Documentary and evaluation

I think that there were good and bad points with our documentary. The good points of our documentary were that it encourperated a number of different camera angles, which gave it variety. Also the blue screen background worked out well which was interesting and gave the documentary more reality. The person we interviewed was another good point because he offered a contrast to other mobile phone users because Sam admitted to not using his phone often.
However, there were some issues with our documentary, for example we had to edit some of the camera angles as they wern't clear, this we should have done when filming and wasted time. Also the blue screen wasn't lit well enough in some shots so this gave us trouble applying the background. Finally we could have filmed more cutaway shots because we used some whipes to go onto the next question, which could have been avoided.

editing process

The editing process was relatively simple because we had filmed the different angles and cutaways already, so the editing process mainly involved putting the questions in order and removing the miss-takes. Once I had done this I looked through the other angles we had filmed to see which ones looked best and if we could use any in the documentary, some of them had framing issues. Once i had put all of the questions the next step in the editing process was to add in the cutaways, which was relativly simple as we had filmed them already and did not have to film again. After the cutaways I added titles to the begining and edited the blue screen, to put a background of mobile phones behind him to link with the questions being asked. The final process was adding the music to the start and one of the cutaways.

Filming Process

When the filming process came along we were very prepared as we had our pre-set questions and planned our cutaways already. We filmed Sam in front of a blue screen so that later we could add in a background and make the interview stand out. We took our time filming the interviewee in order to get a clear response, with no other audio affecting Sam's answers. We also were careful and told Sam the question off camera so that the interviewer's voice was not on the film. We also asked that he was clear with his answer so the audience knew what he was talking about. Even if the question was not clear then we could use the blue screen to put the question next to him. We then repeated some of the questions from a different angle in order to add some variation to the interview. Finally we filmed the cutaway shots with the phones that Sam brought in.

Planning

We decided to film a member of our class called Sam we did this because we knew that Sam would be up to the expectations and he was an interesting subject that we wanted for this short documentary. He was an interesting subject because he offered a contrast to normal interviews, as Sam does not use his phone often. First we recieved the pre set questions that we had to include in the interview. We then storyboarded the interrviewe thinking of many different cut aways that we could include in the interview. An example of a cut away we wanted to include was a clip from Rocky 1 where he talks about how he doesn't use a phone. The important cut aways we wanted to include was showing Sam's old mobile phones, so we asked him to try and bring his old mobile phones to the next lesson.

Codes and conventions In filming and Editing interviews

Interviewees filmed in medium shot, medium close up or a regular close up
Framed to left or right of the screen- if their is more than one interview positioning alternates as as to create variety.
Framing follows the rules the rule of thirds - eyeline is roughly a third of the way down the frame
Interviewee looks at the interviewer not directly into the camera
Positioning of interviewer is therefore important: If the interviewee is on the RIGHT side of the frame, the interviewer should be positioned on the LEFT side of the camera. If the interviewee is on the LEFT side of the frame, the interviewer is positioned on the RIGHT side of the camera.
In either case,the interviewer should sit or stand as close to the camera as possible.
Miese-en-scene: background reinforces the content of the interview or is relevant to the interviewee providing more information about them in terms of occupation or personal environment.
Interviews are never filmed with a light source behind them i.e. infromt of a window or with the sun behind them; the light is always in front of them.
Questions are edited out.
Cutaways are edited into in interviews for 2 reasons:
- to break up interviews and illustrate what the interviewee is talking about
- to avoid jump cuts when questions are edited out
Cutaways are either
- archive material
- suggested by something said in the interview and therefore filmed after the interview