Final product:
Pre-production:
Pitch link:
Learning Journal -
AC1, Introduction:
Purpose of the product
The purpose of my documentary is to inform and educate the audience on the past, present and potential future of the cinema Industry as well as how COVID affected it and it's competitors. As a film student who adores the cinema experience, seeing cinema’s struggle to bring in as many customers as they once did worries me, because there’s a noticeable downwards trend and if said trend continues, cinema could fall entirely from grace in favor of streaming. COVID played a huge part in this, forcing cinemas everywhere to close. This ensured that 2020 was one of, if not the worst year for cinema in terms of
profit and attendance in its entire history, due to cinema’s all over the world temporarily closing down. COVID, in part, pushed even the world’s second most popular cinema chain “Cineworld” to file for administration in order to cut their huge debts, and just like all other cinema’s, close down for the foreseeable future. Actors, filmmakers and audiences were all effected by COVID in different ways, with actors struggling for jobs, filmmakers dealing with poor conditions and time restraints/films being pushed back and audiences weren’t able to enjoy new films in the cinema. These facts are the reason that this documentary is focused on the decline of cinema, as many people might not be too aware
of its gradual decline and the arguably dire state that cinemas are in post-COVID.
Client and brief
The brief for this project was to create a documentary about an issue that effects teens of today for Channel 4. Channel 4 documentaries tend to focus on issues that affect the youth of today, and so we ae trying to replicate their themes/style in order to appeal to the same audience as channel 4. Due to my personal relation with movies and the cinema (given my passions and current education), I considered the downfall of cinema something that directly affects me and my peers, and thusly it meets the requirements of the brief. My documentary doesn’t necessarily have a client in the traditional sense that the project is being made for them, however we are in fact collaborating with multiple local cinemas such as mockingbird and the MAC. We’ve gotten in contact with them, discussed what it is we are doing, and gone to interview them to help us gain insight into behind the scenes of the industry. This allows us not only to understand how COVID effected smaller, local cinemas behind the scenes, but we also get to talk to cinema owners about the unspoken battle between cinema and streaming services, which is the other main part of our documentary.
Target audience
In terms of psychographics, our documentary is intended for cinema enjoyers of all ages and backgrounds. I believe that anyone who likes visiting the silver screen should see this documentary as depending on the individual, they may not know much about the state of cinemas currently. With that being said, the target demographic of 15–24-year-olds are likely the biggest film fans, so by talking about the history of cinema and how it’s developed since it’s conception, we wish to appeal to their interests. As I mentioned, our documentary touches on the history of film and the origin of the cinema, so it also serves as an informative piece for people to learn things they didn’t know before, like who the first people to show projected images to an audience for a fee, or where that occurred. The target demographic of our documentary is far less specific as the target psychographic. The documentary is for anyone with any sort of relationship with the cinema, which nowadays is almost everybody. According to ‘Statista.com’, since 2003 up until 2018, the largest age bracket of cinema attendees has been 15–24-year-olds. As of 2018, 26.4% of the UK’s cinema goers were aged between 15-24, with the second largest age bracket being those aged between 25-34 (18.9% of cinema attendees). With this in mind, the target demographic for our documentary is people aged 15-24, since the decline of cinemas in the UK would theoretically affect them the most.
Representation
I don’t believe that our documentary necessarily depicts any group(s) of people in any sort of negative or stereotypical manner, however, throughout the b-roll that we have captured of events such as Reel Brum, it’s clear that people of all ages, races, culture etc are at attendance of these cinema-based networking events, which shows that anyone can be involved in cinema and hopefully the audience notice this during our documentary. Unfortunately, of all the individuals we have interviewed thus far are all straight, white males. We’re lacking in variety and diversity here, but this is only the case because the people we were able to contact and get an interview with just so happened to be straight white men. We are however working on getting more interviews with people of different backgrounds and qualities as to broaden the variety of opinions and viewpoints represented in our documentary.
Format
Our documentary is a hybrid-genre, mixing the expository and reflexive genre with a casual undertone as to not make the already serious topic too dull or for the voiceover parts to be too ‘drone-ey’. Our ultimate goal with the documentary is to inform and educate people on this history, present state, and potential future of cinemas as well as the effect that covid had on it, and also how streaming may have/is influencing the performance of cinemas today. This is a lot of information, and we are also aware that people are likely tired of hearing about covid by now, and this is why we decided against taking a purely serious tone. I believe that people would also be interested in this documentary if it were more observatory in nature as it would present a different tone and angle for the subject. This is voyeuristic by nature, allowing the audience to connect and follow along with the journey of filmmakers and the subject matter.
In an expository documentary, one would expect to see behind the scenes of a certain industry or subject matter, since it’s meant to be “exposing” information. To accomplish this in our documentary, we’ve interviewed local cinema owners to talk about the business/behind the scenes aspects of the subject matter that audiences may not have been privy to otherwise. Reflexive documentaries typically feature voice overs in order to help push the narrative of the documentary, and since our documentary is a hybrid of expository and reflexive, we too will be using narration at parts.
Brainstorming
When brainstorming, one of our earliest idea’s had to do with faming and the environment. One of our original group members lives locally to a farm, and personally knows the owners of said farm, so the plan was to interview them and create an informational product that spoke about the importance of smaller, local farms and how they are being affected by the modern day. The main issue we noticed with this was that it didn’t necessarily meet the brief. We were instructed to create a documentary about something that relates to and directly effects the youth of today, and though the environment certainly concerns the youth of today, the whole farmer thing felt too detached, thusly we settled in something far more relevant and personal to us all, the cinema. I think that switching to this idea greatly influenced the relevance and audience engagement because it’s far more personal and understandable for our target audience. I think more people aged 15-24 are more likely to be interested in and interact with this idea rather than the farming one. This idea would also likely appeal more to our target demographic of 15–24-year-olds than a documentary about farmers.
Research
Secondary Research:
The Death of Cinema and the Rise of Streaming This YouTube video, made by “Reecios”, details the history, rise, troubles and potential future of the Cinema, as well as the rise of its competitor, streaming. He tells us how he personally feels about visiting the cinema through stories of his past, as well as the feelings and opinions of a multitude of others through interviews. For our documentary, I want to borrow his approach. I think that it’s very useful to get different people’s opinions (Peers, Cinema workers, Family) because it brings an emotional side to the documentary. In conjunction with this, though, I’d like to also ask these people about how they feel about streaming and have them compare the two. This way our documentary focuses more on the differences of the two formats rather than just the silver screen. Reecios also walks us through the history of cinema, giving dates and details of major events that helped cinema become what it is today. I think that we could take aspects of this for our documentary but maybe include less information and get through it a bit faster, as this isn’t our focus. He later goes on to talk about the negatives of cinema. He asks the interviewees about their poor cinema experiences; this is done to counteract the overwhelmingly positive tone of the video up to this point. I also plan on adopting this concept for the documentary. Moving on to the negative side of the video, he talks about how covid ruined cinemas and their workers for the better half of a year, and how even after cinema’s re-opened, there weren’t enough films releasing for them to make enough money. It looked bleak for the silver screen…on the flipside, streaming services blossomed during this time, since everyone was stuck at home and the only way they could actually watch new films was on streaming services. It was during this time, though, that ‘cinema goers’ realised how much they were missing the cinema experience and environment. There’s something about the smell and sense of community that streaming services simply cannot replicate. Something I would like to touch upon in our documentary that Reecios also touched upon is the fall of Blockbuster and how the rise of streaming affected and influenced that. Perhaps we could draw a comparison between Blockbuster and the traditional cinema of today. He ends the video on a bittersweet note, stating that cinema is alive and well…at least for now. I would also like to end the documentary on this note. ‘The Secret Life of the Zoo’ is a documentary on channel 4 that is expository by nature, as its purpose is to reveal and share the behind the scenes of the zoo ands how the animals live when audiences aren’t watching. It shows animals behaving badly and how the zookeeper’s deal with that, treating a baby elephant for a deadly virus and even helping an elderly chameleon with finding a mate. The documentary reveals insider information that the audience typically wouldn’t be aware of and that’s what I would like to do with my documentary.
Feedback
After seeing our pitch, Miss Tugwell recommended that we ensure to gather a wide variety of opinions from various interviewees. This was so that our documentary wasn’t single toned when we were talking about people’s opinions. Not only would hearing the same opinions over and over be boring, but it’s also inaccurate to how people feel about things, and when you’re making an informational piece, accuracy is important, even when it comes to portrayal of the opinions of others. By heeding Miss Tugwell’s advice, we ensured that this didn’t come to pass. This is also why we conducted a survey within our college so that we can gauge and mention a variety of people’s opinions regarding the cinema. Additionally, she suggested that we try to get in touch with and collaborate with more clients, since at the time the only established client, we had was Lee Nabbs of mockingbird cinema in Digbeth. Since then, we have also interviewed somebody from the MAC. Additional steps we can take to ensure that we gather a wider variety of opinions is to interview more people from different backgrounds, ages and experiences.
Considering the feedback we had received, we attended a networking event called “Reel Brum”, where we were able to interview a variety of people from different backgrounds, with different experiences and with different opinions to one-another. At the event there were many aspiring/upcoming filmmakers, which allowed us to make connections and network with other people in our industry.
AC2, Problem solving:
Discussion
Channel 4 are our client for this project, and their documentaries tend to focus on issues that affect the youth of today. We ae trying to replicate their themes/style in order to appeal to the same audience as channel 4. When brainstorming, one of our earliest idea’s had to do with faming and the environment. One of our original group members lives locally to a farm, and personally knows the owners of said farm, so the plan was to interview them and create an informational product that spoke about the importance of smaller, local farms and how they are being affected by the modern day. The main issue we noticed with this was that it didn’t necessarily meet the brief. We were instructed to create a documentary about something that relates to and directly effects the youth of today, and though the environment certainly concerns the youth of today, the whole farmer thing felt too detached, thusly we settled in something far more relevant and personal to us all, the cinema. I think that switching to this idea greatly influenced the relevance and audience. Furthermore, by focusing on something that relates to us (the youth) we are able to more accurately emulates the documentaries that feature on Channel 4.
I believe that the pivot we made to a more relevant topic such as cinema heavily enriched our project by bringing it closer to the hearts of our target audience, the youth, and greatly broadening its appeal. Young people like cinema and thusly are more likely to enjoy a documentary about cinema than one about a topic they’re not personally interested in, like farming.
Testing and experimentation
These are some stills from our test shoot on Thursday, 19th October. Here, we experimented with precisely what lighting we want to be using on Thursday, when we make our way to Mockingbird for our first filming day. We used 2 lights to achieve this specific look, one being an ever so slightly warm, white main exposure light, and the second light being a low brightness purple in order to provide the exact look and vibe we were striving for. Though the background isn’t anything like the background we’ll be working with at Mockingbird, it was a very useful test for us to understand the new equipment we’ll be using regardless. The test shoots also served as a baseline of what settings we want to be using on the lights and camera, to avoid us having to mess around with them on filming day, which would impede on our time and efficiency. The tests were very positive in the sense that we got to properly visualise the way the colours would look on a real subject on camera, and we got the opportunity to decide upon which colours we wanted to use, which brightness we’d have them at and at which angle. The camera angle itself, however, needed some revision, simply because we weren’t 100% sure how we would frame it at Mockingbird and we knew it wouldn’t be exactly the same as our tests.
Additionally, the purple colouring creates a sort of calm ambience, as well as a sort of aesthetic. This is perfect for our documentary which includes otherwise quite mundane sections of people talking. The purple hue helps to create a comfortable environment that aims to settle the audience into the experience which is our documentary. In order to achieve this effect we tested multiple different colours / colour combinations, some warm tones like orange and blue, and even some brighter colours like red or green. Ultimately, we decided on purple, not only because it looked the best during our testing, but also because we had to consider the fact that on the set we would be in an all-black room, so we picked a colour that we knew would complement that.
Risks and Limitations
Pre-production, production and post-production all came with their fair share of limitations and difficulties that we had to overcome. For example, during the pre-production phase, we had a hard time deciding on the tone/style our documentary was going to assume. We had our idea, and we knew we wanted to include interviews, b-roll and a voiceover, but we weren’t too sure whether or not to take a very serious tone or a more casual, perhaps even jokey tone. The reason for this was because we knew we were going to talk about Covid-19 in some way, but we were also hyper-aware that people are tired of hearing about Covid-19, so we didn’t want to turn them away with the serious tone and subject matter. With this in mind, we limited the amount of time that we actually spoke about it, but we decided in the end to give our documentary a semi- serious, semi-casual tone, that way we are able to address the serious things such as Covid without completely boring our target audience of 16–24-year-olds or making the subject seem more serious than we wanted. What we learned from this was ways in which we can alter our documentary to appeal to our target audience and keep watchers interested. An alternate narrative path we could have taken for our documentary, rather than the path we took by focusing on COVID-19, is a more history focused approach that perhaps looks at the quality of films released during the peak of the cinema and the quality of films released during the worst time for the cinema, in an attempt to explain the ‘death’ of cinema through a lens other than that of COVID-19. I think this would have been more interesting and engaging for our target audience, but would be drastically different to the final product we ended up with by talking about COVID- 19.
Pre-production
“Secondary Research - The Death of Cinema and the Rise of Streaming This YouTube video, made by “Reecios”, details the history, rise, troubles and potential future of the Cinema, as well as the rise of its competitor, streaming. He tells us how he personally feels about visiting the cinema through stories of his past, as well as the feelings and opinions of a multitude of others through interviews. For our documentary, I want to borrow his approach. I think that it’s very useful to get different people’s opinions (Peers, Cinema workers, Family) because it brings an emotional side to the documentary. In conjunction with this, though, I’d like to also ask these people about how they feel about streaming and have them compare the two. This way our documentary focuses more on the differences of the two formats rather than just the silver screen. Reecios also walks us through the history of cinema, giving dates and details of major events that helped cinema become what it is today. I think that we could take aspects of this for our documentary but maybe include less information and get through it a bit faster, as this isn’t our focus. He later goes on to talk about the negatives of cinema. He asks the interviewees about their poor cinema experiences; this is done to counteract the overwhelmingly positive tone of the video up to this point. I also plan on adopting this concept for the documentary. Moving on to the negative side of the video, he talks about how covid ruined cinemas and their workers for the better half of a year, and how even after cinema’s re-opened, there weren’t enough films releasing for them to make enough money. It looked bleak for the silver screen…on the flipside, streaming services blossomed during this time, since everyone was stuck at home and the only way they could actually watch new films was on streaming services. It was during this time, though, that ‘cinema goers’ realised how much they were missing the cinema experience and environment. There’s something about the smell and sense of community that streaming services simply cannot replicate. Something I would like to touch upon in our documentary that Reecios also touched upon is the fall of Blockbuster and how the rise of streaming affected and influenced that. Perhaps we could draw a comparison between Blockbuster and the traditional cinema of today. He ends the video on a bittersweet note, stating that cinema is alive and well…at least for now. I would also like to end the documentary on this note. ‘The Secret Life of the Zoo’ is a documentary on channel 4 that is expository by nature, as its purpose is to reveal and share the behind the scenes of the zoo ands how the animals live when audiences aren’t watching. It shows animals behaving badly and how the zookeeper’s deal with that, treating a baby elephant for a deadly virus and even helping an elderly chameleon with finding a mate. The documentary reveals insider information that the audience typically wouldn’t be aware of and that’s what I would like to do with my documentary. “ This was the secondary research I have done for a part of the pre-production for documentary. I think that I could have gone into deeper detail when talking about the channel 4 documentary, and that would have elevated my pre-production. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WNueU3_pfliN26vI4MgRq5S3XL7xGa5cB6qUE5poxxY/edit?usp=sharing (The entire pre-production document is linked above)
Feedback
After seeing our pitch, Miss Tugwell stated that she thought that our concept and planning was interesting and promising, and that our pre-production was well made. She recommended that we ensure to gather a wide variety of opinions from various interviewees. This was so that our documentary wasn’t single toned when we were talking about people’s opinions. Not only would hearing the same opinions over and over be boring, but it’s also inaccurate to how people feel about things, and when you’re making an informational piece, accuracy is important, even when it comes to portrayal of the opinions of others. By heeding Miss Tugwell’s advice, we ensured that this didn’t come to pass. This is also why we conducted a survey within our college so that we can gauge and mention a variety of people’s opinions regarding the cinema. The feedback we received from the results of said survey told us that around 87% of people at college who answered our survey preferred watching movies at the cinema than at home on streaming. As a crew we discussed and decided that the survey results would likely be much the same if extended to other like-minded film fans within our target age range of 16-24 year olds, and with this in mind, as well as the overwhelming 87% of people who preferred going to the cinema than staying home, we thought we would have our documentary take a stance in favour of cinema rather than in favour of streaming. This was in an attempt to appeal to the largest group within our target audience. Additionally, she suggested that we try to get in touch with and collaborate with more clients, since at the time the only established client, we had was Lee Nabbs of mockingbird cinema in Digbeth. Since then, we have also interviewed somebody from the MAC. Additional steps we can take to ensure that we gather a wider variety of opinions is to interview more people from different backgrounds, ages and experiences. Considering the feedback we had received, we attended a networking event called “Reel Brum”, where we were able to interview a variety of people from different backgrounds, with different experiences and with different opinions to one- another. At the event there were many aspiring/upcoming filmmakers, which allowed us to make connections and network with other people in our industry.
AC3, Technical Skills:
Technical skills pre-production
We conducted practice shots with different lighting angles, colours, different camera angles and techniques. We were happy with what we had decided upon, however, when we actually began filming at Mockingbird cinema, we realized that the room was fully black and much darker than the room we had practiced our set-up in, so we had to adjust slightly. We changed the distance between the lights and the subject, and we also changed the brightness on each light to give us a look very similar to the one that we desired. In hindsight, I think that we could have possibly changed up the camera angle to accommodate for the new setting that we were shooting in, or alternatively we could have gotten more than the 2 camera angles we did get. We should have tested multiple different camera angles during our test shoots to prepare for the actual shoot. Despite all of the adjustments we made upon realizing that our original plan wasn’t going to work exactly how we intended, the end product didn’t end up looking too far removed from it’s original concept. If given another chance to film this documentary / segment, I think that I would get more camera angles just to make the product feel slightly more dynamic.
Consistency of Technical Execution
Throughout our production, we kept a very consistent level of quality and technical components, such as audio, lighting etc. The best way to ensure that this is the case is to set yourself base level “rules”, for example, “Always have the main light on the right side of the subject”. This helped us keep a consistent look throughout any one of our documentaries and kept us from having some shots that felt different or like they didn’t fit. One time where keeping technical consistency was difficult is when one of our white lights died and we needed to find a way to substitute the light source. In order to achieve this, we used an iPhone flashlight, but because it’s much weaker than our original light source, we had to alter the distance between the light and the subject, moving the light closer. This situation taught me just how important it is to ensure all equipment is prepared properly, fully charged and working. I also learned that packing things like extra bulbs, batteries, SD cards etc is very much worth the hassle if you can afford to because it allows you to be ready for the unexpected and increase your ability to adapt on set.
Competence in Technical Skills
I think that the most notable thing I learned during this project was the art of lighting. I learned about the different types of lights (main light, back light, hair light) and about the lighting technique known as ‘chiaroscuro’. Chiaroscuro is a technique in which a subject is lit from one side by a single light, and the opposing side of their person is shrouded in shadow. We used this technique during our interview at the mac and I think it helps bring a layer of depth and complexity to the shot, though the light was slightly too harsh. Reflecting on the application of this technique, it was very important that we got the angles and blocking just right, because if the subject had been slightly further back in the shot, or the light had been more in front or behind the subject, then the effect of the light would be lost. Proper subject and light placement are what bring the beauty of this technique to life. The use of this technique also gave our shots much more visual depth than they would have had otherwise. A technical aspect that I found difficult was selecting the right camera settings for the shoot at Mockingbird cinema, since the room was so dark and we had multiple lights, all of different colour and intensity, so choosing the right setting wasn’t the easiest thing. More practice with the camera would make me more comfortable with it, ensuring that next time I would be more confident in selecting the right settings. I will be able to practice and become more familiar with industry grade equipment on future projects and that will make the process of setting up on set much faster as well as improving the overall quality of my camera work.
Camerawork
Due to the nature of our documentary being semi-serious and informative, we chose to keep a very still, non-dramatic style of camera work when shooting the interviews themselves. All of our interview shots are still tripod shots that use the rule of thirds to help frame the subject and background, but other than that the angles themselves are very corporate. This contrasts with our very creative and ‘video-essay’ like editing style and shows which parts of the documentary are meant to be taken slightly more seriously than others. It also helps the audience to focus on the answers given by the interviewees rather than the visuals or the camera movements. With that 17. Competence in Technical Skills What new technical skill did you learn during the project, and how did it enhance the documentary? Were there any technical aspects you found particularly challenging, and how did you overcome them? I think that the most notable thing I learned during this project was the art of lighting. I learned about the different types of lights (main light, back light, hair light) and about the lighting technique known as ‘chiaroscuro’. Chiaroscuro is a technique in which a subject is lit from one side by a single light, and the opposing side of their person is shrouded in shadow. We used this technique during our interview at the mac and I think it helps bring a layer of depth and complexity to the shot, though the light was slightly too harsh. Reflecting on the application of this technique, it was very important that we got the angles and blocking just right, because if the subject had been slightly further back in the shot, or the light had been more in front or behind the subject, then the effect of the light would be lost. Proper subject and light placement are what bring the beauty of this technique to life. The use of this technique also gave our shots much more visual depth than they would have had otherwise. A technical aspect that I found difficult was selecting the right camera settings for the shoot at Mockingbird cinema, since the room was so dark and we had multiple lights, all of different colour and intensity, so choosing the right setting wasn’t the easiest thing. More practice with the camera would make me more comfortable with it, ensuring that next time I would be more confident in selecting the right settings. I will be able to practice and become more familiar with industry grade equipment on future projects and that will make the process of setting up on set much faster as well as improving the overall quality of my camera work. being said, I recognise it’s possible that the lack of camera movement and creative shots could actually bore the audience, and the inclusion of unique and moving shots could have enriched the watching experience rather than distracting from the content. In future projects I certainly think that a wide variety of interesting shots is always better for audience engagement and entertainment.
Audio & Sound
During post-production, we used many different sound effects and musical tracks to evoke a multitude of different feelings, thoughts and opinions. Kadeena created some original pieces of music specifically for the documentary, and so my voice over and the b-roll have fitting music to accompany them, making it a lot less dull and more engaging overall. The sound effects help create a more immersive experience for audiences, keeping them connected to the things happening on screen. For example, the sound that plays when a new article heading pops on screen. I think a key factor to always keep in mind when selecting sound effects is consistency. Selecting sounds that sound as though they’re from the same genre, time or vibe is necessary to create a compelling, cohesive piece. For example, in Star Wars there is a consistency in the sound effects being higher pitched, mechanical and including “beeps” and “boops”. Together these create a technological, sci-fi vibe that fits the films. For our documentary it was about a journey through the past to the present, starting with older sounds like the whirring of a film camera and ending with a technologically produced synth like sound introducing the television age of cinema. After that the documentary has a very clear “modern” tone to it which is reflected in the sound design.
Post-production
Our documentary has a very ‘Video-essay’ esque feel to it due to all of the post-production aspects that I’ve spoken about. I think that this will heavily appeal to our target audience of 15-24 year-olds and keep them interested the whole way through. The variety of music within the documentary also ensures that audiences always have something new to listen to while watching and will refresh their attention span. The pacing is also something that benefits from these things, since the first 2 minutes of the documentary are comprised by my voiceover and visual/audio elements added in post-production. As a whole I think that the pacing does well to keep the audience interested and engaged, varying in speed and density throughout the documentary. We wanted to create a fun but serious informational piece about the cinema and I think that the editing is what makes that possible. One thing that was quite difficult during post-production was finding the right archival footage to place alongside the voiceover. The visuals needed to match the voiceover and so the duration of clips had to match the pace of the voiceover, which meant that we had to carefully select the best sections of each chunk of archival footage to include in the final product.
AC4, Professional practice:
Documentary roles
1. Director –
The Director on any given production is the person with the creative vision. It’s them who have the final say on things on set, them who decide how a scene plays out, them who give the actors their directions, etc. They communicate with the producer to help them understand exactly what it is the they want to create, and they also communicate closely with the production team as a whole. They’ll talk to the camera team about shots or camera settings and things of that nature, or they’ll speak to the costume department if theres something they would like changed. During post-production they will communicate with editors to give them feedback and also to explain how they would like certain scenes to be edited, since editing can really change the tone and feel of a scene.
2. Producer –
The producer on a production is the one who manages and oversees multiple aspects of a production, from the initial conceptualisation all the way to the completion. Their main job is to ensure that the production stays within budget, meets artistic intention and stays on schedule. They work closely with the director, writers, crew members and even actors to bring a production to life. During pre-production, they help with development, hiring crew, budgeting, Securing locations etc. During the production stage, they continue to manage finances and keep in close contact with the crew while maintaning a standard of creative oversight the entire time. For post production they work closely with the director and editors to achieve their intended vision, and they also deal with marketing and distributing the product, as well as all of the legal difficulties that come with that.
3. DOP –
The director of photography is a responsible for helping translate the director's creative vision into a reality. Their primary focuses are on the aesthetic and technical aspects of cinematography. During pre-production, the DOP works closely with the director to understand the visual style, mood and the tone of the production. They work together to decide upon the visual style of the production. They also comple5te things such as shot lists and equipment lists. During production they operate the camera, guide the framing, composition and camera movement and collaborate closely with the director, costume department, makeup department etc to ensure visual consistency. During post-production, the DoP works with the colourist to decide on the final colour pallet and mood of the product through colour grading.
4. Editor –
The editor on a production is responsible for assembling the raw footage into a coherent and engaging narrative, all while following the director's vision. They shape the story, the pacing, and structure of a production. During pre-production, the editor may take part in script analysis with the writer(s) and director to understand the narrative structure and character arcs, and they communicate with the production team to prepare for post-production. During production they may review daily footage and return feedback to the director to ensure that all coverage necessary is captured. In post-production the editor shines, assembling all of the footage, then making creative decisions by collaborating with the director to achieve the correct pace, tone, feel etc. They’ll do some sound editing and visual effects integration before finalizing the cut.
5. Camera Operator –
The camera operator essentially works closely with the Director of Photography and the Director to fully realise the director’s vision. They beocme familiar with the kit, help plan shots with the DOP and Director, and they may attend practices in order to become familiar with the camera movements, the blocking present in different scenes, etc. During production their main job is to operate the camera when needed and do thei best to achieve exactly what the director and DoP want. When it’s time for post-production, the camera operator will review footage, and potentially even complete additional filming if necessary.
6. Sound Supervisor -
The sound superviser on a production is responsible for overseeing all aspects of sound design/recording to ensure a high-quality audio is maintained throughout a production. They will complete a script analysis with the director and other creative team members to identify sound requirements for each scene. They work with the director to create a sound design plan and they’ll also prepare their equipment all within the pre-production stage. During production they record all types of audio. Whether that’s dialogue, ambient sounds, or sound effects. They also coordinate with the sound crew on set to ensure that the operation of sound is smooth. For post-production, the sound supervisor will oversee the sound editing, dialogue editing, sound effects design and foley recordings.
7. Gaffer -
The gaffer collaborates with the director of photography and director during pre-production to discuss the visual style, mood, and lighting requirements for each scene. During pre-production they complete a lighting design with the DoP, prepare their eqipment, and work with the production manager and line producer to develop a lighting budget and allocate resources efficiently. Once production starts, the gaffer is responsible for setting up and adjusting lighting equipment on set according to the DP's specifications, ensuring that each shot is lit properly and meets the desired aesthetic. They also communicate and collaborate closely with the DoP to ensure the lighting suits the shots perfectly. For post- production they will pack up their eqipment and ensure that it’s stored safely, ready for the next production.
My role
For the documentary, I assumed the role of Camera operator. It was my job to take the director's creative vision and help actualize it, as well as to craft the visual identity of the piece. Communications with the director allowed me to understand the tone and feel we were going for, and I was able to portray that through my camera work. Something that was quite difficult at first was attempting to achieve a certain visual identity that relied instead on minimal camera movement rather than something more active and exciting. What this taught me, though, was the complexities of the micro-things, how important framing and blocking was, as well as how lighting can completely change the vibe of a shot even if the composition doesn't change. I certainly think that my experience on this project greatly increased my knowledge and competency with the camera and I will definitely carry over all my newly acquired skills and knowledge into future projects. was a part of my responsibilities to complete a kit list as well as becoming familiar with the kit to ensure a smooth filming experience. I was also responsible for keeping the kit that i had with me safe once it was booked and taken out from college. When we began production, it was up to me to set up the camera(s) and check all of the settings to ensure that they were ready for filming, and i also operated one of the two cameras we had. A time where professional language was used and very important was when i was changing the camera settings and discussing with the director what kind of look they wanted to create. It was important for me to know and use terms like “ISO”, “White balance”, “FPS” etc in order to efficiently and accurately communicate with my team.
Asset management
All the footage we recorded was swiftly taken off the SD cards and uploaded to a One Drive folder that contained multiple other folders. One for music, another for sound effects and another one for initial drafts of the edit. This was all shared with the entire crew. This process simplifies the post-production process greatly by keeping everything separate in their own folders and by making everything easily accessible. I think that having more folders including every aspect of the project, like clips, audio files etc, would hugely improve our system, especially when working in a collaborative setting. For example, if every department uploaded their files into an easily accessible online communal space, people from other departments could easily access them, streamlining focus and improving overall efficiency.
Professional practice
There always comes a risk when working on site, and so we were sure to complete an online, and in-person location recce (when possible) on all our locations before visiting and we also completed risk assessments. We found the nearest hospital to wherever we were filming just in case of an emergency and conducted ourselves with safety always as our number 1 concern. Not only did this ensure the safety of our crew, but it also massively improved the quality of our product. During location recce’s we were able to mentally figure out which parts of the sets would be best to film in, from a safety standpoint, and we were also aware of where electrical sockets were located which helped determine where we would set up. Additionally, ensuring that our working environment wasn’t at all hazardous meant that we were able to focus fully on the quality of our product and not have to worry about any danger to our crew or equipment. One health and safety related issue we had on set was when filming at Mockingbird. There was a wire that we needed to stretch quite a distance, so to ensure that it was safe we used duct-tape to secure the wire and prevent any accidents.
AC5, Communication:
Platform / audience impact
Our documentary was created with hopes that it could be featured on channel 4, however we also kept in mind an alternative place to display our documentary, YouTube. I believe that considering our target audience of 15-24-year-olds, YouTube would be a great place for our documentary, as 50.6% of YouTube’s viewers are Gen Z and Millennials, meaning that YouTube’s core demographic consists of people aged 12-43 which includes our entire target audience age range. Additionally, I believe that the style and pacing of our documentary match the consumption patterns present on YouTube, meaning that our documentary should be able to hold audience attention for it’s duration. Furthermore, the video-essay esque style of our documentary will likely appeal to our target demographic, as well as to anyone on YouTube who is interested in cinema. The documentary was exported as H.264, 1080p, since this is the most versatile, optimal and compatible format meaning that our documentary can be uploaded almost anywhere without facing any format-related problems.
Communication techniques
I think that one of the most unique features of our documentary is the stylistic choice we made to edit the documentary, kind of like a video essay, as well as splitting our documentary into 3 parts, or acts. I believe that this brings a sort of modern, narrative driven feel to our documentary that should increase audience interest and maintain their attention. Considering the context of our documentary, which focuses on the current state of cinema, we thought it important to keep the feel of our documentary grounded in the modern day, and a video essay inspired documentary was our way of doing that. Lots of documentaries that talk about covid, or the history of something can fall into the trap of being super serious and thusly boring. We tried to teeter the line between lighthearted and serious to combat this problem and I believe we did it well. This is what differentiates our documentary from others of its kind. The decision to split our documentary into 3 acts, giving it a sort of narrative, was entirely intentional and intended to draw the attention of our target audience. Our target psychographic is film fans, and these people are likely to be enticed by a 3-act narrative structure by nature of being film fans, since movies also follow this format.
Rational and purpose
Our documentary exceeded my personal expectations that formed during planning, since this was in fact a back-up idea that we fell back onto after our initial concept fell through. I think that we achieved absolutely everything we set out to achieve. I'm proud of the result and I believe the client will be too. Many things changed from planning to the final product, like the decision to do a voiceover rather than film somebody talking on location or any other alternative. I think that this was a great decision in the end because it allowed for much more freedom in editing to show more b-roll and archival footage, which ended up contributing an immense amount to the overall “video-essay” esque feel of the documentary. Some codes and conventions we adhered to include; Factual accuracy, interviews, non-fictional narrative, voiceover/narration and the usage of archival footage. It’s often difficult to draw the line between following the codes and conventions of a genre and trying something new and innovative, but I think we toed the line well with a good balance of traditional documentary techniques and an unorthodox style / theme, creating a beautiful coalition which is our documentary.
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