Cameo Turner's Media Blog

Synposis for Doco Film

I wrote this for possible audiences to see what my film was about.

This was probably one of the more harder tasks I have had to complete… Audition is a KILLER! I will defiantly need help with this in the future because this recording has a lot more potential.

From making this documentary film, I consider the most successful part was the audio interviewing of my protagonist because she gave great detail about having a new born child, and was very natural towards speaking about this. This was really helpful because it meant that I had a lot of audio/ information for my documentary film that I could use and it made the film more interesting from a personal level as in enables the viewer to see the position of a new mother from her own shoes. I wanted this film to have a very relaxed and casual vibe to it which I feel the recordings allowed this to happen.

The problematic part of this film was that it was hard to film the protagonist (my sister) and her child (Liam) together, because he is still very young and would never settle in front of the camera for when Nat was talking to me. This meant that in my film I had to do majority of it in a voice over form in order to actually understand what she was telling the audience about being a mother and Liam. I wanted to have more action shots of them together, but every time we tried to film he would always cry and not make out to be the happy baby that he really is. This would have been easier for me if he was a bit older- but in this development of him, it was best to make a majority voice over film so I could convey to the audience the difficulties of having a new born and the idea that it is a lot harder then what people make it out to be.

The key learning I discovered was about the extreme difficulties of editing and piecing together a film so it has flow, but also a different/creative touch to the film. I found Premiere Pro hard to use at first because it always seemed to glitch and not form to the way I wanted, but after many hours of playing around I was able to edit my film to the way that I thought best suited the type of documentary I was creating. I have always made films on final cut pro, or iMovie which I got very used to in school- but what I learnt was that it just takes time to understand and find the tricks around a new programme in order to have a full flowing film.

What I learnt in the process that is relevant to my broader development as a media practitioner is that in order to create a successful film you don’t always just have to film what is relevant/only the subject. I found that I didn’t have as much cut away clips for my film as I had hoped and feel in some parts the scene drags on for a bit longer then it should of/ if I had more cut away shots. I know for next time when making a film to just continue to document everything that is going around me because it always comes in handy at some stage for a cut away or a transition from one scene to another.

Overall I was quite happy with the outcome of my film, and spent a lot of my time making a flow between the footage and audio recordings.

• What were the surprises of having a new born baby?

• What are the things about both pregnancy, birth and raising a new born that people don’t tell you?

• What is Liam’s previous and current day to day routine?

• Did you find the first weeks hard/surprising with having Liam? What did you struggle with the most?

• How are you coping now with Liam compared to how you were in the earlier stages?

• What advice would you give to other mothers who are planning on having children?

• Do you believe you were well prepared for Liam/ or did you find it a lot harder then expected?

• What type of new born was Liam (easy/hard)?

The focus in this point of our media I seemed to think was about Documentary films, but in this reading it really threw me off course to the idea about flow and collaboration was different from the Media that we had earlier been listening to. I related to this reading because it talked about the idea of sport. If you like a sport, are good at it and feel as if you are playing to YOUR rules, you really enjoy it. When you have an issue about it or feel as if you can’t do something as you want then it becomes less interesting and something you don’t want to do. This relates to the idea of flow and being creative. If you don’t get your head around something or feel you like you can’t do it on ‘your’ terms it will never develop to the possible extent that it could.

I found this reading a bit hard to understand in relation to media, so I thought in order for it to have an effect I would apply it to how I understood it. The example they gave us in the reading was about basketball which is a team sport- team sport is much like working in a group and collaborating with people (which is what we are going to have to do in our groups assignment). Like I said earlier on in this post- if you don’t get your head around something or understand majority of what is going on you wont preform to the best of your abilities. In this specific example given in the reading it talked about a basket ball game, which was given on the terms of the players- much like a group activity (collaboration of people). In order for the game (or group activity) to be successful all the members of the team need to give equal participation, share ideas in order to get the best possible outcome of the situation. It shows in the reading that this relates to the idea of flow, flow works best in communication between people to get the best possible outcome.

I always find in group activities there is always one person who gives majority of the effort compared to other people. I really want to make sure when this applies to my media course this wont be the case- because I have been in situations where this happens and you are never able to get the best possible results out of it.

In the first part of this reading it talked about categorical documentary films and the idea about how patterns are formed but can be simple. This is something I think was important for the documentary film that I am making now. I was really worried about making this film because it doesn’t so much have an agenda to push/ or a major turning point but after reading this reading it made me understand- that in order to have a successful film like this it doesn’t have to. I feel like this reading really boosted my confidence with the use of examples and showing how something really small in the world can be made out to be a big deal. In my film specifically it is about babies and their mothers which I think is personally interesting but to other people it may not be. I think that in order to have a successful ‘categorical’ documentary film you need to show the right information about it and develop from small to big.

I have always shown a huge interest in documentary films but more specifically about ones that have a turning point or are really intense. I remember once when I was sick home from school I watched a Disney produced documentary film called ‘Ocean’s’ that is something that I would call a categorical film because it developed over time about the Ocean and didn’t try to make the viewers understand about something specific. It amazes me the depth that producers/directors go into about films and the intentions behind it. I have never thought that intensely about it and what they are trying to convey but it really shows every director wants their audience to understand something, it is just the way that they do it.

I never actually understood the depths of documentary film making and about the producer/directors attention as much as this reading gave detail in. I have always thought a documentary film is factual, gives you information about something and or pushes an agenda. From the beginning of this reading I started to understand about the different types of documentary films that are produced. Form example- categorial films are  used to convey information about the world shown in patterns of development such as moving from small to large or local to national. At first I thought this was a simple idea about developing information about something e.g the development of humans moving from one stage to the next- but the author of this reading gave a very complex example which really interested me about how this can be used. A documentary was made about gap toothed women and what people thought about them “He uses categorical organisation in original ways that demonstrate how entertaining and thought0provoking this simple approach to form can be”. This really stood out to me because it showed that even the simplistic of characteristics can be made into something and developed each part of the way.

This part of the reading really stood out to me because it reflected on the documentary film that I am currently producing.

But for now Good Night!

1. What is the ‘controlling idea’ (Robert McKee) of your portrait? In other words, what is the most interesting thing about your participant/interviewee that you want to communicate? The most interesting thing about my interviewee that I want to communicate to my audience is that she is a newly mum to a current 3 year old baby. The controlling idea of this film talks about how from day 1 the child needs to be supervised and cared for 24/7 and the things that people don’t tell you about the first weeks which are the hardest. I want to communicate from example by showing particularly what her child (Liam) does in order for people to see from the shoes of a mother how it is a full time job that you cant quit.

2.  How is your portrait film structured?  (Remember there might be multiple forms of structure employed)  E.g. Discussion and depiction of an event or process? A Journey? Use of voiceover narration? Other? I have used a lot of voiceover narration because I feel like it was the easier way to film because Liam is still so young and cries a lot when his mother or father don’t give him attention. This also enabled me to take footage of him in his routine- specifically when I got to spend time with him we were overseas in Fiji so I got a lot of footage of him in a happy situation but also showing the huge about of care a baby takes from day one. The narration at the beginning of my documentary film is more of a journey through Liam’s routine and how it has changed in order to satisfy his feeding/sleeping.

3. What do you want your audience to make of your interviewee? (e.g. What are you saying through them and/or human nature, human folly, or noble human inspiration?) I want my audience to understand how this is a casual interviewee of a newly tried mum, the film is not so much constructed to the point of what it is like to be a mother, but all the new things that my sister has learnt with having a child. I want it to be a light documentary so I have a lot of in action footage.

4. How is your portrait being narrated? Why? How does it affect the structure? The easiest way to get this film done was for my sister to just talk about how she is feeling and what she is going through with Liam. For a mother so early on in her child’s life it is harder to do a more structured sit down interview, and also that does not contrast to her life as she has so much going on, so many emotions and learning how to raise a baby herself. This is what I think needs to be shown in this documentary film.

5. What role will the ‘found footage’ play in your portrait? For example, reinforcement? Ironic counterpoint? Contrast? Comparison? Other? The found footage shows more about the interaction about the baby and mother in times of need e.g trying to get them to sleep and nurturing them. I wasn’t able to film this myself because Liam really didn’t like the camera when he was trying to get to sleep. I feel like this reinforces to the audience about how gentle you need to be with a baby, supervising it 24/7 and needing to be more gentle. This contrasts to my film because my sister talks about how she has to have a routine, needs to walk around the house in order to get him to sleep which is what is going on in this film. Also I have footage of a baby girl because I feel like I need to cover in general what it is like raising a child rather then just raising a baby boy.

6. Does your portrait have a dramatic turning point? No it doesn’t- I don’t think this was necessary in the film because it is already dramatic enough having a new born baby and finding out the truths about the first weeks, and the harsh realities of what people don’t tell you about what you are getting yourself into when having a child.

7. When does this turning point  in your portrait and why? At the beginning? At the end? Two-thirds through? I don’t have a dramatic turning point but there is a point where it turns from my sister talking about the routine that Liam has to get into in order to grow into a healthy baby, to the point where she talks about how no one tells you how difficult it really is. This is about two-thirds of the way through where you can even see the tone in her voice change from dictating his routine to just realising all that she has had to go through when raising a child for the first time

8. How does your portrait gather and maintain momentum? My portrait maintains momentum because my sister talks about Liam from day one to how he is now, this shows the development of him and also what she has learnt from being a mother. It also maintains a relaxed momentum as through the sound recording you can tell she is very tired and the small amount of time he is asleep she just wants to relax and also look after herself.

9. Where will your portrait’s dramatic tension come from? The gradual exposition of an overall situation? A volcanic, climactic moment? An impending change or crisis? The contrast between what the interviewee talks about and the found footage? The dramatic tension is at the beginning of the film where the found footage of a ultra sound and the sound of a crying baby links to the first viewing of Liam at 3 months. This is a climactic moment because the birth of a child is very intense and involves a lot of tears- compared to later down the track when the baby starts to learn they don’t need to cry about everything that is going on around them

10. Does the portrait have a climax and/or resolution? Outline them. The resolution is small to see at the end of the documentary film where my sister talks a moment to reflect and appreicate all that mothers out there do for their children, where she realises and doesn’t understand how people continue to have more and more children. I feel like this is a nice end to the film because even though it shows she wasn’t aware about how hard it was to raise a child it has made her appreciate her mother and all that she has done for her.

Another issue with gender that I read more into is about the extremities that women go to in order to be noticed… For example Lady Gaga. She wants to be noticed for her music but simply cant because she is a female fighting in a male driven industry- so she feels she needs to cover herself in meat in order to be noticed. I feel like this is completely ridiculous, but true. Women today can’t be noticed by what they sing but are noticed about how they present themselves- Miley Cyrus used to be a child pop star but now she has shaved all her hair off, makes music videos of herself swinging on a ball and now look at all the attention that she has gotten world wide.

The media doesn’t fight this situation at all but more supports it. I am a strong believer in being who you want to be but I feel female artists are pushing that just in order to gain a reaction from the media and their audiences. The amount of examples I could think of is truly ridiculous from Britney Spears shaving her head to Nicki Minaj getting bum implants. The media can be so good to society but yet so bad I get so confused about the opinion that I should have on it.