the duckmarine's own video.

 

 

The video on the right is the only video currently on the Yellow Duckmarine's website so I thought I would look at this for inspiration on our video. 

They incorporated the live music from the street and the crowd noise, this shows the public's excitement for the Queen's visit.

There is also a selection of shots of the duck going into the water, and sailing around the Albert Docks. This is definitely something we will have to include as it is a vital part of the tour. I also think we'll include footage of the tour from the street as well, and if it is possible we'll include footage from the inside of the duck whilst on the tour. This way we will recreate a the whole tour to show the good points of the tourist activity, but without giving away the places on the tour as this might ruin the experience for potential visitors.

Although our videos may be similar, they're still dissimilar enough for ours to feature along side their own. This is due to the different subject matter, as their video features solely on the Queen's visit, where as ours is to show the whole experience of the tour.

I feel it would be a good idea to include the Queens visit in our video, but not is nearly as much detail as the original video.

documentary research.

In today's seminar we were given 'Film Art: An Introduction' to help give us a clearer understanding as to what is expected from our documentaries.

After reading through the article and researching online, I thought I would collect the most interesting/relevant points.

What defines a documentary?
1. A documentary typically comes to us identified as such - by it's title, publicity, press coverage, word f mouth and subject matter
2. The audience expects the documentary to be factually correct

What is a documentary?
1. A documentary aims to present factual information about the world.
2. This can be done in as many different ways as in fiction.
3. There are many different ways in which filmmakers can portray the truth. This can be done by recording actual events as they happen, or by providing factual charts, maps or other visual aids. However, the more the footage looks manipulated, the less likely the audience is to believe it is factual.
4. Interviews with participants helps to create a sense of fact, however the filmmaker is unable to manipulate the interviewee but rather just control where the camera is placed, avoiding telling the interviewee what to say, or how to act.

Two forms of documentary:
Rhetorical Form - An approach used to present the audience with a persuasive argument to agree with the opinion which has been stated within the film.

Categorical Form - A simplistic approach to film structuring, this allows the filmmakers to break the film down into categories, which can then be introduced and spoken about at different/specific times.

The 8 types of documentary:
1. Poetic Documentaries - These used music and metaphors and were fragmentary, impressionistic, lyrical.
2. Expository Documentaries - These speak directly to the viewer, often in the form of an authoritative commentary using voiceovers or titles. These often have a strong argument and point of view and they aim to persuade the viewer.
3. Observational Documentaries - The camera and the filmmaker simply observe and do not intervene
4. Participatory Documentaries - The filmmaker is part of the documentary, they aim to show how their being there changed the situation.
5. Reflexive Documentaries - The filmmaker draws attention to their own constructedness, and the fact they're representations.
6. Performative Documentaries - They stress subjective experience and emotional response to the world. They are strongly personal, unconventional, perhaps poetic and/or experimental.
7. Informative Documentaries -These are often based on multiple contributors giving factual information about a subject.
8. Collage Documentaries - An approach that combines moving image, archive footage, stills etc. to present a subject differently

and the winner is...

In today's seminar we pitched both the 'beauty and fashion' pitch, and the 'Duckmarine' pitch to the rest of our group. And although both pitches recieved positive feedback, the Duckmarines recieved the majority vote, and therefore we're going with this idea.

I feel that the Duckmarine idea will create a more comedic and lighthearted documentary due to it's quirky subject and unusual history. I think that it has a lot of potential to be informative and funny at the same time.
Also, by deciding on the Ducks, Dani has taken the role of director, and we were able to decide on everyone elses roles. They now are as follows:

Director - Dani
Producer - Dalena
Editor - Myself
Sound Editor - Chrissie
Sound Recordist  James
Camera Operator - Charlotte.

Skateistan: To live and skate Kabul

Today we watched Skateistan: To live and skate Kabul which is a short documentary by Orlando Von Einsiedel. It follows a group of teenagers who enjoy skateboarding. 

The composition of the shots were really well considered, this helps to make the film accessible for the audience. It creates a clear idea of the world that these skater are living. 

The centre of the documentary are the three main characters that also provide narrations using the voice-over technique. 

The set up of the documentary makes the audience feel like it going to have a completely different theme. It focuses on the beautiful scenery of Kabul and avoids the political conflicts.

I found it really interesting to see a group of teenagers take part in skate boarding in a completely different situation. It was refreshing seeing their youth shine through the decay of the country.

The Apology Line

The Apology Line is a short, fictional, documentary about people who ring a number and apologise for something. It is a poetic and experimental documentary.

There is a series of disconnected images which hold no direct relevance to the audio track, although they do indirectly relate.

The overall tone of the piece is quite emotional. The apologies vary from a crying man apologising to his now separated wife, to a teenage girl claiming she has cheated on her boyfriend and she doesn't care. There is a sense of hysteria in one of the phone-calls as a women apologises for hiding her disability.

I really like the concept of the documentary as it is something I have never seen before.

The voices aren't clear, and are sometimes hard to understand. However, it is obvious why they have done that.

documentary project.

For our next assignment we have been told to create a documentary lasting 5 minutes. Our documentary has to be focused on a subject relating to Liverpool, our destination. I am in a group with Dani, Chrissie, Charlotte, Dalena and James.

In Fridays seminar we were told we had to prepare treatments and pitches for two different ideas, and then present these ideas to the group. We decided to meet as a group to collect possible ideas and build them into presentable pitches.

On the Sunday, myself, Dani, Dalena and Charlotte met in the library to discuss our ideas.

Charlotte had already done some online research into Liverpool and found a quote from a man who called himself 'The King of Bling' which stated that 'Liverpool is Britain's capital of beauty and fashion'. This inspired her to looking further into the fashion side of Liverpool, as it is quite well known for it's odd styles and trends. She also found out more about 'The King of Bling' and found out he was quite famous around Liverpool for his beauty salon. It was decided that the next step would be to contact 'The King of Bling', and others similar to him and see if we could create a story around him and his work.
We all decided that this idea had a lot of potential, and that we should consider it as one of our two pitches.

Dani had remembered from previous visits to Liverpool about a quirky little tourist attraction called The Yellow Duck Marines. These were amphibious landing crafts previously used in world war two. They are currently being used for tours around Liverpool's main attractions, as well as sailing around the Albert Docks. Dani later got in contact with the firm, and spoke to the manager, Paul. He said he would be more than willing to let us film for them, as long as we provided a finished copy to them.

I really like the second idea has I think it has the potential to become a lighthearted documentary with an informative spin on it.

individual self evaluation.

For my Creative Media Practice Project, myself and my project partner, Dani, decided to try and create an audio piece designed around a football game. Our aim was to create the feel of walking through a match day at Bramall Lane. Our piece begins from the point where you get to the football ground, it continues through to the kick-off and carries on right until end of the match, revealing which team won the game. We collected interview style voice clips of some fans from both football teams, but with our main focus on Sheffield United. We used these to add a personal view to the piece. We asked each fan to recount their favourite moment as a fan, and to tell us what it was that attracted them to the match day experience. We also asked why they supported the team. We then chose the best ones to feature in our piece.

The style of our audio piece was inspired by ‘Meat Factory Earworms’ by Richie Beirne. This is a piece designed to explain what it was like working in a slaughterhouse in Ireland, he uses music to add a sense of emotion to the piece. The main focus of the audio is Richie Beirne talking about his time in the meat factory, and the different stories he had about the place. This is played over various different songs, each with an explanation to the connection it has to the specific time in his life, relating to the meat factory.

We originally planned to work to this style, relying on a voice over to determine our ‘sense of place’ and carry our narrative, at the same time relying on an underlining atmos track to support the vocal piece. However, after recording our background sound, we decided it would be more effective if we left that as a stand alone recording, but using interview style question and answer clips to give a more personal feel of the subject. The idea is that they are reminiscing about their favourite moments in football, or the proudest moment they’ve witnessed in relation to their team.

Our experimental film was inspired by classic documentary style films based around the historical side of football. We decided to collect footage from an archive website of old football matches, and incorporate these into our piece. This plays on the idea that the piece is meant to be reminiscent of the fans favorite time in relation to their football team. We also chose to include recent footage of outside of the clubs to show a contrast between old and new, and therefore creating a sense of place through time.

Our target audience is quite broad. It could be said that this piece is aimed at football fans as it is obviously about the sport itself, and the fan base behind it. However, it is not specifically for the fans as it also offers people the insight into the passion behind the fan base and the sport itself.

Throughout our project, we faced a few minor setbacks. For example, after contacting the media staff at Bramall Lane, the football ground that is home to Sheffield United, asking their permission to come onto the grounds and either record some footage of their training session, or at least to collect audio of the crowd during a game, we were told that they did not have the correct facilities to accommodate our request, and therefore we they were unable to give us permission. To resolve this issue we decided to collect the footage from outside the grounds, and to see if we were able to collect the sound from outside the grounds as well. Although we initially thought this would hinder our project slightly due to the quality of footage not being as good as it could be, or the lack of contemporary footage from inside a football game, it actually worked well and the quality of our work was not affected too much by the change of plan.

After presenting our work to the audience of our peers and tutors, we received some really useful feedback in relation to what was good about the piece, and what could be improved. For example, it was quickly made obvious that the levels needed adjusting within the editing stage of our piece. This is due to only listening to the piece through headphones, and completely disregarding the need to check our sound levels. Another useful piece of feedback we received was how we should try and incorporate close up sounds of actual the actual football game, for example a clip of the ball being kicked which would represent kick-off.

Thankfully, we were lucky enough to not experience any technical issues throughout the project, other than being unable to play our piece to our tutor during a tutorial.

Personally I feel that the interview style questions really worked as it added a whole other level onto the piece, providing it with the personal touch of actual fans.  Also, I really liked the individual emphasised sounds, for example the police horse shoes on the ground, and the charity change buckets being shaken. However, I do feel like with the permission of the media staff in Bramall Lane, we could have collected some better footage of the football match itself in order to create a better comparison piece for our experimental film piece.

We began our planning stage with a choice of five topics to work with. These were, Industrial, Nature, Home life, Student life and Sport. We decided to chose sport as Sheffield, a city both Dani and myself were unfamiliar with, has two successful football teams, Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday. We decided to utilise the fact they were both so accessible, and use one of them in our piece. This gave us the opportunity to discover a bit more about the city we both have chosen to live in, as well as allowing us to find out more about the sport as neither of us had used football in our work before.

At the beginning of our planning stage, we decided to focus mainly on the voice over, and use that as our narrative. We planned to design the atmospheric tracks around the voice over. The voice over itself was either going to be two people, one a particularly older fan, and a younger fan. This was to show the diversity between the fans, and to create a broader coverage of their proudest moments. It was our aim to have the voice overs explain their personal views on football, and their proudest moments of their teams. It was going to be a continuous track of them talking, and then include the atmos tracks as a sort of back up to that.

However, after going to the Bramall Lane football grounds for the first time, alone, I heard the cacophony of interesting sounds, each one combining to create a narrative in itself. This inspired a change of plan, and therefore we agreed it would be create a more interesting piece if we relied more on the atmos track to create the narrative, and change the interview clips to the supporting audio.

Because of this change of plan, we decided to go back to Bramall Lane a second time to collect more detailed sounds. For example, close up sounds of the police horses, close up sounds of the turnstiles and to collect clearer recordings of the chanting.

The next stage of production was the editing. After we decided to allow the atmos track to create the narrative, we then began adding more amplified, and more detailed sounds to our original atmos track. We amplified the sounds of the police horses, turnstiles, chanting, traffic, program salesmen, and charity bucket change collectors. Each sound created a sound-scape of the overall experience of a standard match day.

On top of this we included the interview snippets we had collected. We edited these until we had the best clips remaining. These were the older man explaining his loyalty to his team, as well as his reasons for enjoying the general match day atmosphere, and the younger man who explained his reasons for coming to the football, as well as explaining his loyalty to the team. We tried to be diverse in our choices, so as to gain a broader coverage of what the sport means to the fans. To do this we used a variety of ages, but unfortunately we were only able to collect voices of males, we attempted to interview a woman but she directed us to her husband. This was unfortunate because it would have added to the diversity, and break out of the stereotypes that it is only men that enjoy football. Although we were unable to do this, the answers we did collect definitely added a personal level to the audio piece.

As we developed our piece, it started sounding less and less like I had imagined, but in a good way. We adapted our ideas to adjust to the changes we had to make, for example the fact we could not collect footage from inside the grounds. However, I am still really pleased with the end result.

As well as enjoying the project, I feel it has given me the opportunity to learn how to use SoundTrack Pro, as I had never had the chance to use this software before it was definitely useful. Because of this I can now confidently use SoundTrack Pro to create a decent audio piece. As well as this, I was able to improve on PremierPro. I had used this software before, but this has definitely improved my originally basic skills.

As well as learning to use the editing software, I was able to learn how to successfully use a professional marantz. The fact I had never used one before was definitely a hindrance, but luckily Dani, my project partner, had done, so she soon taught me the basics. I also got the opportunity to learn the difference between the boom mic, which we used to collect atmospheric sound, and the standard mono mic which we used to collect the interview style questions and answers.

Overall, I feel like I worked really well as part of a team. Dani and myself decided the fairest way to split the jobs was to do all of them together, or to take turns doing particular stages of production. For example, we took it in turns to ask the questions to our interviewees, as well as taking it in turns to edit our work. This allowed us both to improve our basic knowledge of how the editing software worked, and also allowed us both to equally experience what it was like to go out to film and collect audio.  We both offered creative input to the piece, and confirmed each and every change we made with each other. This was in order to remain equal in the levels of work we were doing. As well as this, we looked for each others opinion on each change.

I feel that my strengths within the team was my creative input. I personally decided the project subject, and had a big part in the adaptation and development of the ideas. I feel like my weaknesses were organisation and time keeping. I feel like I relied a little too much on Dani to decide when we were meeting. Unfortunately, this has always been a personal downfall. However, I am determined to make this something I will work on in the future. I will definitely strive to change this for future projects, and I hope I am able to do so.

I personally really enjoyed this project as it gave me an opportunity to learn and understand sound production a lot more, as that is a stage in production I have not worked on before. Also, I think that the fact I have had a positive experience with working in pairs, definitely had an overall positive effect on our project.