Quick Update

This weekend I will be recording my second interview. I have already investigated the set of the interview (atop the Argyle St. car park. The back drop is superb for the interview and there are four potential spots I can film at, if the lighting or colour is inadequate in one spot I can simply move. I will however require reasonable weather conditions as the location is very exposed to the elements. In the event of excessively loud wind or rainy conditions I will have to postpone the interview. Organizing interviews in locations away from home is proving rather difficult and considering the relative shortage of time, I need to start conducting interviews in more conventional and convenient locations (such as the beach near my residency for example)

watched Outfoxed

As I mentioned in a recent post, I will be watching a few documentaries to gain some insight into documentary film. Today I watched Outfoxed (Robert Greenwald, 2004) The documentary exposes the right wing bias of Rupert Murdoch’s FOX NEWS channel, disproves the FOX NEWS slogan of ‘Fair and Balanced’ and looks at the techniques that Rupert Murdoch's republican news channel use for their manipulative journalism. I could write pages detailing the content of the documentary, however I find it more useful to analyze how this fine documentary was created and the techniques that are applicable with both my project on fulfilment and big budget documentaries

My first observation was that the director featured a range of interviews with credible subjects, former FOX NEWS reporters, producers and others with previous experience in FOX. The director, Robert Greenwald had obviously devoted a significant portion of his resources to conducting interviews, there were numerous segments from these interviews and for the most part these ‘talking heads’ were very informative. Because the Outfoxed team interviewed so many subjects, only the most interesting and informative parts of each interview were included. This is a key learning point for anyone planning on making a documentary like myself, always gather a large amount of interview footage, so in post production you can choose to include the most interesting parts of each interview.

I also observed that the documentary supported the messages of its interviews by providing examples. For example, after an interview segment about FOX NEWS reporters saying “some people say” when their comments are unsupported, the director Robert Greenwald provides us with a number of FOX NEWS segments where we can clearly see this technique being demonstrated. Using credible evidence to support a point of view allows a documentary like Outfoxed to be transformed from a collection of theories, into a strong argument that challenges the audience’s beliefs. Although my documentary is more about exploring a topic than changing beliefs, it’s still invaluable to recognise how much stronger documentary film is when claims are supported or illustrated in some way.

first interview

On Saturday I managed to capture an interview with Dave lasting around forty seconds. Everything he said was intelligent, meaningful and worthy of inclusion to my film. Dave discussed some of his general views on fulfillment in a fairly personal way. It was exactly the kind of footage I am looking for. Even in capturing a short interview I had to really consider the lighting. I positioned the camera and conducted the interview so as the sunlight was hitting Dave’s face from the side. Obviously if the sunlight is coming from behind the camera and directly hitting the subject they will have difficulty looking at the camera because of the glare factor. I am feeling much more motivated now I have actually captured some footage and the project is properly underway. I should have started filming my project months ago so it important to keep up the momentum and capture a substantial amount of footage next weekend.

Got camera

I have now purchased my own camera and tripod. It turned out that the widescreen lens would be an excessively expensive feature and we decided the extra $250 for widescreen would be better spent on the tripod. The camera itself is a SONY DCRHC52, its basically a reasonable quality student camera. It has all the necessary for small budget productions and student films. Selecting a tripod was more difficult than it may have seemed considering the extensive range. The most important feature we looked for in tri pod was how smoothly the head rotated when the camera was attached. We bought a mid range tripod which allows for smooth panning and tilting action, should prove invaluable for my upcoming project. Conveniently, the camera features a built in level and a gage which determines the angle of the camera.

Major change in direction

Over three or four days I have thought very seriously about the skills and recourses required in undertaking a thriller film. The narrative I mentioned earlier could potentially work on screen if it were executed properly. However I now feel like that challenge of creating a thriller would be completely overwhelming, especially after watching the high quality thriller at the Bond University presentation. I realize that its seriously late in the year to change completely change directions however I couldn’t see the project being a success.

My project will now be a short documentary about fulfilment. I discussed the idea with a teacher and he rightly pointed out that a documentary on fulfilment could really be anything. I need a direction, point of view or question that will determine what the documentary will be and how I will approach it. I thought on this and decided that I would focus on the question ‘what is fulfilment’ and ‘what do you find fulfilling’.

I will feature a number of interviews with people of varying ages and varying occupations. The first group of interviews will centre around the question of ‘what is fulfilment’. I have already established that the opening interview on ‘what is fulfilment’ will be held my brother Simon, on top of the Argyle St. car park. There is an impressive view I can have in the background and I believe Simon will have some fairly interesting thoughts to share.

I will then move onto the question of ‘what do you find fulfilling’ This will be relatively simply, I will have a number of segments where an individual will discuss how they find a certain activity fulfilling. I would move on to show a short segment of the subject actually participating in the activity. (it would seem counterproductive to show lots of interviews about fulfilment and not actually show anyone doing anything fulfilling)

Because I have completely altered the direction of the project from a thriller to a more documentary orientated film, the research I do also has to change. The research will be similar to what I was planning to do for the thriller, being involved in documentary forums, watching other documentaries etc. This week I will initiate the research by simply examining a few big budget documentaries then what others thought of the techniques used. Through this process I can expand on my knowledge of documentary film making and employ the new understandings in my own project. First up I will be examining - An Inconvenient Truth (Davis Guggenheim, Al Gore, 2006) and Outfoxed (Robert Greenwald, 2004)

This late change in direction it is paramount that I begin production as soon as possible, this means this week end I will do the shooting with my brother Dave. I have pre arranged to hold a short interview in Sandy Bay addressing the question as to what fulfilment actually means. I hope to include a few of these interviews with a subject discussing what they think fulfilment is. By including a broad range of opinions I will be enriching my documentary, a good documentary or essay for that matter usually offers some variety in its messages. Would the documentary work if I had multiple interviews with subjects communicating the exact same message in different words? To the audience it would feel as if the one concept was being forced on them for the duration of a very repetitive and bias documentary.

Got camera

I have now purchased my own camera and tripod which is really almost essential for documentary film making. It turned out that the widescreen lens would be an excessively expensive feature and we decided the extra $250 for widescreen would be better spent on the tripod. The camera itself is a SONY DCRHC52, its basically a reasonable quality student camera. It has all the necessary for small budget productions and student films. Selecting a tripod was more difficult than it may have seemed considering the extensive range. The most important feature we looked for in tri pod was how smoothly the head rotated when the camera was attached. We bought a mid range tripod which allows for smooth panning and tilting action, should prove invaluable for my upcoming project. Conveniently, the camera features a built in level and a gage which determines the angle of the camera.

my own video camera

To optimise the quality of my work I will be purchasing my own video camera. Hiring cameras from the library can be less than ideal, the cameras and tripods are of varying quality so if other students have hired the high quality equipment you end up with equipment that disadvantages your filming, for example, a flimsy tripod which will not adjust properly. Another issue is the restriction from taking the camera out of the campus for weekends. Considering I have some large blocks of holiday time, it would be of significant benefit to posses my own camera which I can use unconditionally. One feature that would benefit me highly would be a wide screen lens. This feature allows the user to manually choose which ratio they would like to film in. However cameras with wide screen lenses seem to be considerably more expensive. I will also require an optical zoom and decent picture quality. At this stage I’m looking at a price range of around $400 however considering the price of good quality camera technology I may have to compromise.

Thoughts on filming ratio

The next decision is to film in widescreen (16:9) or full screen (4:3). These numbers reflect the ratio of pixels vertically to the number of pixels horizontally. This decision on which ratio to choose is always based on what kind of effect the director wants to create. Today, wide screen is generally accepted as the superior ratio for the majority of media productions, hence why a majority of new televisions are produced to accommodate wide screen film.

Wide screen is commonly seen as the more perceptually realistic format because more often than not, when examining our world we look around horizontally. Having more horizontal screen space is usually considered preferable. For example, if a scene featured a group of characters having a discussion, it would be considerably more important to have the extra horizontal screen space. The extra horizontal screen space provided by wide screen ratio would allow more characters to be included in each frame, thus reducing the need for as many camera edits and movements.

One of reasons it’s so important to consider the ratio is because once footage has been recorded, conversion to a different ratio is ill advised. As the conversion is made, pixels of footage are cut out to fit the dimensions of the new ratio. For example if you converted standard ratio to wide screen dimensions the top parts of the material would be cut and the rest would be stretched out to meet the new dimensions.

Set

Obviously the set in a scene influences the product in numerous ways. The set determines a context for other events to occur in, for example a scene set in a bar provides a context people to have alcohol. When I select the sets for my film it will be essential to consider the atmosphere and context it provides as well as the synergy with the screenplay/narrative. Directors can combine the context provided by the set with the events on screen to create certain effects such as irony and assist with juxtaposition. For example, a director may decide to use the context of a funeral to place an event such as a shoot out to create irony. Ideally I would film part of my project at night in the Hobart rivulet. This set provides ample opportunity to use expressionistic lighting as well as a context for something thrilling, violent or supernatural to occur. The rivulet consists of varying tunnels underpasses and small rivers. It would seem to be an excellent choice of location for my project inhabitants of the area at night it may not be possible.

Some thoughts on lighting

I will attempt to use expressionistic lighting to increase tension and build atmosphere. Expressionistic lighting is simply when the lighting is used more obviously for effect, for example some directors like to use blinds cast jail bar shadows onto a persons face. This represents that the character is somehow imprisoned, as demonstrated in Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960). A director could depict a character as being a mix of good and bad by introducing lighting which casts shadows over half of their face. I am limited as to what I can do with expressionistic lighting because of budget however through the acquisition of some outdoor lighting equipment belonging to a family member I may be able to experiment with some expressionistic lighting. The teacher at the Bond from the bond university discussed how it is important to get the appropriate balance between the front and back lighting eg to much back lighting and not enough front lighting makes an actors face difficult to distinguish. Expressionistic lighting could be used for optimal results with the supernatural themes (ghosts).

Story Boarding

I will know work on creating a story board. At first I considered using story boarding software. Story Boarding programs include a variety of features such as shape, zoom, drawing, layering, arrow, figure and organizing tools which all contribute to allow the user to be more precise and time efficient. The problem being that the programs that could really be beneficial all seem to require a decent payment to be used. Some story boarding software is free such as Story Board Tools 1.7. I downloaded the program, however found it had very limited drawing utensils, therefore not really suited to creating expressive story boards. Thus I have made the decision to do the story boards by hand. A hand drawn story board will present better in the upcoming student presentations, where we have to show our progress to an audience.

The basic plot (Short Thriller)

The story in my independent project will be centred around a single character who forgets are decides not to take his medication which stabilizes his mental condition. From then on the character will begin to become depressed and anti social. This is a very simplified explanation of the plot, however this simple narrative gives me room to implement some of the techniques I have discussed in previous journal entries. I can have the character experience some short dream sequence which could be slightly violent or disturbing, I can also use expressionistic lighting to give the film a different vibe. I am going to ask my elder brother if he will be the actor in my film. His performance should be that of an acceptable standard. Being a family member it is also reasonably easy to arrange filming times. I can visualize the project being a challenging yet (not overwhelming) short thriller.