In the four weeks of documentary studies, compounded with prior knowledge, I decided apply what I have learnt so far in the one documentary style video. The video that I have made reflects on the life of a university student at RMIT, who currently does documentary studies. Taking inspiration from mockumentaries such as ‘Summer Heights High’ and ‘The Office’, I wanted to take a similar approach to my video. However instead of being fictional, the subject and the event are real. I am only taking the mood and the structure of these mockumentaries as the ‘look’ of the video. From the multiple styles of documentaries, such as the questioning style in vox pop, that we learnt in class, I have also adapted them into my video.

In terms of the cinematography side of the video, I wanted to get up close and personal to the subject. I used my fellow class mate Tristan as the subject. Since I know Tristan quite a bit now, I knew that making the shoot less formal would make him more comfortable and open to expressing himself more. In terms of framing, I got Tristan to lie down and took a mid-shot of him for the interview.

Considering that the final video will just have Tristan’s voice, I had to phrase my questions in the way that would give the audience some context to Tristan’s responses. Before the take I told and reminded Tristan to answer the question with context. Through verbal demonstration and direction, I gave him an example of a correct and incorrect response to the question:

“Did you draw a lot of inspiration from the film Blackfish?”

The correct response is:

“A documentary that inspired me to form my own was called Blackfish”

Instead of:

“Yes, I do think that documentary inspired me to form my own”

Furthermore, I also requested for him to explore the question. In doing so, I had my information to work with so that I could highlight key elements in his response and, if appropriate, manipulate my remaining list of questions to fit the context of his responses to give better flow and direction of the overall narrative of the interview.

On the technical side of things, I used my phone and a Zoom microphone that I borrowed. I was not too focused on getting the best equipment for the job. I felt that actually doing the project and applying new knowledge was what mattered the most. Good equipment was something I can worry later for my final assignment.

After the interview, I went over the audio recording and recorded some b-roll footage that was reflective of the content. There was a part of Tristan’s responses that was related to his fascination of documentaries that explore weird and quirky things. Using random footage of Tristan outside of RMIT, I did I cut of him where he was searching for things and acting funny.

Overall This was a great exercise of applying what we have learnt into practice. I feel like this is a step forward in the right direction to develop my final documentary video for the subject.

Link to video: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-y-uX03favVNF9XZS1uOThjd00

In this week I went out and shot for PB2. We also learnt about the bit of equipment and revised a lot of the ideas that were explored in the past three weeks. I focused on the more technical side of documentary making, in which I took out the Sony camera to shoot one of our classmate’s (Taylor) PB2. Taking inspiration of of Grizzly Man, I wanted to record him hand held to make it more casual. We also used the professional microphones to record the audio.

We also practice convectional film production methods for rolling the camera. Every time we went for a take there would be “Rolling, Frame and Action!”, followed by a clap. The clap was to give a distinct sound profile so that I could sync the good audio from the professional microphone with the reference audio from the footage recorded on the camera. These conventions make the entire shoot more efficient and easier to edit in post.

In my own time I looked up film set videos on YouTube. I want to be able imitate and apply this system so that I could use it in the future. Allowing myself time to be confident and comfortable with the professional gear will give me more breathing space and time to focus on the actual content and direction.

This week I decided to start brain storming on my own so that I could develop a concept for the direction of final documentary for the semester. I begun by looking back to all the previous documentaries that I have watched to find some inspiration.

I remembered watching Grizzly Man in media one, and I really enjoyed how the interviews were conducted and shot and edited with old footage of Timothy Treadwell. In terms of finding a subject, I wanted to find an interesting subject who has a story.

In a few weeks’ time I shall be filming a hype video for a friend. The hype video was to build and draw attention to a bigger fan base for him. This friend is named Ethan, who left his home town in New Zealand to purse professional basketball in America but suddenly dropped his ball career to become a professional wrestler (the WWE type).

I felt that Ethan had a good story to tell as he has experienced a lot of challenges for the decisions that he has made. Having dropped a promising career in basketball for something so risky was a big move. His move from basketball to wrestling has also had impact on his relationship with his parents and this is something that plenty of people, including myself, face in deciding their own future. This kind of choice has a big impact on a lot of parents as they were raised very differently in comparison today.

Other than going out to practice, making and learning from mistakes, I felt that there was not much I can draw from in week two. Most of the readings were discussions about what is a documentary, how should you start and the many different types of documentaries. I guess that reading these articles would be a good opportunity to observe the spectrum of documentaries.

There are two extremes of the general type of documentaries. One side would be for entertainment and the other then is educational/informative. Reality TV shows such as Jersey shore or Big Brother contain documentary style of film making. However, these lack the educational and informative side. It is still a documentary because it is an account of events, though interviews and commentary, but serve no other purpose other than to entertain. In contrast, some thing that may fall in the middle of the spectrum, or a little bit biased towards the educational side would be David Attenborough’s ‘Planet Earth’. This form of documentary has plenty of educational content, but draws in a bigger audience because they animate the animals in such way that makes the content very entertaining. An example of a predominately informative style of documentary would be the ‘Invention of the Automobile’. This kind of documentary would not appeal to the masses as the bulk of the content is just educational with a less to none dramatisation in the narrative.

Week one was an interesting introduction to documentary making. In class we had multiple discussions and explored ideas related to the broad topic of documentary making. The class discussion really tapped into my general knowledge of documentaries that I have watched in the past. Through various questions and responses my perception of documentaries has slightly changed. The series of activities during class gave me perspective of the reality of this style of film.

A general response to what a documentary is by the common person would most likely be a historic account of events to serve some kind of educational purpose. However, there is so much more to it. The context of the film does not necessarily have to draw from past events, it can look to the future and draw on certain contexts. Obviously when we think about the future, it would also have the draw on the past to give contrast or support a case.

It would be easy to think that most documentaries are there to unveil the absolute truth. However, through the series of talks in class, most documentaries are far from it. It is undeniable that a lot of the films of this nature, draw on actual events, but we have to questions ourselves”

“Is there a bias?”

Most documentaries have an argument, a view point, and the people who are behind making these films manipulate these real events in the favour of the underlying argument. I do understand that it is not a complete lie, but with every film there is some degree of bent with real events. So to say that documentaries tell the truth, form what I have noticed, is a big stretch.