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