Documentary - The Edit

Whilst I had input in the edit, these were only on days where we were in University, Gavin and George have been doing a great job with the edit so far and as they all live in close proximity together it works better than having me travel 30 minutes each way.

When showing Helen the rough cut she gave the following pointers =
"

• More atmos in the beginning. The sound is a bit off. She also felt that the images shown in the beginning don't work to the voice over that we’re having. 
• Cut out some of the pre-title sequences. She pointed out that we have at least 3 starting points in the beginning so we need to find out which one is the best one. 
• Slow down the part at Kamran’s house. Try to have him speak more laid-back. We won’t be able to redo the V.O since Kamran is on vacation, but we can see if we can cut some of the audio up to make a bit more spacing, creating some room to breathe. 
• At the Memorial: Go straight to the PTC in the beginning. Cut the establishing shots. With the VOX pops we should start with the couple, not the Asian guy.  
• Helen also didn’t like some of the commentary and suggested us to get a voice over artist for the commentary and have our presenter only talking at the PTC’s. We’ve talked about that as a group and we all disagree as we want to keep the commentary as it is and work around it to make it work instead of getting another person to do it. 
• Work on the way we are introducing Shahak. 
• There’s some lack in signposting in the documentary which makes it easy for the audience to get confused/lost. 
• Not having an as linear structure as we’re still having. 
• Make the interviews less sync heavy. Show cuts that underline what they’re talking about. 
• Have the Museum guy coming in earlier. We’ve talked about this but can’t find a spot where he fits better/ someone else that fits to be at the end. " - From Trines Notes

When showing Zoe our rough cut she suggested to make the documentary less linear, as we had been trying to make the doc a journey for Kamran this changed our plans considerably, however that happens in the industry, She also suggested having the VOX pops throughout the edit rather than in just one place and recommended that we re-record Kamrans VO to make it sound better.

More work was done to the edit and we put forward the fine cut, Zoe gave us some feedback which was mostly entered around leading up shots.

She wants the title sequence to have more of the inappropriate selfies

Have a line to remind the viewer what the documentary is about after the title

Have more Holocaust Memorial shots before moving on to David as it allows the audience time to digest what they have seen at the moment they are moving from place to place rather rapidly

Maybe split up the interview with David so there is a part at the end

She wants the timeline changed a bit so the holocaust survivors are shown after the memorial, then Christoph, then Kamran walking through Berlin and the have David cap of the end of the Documentary

Documentary Project - Transcibing

When making a documentary there comes a time which everyone dislikes, Transcription, we had to transcribe the interviews we had gotten in order to make the paper edit.

To transcribe an interview you must first insert the timecode, then type out every word spoken by the person on camera, separating different people as well, this allows for a quick frame of reference for looking up certain parts of the interview. its important to update the time code regularly, I did it when someone else spoke or if there was a pause in the audio. If i were to have a whole page which lasts five minutes before changing the timecode that would be a few minutes of wading through the clip the editor would have to do.
Firstly I think transcription is a great idea, it allows for the editor to find a quote or subject, quickly and easily and then using the corresponding timecode to find the section that way rather than watching through the whole video.

This cuts down on the amount of time it takes for the edit and streamlines the entire process of making a rough cut, you can also edit the documentary without touching a computer in a way.

However it takes a lot of time, I consider myself average in type speed typically typing at more than 50 words a minute. However listening to someone speak and typing as they do so is much harder and took a lot of getting used to even through using tools like Google's Transcribe

Which allows me to half the speed of the audio to make it easier to type, it also had tools which allowed for big words to be automatically inserted, such as putting HM would change to Holocaust Memorial, It also had a shortcut to insert the timecode which helped a great deal.

I was averaging 10-15 minutes of audio per hour doing this and having to keep pausing the audio the catch up as Kamran and the interviewees spoke quite fast and even at half speed were getting away from me.


I had over an hours worth of interviews to transcribe... I spent two evenings doing this and found it strangely tiring as my eyes would get sore and I would get a headache after a few hours.

 


I typed over 10,000 words for two and a half interviews which took me around 8-10 hours in total.

I can understand why there are entire companies dedicated to transcribing and its typically an entry level job when starting in the documentary industry.

Its something that I will have to get used to if i am wanting to go further down this career path and whilst unbelievably boring its a necessary and important job.

Dreams of a life - By Carol Morley

Directed by  Carol Morley who read about the story in the newspaper, Dreams of a Life looks into the story of Joyce Vincent who was discovered dead in her apartment, three years after she had died, with the Television still on and half-wrapped Christmas presents around her.

Morley started a campaign to find out as much as she could about Joyce and discover how this could have happened, the documentary is thought provoking and pulls on the emotions of those watching.




Something that was different than most documentaries I've seen was the set up for the interviews, normally the interviewees are filmed in front of a location relevant to them, such as an office, their home or place of work.

However Morley filmed the interviewees at the same location with the same background, I am not too sure why she did this, whether it was make the audience focus more on what the person was saying or doing or whether she did not have the time or budget to travel to each person.




Morley explored the life of Joyce and possible reasons of her death, and the impact it had on those who knew her, she also explores the reasons why she was left undiscovered for so long.

There is also heavy use of recreation as throughout the film we watch Joyce (played by an actress) in her day to day life and in her final moments.

The film was similar to an investigation in fact Joyce's family said the Morley had done more than the private investigator that they had hired.

I liked the recreation part of the documentary and the significance of the story, I found that by having the recreation I could relate to and empathise with the character of Joyce more readily than if she was just a name on a screen.

Life and Death of a serial killer - Nick Broomsfield

In Helen's lesson we watched Aileen - Life and Death of A Serial Killer, its a documentary about the trial and eventual execution of Aileen Wuornos the first female serial killer in America.

The Film documented the life of Aileen, her troubled childhood, the reasons why she took up prostitution and how her family treated her during her incarceration, Broomsfield also explores Aileens obvious mental health issues and how the justice system in America ignored these things in return for a boost in popularity.

Whats impressive is how Broomsfield invokes feelings of empathy towards Aileen, even though we know what she did in murdering 8 men and hiding the bodies we still feel pity towards her and see how she didn't receive the help she needed and how she was used as a political pawn to help further peoples careers.

Whilst I do feel like Wournos should have faced judgment for what she did, She should not have been treated in that way, the justice system failed her and I believe thats what Broomsfield message was.

In terms of the technical aspects of the documentary Nick Broomsfield makes good use of a reflexive style of documentary, showing himself and the crew several times, this works in his favour as it seems a more honest form, there are also 'errors' in filming, such as reframing shots and the camera moving around before focusing, this helps sell the "as its happening" aspect of the documentary and adds a layer of believability to the film as it isn't perfect.

There is plenty of Archive footage and GV's, Broomsfield narrates throughout the documentary in a voice over, he doesn't really stand before the camera in a PTC .

This was the second time for me watching the film and it had a similar impact to the first time, I am a big fan of the reflexive style of documentary and would like to emulate it in future projects.

Nick Broomsfield - Documentary Film Maker

Nick Broomsfield

Broomsfield films with a minimal crew, often himself and a camera man, this makes the doc more personal, He often shows the filming team within the documentary which makes the viewer aware of the process of creating the documentary.



He got interested around the age of 15 after becoming facisnated with photography on an exhange visit to france, He he made his first film WHO CARES using a borrowed wind up Bolex Camera, and using short ends of footage the film was about Slum Clearance in Liverpool.

He was heavily influenced by the observational style of Rober Leacock, Pennebaker and Fred Wiseman. He aquired his particular style whilst making "Driving Me Crazy" in 1988, which was a film which was becoming out of control. He came up with the idea of placing himself and the producer into the film to make sense of the events happening.

This led him to start making more investigative and experimental types of documentaries such as Aillen Wuornos, Kurt and Courtney and The Leader, The Driver and The Drivers Wife.

He is now experimenting with Direct Cinema and using Non-Actors to play themselves in situations based on real events with pre written scripts based on heavy research, in these he uses real locatuons and a small documentay crew.



Known for -----

Proud to be British

Who Cares

Behind the Rent Strike

Marriage Guidance

Juvenile Liason I & II

Driving Me Crazy

Lily Tomlin

Soldier Girls

Monster In a Box

Tracking Down Maggie


Too White For Me

The Leader, His Driver and the Drivers Wife

His Big White Self

Tattooed Tears

Chicken Ranch

Fetishes

The Selling of Aileen Wuornos

Aileen: The Life and Death of a Serial Killer

Heidi Fleiss:Hollywood Madam

Kurt & Coutney

Biggie and Tupac

Sarah Palin; You Betcha!

Sex: My British Job

Tales of the Grim Sleeper



I like Nick Broomsfield as he is heavily involved with the documentary, rather than hiring a presenter based on their looks, celebrity status or other reason he himself leads the documentary, he is involved in every aspect. I feel like his documentaries are His and whilst they may belong to producers or such  they are his message and his work.

I would like to take this aspect in some of my future projects as I enjoy being both infront of the camera and behind it, such as how Broomsfield is often the sound operator for his projects as well.

Documentary - Making Graphics

Now that the documentary has finished filming I have been tasked with creating graphics whilst Trine, Gavin and George worked on the edit, this would be better as they all live in accomadtions and it would take me 30 mins there and 30 back if I were to work along side them, therefore since I have had experience with After Effects I was put on graphics.

Trine wanted a Title Graphic and Three photoshopped images.

Title Graphic

I sat down and looked up various titles that I thought would work and Trine said no to all of them, we then had a discussion to what Trine wanted, her wish was for the selfies to be "floating" whilst the camera moved forward through them in 3D space, This was something I was not too familiar with but I gave it several tries.

The biggest problem was getting all the selfies in line with each other, there is no tool built in with AE that will do that for me so after a bit of reseach I found a script that would do it, however when I tried to use it for the selfies it would take only a small amount of them and repeat them several times.

I then found another tool called Griddler, which suited my needs, the difficult part of this project was individually keyframing around 80 selfies so that there is a random look, I did look for expressions I could use but I could not get them to work in the way I wanted, therefore I took a few hours to individually move each selfie.

After this I sent a copy of the title to trine for her feed back, she informed me that she had found a template that we could use for the Title so we went with that instead.

Photoshopped Images

Since we wanted to replicate what artist Shahak Shapira did for his project Yolocaust as we were not allowed to use his images.

This mean I had to recreate his images, this was not too difficult compared to the title sequence, all i needed to do was to mask around the person and then place them over the archive images we purchased.

I then changed the saturation and the image tone to match the background images and make them look like they are more natural and actually in the picture rather than just shoved on top.

once I completed the images I sent them to the group chat and Trine, Gavin and George expressed their approval.