Production Log #4 - Second Shoot and Updates

I met with Rowan at 10:30am on Sunday to shoot for her parts in my documentary, and also photograph her for my ancillary products. However there was a dilemma as although I had checked that my library location's opening hours are 11:00am-4:30pm on Sundays, I didn't realise that only the bottom floor of the library was open. As most of my footage of Rowan will be shot on the second floor, we are arranging to meet at another date.

A location we found whilst shooting, and considered using, however I decided it was too quiet for my urban documentary location style

Rowan's hair in continuity with her hair style from my first shoot

Rowan's similarly formal shoes and youthful and unique roll-up jeans to represent my younger demographic and narrator character's interesting and unique style

Rowan's make-up in continuity of character's style but more detailed than the previous shoot due to my brighter natural/ artificial lighting for these locations. Eyeliner and mascara for youthful cat eye and bright eyes, foundation, highlighter, blush and tinted lip balm for a fresh and glowing face, and defined brows with an eyebrow pencil for detail as well as a sophisticated look which represents my character and target audience

Rowan's formal and sophisticated costume to represent my professional documentary style and older demographic (fitted jacket and high neck/ modest shirt), incorporated with more casual, youthful, and uniquely interesting roll-up trousers for my younger demographic. This reflects my intended character style, and is also in continuity with the first shoot's costume due to the black colour scheme and style

The footage I did shoot of Rowan was within all of the locations other than the second floor of the library, however after making a rough cut of my documentary footage so far (as not all of it was shot) on Windows Movie Maker to test my timings and structure, I've decided to make some adjustments to my script and shot list. This is in order to meet my 5 minute extract duration, as my rough cut presented that there's a chance I won't, despite planning this with my animatic. I would also rather have more footage to edit with so that I can be selective and replace any unsuitable shots with my extra footage rather than film a re-shoot. I'll be making a revised script, shot list and changes to my storyboard this week, and when that is finished I'll re-film my final footage with Rowan again (hopefully this weekend or the beginning of next week).

Equipment brought to the shoot included my tripod, camera, script and shot list (pictured in first shoot), and;

Laptop mise en scene with loaded and pauses at points to film - making me prepared for this shot and without wasting time, and planning. Also prevents the possible issue of not being connected to wifi

Sexist tabloid newspaper mise en scene

Magazine mise en scene

I'll be bringing this exact equipment along to my next shoot, and will also style Rowan with the same costume and make-up to maintain continuity.

Blog post with rough cut deconstruction: http://codonnella2mediaproductionsschs2015.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/rough-cut.html

Rough Cut

Rough Cut of Documentary from Courtney O'Donnell on Vimeo.

This is a simple edit of just my timings and structure so far, as Windows Movie Maker doesn't provide many audio or editing transition options. Some of my clips are also repeated, as I haven't chosen which final ones to use.

Audio: Rowan's narration audio is mostly clear due to the quiet locations used and her well-spoken, clear and projecting voice; however I will use noise reduction for all of the clips, with higher percentages for her narration inside The Forum location which is muffled. The background noise during the interview proposes a greater problem, as I noticed it's quite loud. I will test how effective noise reduction is on Final Cut Pro during my final editing, but if it's ineffective, I will foley their dialogue. This would be especially important for Emily's dialogue, as she's slightly quieter than Rowan. I'll also add my non-diegetic music in my final edits with ducking, as I don't have enough final footage to organise the timings yet. I'll also be splitting the audio from some of Rowan's footage to use as a voiceover for the location and tracking shots.

Timings: As 30 seconds+ of my footage so far is repetitive shots or shots which will be split into voiceovers during my final editing, I only potentially have 2 minutes of footage whilst I've shot less than half of my total footage. Although it's possible that I could reach a 5 minute total duration once I've finished filming, I feel that this would be too risky in relation to my deadline. This has therefore encouraged me to adapt/ add to my script and shot list and re-shoot to prevent this issue.

Quality: Overall I'm very pleased with my lighting and high footage quality so far, however I may apply a brightening filter to counteract the yellow glare from the artificial lighting with my interview footage.

Editing footage: I will be applying all of my editing transitions, titles and subtitles, text, effects, crops/ kens burns, and filters etc. according to my shot-list and storyboard during my final editing on Final Cut Pro, as Windows Movie Maker is very limited in this area for the types of editing which I require.

Cinematography: I'm slightly unhappy with some of my quality of shots, particularly this shot of Rowan in The Forum.

I don't like the amount of space above her within this mid shot, as it is unconventional for mid shots and makes it look unprofessional and un-aesthetically pleasing. I also don't like the background of the fire extinguisher and the bottom floor. Therefore when I next re-shoot this footage, I will use a mid shot in front of the 'BBC Radio' sign, which is my cleaner and therefore focuses to Rowan whilst looking aesthetically pleasing. This sign also relates to the music industry which she is discussing during this shot, making my footage and narration link/ flow - one of my main aims for my production.

I will also consider using a different location for this shot, as I'm not sure on whether I find the drainpipe which takes up the left third aesthetically pleasing; however I'll ask for a second opinion from my media teacher.

My extreme wide, tilt and pan shot (00:29) is also unstable once it reaches the lowest height within the shot, therefore I'll be testing whether it could be corrected using Final Cut Pro stablisation, or re-shoot it during my next shoot.

Narrative Codes and Systems

I have researched and identified the narrative and structural codes of my documentary and presented these below using Prezi.


I also found this SlideShare as a helpful resource for research into narrative theorists;

Narrative Theory from guest9e3b3b

Production Log #3 - Shooting Update

I've rescheduled to shoot with Rowan on Sunday morning rather than tomorrow as shooting would be difficult whilst I'm feeling under the weather. This won't affect my timescale as I can't begin editing until I'm back at school next week with access to Final Cut Pro editing software on the Mac computers.

Production Log #2 - First Shoot

Today I shot the first footage of my documentary, which was my interview content and interview introduction within my cafe (Starbucks) locations with Emily Gooda as my interviewee and Rowan Perrow as my interviewer. After reviewing my footage and considering the shoot, I am very pleased with its success.

Styling my actors:
The costumes and make-up styles for my first shoot consisted of formal, sophisticated, expressive, and feminine contrasted with non-feminine outfits to be representative of my feminist and formal documentary style, and expressive-sophisticated young-mature target audience;

Emily's sophisticated and expressive cat-eye liner, shadow and mascara, and defined brows style

Emily's sophisticated, feminine and formal, yet youthful and expressive make-up, hair and costume to represent my different target audience demographics

Emily's formal and sophisticated shoes

Rowan's simplistic and formal make-up (simple eyeliner, mascara foundation, highlighter and blush for a fresh and natural face), contrasted with her interesting/ expressive hair style

Rowan's simple and sophisticated outfit to represent my older demographic

Rowan's formal and sophisticated shoes

Production:
The equipment I brought to my first shoot consisted of;

My tripod (borrowed from my media department)

My camera (also borrowed)

My shot list, script, make-up, and coffee cup mise en scene to set the relaxed coffee shop location (which I purchased)

All aspects of my production were successful for this shoot, including;

• a wide range of fluid and steady shots by shooting with my tripod 2-3 times from different angles/ shot types
• my clear and unfiltered lighting
• costumes/ acting/ make-up
• my organisation

However, when reviewing my footage, I noticed that there is background noise in some of my shots due to the varying business of my public location. Therefore, I will need to experiment with noise reduction audio options during the editing process for this footage. My next shoot is tomorrow at 9:30am with Rowan for the introduction and main content of my documentary, as well as my ancillary product photographs; for which I am bringing the same equipment, in addition to my shoot specific mise en scene and costume for Rowan.

Questionnaire

As part of my market research for my target audience, exhibition, and documentary topic, I created this questionnaire using Survey Monkey, and shared it with my target audience through social media. I have presented what my aims were, as well as evaluative results using Emaze below. This software was particularly helpful for this research due to its chart tool to present my data.

Health and Safety Evidence

In order to prevent any health and safety issues for me and my cast during my shooting and photographing, I've filled out a risk assessment/ health and safety form for my productions which I found from the Ravensbourne TV studio company, and have embedded through Google Drive below. This allowed me to identify any possible risks and take measures to prevent them before production.

Audio

I've considered foleying my diegetic dialogue and narration in order to improve their sound quality and clarity by removing background noise; however I found from research of documentaries that this technique is unconventional, most likely due to the vast amount of speech to foley and the fact that documentaries are mostly unscripted and shot on the move. 'Blurred Lines the New Battle of the Sexes' also included a shot on a busy London street with lots of noise to present their city location, which is also appropriate for my production.

As I am shooting in mostly quiet locations (including a library and relaxed area of the city centre) at non-busy times (9:30am and 4:00pm with the latter being shot in a calm indoor location), I will rely on my high quality camera and the noise reduction audio editing process to eliminate the need for foleying.

I will record my voiceover with Rowan using the same camera in a quiet location within the library, as it is especially important for the voiceover to be clear, as there would be no context presented by the footage for where the background noise is coming from, and could therefore confuse my audience.

Finally, my non-diegetic music is prepared for editing:

Cast Responses and Production Log #1

Following my planned cast choices post, I have had positive responses from 2/3 of my cast choices; however Sam (my expert interviewee) is unavailable for filming due to his personal choice. As a replacement, I have decided to contact Tom Cranston and Scott Warr for this role; both active and educated feminists who meet the same actor specifications as Sam. If both actors are available, I may conduct two separate interviews, as I think that they would both be suitable and useful to my production.

As Emily and Rowan have both agreed to act for their roles, I have scheduled the dates of my shoots with them;

Thursday 8th January: Emily and Rowan at 4:00pm within cafe location

Friday 9th January: Rowan at 9:30am at the city centre/ Forum library. Throughout this shoot, I will photograph Rowan for my ancillary product images using the same camera which captures high quality photographs (tested during my location planning shoot).
I'll also be shooting by myself next week to capture location shots, most likely on Friday once I've finished shooting with Rowan.

I have considered borrowing 2 cameras and tripods from my media department in order to shoot a range of different angles using the 180° rule; however it is conventional of documentaries to be shot with minimal equipment as they are fast moving and partly improvised. Therefore I will borrow 1 camera and tripod next week, but film 2 takes from different angles and pause between shooting to change filming positions, in order to produce footage from a variety of cinematographic angles.

Next I will be planning the other equipment (mainly mise en scene, costume and make-up) which I need to prepare for my shoots, as well as finish writing my script and shot list.

Documentary Deconstruction: 'Blurred Lines the New Battle of the Sexes'

As I'm confident with the structure and conventions of documentaries from my research, I'm now beginning to focus on smaller details including stylistic cinematography, editing techniques, and how content and narrative is presented through these things. I've deconstructed a similar documentary to my own production by the BBC; 'Blurred Lines the New Battle of the Sexes', presented below using SlideShare. I found this documentary particularly engaging and powerful, which makes it appropriate for me to analyse what it is which makes it so successful.

Documentary Deconstruction: Blurred Lines the New Battle of the Sexes from Courtney O'Donnell