The writing up of a Peer2Peer review had come up one or two times during the week, but today when we was in our group meetings, we had to give feedback to each team member, giving strengths and weaknesses.
It was about half way through the exercise however that I had a bit of a problem with the task, during Jack's review, we each stated that he can get stressed quite easily, and put it down as a weakness for him to work on, I myself have been guilty of being stressed during this brief, yet it was never brought up. I thought that perhaps people was putting down safe, obvious weaknesses so not to offend a team mate, while this is nice to see, I didn't walk away with any constructive critism, thus making my review a little redundant.
Of course this could just be me reading too much into something and my team genuially couldn't see a weakness in my performance but I doubt that, I myself have found faults in which I being up in my evaluation.
As for the strengths, I have heard these good qualities that I bring to a team on other briefs so it is nice to know I am still keeping up the good work.
My strengths included:
Works well independantly
A good leader
Great communication
Controlling, but in a good way.
Great at assigning team roles and tasks.
Ideas are always being put forward.
Monday, 19 March 2012
Evaluation
The brief started with the Student Union coming in and asking us to create a Documentary on the topic of Drug Abuse, we were split into 3 groups of 5 and then each sat down to assign roles and plan what we want to go into it. With it being such a big brief, each members of the team took various roles, for example, one day during production I stayed in a little make shift office we made and did nothing but paperwork (Scripts, Action Plans, Etc) whilst the others members of the team ventured out and filmed Vox Pops and Cutaways, whereas another day I was on the camera during interviews, and in front of a camera during a sketch. This was great for our team as it meant everyone had a big role to play.
We broke the 2 weeks we had in this brief down into two sections, the first week was all planning and filming, and the second week was all editing. This was all well and good on paper but there was some things during edit that needed to be fixed, reshoot, things needed added, meaning we had to venture out and get them, this took precious time from our edit. Next time, during a big brief like this one, I feel that I should edit along the way, of course that may mean the team may still be behind due to the long edits, but it would of helped during the brief to see mistakes in our work quicker than we did.
As for my roles, I found that the day I spent in the make shift office was my most comfortable role. I felt that even though I had a lot to do that paticular day, because I was in one room, and was on my own, I managed to get everything done independantly and efficiantly. My role in front of the camera was really fun, it has been a while since I have been in front of it. The only set back we had with the sketch I was in was getting access to the location itself, we had 3 attempts to get into the Nursary to film, we came against a few restrictions that meant we had a 45 minute free slot after college hours to shoot, the first day we managed to get the shots we wanted but upon reviewing the footage while capturing, we wasn't happy with it, we had rushed the shots, not rehearsed the script, and the character of Dino The Drug Talking Dinosaur was a last minute character that we found whilist setting the camera's up, we felt that he represented a more patronising parody that we was going for. The second attempt to film there, our time management went out the window, it was the same day we had recorded interviews, and our cooking sketch, so time seemed to pass us by that day, this was a little annoying as we had done such a great job all week with our time keeping and action plan. A problem I did come across when editing the piece however was the syncing of Dino, I had performed the voice for Dino on a zoom, and found upon listening back that at certain points I had enlongated words, such as Dinosaur, this was solved as two cameras was on Dino at all times, so I just simply cut from one angle to another to help the synching seem more naturally, of course when I showed my team this and told them my troubles with the synching I was told I shouldn't worry to much about it, as if you watch puppets on TV, they aren't synched perfectly, especially on children's television.
The interview's, I found myself on a camera each time, me and Jack devised a system to communicate with each other during the first interview, this was mainly a series and hand gestures that represented what we each wanted the camera to concentrate on, whilist this worked really well and we came back with great footage, the audio was terrible, we found out that a mic had been left on and had ran out of battery, worse luck still was the fact that it was this mic that had been used by our interviewee's, meaning that we couldn't venture out and reshoot, bad luck struck us more when it came to our third interview, during our set up, the camera I was on auto powered down, I switched on, recorded, then upon reviewing, my camera never recorded in 16:9. Whereas the audio incident couldn't be blamed on one member of our team, I took full responcibility for not recording in 16:9, next time I know I need to double and triple check settings before pressing record, especially when a camera auto powers down. Further trouble happened with that third interview, again, with the audio, Karma smiled upon us on that interview however as the audio problems was on Nathan's side, which means we was free to go reshoot his side of the interview, downside was that it took valuable time away from editing.
The cooking sketch I was sadly absent for as I was capturing and doing paperwork, but the footage I have seen looks like our team, once again struggled with audio, this seems to be the room itself that was the trouble as apposed to the mic, we did use a zoom however, which made our edit a little better, however we used a voiceover, we used it for two reasons, one, to mask the bad audio, and the other was because this sketch was influenced by Masterchef.
My last role was the role of team leader, this started with me and Jack taking it in turns, this was primarily to give each other a break, and to sit back a little and relax, but eventually I realised that Jack's stress levels was reaching a high and someone needed to keep people calm and happy, I fell into this role with ease.
During the planning stage, we concentrated a lot on what we felt we didn't want to include in the Documentary, the biggest no, no for us, was to make sure we never come across preachy. Our goals for the Documentary was to use dark humour to deal with quite a serious topic, we always stuck to this factor by using sketches. We started with a blank board and threw a lot of ideas together, a few of these stuck from the beginning, a few more was dropped, and others (such as Vox Pops) was just vague at that moment in time. The interviewee's we ended up interviewing we had in mind from the beginning, the one we relied on getting the most was our interview with Sarah, our target audience may be students around the college, but we felt that we couldn't give an accurate account of what it is like to take cannabis, perhaps become addicted to it without talking to someone who had been on it for a period of time, her interview also had the added bonus of her now getting an education to help others with drug problems.
This planning stage was handled really well, the vast amount of tasks however sometimes took far too long, for example, the Vox Pops and Cutaways was planned to be filmed and finished on the first day, 3 days later, the Vox Pops was complete and the Cutaways was still being collected the editing week, the Cutaways were understandable as we as a team would always see a shot that looked good, or took the opportunity to get a few extra shots whilist we was in locations such as the Library.
I think that the thing to take away from that was to spend more time reviewing the days work, there was moments during the production that we would tick a task off as complete but then upon reviewing the footage, there clearly wasn't enough Cutaways or the Vox Pops was poor. By that point though, other tasks had been set.
The way we came up with assigning tasks to certain people came about with someone volunteering really, we only asked a certain person to perform a task if they had nothing to do, and others was busy. I feel like everyone performed well, noone on the team complained about any task that was given to them. I feel like the only time I let the team down was when I got too stressed, I did control this as much as I could but there still is room for improvement.
After looking at the edited documentary, I see a lot of colours and effects, whereas on other briefs I would comment on that in a negative way, this seems so suitable, the trippy LSD style really stands out and is so suitable on a documentary about drugs, I also don't know what it is about this style of edit that just seems to relate to young adults, I know it does with me. It is hard for me to pinpoint exactly what kind of documentary we ended up producing, the personal stories and the very topic itself makes it a docu-drama but the dark humor approach sets it asside from others that I have seen, if I had to compare it's style to anything, I would compare it to "Bizzare Crime" another documentary whose very topic itself is a serious Docu-Drama, but presents itself in a silly, lighthearted manner.
I have already mentioned a few other sources that we took inspiration from, such as Masterchef and Bizzare Crime, but we looked at a varity of styles, even it was only used to inspire a 5 second sequence in our documentary. For instance there is a point in our cooking sketch in which Text appears to illustrate what ingredients are being added to the mix, originally I had the idea of it being a lot like a scene in Scott Pilgrim. in which the shot freezes and text pops up around the room showing items owned by Scott's roommate, this didn't go into the final draft but we still took away inspiration from that scene, in fact it was because of that scene and the thought process and discussion we had about it that we added text into the scene in the first place, it originally just had Helen describing what was going into the mix.
We did take a long look at the Panaroma episode with Alistar Cambell, particularly his pieces to camera, how the camera slowly glides round the room to add a touch more drama to a serious personal point he had just made, we decided to add these shots to not only add that little bit of drama to what was being said, but to also make the piece to camera a lot more interesting.
Looking at our teams documentary, I feel like we do hit a lot of the programs briefs, we hit the right target audience with our style and look (the effects we used, the humor etc), our message has always been pretty clear, we get across that recreational use can lead to serious problems in the future, but we never come across as preachy, we talk a lot about sensible and informed decisions when it comes to dealing with them.
One of the biggest strength of the documentary is the clear message we get across and how we go about it, from the beginning, we always knew that we had to about this documentary in a very different style, we was really against having a structure of interview, after interview. Of course we took a big risk doing this, as we could be substituting facts and information for entertainment, whereas most documentaries could balance this structure, we only had 12 minutes, we could never get a great balance. This could be seen as a weakness of our documentary, but I don't believe it was our biggest weakness. Our biggest weakness was the mistakes that had been made during filming i.e the audio problems. As much as we tried to fix these problems, it is impossible to mask the mistakes.
We broke the 2 weeks we had in this brief down into two sections, the first week was all planning and filming, and the second week was all editing. This was all well and good on paper but there was some things during edit that needed to be fixed, reshoot, things needed added, meaning we had to venture out and get them, this took precious time from our edit. Next time, during a big brief like this one, I feel that I should edit along the way, of course that may mean the team may still be behind due to the long edits, but it would of helped during the brief to see mistakes in our work quicker than we did.
As for my roles, I found that the day I spent in the make shift office was my most comfortable role. I felt that even though I had a lot to do that paticular day, because I was in one room, and was on my own, I managed to get everything done independantly and efficiantly. My role in front of the camera was really fun, it has been a while since I have been in front of it. The only set back we had with the sketch I was in was getting access to the location itself, we had 3 attempts to get into the Nursary to film, we came against a few restrictions that meant we had a 45 minute free slot after college hours to shoot, the first day we managed to get the shots we wanted but upon reviewing the footage while capturing, we wasn't happy with it, we had rushed the shots, not rehearsed the script, and the character of Dino The Drug Talking Dinosaur was a last minute character that we found whilist setting the camera's up, we felt that he represented a more patronising parody that we was going for. The second attempt to film there, our time management went out the window, it was the same day we had recorded interviews, and our cooking sketch, so time seemed to pass us by that day, this was a little annoying as we had done such a great job all week with our time keeping and action plan. A problem I did come across when editing the piece however was the syncing of Dino, I had performed the voice for Dino on a zoom, and found upon listening back that at certain points I had enlongated words, such as Dinosaur, this was solved as two cameras was on Dino at all times, so I just simply cut from one angle to another to help the synching seem more naturally, of course when I showed my team this and told them my troubles with the synching I was told I shouldn't worry to much about it, as if you watch puppets on TV, they aren't synched perfectly, especially on children's television.
The interview's, I found myself on a camera each time, me and Jack devised a system to communicate with each other during the first interview, this was mainly a series and hand gestures that represented what we each wanted the camera to concentrate on, whilist this worked really well and we came back with great footage, the audio was terrible, we found out that a mic had been left on and had ran out of battery, worse luck still was the fact that it was this mic that had been used by our interviewee's, meaning that we couldn't venture out and reshoot, bad luck struck us more when it came to our third interview, during our set up, the camera I was on auto powered down, I switched on, recorded, then upon reviewing, my camera never recorded in 16:9. Whereas the audio incident couldn't be blamed on one member of our team, I took full responcibility for not recording in 16:9, next time I know I need to double and triple check settings before pressing record, especially when a camera auto powers down. Further trouble happened with that third interview, again, with the audio, Karma smiled upon us on that interview however as the audio problems was on Nathan's side, which means we was free to go reshoot his side of the interview, downside was that it took valuable time away from editing.
The cooking sketch I was sadly absent for as I was capturing and doing paperwork, but the footage I have seen looks like our team, once again struggled with audio, this seems to be the room itself that was the trouble as apposed to the mic, we did use a zoom however, which made our edit a little better, however we used a voiceover, we used it for two reasons, one, to mask the bad audio, and the other was because this sketch was influenced by Masterchef.
My last role was the role of team leader, this started with me and Jack taking it in turns, this was primarily to give each other a break, and to sit back a little and relax, but eventually I realised that Jack's stress levels was reaching a high and someone needed to keep people calm and happy, I fell into this role with ease.
During the planning stage, we concentrated a lot on what we felt we didn't want to include in the Documentary, the biggest no, no for us, was to make sure we never come across preachy. Our goals for the Documentary was to use dark humour to deal with quite a serious topic, we always stuck to this factor by using sketches. We started with a blank board and threw a lot of ideas together, a few of these stuck from the beginning, a few more was dropped, and others (such as Vox Pops) was just vague at that moment in time. The interviewee's we ended up interviewing we had in mind from the beginning, the one we relied on getting the most was our interview with Sarah, our target audience may be students around the college, but we felt that we couldn't give an accurate account of what it is like to take cannabis, perhaps become addicted to it without talking to someone who had been on it for a period of time, her interview also had the added bonus of her now getting an education to help others with drug problems.
This planning stage was handled really well, the vast amount of tasks however sometimes took far too long, for example, the Vox Pops and Cutaways was planned to be filmed and finished on the first day, 3 days later, the Vox Pops was complete and the Cutaways was still being collected the editing week, the Cutaways were understandable as we as a team would always see a shot that looked good, or took the opportunity to get a few extra shots whilist we was in locations such as the Library.
I think that the thing to take away from that was to spend more time reviewing the days work, there was moments during the production that we would tick a task off as complete but then upon reviewing the footage, there clearly wasn't enough Cutaways or the Vox Pops was poor. By that point though, other tasks had been set.
The way we came up with assigning tasks to certain people came about with someone volunteering really, we only asked a certain person to perform a task if they had nothing to do, and others was busy. I feel like everyone performed well, noone on the team complained about any task that was given to them. I feel like the only time I let the team down was when I got too stressed, I did control this as much as I could but there still is room for improvement.
After looking at the edited documentary, I see a lot of colours and effects, whereas on other briefs I would comment on that in a negative way, this seems so suitable, the trippy LSD style really stands out and is so suitable on a documentary about drugs, I also don't know what it is about this style of edit that just seems to relate to young adults, I know it does with me. It is hard for me to pinpoint exactly what kind of documentary we ended up producing, the personal stories and the very topic itself makes it a docu-drama but the dark humor approach sets it asside from others that I have seen, if I had to compare it's style to anything, I would compare it to "Bizzare Crime" another documentary whose very topic itself is a serious Docu-Drama, but presents itself in a silly, lighthearted manner.
I have already mentioned a few other sources that we took inspiration from, such as Masterchef and Bizzare Crime, but we looked at a varity of styles, even it was only used to inspire a 5 second sequence in our documentary. For instance there is a point in our cooking sketch in which Text appears to illustrate what ingredients are being added to the mix, originally I had the idea of it being a lot like a scene in Scott Pilgrim. in which the shot freezes and text pops up around the room showing items owned by Scott's roommate, this didn't go into the final draft but we still took away inspiration from that scene, in fact it was because of that scene and the thought process and discussion we had about it that we added text into the scene in the first place, it originally just had Helen describing what was going into the mix.
We did take a long look at the Panaroma episode with Alistar Cambell, particularly his pieces to camera, how the camera slowly glides round the room to add a touch more drama to a serious personal point he had just made, we decided to add these shots to not only add that little bit of drama to what was being said, but to also make the piece to camera a lot more interesting.
Looking at our teams documentary, I feel like we do hit a lot of the programs briefs, we hit the right target audience with our style and look (the effects we used, the humor etc), our message has always been pretty clear, we get across that recreational use can lead to serious problems in the future, but we never come across as preachy, we talk a lot about sensible and informed decisions when it comes to dealing with them.
One of the biggest strength of the documentary is the clear message we get across and how we go about it, from the beginning, we always knew that we had to about this documentary in a very different style, we was really against having a structure of interview, after interview. Of course we took a big risk doing this, as we could be substituting facts and information for entertainment, whereas most documentaries could balance this structure, we only had 12 minutes, we could never get a great balance. This could be seen as a weakness of our documentary, but I don't believe it was our biggest weakness. Our biggest weakness was the mistakes that had been made during filming i.e the audio problems. As much as we tried to fix these problems, it is impossible to mask the mistakes.
Sunday, 18 March 2012
Production Journal - The editing stage
The team knew at the beginning of the week that editing was going to be a nightmare, we all knew that we still had one or two things to go out and record, that and some of our team had a day off, or appointments, on various days, giving us less people power to get everything done. When we actually got to editing, we encountered the worse luck, we had set back after set back.
We learned upon editing that all our interviews had a problem with them, 2 that took place on the same day had really bad audio problems due to a mix being left on and the battery running out, and our third interview (which also had audio problems) wasn't shot in 16:9. The audio problems in the third interview was from Nathan's mic, meaning that we could go out and reshoot all the questions (which we did on Friday) but sadly, the audio on the other two was from our interviewee's mics, meaning that we had to do what we could in post production.
Our biggest concern, other than the various problems we found with our footage, was the looming deadline, especially the draft edit we was asked to make to show Student Services what we had been up too, on that day, we only had one or two things completely edited and finished, it was all on different machines, harddrives and macbooks, and we had a bad start to the day due to the shard area being down, then full. It was at this point that we decided to put together a trailer, so we at least had something to show, and we could answer any questions student union had for our team. This worked wonderfully, the trailer managed to show the humour our documentary has with the Dino The Drug Talking Dinosaur sketch, as well as show off the factual and serious side of it with quick snippits of our vox pops and interviews.
...Continued...
Looking back through my Production Journal, I feel like I haven't written enough, trouble is I know my notes will cover a lot of what I have talked about in the last few production journals, and I hate repeating myself.
Now that we only have one more day to really polish of this brief and move onto what I hope to be a lot less stress free assignment, I can take the time to sit back and look over everything my team has accomplished, our biggest strength was the sheer amount of organisation we had, everything you see in our documentary has been discussed, re-discussed, planned out then performed, which made the edits a lot simpler, at least for me it did as I knew exactly what our team wanted the final outcome to look like, I hope the other 4 felt the same as well.
As for the faults, I could put it down to bad luck, but it was down to us at the end of the day to check the mic's were off, find another mic, double and triple check the camera's settings etc, the only plus I saw from those mishaps was have great it was to see that the team didn't blame eachother and fall out over them, we all got on to create the best piece we could, dispite the set backs.
I think I will go more in depth about the strength and weaknesses of the team and the documentary in the evaluation, this was more like a few thoughts I had and wanted to remember rather than a production journal on how editing went.
We learned upon editing that all our interviews had a problem with them, 2 that took place on the same day had really bad audio problems due to a mix being left on and the battery running out, and our third interview (which also had audio problems) wasn't shot in 16:9. The audio problems in the third interview was from Nathan's mic, meaning that we could go out and reshoot all the questions (which we did on Friday) but sadly, the audio on the other two was from our interviewee's mics, meaning that we had to do what we could in post production.
Our biggest concern, other than the various problems we found with our footage, was the looming deadline, especially the draft edit we was asked to make to show Student Services what we had been up too, on that day, we only had one or two things completely edited and finished, it was all on different machines, harddrives and macbooks, and we had a bad start to the day due to the shard area being down, then full. It was at this point that we decided to put together a trailer, so we at least had something to show, and we could answer any questions student union had for our team. This worked wonderfully, the trailer managed to show the humour our documentary has with the Dino The Drug Talking Dinosaur sketch, as well as show off the factual and serious side of it with quick snippits of our vox pops and interviews.
...Continued...
Looking back through my Production Journal, I feel like I haven't written enough, trouble is I know my notes will cover a lot of what I have talked about in the last few production journals, and I hate repeating myself.
Now that we only have one more day to really polish of this brief and move onto what I hope to be a lot less stress free assignment, I can take the time to sit back and look over everything my team has accomplished, our biggest strength was the sheer amount of organisation we had, everything you see in our documentary has been discussed, re-discussed, planned out then performed, which made the edits a lot simpler, at least for me it did as I knew exactly what our team wanted the final outcome to look like, I hope the other 4 felt the same as well.
As for the faults, I could put it down to bad luck, but it was down to us at the end of the day to check the mic's were off, find another mic, double and triple check the camera's settings etc, the only plus I saw from those mishaps was have great it was to see that the team didn't blame eachother and fall out over them, we all got on to create the best piece we could, dispite the set backs.
I think I will go more in depth about the strength and weaknesses of the team and the documentary in the evaluation, this was more like a few thoughts I had and wanted to remember rather than a production journal on how editing went.
Monday, 12 March 2012
Production Journal
This production journal will be reiterating a lot of what I have posted onto the Team Blog, but I will be concentrating on what I have acomplished as apposed to the team.Firstly, I will start from where my last journal ended, this will be from the 6/3/12.
Planning Table:
Script Writing
Completed By Danny
This is everything that was planned for my to do on that day, I was at first meant to stay in a little office we had set up in K Block and complete all the paper work needed, this included contacting interviewee's, script writing etc, while the rest of the team went out and got Vox Pop's, Cut Aways, and location rec's, but as I noted, it was getting late into the day and my team was still getting Vox Pop's, meaning I had to venture out and sort out locations we could film in, this included the Library, Catering and the Nursary. I also touched upon music as the scripts was starting to come together, I posted on the team blog ideas for suitable music that we could use, but upon furthur discussions about copyright laws, these could sadly not be used.
8/3/12
Today we have achieved in getting a interview with Becky Procter, we have captured that.
While shooting the interview we managed to give Helen a shopping list for all our props that will be used in our cooking sketch.
We have then filmed our cooking sketch and arranged an interview with Sarah for tomorrow.
We are still trying to find a time that we could film in the Nursary.
Some of us will be staying behind after hours to touch up our one on one with Nathan and get a lot more interesting shots with it.
Some changes:
We have permission to film in the nursary and will film that sketch at 4:15 today.
On the 8th, our interviewee, Becky Procter got back to us, so we had to quickly find a suitable place to conduct the interview, we settled upon the Access rooms upstairs in E Block, as we had quite a nice hussle and bussle of lessons behind closed doors, that and we didn't want to film in E Block like every other group had as it was a little boring at this point. The interview went great and as we was capturing, Helen returned with a bag full of props we had sent her out to get, meaning we was ready to film the cooking sketch, I stayed behind in E Block to write up that day's notes and action plan while the rest of the team ventured to catering. As for the the touch up on Nathan's one to one, we never got round to doing that due to the time we spent filming the sketch and then capturing.
9/3/12
Today we have managed to film our dealer sketch, and two interviews, we have captured everything and Jack will take all the footage home over the weekend to make our file management a bit more clear. We have been picking up cut aways throughout the day so we are armed with a variety of them during editing next week.
The 9th was a very busy day that we had timetabled so meticulously. We had two interviews in the morning and afternoon that we had already planned beforehand to avoid running round looking for a location. These went fantastically and was captured straight after. During the downtime, we managed to film our "dealer" cut-away near the bins on the side of K Block, this came out well, but I still uncertain whether or not to keep this in the final draft, it is a nice cut-away, but I am not sure what it is saying to the audience. "Drugs are dealt in college grounds." "Drugs are easy to obtain." As for the interviews, I was surprised, I thought we would get a better interview out of Sarah then Lizzie, as my first thoughts would be that we might get a few preachy answers about how bad drugs are out of Lizzie due to her line of work, but we got an unbiased, informative interview out of her, we did with Sarah as well, I was expecting a lot more of a personal interview during our time with her, I put this down to the questions I wrote down for Nathan to ask, they was very difficult to think of as I didn't want to pry to much, incase we offended or scared the interviewee off. That and I almost had to predict the answers we would recieve so I could lead onto the next question I had wrote down, not an easy task to do, I am no mind reader.
Planning Table:
E-Mail interviewee’s and arrange time and
dates.
Completed by Danny.
Waiting on the replies.
Script Writing
Completed By Danny
Arrange Filming Locations.
As off 13:30, this is not yet
completed.
Danny will go out and complete this task later
today.
Blog Team Work
Blog 7/3/12's Action Plan
Completed by Danny
Capture Footage
Will be done by Danny and Jack at
3:30
This is everything that was planned for my to do on that day, I was at first meant to stay in a little office we had set up in K Block and complete all the paper work needed, this included contacting interviewee's, script writing etc, while the rest of the team went out and got Vox Pop's, Cut Aways, and location rec's, but as I noted, it was getting late into the day and my team was still getting Vox Pop's, meaning I had to venture out and sort out locations we could film in, this included the Library, Catering and the Nursary. I also touched upon music as the scripts was starting to come together, I posted on the team blog ideas for suitable music that we could use, but upon furthur discussions about copyright laws, these could sadly not be used.
8/3/12
Today we have achieved in getting a interview with Becky Procter, we have captured that.
While shooting the interview we managed to give Helen a shopping list for all our props that will be used in our cooking sketch.
We have then filmed our cooking sketch and arranged an interview with Sarah for tomorrow.
We are still trying to find a time that we could film in the Nursary.
Some of us will be staying behind after hours to touch up our one on one with Nathan and get a lot more interesting shots with it.
Some changes:
We have permission to film in the nursary and will film that sketch at 4:15 today.
On the 8th, our interviewee, Becky Procter got back to us, so we had to quickly find a suitable place to conduct the interview, we settled upon the Access rooms upstairs in E Block, as we had quite a nice hussle and bussle of lessons behind closed doors, that and we didn't want to film in E Block like every other group had as it was a little boring at this point. The interview went great and as we was capturing, Helen returned with a bag full of props we had sent her out to get, meaning we was ready to film the cooking sketch, I stayed behind in E Block to write up that day's notes and action plan while the rest of the team ventured to catering. As for the the touch up on Nathan's one to one, we never got round to doing that due to the time we spent filming the sketch and then capturing.
9/3/12
Today we have managed to film our dealer sketch, and two interviews, we have captured everything and Jack will take all the footage home over the weekend to make our file management a bit more clear. We have been picking up cut aways throughout the day so we are armed with a variety of them during editing next week.
The 9th was a very busy day that we had timetabled so meticulously. We had two interviews in the morning and afternoon that we had already planned beforehand to avoid running round looking for a location. These went fantastically and was captured straight after. During the downtime, we managed to film our "dealer" cut-away near the bins on the side of K Block, this came out well, but I still uncertain whether or not to keep this in the final draft, it is a nice cut-away, but I am not sure what it is saying to the audience. "Drugs are dealt in college grounds." "Drugs are easy to obtain." As for the interviews, I was surprised, I thought we would get a better interview out of Sarah then Lizzie, as my first thoughts would be that we might get a few preachy answers about how bad drugs are out of Lizzie due to her line of work, but we got an unbiased, informative interview out of her, we did with Sarah as well, I was expecting a lot more of a personal interview during our time with her, I put this down to the questions I wrote down for Nathan to ask, they was very difficult to think of as I didn't want to pry to much, incase we offended or scared the interviewee off. That and I almost had to predict the answers we would recieve so I could lead onto the next question I had wrote down, not an easy task to do, I am no mind reader.
Thursday, 1 March 2012
Production Journal Day 2
The first thing we did as a team was sit down and create an agenda. Ours was as follows:Agenda
- Research Findings and feedback
- Discuss the research we have gathered - Annotate
- Talk Relivance of information
- Narrow down questions and answers to form/script our documentary - Discuss style and presentation
- Discuss overall visual style and presentation
- Reverance any style of Documentary you have watched during research that you would like to recreate - If unknown, show snippits of the programme.
- Construct overall idea into a timeline
- Check idea meets the criteria of the brief
A.O.B
Questions for Adele.
You will find everything in the agenda in the little red folder I hand in, but as of 21:34, 1/3/2012, we still need to annotate each of our own research and construct a script, which suggests that our team is coming along nicely with our documentary, we already have snippits of a great idea in mind, it is just a case of writing the scripts and questions and answers.
With me not handing in this work until closer to the hand in date it is hard to prove that we have been working hard today, but we locked ourselves in a room (we wasn't forced to do this) and threw ideas around, these started to form into ideas that we could work with.
- Research Findings and feedback
- Discuss the research we have gathered - Annotate
- Talk Relivance of information
- Narrow down questions and answers to form/script our documentary - Discuss style and presentation
- Discuss overall visual style and presentation
- Reverance any style of Documentary you have watched during research that you would like to recreate - If unknown, show snippits of the programme.
- Construct overall idea into a timeline
- Check idea meets the criteria of the brief
A.O.B
Questions for Adele.
You will find everything in the agenda in the little red folder I hand in, but as of 21:34, 1/3/2012, we still need to annotate each of our own research and construct a script, which suggests that our team is coming along nicely with our documentary, we already have snippits of a great idea in mind, it is just a case of writing the scripts and questions and answers.
With me not handing in this work until closer to the hand in date it is hard to prove that we have been working hard today, but we locked ourselves in a room (we wasn't forced to do this) and threw ideas around, these started to form into ideas that we could work with.
Monday, 27 February 2012
Research
We broke down what kind of research we would be needing to help plan/script our documentary, the areas that we should look into are the following
Cannabis
- Gateway drug?
- Content Of Cannabis - What is it laced with? - Adding glass, washing up liquid.
Bubble
- Death through Bubble?
- Mixing with alcohol
- Distinctive rash/scars?
Social
- Unemployment
- Environment
Physical
- The development on you?
- Munchies
Mental
- Paranoia
- Depression
- Dementia
- Short Term Memory
- Triggers?
Law
- Growing cannabis
- Possession
- Connection to other crimes
- Out of your depth
Primary Research - Ask Frank
http://www.talktofrank.com/drug/mephedrone#aka=Bubble
This has pretty much everything you need to know about Bubble.
Mephedrone AKA - 4-MMC, Bounce, Bubble, Charge, Drone, M-Cat, MC, Meow Meow, Meph, Miaow, White Magic.
What is mephedrone? Mephedrone (often called ‘meow meow’) is a powerful stimulant and is part of the cathinone family, a group of drugs that are closely related to the amphetamines – including amphetamine itself (often called ‘speed’), methamphetamine and ecstasy. There is very little evidence about mephedrone and what long-term effects it has, but there have reports of people hospitalised due to the short-term effects.
Secondary Research.
First hand experience with the drug, reported by Max Pemberton on the 20th March 2010
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/7481469/I-took-mephedrone-and-I-liked-it.html
What is cannabis? It’s the most widely-used illegal drug in Britain. But there’s a whole lot more to learn about it, and what it does to you.
Skunk
Cannabis Oil
This site backs up a lot of what I found on Frank
http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mentalhealthinfo/problems/alcoholanddrugs/cannabis.aspx
We brought up in class the possibility that perhaps Cannabis could lead to harder drugs, this news story form the BBC says that it isn't a reality.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2538065.stm
Cannabis
- Gateway drug?
- Content Of Cannabis - What is it laced with? - Adding glass, washing up liquid.
Bubble
- Death through Bubble?
- Mixing with alcohol
- Distinctive rash/scars?
Social
- Unemployment
- Environment
Physical
- The development on you?
- Munchies
Mental
- Paranoia
- Depression
- Dementia
- Short Term Memory
- Triggers?
Law
- Growing cannabis
- Possession
- Connection to other crimes
- Out of your depth
Primary Research - Ask Frank
http://www.talktofrank.com/drug/mephedrone#aka=Bubble
This has pretty much everything you need to know about Bubble.
Mephedrone AKA - 4-MMC, Bounce, Bubble, Charge, Drone, M-Cat, MC, Meow Meow, Meph, Miaow, White Magic.
What is mephedrone? Mephedrone (often called ‘meow meow’) is a powerful stimulant and is part of the cathinone family, a group of drugs that are closely related to the amphetamines – including amphetamine itself (often called ‘speed’), methamphetamine and ecstasy. There is very little evidence about mephedrone and what long-term effects it has, but there have reports of people hospitalised due to the short-term effects.
Also, you can never be entirely sure that what you’re buying is actually mephedrone and not something else.
The main effects and risks of mephedrone include:
- Euphoria, alertness and feelings of affection towards the people around you.
- Feelings of anxiety and paranoia.
- Mephedrone, or meow meow, can also overstimulate your heart and circulation; and can overstimulate your nervous system, with risk of fits.
What does mephedrone look like?
Mephedrone can be found as a fine white, off-white or a yellowish powder. It was originally sold over the internet as a ‘legal’ alternative to drugs like speed, ecstasy and cocaine.
But to get around the law, dealers said that the mephedrone they were selling was plant food or a bath salt and not for human consumption. On average a gram of meph costs between £20 and £30.
How do people take Meph?
Meph is usually snorted like cocaine or is wrapped in paper and swallowed ("bombed" is a slang name used for this). It can also be found as capsules and pills and can be smoked. In rare cases Bubble has been injected.
Injecting Meow Meow, and sharing injecting equipment including needles and syringes, runs the risk of the person injecting catching or spreading a virus such as HIV or Hepatitis C.
There is also the risk that veins may be damaged and that something nasty will develop, such as an abscess or clot.
What does MC do?
White Magic is often described as a mix between amphetamines, ecstasy and cocaine. The effects of Bounce last for about an hour, but this can vary
- It can make you feel alert, confident, talkative and euphoric - and some people will temporarily feel strong affection to those around them
- Charge can make users feel sick, paranoid and anxious, and it can cause vomiting and headaches.
- It risks overstimulating and damaging your heart and your circulation.
- It also risks overstimulating and damaging your heart and your circulation.
- It also risks overstimulating your nervous system, which may cause hallucinations, feelings of agitation and even fits.
- It can reduce your appetite, so you don't feel hungry.
Other effects that people have reported include heart palpitations, insomnia, loss of short-term memory, vertigo, grinding of teeth, sweating and uncomfortable changes in body temperature.
Secondary Research.
First hand experience with the drug, reported by Max Pemberton on the 20th March 2010
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/7481469/I-took-mephedrone-and-I-liked-it.html
So what are the risks?
Taking Meph does involve risks - and the dangers and long term effects and becoming clearer as much reports emerge. Here's what we know:
- Users have reported blue or cold fingers - this is probably because Miaow affects the heart and the circulation.
- Some users have also had severe nosebleeds after snorting Meph.
- There were six deaths involving MC reported in 2010 in England and Wales.
This isn't strictly true as this report from the BBC back in 2010 says.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10184803
- Overheating has been a significant cause of deaths when other amphetamine-type drugs, such as ecstasy, have been used along with Meph.
Meph and alcohol
You increase the risks to yourself if you combine alcohol with mephedrone or any other drug that causes a ‘high’ – including increasing the risk of death.
What is mephedrone cut with?
Mephedrone is sometimes mixed or cut with other substances, such as caffeine. In some cases, the powder people buy from a dealer contains no mephedrone at all!
Can you get addicted to mephedrone?
The simple answer is – yes – you can get addicted to mephedrone. Reports say that mephedrone use can lead to a strong psychological dependence on the drug, and can lead to the user craving – and taking – increasing amounts.
This kind of behaviour increases all of the above risks to your health. Some users say that once they have started a mephedrone session, they find it very difficult to stop until they’ve used their entire supply - this is sometimes called ‘fiending’.
Meph and the law
- Meph is a Class B drug - so it's illegal to have for yourself, give away or sell.
- Possession is illegal and can get you up to five years in jail and/or an unlimited fine
- Supplying someone else, even your friends, can get you fourteen years in jail and/or an unlimited fine.
What if you’re caught?
If the Police catch you with mephedrone, they’ll always take some action. This could include a formal caution, arrest and prosecution.
A conviction for a drug-related offence could have a serious impact. It can stop you visiting certain countries – for example the United States – and limit the types of jobs you can apply for.
Did you know?
Like drinking and driving, driving when high is illegal - and you can still be unfit to drive the day after using mephedrone. You can get a heavy fine, be disqualified from driving or even go to prison.
Allowing other people to use drugs in your house or any other premises is illegal. If the police catch someone using drugs in a club they can prosecute the landlord, club owner or person holding the party.
Primary Research
Ask Frank
http://www.talktofrank.com/drug/cannabis
Cannabis AKA: Bhang, Bud, Dope, Draw, Ganja, Grass, Hash, Hashish, Herb, Marijuana, Pot, Puff, Resin, Sensi, Sinsemilla, Skunk, Weed.
- Cannabis is naturally occurring - it is made from the cannabis plant.
- The main active chemical in it is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC for short).
- THC is the ingredient in cannabis that can make you feel very chilled out, happy and relaxed.
- THC can also make you hallucinate, meaning that it can alter your senses, so that you might see, hear or feel things in a different way to normal.
A big myth about cannabis is that it’s safe because it’s natural. Cannabis has some very real effects on your mood, as well as creating longer-term problems:
- Cannabis can make you feel very anxious and even paranoid.
- Using it has also been linked, in some people, to serious, long term mental health problems.
Cannabis is still the most commonly used illegal drug. However, it isn’t as popular as it used to be: just 1 in 6 people aged 16-24 had tried it in 2010/11.
What are the different types of cannabis?
Although it’s all from the same plant, cannabis comes in many different forms.
Hash
- Hash is a black or brown soft lump made from the resin of the cannabis plant. It's much less common in the UK than it used to be. It costs about £26 per quarter ounce.
Grass/weed
- Grass, also known as weed, is made from the dried leaves and flowering parts of the female cannabis plant and looks like tightly packed dried herbs. This traditional grass was normally imported and much weaker than the "skunk" types of cannabis usually sold now. Grass costs around £30 per quarter ounce.
Skunk
- Skunk is the term used to refer to strong forms of herbal cannabis that have increasingly dominated the UK market. They are, on average 2-4 times stronger than cannabis that was used in the past. They include: Sinsemilla, with no seeds; homegrown, plants grown indoors with the aid of artificial light, heat and nutrients "skunk", which has a particularly strong smell and netherweed, an imported form of strong herbal cannabis, skunk costs around £50 per quarter ounce.
Cannabis Oil
- Cannabis Oil is a sticky, dark honey-coloured substance and is much less common.
Cannabis Oil may be less common but this blogged report I came across seems to suggest that it could help prevent cancer.
http://greenwellness.org/cannabis-oil-a-real-miracle-medicine
How is cannabis taken?
There are a few ways of taking cannabis:
- Most people mix it with tobacco, roll it up into something known as a "spliff" or a "joint", and then smoke it.
- Some people smoke it using a type of pipe called a bong.
- Others drink or eat it mixed in cookies, cakes or even cups of tea. Taken this way, the effects of cannabis can be more difficult to predict or to control. It takes cannabis longer to get in to your body by this route; and so if unpleasant side effects do start to develop, it's too late to do very much about it except wait for the effects to reach their peak and than wear off.
What are the effects of cannabis?
Cannabis has a number of different effects. It is classed as a sedating and hallucinogenic drug. Its effects can turn out to be pleasant or unpleasant:
- Taking cannabis can make people feel chilled out, relaxed and happy, and they may get the giggles or become very talkative.
- It can make you more aware of your senses, and the hallucinogenic effects can even give you a feeling of time slowing down.
- It can make you feel very hungry - this is sometimes called "getting the munchies".
- Some people have one or two drags on a joint and feel light-headed, faint and sick. This is sometimes called a "whitey".
- Cannabis may cause feelings of anxiety, suspicion, panic and paranoia.
Cannabis can mess with your mind
- Cannabis can freak you out - it can cause feelings of anxiety, suspicion, panic and paranoia.
- For people with illnesses such as schizophrenia, cannabis can cause a serious relapse.
- Regular cannabis use is known to be associated with an increase in the risk of later developing psychotic illnesses including schizophrenia; and if you have a family background of mental illness, you may also have an increased risk.
- Cannabis can affect the way the brain works. Regular, heavy use makes it difficult to learn and concentrate and research has linked cannabis use to poor exam results. This is a potentially serious risk if you're young. People who take a lot of cannabis can also find they lack motivation.
- Smoking cannabis can make asthma worse, and cause wheezing in non-asthma sufferers.
- It can increase the heart rate and affect blood pressure, which can be especially harmful for those with heart disease.
- It is reported that frequent use of cannabis may affect fertillity. It can cut a man's sperm count and can suppress ovulation in women.
- If you're pregnant, smoking cannabis may increase the risk of your baby being born smaller than expected.
What is the effect of mixing cannabis and alcohol?
Mixing cannabis with alcohol can have particularly serious consequences - the accident rate is 16 times higher than for cannabis or alcohol alone.
What is cannabis cut with?
Cannabis may be ‘cut’ with other substances to increase the weight and the dealer’s profits.
- Impurities in cannabis may include a variety of substances, with laboratory-confirmed reports of glass and pesticides being found in herbal forms of cannabis; and with hash/resin frequently being mixed with a range of substances to increase weight and the dealer's profits. In April 2010, a study, looking into contaminants in drugs reported that there were cases of cannabis being adulterated with henna, lead and aluminium.
- Any impurities you smoke could be inhaled in to the lungs alongside the wide range of chemicals is naturally found in cannabis.
- Like tobacco, cannabis has lots of chemical "nasties". So if you smoke it, cannabis could cause lung disease and possibly cancer too, especially when smoked with tobacco.
Can you get addicted to cannabis?
The simple answer is ‘yes, people do become dependent on cannabis’. This means you can get 'cravings’ for cannabis, and may have difficulty staying off it even if you recognise using it has started to cause you problems.
And regular users can also get some unpleasant withdrawal symptoms on stopping, including irritability, mood changes, feeling sick, loss of appetite, difficulty sleeping; and even sweating, shaking and diarrhoea in some people.
And regular users can also get some unpleasant
You’re also at real risk of getting addicted to nicotine, or staying addicted to it, if you roll your spliffs with tobacco.
Cannabis and the law
- Cannabis is a Class B drug - it's illegal to have for yourself, give away or sell.
- Possession is illegal whatever you're using it for, including pain relief. The penalty is up to five years in jail.
- Supplying someone else can get you fourteen years and an unlimited fine.
What if you're caught with cannabis?
If the Police catch you with cannabis, they’ll always take some action. This could be a warning, a reprimand, a formal caution, a fixed penalty or an arrest and possible conviction.
A conviction for a drug-related offence could have a pretty serious impact. It can stop you visiting certain countries – for example the United States – and limit the types of jobs you can apply for.
This site backs up a lot of what I found on Frank
http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mentalhealthinfo/problems/alcoholanddrugs/cannabis.aspx
We brought up in class the possibility that perhaps Cannabis could lead to harder drugs, this news story form the BBC says that it isn't a reality.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2538065.stm
Friday, 24 February 2012
Documentaries - Production Day 1
This brief is all about documentaries, we was informed that we will be working with the student union to create a documentary about the dangers of drug abuse.
We started by looking at what goes into Documentaries, the various styles and content that we see in the majority of them. The purpose of documentaries is to Entertain, Educate or Inform us, they go about this using a large variety of types.
These include:
Wildlife - A nature style program, usually with a celebrity voice over (particularly our national treasure David Attenborough) is which they will discuss a animal species. These are wildly popular and are shot in quite exotic locations, the shows are primarily dominated by cut away, this is maybe because it is hard to control animals in the wild for such a large period of times, they will edit a lot of footage together to form some sort of narrative, this personifies the animals to entice viewers.
I would personal say that this type of style is what kicked of the "Celebrity Led" style of documentary, in which they would send of a well known celeb to exotic locations to teach us about perhaps an animal, a country that a charity is helping (Comic Relief and similar televised charities.)
or a road trip across the country (anything with Billy Connolly and Stephen Fry in America series.)
Historical - All documentaries are cheap, that is why so many are commissioned and made, but Historical documentaries seem to be the cheapest, they are dominated by cut away of past footage and facts, this style of documentary contain interviews with "experts" to add clarity to the facts that the narrator is giving the audience.
Countdown - A countdown documentary contains a list of events, characters, subjects, etc about a particular topic, celebrities and experts will then talk to camera about each thing on the list. For example, BBC3 do a yearly documentary called "Most Annoying People Of..." in which it counts down 100 famous faces and figures who have annoyed the british public that year, and why. Although this style is used quite a lot, especially in the early 2000's in which Jimmy Carr used to host a "100 most..." seemingly every week, there not what I would consider a traditional documentary, even when writing this I am still pondering whether I have made a mistake, we do still see a lot of what we come to expect in documentaries, such as interviews, narration, name tags, titles, heavy editing, vox pops, a library of footage/pictures, music that relates to the tone of the programme.
Docu-Drama
Docu-Soaps - These are documentaries that heavily concentrate on the drama to entice an audience, this can be anything from series like "The Secret Millionaire". Anything life changing really, it also ties into a style called the "Personal Documentaries". Programmes that concentrate on one person or several people going through a similar problem or coping with a particular issue, examples of these include "Deaf Teens - Hearing The World For The First Time" on BBC3. These are incredibly popular as they are hard hitting and emotional, I feel like this is the style of documentary the majority of our class will use due to the nature of our brief.
These are just but a few examples of the styles of documentaries, I could produce pages upon pages of various styles, and even saying that those above are the "popular" styles would be an exaggeration, it is the topics, people and places that makes a successful documentary.
So before we could begin to think about making our own documentaries, we had to find and watch them to see these styles that we had just noted down in work, and to write down what it is that we generally see in each of them, and maybe if there was any similarities between documentaries, despite the fact that they wouldn't be about the same subject.
The first documentary that we was advised to catch was a recent episode of BBC's Panorama, as it was on the subject of Alcohol abuse. It threw a lot at me within the first 30 seconds, they showed snippits of people sharing intimiate stories about how desperate they were for there next fix of alcohol, these included the "celebrity" narrator, who was also giving pieces to camera as he had similar problems with alcohol in the past, I felt like they put these snippits at the beginning to entice people who would perhaps be flicking through channels and catch it, they also dangle the few snippits of celebrities being interviewed about the alcohol abuse they had in the past because we as a nation are infatuated with the celebrity world, of course there was only one interview with a past alcoholic celebrity (not including Cambell, the narrator).
Speaking of Cambell, it was strange the several parts he had to play in this episode, for starters he was the narrator, to provide us with statistics and facts, he was an interviewer/host to get the stories out of others, but he was also the victim, so there was serveral points in which he was sat down and having a one on one with the camera, these were moments in which he shared his own experiences and opinions about the topic, maybe strange was a bad choice of words but it was certainly something I hadn;t seen in other documentaries.
The choice of cutaways was interesting, it showed Cambell jogging around his local area, perhaps getting across the message of a more healthier lifestyle now he has quit the drink, or maybe just putting out a message of "exercise more" to us the audience.
The next documentary I watched was an american Docu-Drama called The King Of Kongs - A Fistful Of Quarters.
This was a fantastic documentary about the world of competative gaming, the biggest problem I had with it was that it felt scripted, almost like this was faked, or that the people was told to only say or share certain points of the story, for example at one point the "antagonist" of the Docu-Drama is saying that with all the luck that he has, he feels sorry for the poor bastard who is down on his luck, it then cuts to the 2nd main character, the "protaganist" discussing how he had just recently lost his job, and the tough time his family is going through. Maybe this is down to editing more than a faked/scripted documentary, but it did take me out of the film for a short while.
I also should say that I choose the words antagonist and protaganist as King Of Kongs really does paint the picture of Good Vs Evil, hero trying to beat the villain, again, this could be due to the editing, or the scripted dialogue, the "antagonist" of the piece could actually be the nicest guy you could ever meet, but they show him to be the biggest D-Bag.
This documentary didn't teach me anything about the world we are shown, I know about as much about the world of competative gaming coming out of that hour an half then I did entering it, it concentrates more heavily on the struggle between the two main characters, as that is far more interesting then the gaming itself, of course I feel like I watched a drama/soap rather than a documentary but it still entertained me, and we forget that some documentaries set out to achieve that.
I walked away from King Of Kongs with a theory that Americans tell a narrative through pieces to camera, vox pops and text, the american documentaries that I had previously watched didn't have any narration, whereas British documentaries always seemed to have a narrator (again, I was thinking back to previous ones I had watched, especially a lot of wildlife documentaires.)
The next documentary I watched helped my theory as well, despite it's wide generallisation.
I found "The World Of Compulsive Hoarders" on Youtube, it's an interesting people piece showing us just two of many many people who have a problem with throwing away items/objects and who then become hoarders.
The only difference I found between this documentary and others I had previously watched is that it didn't concentrate on interviews with these people to drive the narrative, instead, it took the two people the documentary concentrated on and brought them together, one to help out, and to share experiences. Of course they didn't do this all the time, sometimes it would be members of family visiting (with a narrator informing us of the narration and back story)
This seems to be another technique used in Docu-Dramas, to bring a camera into someones life but make them go about there normal business or talk to other people of interest to drive the documentary, there doesn't need to be a cameraman asking questions, and they don't need to sit the hoarder down and let them speak to the camera (there are still parts in which that happens.)
But my theory was broken when I came across a documentary on my Xbox 360 of all things.
It was called Nightmares In Red White And Blue, a newly released documentary about the history of horror movies in america that was promoted on the Xbox, this had a strong narrative that took us through nearly 80 years of cinema pieced together with a narrator.
It was when I was watching this that I noticed the titles, they related to the subject, it was coloured red, white and blue with a "horror" style font, this may seem obvious but it would really take me out of the film if they were anything different, it is something so subtle and something you wouldn't give a second thought too, but it is an important part of a successful piece.
To further prove how wrong my theory was, I came across a recent Channel 4 program called "My Social Network Stalker" A intence British documentary with no narrator, the narrative is told through the
victim of quite a scary case of harassment recounting her story. The spaces of time are filled in using graphics...
...again, the text and graphics relate to documentary, in this case it is in the style of a text message, which, due to the fact that this is about harrassment and cyber bullying belong there...
...even little things like nametags looking like a mouse clicking on something will be something I have to think about when creating my very own documentary, now of course I can't have a needle instead of a mouse or something equally innapropriate due to the nature of the topic we are doing.
I then came across a few documentaries that are both quite similar, but very different in the same way, they are a series on BBC3 called "Bizzare Crime" a lighthearted series that recounts the weird and wonderful crimes that have been comminted by dumb criminals, much to the same style of "Americans Dumbest..." etc. The other was another Channel 4 documentary called "The Most Offensive Joke In The World" a countdown style documentary which goes through what we as a nation consider the most offensive joke in the world, it was an interesting watch, I mostly bring it up due to fact that it's narrative is told through a countdown, which must mean that that style's research is completed with polls taken from the public, or the "celebrities" in which are shown on the show discussing the jokes, and there own philosyphy/stories/opinions on those jokes.
I bring up Bizzare Crime as well due to the lighthearted nature of the programme, I saw a strange parrallel between the lighthearted nature of Jokes being presented and talked about in a serious was and the hard hitting world of crime being taken about as seriously as a game of cops and robbers. Bizzare Crime uses a lot of silly graphics and funny noises to poke fun of stupid people acting out stupid crimes, such as a man who has already been convicted trying to rob a CCTV store, and being completly oblivious to his face being on every camera around the shop and surrounding area.
We started by looking at what goes into Documentaries, the various styles and content that we see in the majority of them. The purpose of documentaries is to Entertain, Educate or Inform us, they go about this using a large variety of types.
These include:
Wildlife - A nature style program, usually with a celebrity voice over (particularly our national treasure David Attenborough) is which they will discuss a animal species. These are wildly popular and are shot in quite exotic locations, the shows are primarily dominated by cut away, this is maybe because it is hard to control animals in the wild for such a large period of times, they will edit a lot of footage together to form some sort of narrative, this personifies the animals to entice viewers.
I would personal say that this type of style is what kicked of the "Celebrity Led" style of documentary, in which they would send of a well known celeb to exotic locations to teach us about perhaps an animal, a country that a charity is helping (Comic Relief and similar televised charities.)
or a road trip across the country (anything with Billy Connolly and Stephen Fry in America series.)
Historical - All documentaries are cheap, that is why so many are commissioned and made, but Historical documentaries seem to be the cheapest, they are dominated by cut away of past footage and facts, this style of documentary contain interviews with "experts" to add clarity to the facts that the narrator is giving the audience.
Countdown - A countdown documentary contains a list of events, characters, subjects, etc about a particular topic, celebrities and experts will then talk to camera about each thing on the list. For example, BBC3 do a yearly documentary called "Most Annoying People Of..." in which it counts down 100 famous faces and figures who have annoyed the british public that year, and why. Although this style is used quite a lot, especially in the early 2000's in which Jimmy Carr used to host a "100 most..." seemingly every week, there not what I would consider a traditional documentary, even when writing this I am still pondering whether I have made a mistake, we do still see a lot of what we come to expect in documentaries, such as interviews, narration, name tags, titles, heavy editing, vox pops, a library of footage/pictures, music that relates to the tone of the programme.
Docu-Drama
Docu-Soaps - These are documentaries that heavily concentrate on the drama to entice an audience, this can be anything from series like "The Secret Millionaire". Anything life changing really, it also ties into a style called the "Personal Documentaries". Programmes that concentrate on one person or several people going through a similar problem or coping with a particular issue, examples of these include "Deaf Teens - Hearing The World For The First Time" on BBC3. These are incredibly popular as they are hard hitting and emotional, I feel like this is the style of documentary the majority of our class will use due to the nature of our brief.
These are just but a few examples of the styles of documentaries, I could produce pages upon pages of various styles, and even saying that those above are the "popular" styles would be an exaggeration, it is the topics, people and places that makes a successful documentary.
So before we could begin to think about making our own documentaries, we had to find and watch them to see these styles that we had just noted down in work, and to write down what it is that we generally see in each of them, and maybe if there was any similarities between documentaries, despite the fact that they wouldn't be about the same subject.
The first documentary that we was advised to catch was a recent episode of BBC's Panorama, as it was on the subject of Alcohol abuse. It threw a lot at me within the first 30 seconds, they showed snippits of people sharing intimiate stories about how desperate they were for there next fix of alcohol, these included the "celebrity" narrator, who was also giving pieces to camera as he had similar problems with alcohol in the past, I felt like they put these snippits at the beginning to entice people who would perhaps be flicking through channels and catch it, they also dangle the few snippits of celebrities being interviewed about the alcohol abuse they had in the past because we as a nation are infatuated with the celebrity world, of course there was only one interview with a past alcoholic celebrity (not including Cambell, the narrator).
Speaking of Cambell, it was strange the several parts he had to play in this episode, for starters he was the narrator, to provide us with statistics and facts, he was an interviewer/host to get the stories out of others, but he was also the victim, so there was serveral points in which he was sat down and having a one on one with the camera, these were moments in which he shared his own experiences and opinions about the topic, maybe strange was a bad choice of words but it was certainly something I hadn;t seen in other documentaries.
The choice of cutaways was interesting, it showed Cambell jogging around his local area, perhaps getting across the message of a more healthier lifestyle now he has quit the drink, or maybe just putting out a message of "exercise more" to us the audience.
The next documentary I watched was an american Docu-Drama called The King Of Kongs - A Fistful Of Quarters.
This was a fantastic documentary about the world of competative gaming, the biggest problem I had with it was that it felt scripted, almost like this was faked, or that the people was told to only say or share certain points of the story, for example at one point the "antagonist" of the Docu-Drama is saying that with all the luck that he has, he feels sorry for the poor bastard who is down on his luck, it then cuts to the 2nd main character, the "protaganist" discussing how he had just recently lost his job, and the tough time his family is going through. Maybe this is down to editing more than a faked/scripted documentary, but it did take me out of the film for a short while.
I also should say that I choose the words antagonist and protaganist as King Of Kongs really does paint the picture of Good Vs Evil, hero trying to beat the villain, again, this could be due to the editing, or the scripted dialogue, the "antagonist" of the piece could actually be the nicest guy you could ever meet, but they show him to be the biggest D-Bag.
This documentary didn't teach me anything about the world we are shown, I know about as much about the world of competative gaming coming out of that hour an half then I did entering it, it concentrates more heavily on the struggle between the two main characters, as that is far more interesting then the gaming itself, of course I feel like I watched a drama/soap rather than a documentary but it still entertained me, and we forget that some documentaries set out to achieve that.
I walked away from King Of Kongs with a theory that Americans tell a narrative through pieces to camera, vox pops and text, the american documentaries that I had previously watched didn't have any narration, whereas British documentaries always seemed to have a narrator (again, I was thinking back to previous ones I had watched, especially a lot of wildlife documentaires.)
The next documentary I watched helped my theory as well, despite it's wide generallisation.
The only difference I found between this documentary and others I had previously watched is that it didn't concentrate on interviews with these people to drive the narrative, instead, it took the two people the documentary concentrated on and brought them together, one to help out, and to share experiences. Of course they didn't do this all the time, sometimes it would be members of family visiting (with a narrator informing us of the narration and back story)
This seems to be another technique used in Docu-Dramas, to bring a camera into someones life but make them go about there normal business or talk to other people of interest to drive the documentary, there doesn't need to be a cameraman asking questions, and they don't need to sit the hoarder down and let them speak to the camera (there are still parts in which that happens.)
But my theory was broken when I came across a documentary on my Xbox 360 of all things.It was called Nightmares In Red White And Blue, a newly released documentary about the history of horror movies in america that was promoted on the Xbox, this had a strong narrative that took us through nearly 80 years of cinema pieced together with a narrator.
It was when I was watching this that I noticed the titles, they related to the subject, it was coloured red, white and blue with a "horror" style font, this may seem obvious but it would really take me out of the film if they were anything different, it is something so subtle and something you wouldn't give a second thought too, but it is an important part of a successful piece.
To further prove how wrong my theory was, I came across a recent Channel 4 program called "My Social Network Stalker" A intence British documentary with no narrator, the narrative is told through thevictim of quite a scary case of harassment recounting her story. The spaces of time are filled in using graphics...
...again, the text and graphics relate to documentary, in this case it is in the style of a text message, which, due to the fact that this is about harrassment and cyber bullying belong there...
...even little things like nametags looking like a mouse clicking on something will be something I have to think about when creating my very own documentary, now of course I can't have a needle instead of a mouse or something equally innapropriate due to the nature of the topic we are doing.
I then came across a few documentaries that are both quite similar, but very different in the same way, they are a series on BBC3 called "Bizzare Crime" a lighthearted series that recounts the weird and wonderful crimes that have been comminted by dumb criminals, much to the same style of "Americans Dumbest..." etc. The other was another Channel 4 documentary called "The Most Offensive Joke In The World" a countdown style documentary which goes through what we as a nation consider the most offensive joke in the world, it was an interesting watch, I mostly bring it up due to fact that it's narrative is told through a countdown, which must mean that that style's research is completed with polls taken from the public, or the "celebrities" in which are shown on the show discussing the jokes, and there own philosyphy/stories/opinions on those jokes.
I bring up Bizzare Crime as well due to the lighthearted nature of the programme, I saw a strange parrallel between the lighthearted nature of Jokes being presented and talked about in a serious was and the hard hitting world of crime being taken about as seriously as a game of cops and robbers. Bizzare Crime uses a lot of silly graphics and funny noises to poke fun of stupid people acting out stupid crimes, such as a man who has already been convicted trying to rob a CCTV store, and being completly oblivious to his face being on every camera around the shop and surrounding area.
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