Week 7 | Food on Film

Pitch Feedback Reflection

There were two suggestions that came out from the pitch:

1. Change the name “what is authentic Chinese food” into “authentic Chinese food”, because that way it would make the video much more flexible and talk more around the topic such as “is it really important to keep authenticity” “why the food nowadays is becoming less and less exquisite”
2. Put the chef before the restaurant in the film because the chef learns his cooking skills in China and it is more traditional and authentic, while the latter one is the combination of Melbourne and Chinese culture. In this way, audiences can understand what is authentic Chinese food first, then explore a little through the restaurant of how that food becomes.

The good suggestion about the film would be it is nice to use plenty of visual elements in the film, so rather than just talking, the video becomes more vibrant and interesting.

 

Scene breakdown template

Visual                                                             Sound                                                                What it should convey
Opening   –       Making a phone call to mama   –       Looking for Chinese food receipts online   –       Cooking and eating at home   –       Going out on the street   –	Voice-over :	Opening question – What is authentic Chinese food?
Interview 1 – chef (casual standing)   Behind interview – cooking	Cooking sound, such as cutting, using the wok	What authentic food should look like? Or what an authentic restaurant should look like?   Frozen food is authentic because they are all imported from China.
Transition – going to the Chinese supermarket to buy frozen dumpling (closeup shot to the dumpling)		Introduction to frozen dumpling
Interview 2 – customers   Behind camera:   –       Restaurants serving food		What authentic food should taste like?   Frozen food is disgusting, and they are not authentic food.   Or most of the restaurant serve frozen food in Melbourne, thus they are not authentic.
Interview 3 – restaurant

The template is only an idea. The interview might be different due to the participants.

Other than audio recording, another important thing to consider would be the lighting in the interview. According to Fox (2017), lighting can be verified into three categories: direction, quantity and quality.

The direction means where the light source comes from, side-light, up-light and low-light, they all produce different purposes. Quantity of light means how many lights should be used in the shooting, the more light, the lighter the image would be. Television program always use high-key light, which is flat, bright and with no shadow, low-key lighting usually involves one directional lighting and shallow. The quality of light means the soft/diffuser of light. I think I will use one or two light at most with diffuser, using a window as main light and side light, and a backlight to lit up the back if possible.

 

References

Fox, B 2017, “Style: Audiovisualizing the Documentary”, Documentary Media: History, Theory, Practice, Routledge, ProQuest Ebook Central