Evaluation
Initially, I feel
like our documentary has been obstacle after obstacle. Our first couple of
ideas fell through due to issues with contributors, which lead us to move on to
plan C. For me, that seems like the main weakness we have had with this project
as we had prioritised a lot of our time and effort on shoots and meetings that
resulted to nothing, therefore giving us less time to work on our final plan.
We intended to have a well constructed, portrait documentary on the story of
Sobia Walton and her moderate deafness, however, we weren’t able to pull
together something that we all quite expected. We changed our documentary to
the format of an experimental one, as a way to show individuality in the piece
and to relate it to our poetic documentary.
In my opinion, I feel
like our experimental documentary doesn’t seem engaging enough and the audience
needs to be able to see the contributor to be able to connect with her.
Although, this does give an original touch to the documentary and makes it more
thought provoking. The archive essence within the piece also makes it seem
quite nostalgic as Sobia reflects back on her childhood, growing up with
deafness. The documentary ‘Photograph’
by Jake Richardson (2014) was our influence to include archive images.
The process of
making this work has been very challenging. Our planning for the project
progressed very quickly, however we began to doubt our initial treatment and kept
shooting the production even when we weren’t sure what direction it was going.
I have learnt a great deal whilst making this documentary because of its
unpredictability, some contributors can back out at any time and the story you
want to tell may never develop. I have also learnt more about how to interview
your contributors and get the most information out of them as you can. I feel
like this will help me in the future for creating documentaries when I need a
connection with the contributor as I have gained a better understanding of
producing a portrait/personal documentary.
I have also taught
myself that you need to set yourself just one role otherwise it will get too
much to handle, especially in documentary because it needs a lot of direction
and structure. I found myself helping other people on their roles as it seemed
I knew what was best to do with the equipment and I knew the contributors personally
so it felt like my responsibility to contact them.
Overall I feel like
the teamwork on this project has been positive, despite a few problems we had
with a certain member of the group when it felt like not everyone had a say in
how the documentary would progress, our opinions were always heard but never
taken into account. Our team always
helped each other to get work done, especially if someone was struggling with
their role. We showed initiative by doing an equal amount of work and attending
group meetings and editing sessions.
I feel like I had a
big contribution to the work as I had numerous responsibilities, contacting the
contributors to organise shoots, editing and helping the sound designer with
the recording and sound editing. After a while, having this many jobs was too
much for me so I swapped roles with the sound designer so I could put all my
concentration towards it and I knew what I was doing. I also helped edit a few
times and did transcripts whilst the rest of the group were busy doing their
roles.
I did a lot of
cleaning up of the audio because some of the equipment we were given wasn’t
working correctly, this is an example of how I solved the problem.
Adobe Audition clean up session
I also created the soundtrack for the background of the documentary, exploring the theme of the production with the tone and mood of music.
Pro-tools soundtrack editing session
Pro-tools soundtrack editing session
Something that has
informed my documentary making is, ‘The
Theory of Film Practice’ by Noel Burch (1973). In the chapter called ‘Chance and it’s Functions’, I have related
to the real struggle of film making and how it is the main art form that is
left to chance, “while chance per se constitutes an intrusion into the world of
music, the aleatory is quite at home in film and always has been.” (Noel Burch:
1973: 109). The book brings to mind films that are completely left to chance,
like Lumière, which is how we mainly filmed our interviews, we started a
conversation going and then left it to chance for Sobia to go into depth on the
subject with the camera rolling so then it was less pressure on Sobia. This
gave us a lot of great footage to work with. The general sense of this chapter
has also explained to me that documentary is “a struggle against the accidental”
as it usually never goes exactly how you imagined it, giving you a reason to
construct a more creative piece of work.
Bill Nichols’ ‘Introduction
to Documentary’ (1942) has mainly helped me understand the features of a
documentary, even though Nichols believes that all films are in some way
documentaries, I have grasped their concepts and meanings, giving me the
ability to use these styles in my own work, “they give a sense of what we
understand reality itself to have been, of what it is now, or of what it may
become” (Bill Nichols: 1942: 2). I have learnt that documentaries portray a
representation of their subject on a purposeful matter, so I used this to
create a representation of Sobia by using a narrative structure of her power
and dignity whilst being deaf to be rid of any thoughts the audience may have
of her being weak or vulnerable.
A short documentary called ‘Love Takes’ by Jeanie Finlay has informed
my knowledge in the sense of style and structure. The documentary contains
segments of talking heads and a cutaway to text on a background. As we were
moved to create an experimental documentary, this helped me understand how we could
use our footage to create something similar and have the same affect that ‘Love Takes’ has on an audience. Creatively,
this short documentary has informed our approach to our production because of
the way it flows and doesn’t have too much visual intensity which makes it seem
interesting and original. However, it doesn’t focus on one person in the
portrait documentary style, so this is how we have added our own touch by only
involving a main character within the piece so the audience can engage with
them.
Bibliography
- Burch, N.B, 1973. Theory of Film Practice. 1st ed. London: Secker and Warburg.
- Jeanie Finlay. (2010). Love Takes. [Online Video]. 07 March. Available from: https://vimeo.com/4668034. [Accessed: 12 January 2016.
- Nichols, B.N, 2001. Introduction To Documentary. 1st ed. United States: Indiana University Press.
- SHU Film and Media Production. (2014). Documentary- Photograph- Jake Richardson . [Online Video]. 04 November. Available from: https://vimeo.com/112501786. [Accessed: 12 January 2016].
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