots which will look a lot clearer and smooth bringing a much lighter feel to the second half of the film.
Locations
I don't have any specific location for my documentary but there will be a few places that come up in the film that I have shown below, the first location is a carpark outside of homebase in Worle, Weston-s-mare, this is a very popular area for the people that will be in my film, they tend to meet in this carpark most nights of the week for a social gathering with their cars so I have chosen to get some footage from this area. Another location that will be in the film in Avonmouth Docks, Bristol, this is an area i visited at night with a group of people who take specific "drift" cars there and drift around a newly built roundabout in a new industrial yard. The last location that will be in the film is outside a friends house on Swiss Road, Weston-s-Mare, i have filmed a friend of mine and his dad fixing brakes on his car.
my film
Equipment
Nikon D5100: Nikon 18-55mm, Nikon 55-300mm, Tonika 11-16mm
DJI OSMO: Zenmuse X3 3.6mm
DJI Ronin
DJI OSMO: Zenmuse X3 3.6mm
DJI Ronin
Evaluation
THE LIFE WE LIVE
This film came out very close to how I imagined it, the main thing I found with the production of this film is that I changed considerably as I was filming, I believe this happened due to the nature of the subject that I was going for, I needed to film as and when the people and cars I was filming were able to, I think I could have done more in my pre-production to plan for cancellation and bad weather, this did put off a couple of my shoots and a few ideas had to be postponed
Also, as seen in throughout the film there are blurred scenes of cars drifting, this is of course illegal and I was merely an observer not an organizer of these scenes, during this same night of filming a car caught fire which is also seen in the first half of the film, again none of this was staged it was just filmed as I happened, after that I began to realize the nature of documentary production and that you cannot stage certain events.
The first documentary that we watched in uni was “man with a movie camera”, this gave me the inspiration to use a poetic/city symphony style of documentary, I also regularly watch YouTube videos of car shows and car enthusiasts and I took various styles and looks from them
A Facebook video of car enthusiast circulated a few months ago which had a brilliant speech that I actually used for this film, I found sections of it that I particularly liked and worked it into the video, this was voiced by a friend of mine whose car was in the video, if I did anything different next time it would be using proper sound equipment, for this filmed I used my iPhone and the voice memo app in a quiet car and then transferred the sound clip onto the video, it doesn’t necessarily sound bad it just may have had a much deeper tone with something such as a rode microphone.
This film came out very close to how I imagined it, the main thing I found with the production of this film is that I changed considerably as I was filming, I believe this happened due to the nature of the subject that I was going for, I needed to film as and when the people and cars I was filming were able to, I think I could have done more in my pre-production to plan for cancellation and bad weather, this did put off a couple of my shoots and a few ideas had to be postponed
Also, as seen in throughout the film there are blurred scenes of cars drifting, this is of course illegal and I was merely an observer not an organizer of these scenes, during this same night of filming a car caught fire which is also seen in the first half of the film, again none of this was staged it was just filmed as I happened, after that I began to realize the nature of documentary production and that you cannot stage certain events.
The first documentary that we watched in uni was “man with a movie camera”, this gave me the inspiration to use a poetic/city symphony style of documentary, I also regularly watch YouTube videos of car shows and car enthusiasts and I took various styles and looks from them
A Facebook video of car enthusiast circulated a few months ago which had a brilliant speech that I actually used for this film, I found sections of it that I particularly liked and worked it into the video, this was voiced by a friend of mine whose car was in the video, if I did anything different next time it would be using proper sound equipment, for this filmed I used my iPhone and the voice memo app in a quiet car and then transferred the sound clip onto the video, it doesn’t necessarily sound bad it just may have had a much deeper tone with something such as a rode microphone.