Play-back!

On Thursday me and my documentary partner watched through all our footage we shot. Over all we were very happy with the footage and the framing etc. however, one thing we did notice was the colour didn't appear on screen as it did on camera.

We planned to reshoot some of the scenes we need to reshoot. We made a list of things to reshoot and start Tuesday.

Something Different

Not that long ago I did a two minute documentary in collaboration with Cancer Trust UK and Belfast Metropolitan College (BMC) to help promote their work. I shot, directed and edited it myself with the help of Yvonne Wall and Aidan Johnston, who are also doing some documentary work (If you click on their names it will bring you to their blogs for the documentaries they're working on now)

Here is a link to the documentary we made, it's called 'Something Different'...Enjoy!

Re-shooting

So I may have been a little naïve when thinking I was finished my documentary. It has come to my attention that it will take a few shoots to get what you need and what you want, and that is all natural when it comes to filming, especially a documentary.

So I have got in contact with my filming partner, and we have been discussing possible film times but we're waiting until we have a meeting before anything is set in stone...but hopefully we'll film sometime starting this week coming.

Stories We Tell

(SPOILERS--DUH!)

http://youtu.be/ytq4VZ2Nyxg

In class this week we watched the biographical documentary 'Stories We Tell' by actor/directer Sarah Polley. It was a beautiful documentary about her family life, which featured family videos artistically combined with reinactments that seemed more real life than dramatized.

I thought it was a creative way of filling the documentary and taking the audience on a journey which made you feel like part of the family.

The documentary shone a spotlight on her free-spirit to a mother, Diane, with insights of her mother told by her children, family, friends and people who knew her. It featured a voice over by her father, who was an actor/writer/creative type.

The documentary followed how their father met their mother and how they fell in love but; as a twist to the audience it took us on a discovery we were not expecting from this insight into family life. Growing up Sarah was part of an inside family joke of who her real father - that was all to real as the audience would soon find out.

Sarah's mother had a brief affair while she was on the road while she was on stage, and to Sarah and the rest if the family's knowledge it was (jokingly) between three men who performed on stage with Sarah's mother. The documentary takes us along as Sarah tries to discover if there is any truth to these light rumors.

We then find out that it is not between the three they expected but another man to much surprise of the family.

What I loved about this documentary was  the journey it takes you on while making you feel part of their family; while giving you each person involved's perspective of the series of events, which expanded over 28 years!

I also loved the techniques used in the documentary; which I talked about above, such as the artistic and seamless way she blended home video footage with reinactments that, if you weren't told, you wouldn't notice. I also loved how they showed the set up of the documentary with the equipment, like the microphones, the cameras, lights and the sound booth for ADR for the voice over on screen. It was both techniqual and artistic and showed the audience how a documentary is shot.

It was a new and exciting way to do a documentary and I think that's what kept your attention.

Searching for Sugarman

So today in documentary class I watched an incredible documentary - 'Searching for Sugarman'. 

It was a tale about a young up incoming artist, Sixto Rodreqize, from Detroit. He was discovered by a record label, Sussex Records and the creator of Mowtown; who was thought for big things. His album Cold Fact was given a rare review from Bilboard and given four stars but both his albums were flops. (Cold Fact and Coming from Reality)

In one of his heart hitting songs the lyrics read: "Fired from my job two weeks before Christmas". We'll that was kind if like a bizarre premonition because after his second album flopped, he was dropped from his label 2 weeks before Christmas - despite the producers he worked with saying he was in the top 5 artists they ever worked with. (And they worked with the likes of: Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Marvn Gaye and the Surpremes).

His album however got round to South Africa and pirated and sold as boot leg albums…and it captured the hearts of the entire contanint! The people however soon realised about how little they knew of the mysterious artist, and what with being dropped from his label he was proven impossible to track down. 

Rumors started circulating of his death; a suicide on stage, from pulling a gun and shooting himself on stage after a gig went wrong, to pouring gasoline on himself and setting himself a light on stage.

This caught the eye of a fan who done some detective work, since his album had been estimated to have sold 500 million and had been selling for 25 years after it made its way to the contanint. He was officially bigger than Elvs! Anyway after years of investigating a star they believed to be dead…they found him…living in the house he'd liven in for 40 years. 

He was then taken to South Afrca where he was unaware he was so popular because he was dropped from the label so didn't see a penny of it and was living in poverty. He done 6 sellout shows to 20,000 people a night. 

The documentry was artistic and insightful and a must see not just for any film-maker but of all audiences

Shot, Done and Dusted

So on Tuesday (19 November) we shot our documentary on 'Art: Thought to Page' (title not definite). It had to be a sort of cinematic style documentary which I have never seen previous, so to prepare we watched a few in class, such as: Nostalgia for light, tuc tuc and the train station.

The documentary took more of an artistic style than I originally intended; but it's not that surprising as the subject matter was on art and there was so much of interesting pieces of art to shoot, and I did think that a documentary about art would probably be taken better if it was shot more artistically.

One problem we encountered while shooting the documentary was; people we planed to interview pulled out on the last minute, which can only be expected. We got over this by shooting some extra footage and interviewing the art teacher (Alan Cargo)

We thought it would be good to interview him because of his experience, insight and passion for the subject…all that's left now is to edit!

Treatment

I had to complete a treatment for my documentary showing how I intend to shoot it (TREAT it basically).

I have how long it will be, the style I intend to shoot it in, the intended audience and the research I've done etc.

This is important because it will help prepare me for the day and stop me from scrambling for something to do

Filming Next Week

So next week (Tuesday 19 November) is our shoot date for our documentary and today my partner and I went to the location we'd be shooting.

We told the students that we would be filming them and they were all ok about it. We handed them question we'd be asking them, just so they are prepared.

We thought it was important to talk to them so we could build a working relationship with them to see who and how we get along as that relationship is crucial to the filming of the documentary.

What are we shooting?

(WAS MEANT TO POST THIS A WHILE AGO!!!)

So me and my documentary partner finally decided what we will be shooting a the subject matter for our documentary. We decided to go with Art.

We have decided to get the artists opinion on the art they're trying to create, as art is a very broad subject, it could be very vague if we just do general art as a whole.

So we plan to ask the artist what form of art they are creating whether it is, sculpting, still life, landscapes etc.

And then get their views on the art and what it may represent and what art means to them. We then plan on asking could they imagine doing art without the use of their hands.

Here We Go Again

Here's an easier way to view my two minute documentary 'Something Different'

Something Different

Last week I shot, directed and edited a short two minute documentary I was commissioned for for Action Cancer Trust.

I had help with two others in my class with setting up the set.

The short is named after the shop, 'Something Different'.

Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GipfvRjg6Ng

Documentary Class

So in my second year of my course I now have a documentary class; and as part of this class I have to make a documentary, (obviously!) so here is a little bit about it.

The theme is on hands and at first I thought it was a bit vague and it would be hard to do a documentary on this subject matter, then once I started going through some ideas with my partner (we were put in groups) I thought we might have something here.

We came up with a number of ideas ranging from:

• War and Peace
• Communication
• Artistry
• Baking and Cooking
• Musicians

and many more.

What we did next was to try and get some material for each of these ideas, what we could do and what we could focus on for each idea, then carefully going through each possible idea we discussed what we could choose to be the subject we shot, we thought of things from availability to how easy it could be and what we could do.

We then had to narrow down the choices to what we both liked and thought we could do and do well; we narrowed it down to two choices: Communication or Artistry.

Now all we have to do is choose our final idea and do some research into the subject and write up a proposal for our documentary.

I just finished editing a 2 min documentary I did for Action Cancer Trust I'll upload it as soon as possible.

What This Blog Is About

So... I had to create a new blog for my documentary class, for the upcoming documentary I am going to be shooting (I would have preferred to do it in my old blog but) so this is where I am going to put down my deepest thoughts and how the documentary is going.
Wish me luck! :)