New Idea

Before coming up with the idea of The Internet and Wikileaks Calum, George and myself had decided on a documentary on Phobias. At first I agreed with this idea, however, as we discussed our ideas for it in more depth I saw that Calum and George were leaning towards more of a mockumentary style which is one that I was keen to avoid. Our group didn't see eye to eye and the lack of unity with the idea put pressure on us. For this reason we decided to come up with an idea that we could all work with and agree on; the Internet and Wikileaks.

George



George's main focus was a documentary that wasn't boring to the audience. He wanted a topic that would engage the audience and for this reason leaned towards something that would make the audience laugh.

Calum



Calum's main focus was a documentary that was slightly less conventional. He wanted a style that would make the documentary stand out from others in order to engage the audience.

Me



My main focus was a documentary that dealt with a strong, up to date issue. I wanted a topic that would be serious and hard hitting as well as coming from a story that was current in the news at the time. I felt that this would be most engaging for the audience as it dealt with up to date issues.

When we sat down together and discussed what we all wanted from the documentary we were able to come up with the Internet and Wikileaks. This fitted into everyone's main focus as the topic chosen interested all three of us and, filmed in the right way, could potentially gain interest from all types of audiences; the topic allowed us to use unconventional editing techniques in order to create an original style of documentary that would engage the audience; finally, it is an up to date topic that has been all over the news in recent weeks, which means it is a topic that would naturally provoke a lot of interest within the audience.

New Documentary Idea

Today Calum, George and myself decided to change our project again. We feel that we have finally come to a decision that we all agree on and that will produce and interesting and engaging documentary.

Interview Techniques

Calum, George and I have been looking at different types of interviewing techniques. We have filmed ourselves interviewing each other and doing some 'undercover' camera work to see what these shots would look like. This will help us when we make our main project as we can see which shots fit into our chosen documentary style.

The link for this video can be found below:
http://www.youtube.com/user/GCNMedia#p/u/1/17ygkhkR_5c

The shots that I thought were most successful in this video were the silhouette interview shot and the undercover interviews. I felt that these were the most interesting and engaging for me as an audience member and could fit into a more original and upbeat for of documentary style.

Rachel's Story: Underage and Pregnant

George, Calum and I have made a documentary based on a pregnant teenager and the effect that it is having on her school life. The link for this can be found below:

http://www.youtube.com/user/GCNMedia#p/u

This documentary was more serious than 'The Boy Who Carries Around Personal Information Around In A Tube.' and therefore was more like the type of documentary I would like to do. The issue we used (teenage pregnancy) is very current, however, I would like to use a serious and up to date topic such as this with a much less conventional form of documentary style. The music, fill shots and interview style are all very typical of a fly on the wall documentary. I feel a more upbeat style could appeal to a wider audience and make our documentary stand out.

Mockumentary

Ellen, Calum, Jack and myself were all involved in making a mockumentary. This can be found on the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEttmAcfNrg

It is called and shows a boy who possessive over a cardboard true which has something inside of it; the audience never finds out what this is.

Although I enjoyed helping to make this mockumentary, I still feel that I do not want to do a mockumentary as I feel that they use less technically challenging editing and camera skills. I also think that, unless done extremely well with a firm idea that would appeal to a wide audience, they can look unprofessional. Despite 'The Boy Who Carries Around Personal Information Around In A Tube.' being amusing to my college friends and myself I doubt that a mockumentary like this would do as well worldwide with people who do not know the character's or any inside jokes on a more personal level.

Green Screen

As mentioned in the brief for our Global Warming documentary, we want to try to use a green screen to make it seem like we are in the Antarctic. This would be a difficult, however, if done properly, could look very professional. Below is a link to the video of our first attempt at using the green screen technology:

http://www.youtube.com/user/GCNMedia#p/u/3/F0v44jfgX1o


To make this video George and Calum came to my house and used a blue screen outside. We did some shots with movement and others without to see how they looked.

What I have learnt from this:
As you can see, the background being used was not the correct colour blue and therefore some of the picture was unclear; for our project we would have to use a real green screen.
As there was not enough space to set the screen up inside, we used the blue screen outside. This meant that the lighting changed as the sun came out and went back in, this not only changed the colour of the screen slightly making the image fuzzier, but also meant that the lighting was not right for the image we edited into the background. We would have to take care to get the lighting correct in our project in order for it to look professional.
The screen was not very large and therefore some of my conservatory can be seen. We will have to make sure that the screen we use is big enough so that this does not happen.

Documentary Presentations

As well as my own documentary presentation, other members of the class also made presentations an example of these can be found below:

Mockumentary

View more presentations from Ellen Crane

This presentation was created by Ellen Crane and outlines the conventions of a mockumentary. I feel that I would prefer to do a more serious piece rather than a mockumentary as this would appeal to a wider audience and would enable the use of more advance editing techniques.