Documentary reflection
Initial ideas -
After sitting down and discussing some ideas through our mind map, we pitched a couple of ideas to Anne and she explained the strengths and weaknesses of them all and which ideas she liked. As a group we decided to explore into the Reading music scene; after exploring potential venues, conducting test interviews and highlighting risks we decided that it would be too much work for the little amount of time we had. Plus we weren't getting anywhere with permissions.
We went back to the drawing board and started thinking of different ideas and concepts we could do within Farnham. We decided to start looking into consumerism within Farnham. After Anne highlighting the issue of our idea being too scatty, we all went off and did our own research.
As the other two decided to look more into the psychology of consumerism and advertising, I decided to look at something more visual to start. I found a documentary which spoke about consumerism and this was a more visual way for me to understand consumerism and conformity as it highlighted the history of how this idea started. I then looked into subliminal messaging and found a book by Vance Packard - The Hidden Persuaders - which explores the psychology of how big companies manipulate us into consuming through advertising. This reminded me of a film I watched a while ago called They Live which I rewatched. I also looked into Djziga Vertov.
We all scouted the town, I made notes of the risks and potential hazards and any extra note which we might want to consider and discussed them on our walk through the high street. Elena documented pictures of signs and anything which we could include in our video. We took pictures whilst on the end of Black Friday so by the shooting time they had been taken down. Which is when I suggested that we shoot on a weekend when the high street would be busy and we would get more of the consumerism feel which we wanted but the other group members decided it would be too much of a hassle to shoot when there would be a lot of people around.
Throughout the research, Myself and Elena worked on constructing the production pack. This mainly consisted of putting in contact details and risk assessments. Without realising until we started to put the production pack together that we needed permission which would take us up to two days to gain, luckily we managed to get it that night which allowed us to go and record our audio interviews for the next day.
We went out onto the streets and tried to ask people to let us interview them which was difficult as people were too busy to stop and chat. We alternated the roles of boom swinger, interviewer and sound operator between us throughout the day. We managed to get a fair amount of audio to work from. The other group members went out the next day to shoot the visuals whilst I had an appointment, on their return we sat in the library and I raised the issue that if all of the footage was handheld and shaky then it might not be documentary enough and tried to pitch an initial idea of a walk through town to give it more bulk and some establishing shots of the town were necessary for it to still be classed as documentary. I fell ill on the second day of shooting and couldn't help with these shots.
We all went through the interviews and gathered a script of what was said in the interviews. I then highlighted some phrases and buzzwords which we could have used for act 1. Then I started looking into how to create the visuals for act 1 and started to create these visuals from the very basic cut and paste structure that was handed to me. I then helped film act 3 in R19 and edited that footage so it was bright enough to see us in the foreground. I then created a title screen with Elena, which we had to stretch out some more of the footage for act 1.
Overall, this process helped me understand how difficult it is to create a documentary.
After sitting down and discussing some ideas through our mind map, we pitched a couple of ideas to Anne and she explained the strengths and weaknesses of them all and which ideas she liked. As a group we decided to explore into the Reading music scene; after exploring potential venues, conducting test interviews and highlighting risks we decided that it would be too much work for the little amount of time we had. Plus we weren't getting anywhere with permissions.
We went back to the drawing board and started thinking of different ideas and concepts we could do within Farnham. We decided to start looking into consumerism within Farnham. After Anne highlighting the issue of our idea being too scatty, we all went off and did our own research.
As the other two decided to look more into the psychology of consumerism and advertising, I decided to look at something more visual to start. I found a documentary which spoke about consumerism and this was a more visual way for me to understand consumerism and conformity as it highlighted the history of how this idea started. I then looked into subliminal messaging and found a book by Vance Packard - The Hidden Persuaders - which explores the psychology of how big companies manipulate us into consuming through advertising. This reminded me of a film I watched a while ago called They Live which I rewatched. I also looked into Djziga Vertov.
We all scouted the town, I made notes of the risks and potential hazards and any extra note which we might want to consider and discussed them on our walk through the high street. Elena documented pictures of signs and anything which we could include in our video. We took pictures whilst on the end of Black Friday so by the shooting time they had been taken down. Which is when I suggested that we shoot on a weekend when the high street would be busy and we would get more of the consumerism feel which we wanted but the other group members decided it would be too much of a hassle to shoot when there would be a lot of people around.
Throughout the research, Myself and Elena worked on constructing the production pack. This mainly consisted of putting in contact details and risk assessments. Without realising until we started to put the production pack together that we needed permission which would take us up to two days to gain, luckily we managed to get it that night which allowed us to go and record our audio interviews for the next day.
We went out onto the streets and tried to ask people to let us interview them which was difficult as people were too busy to stop and chat. We alternated the roles of boom swinger, interviewer and sound operator between us throughout the day. We managed to get a fair amount of audio to work from. The other group members went out the next day to shoot the visuals whilst I had an appointment, on their return we sat in the library and I raised the issue that if all of the footage was handheld and shaky then it might not be documentary enough and tried to pitch an initial idea of a walk through town to give it more bulk and some establishing shots of the town were necessary for it to still be classed as documentary. I fell ill on the second day of shooting and couldn't help with these shots.
We all went through the interviews and gathered a script of what was said in the interviews. I then highlighted some phrases and buzzwords which we could have used for act 1. Then I started looking into how to create the visuals for act 1 and started to create these visuals from the very basic cut and paste structure that was handed to me. I then helped film act 3 in R19 and edited that footage so it was bright enough to see us in the foreground. I then created a title screen with Elena, which we had to stretch out some more of the footage for act 1.
Overall, this process helped me understand how difficult it is to create a documentary.
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