Sign Language

 Sign Language - Oscar Sharp

This short film was shown to us during the screenings session on Thursday and my first feeling was that it was quite a documentary style approach to a drama! The voice over coupled with the visuals gave this feel but some of the close-up shots broke the feeling of documentary. The mise-en-scene is well considered, you can tell that these people have worked on the street for a while as they all are wearing the appropriate outdoor clothing and this denotes characterisation as well in the case of the rainbow gloves that link our protagonist and his love interest. (pictured below)

 The narrative is the driving force in plot and character development, we find out all about our protagonist and the others that work around him from his monologue. The voice over coupled with the hand-held, close up shots create an intimate feel, as if we are there with the character as he continues about his job and the busy street atmosphere can be echoed in this too, quite close to people you don't know on the street.

 There is music present throughout the entire piece and this links everything through nicely, the music is very laid back and calming, a few soft vocals coming in and out of the chords which is put together nicely with the action. Alongside the music, the diegetic noise of the street is always present so when it fades away during the ending sequence the audience notices that this is an important event for our protagonist (pictured below) and the subsequent action he takes is more important to a viewer.

Overall, I think this is a very well put together piece. It's a nice marker to see how much you can discover about a protagonist and characters in the sort of time that we will have for the drama project. The music and diegetic noise is well considered and suits the tone of the piece and the camera work allows the viewer to feel more involved.

Drama Brief

Today we were given the brief for the drama project. I am working with mostly the same people with the addition of Jess and we have all taken on different roles from the previous project. I will be taking on the role of editing and to prepare myself I plan to read Walter Murch's 'In the Blink of an Eye', which I had started reading during the term but hadn't managed to finish before I had to return it to the library so this time I plan to take it out of the library to read and reread it as much as I can.
I am also going to make sure that I stick more to my own role this time, as in previous projects I feel I've been taking on too much of other roles; I still plan to lend a hand now and then but I will to stick to my role as far as possible. I am going to ensure I go to all production meetings as I know that as an editor it can be very important to put in ideas if I think there won't be enough cutaways or footage that has been considered for edit. The whole piece must be considered for edit during the pre-production stage and I plan on making sure that the director and producer are keeping in mind my role whilst they are planning so that when it gets to my stage I don't have to cut for continuity and cut around problems and can cut for a polished considered piece.

A Question of Time

 A Question of Time -  Radoslaw Sienski

Above: Shot from opening sequence

This award winning short film was made by a student film maker and won Best Short Film at the 2nd annual Soul 4 Reel Film Festival 2011 and was a winner at Campus MovieFest 365, London 2011. I found it on youtube in two parts which can be found here and here.


The story telling in the piece is very clear and you can understand the various moods throughout the film but at times I wonder if the same feeling could be gotten from fewer shots or from less off-screen time because I think that the first half of the film has a slow pace which although it doesn't necessarily detract from the piece, perhaps the film could have been more engaging if it had a faster pace in general. Periods of time are denoted by captions which are suited for the piece dealing with it's time traveling nature and also help to locate the viewer in narrative time, which is particularly important in a short film. The use of on-screen text helps to create a sense of atmosphere because the characters do not have to speak to denote to the viewer at what point in the film they are, so a moody silence can be maintained where needed and I think the director has considered this carefully to the pieces credit. 


An overlaying of images flashing quickly between each and over each other with altered opacities can be seen during distressed periods, the first example is after Oliver is hit by the car and another example is when Mark fastforwards his watch to 25 years in the future. These segments give the effect of disorientation and distress which is strengthened by the change in the music that is present throughout the entire piece which combined with disoriented noises and flashing imagery makes the viewer feel the same as the protagonist. 


Below is a shot from the second half of the film that I find particularly clever. It depicts the watch turning back time as the protagonist can manipulate time with it whilst the clock face of Big Ben corresponds to the protagonists changes. This shot is integral to the piece because it makes the viewer believe that this is actually occurring; it also makes the shot appear as though it is all in one smooth motion and not broken up by obvious time tricks that audiences are so familiar with now that if badly executed can ruin the verisimilitude of a piece. This shot in fact increases the verisimilitude because of how well created it is and the shot also helps denote an obvious setting in the world. 

Unfortunately, the film is let down at times by how distant the voices of the characters sound, which makes the verisimilitude the director has worked so hard to create a little less effective and some of the sound effects aren't very convincing which also lets the piece down. An example of this is the pub background noise in the second half of the film, where the protagonist is sitting there and the radio in the pub comes on but it doesn't sound diagetic along with the general noise from other patrons. It sounds as if it is not located within the scene. However, these are only a few moments in the film and so the viewer won't find this too distracting.


At the end of the film we find out what the inscription means that we see in various close ups throughout the film and it reinforces the point the film is trying to make. I feel that it ties the entire thing together nicely and creates a definite end to the piece whilst also inviting the viewer to think about the film. Overall, I think this short film deserves the awards it won as it is a very well executed concept that is interesting and provokes the viewer to think about it afterward.

Feedback

Having done our presentation this morning, I'm very pleased with the outcome, even watching it back on the big screen was satisfying despite some of the technical issues with the piece.

It was really nice to get some critical feedback as well as the rewarding good feedback. The group commented on the use of the music played by the musicians as a good underlay and also mentioned the recording quality was good. They liked the sound bridging over the piece and said this helped to create a flowing piece. We got good feedback on the use of the public interviews, they were used to effect and helped bring our piece together as well as some comments on nice transitions, saying the documentary was well paced throughout.

Esther and Debbie thought that the piece was charming and engaging, commenting on the structure being good with well thought out choices of which quotes we included. There were some mentions of inconsistent dialogue levels, which on hindsight were more obvious than we'd anticipated and the intro and outro were appreciated.

One criticism that I would definitely take with me into my next documentary project is to ask the contributors to introduce themselves and what they do as this could have benefitted our piece but I think that without them, the piece doesn't suffer immensely.

The main issues were the grain and some of the framing of the piece but this couldn't be helped in the editing stage so we will just have to accept that criticism and take it into consideration during the next production.

I'm very pleased with the feedback, I think the positive feedback reflects our input into the project and the criticisms are things that we were expecting and can learn from in the future.

Evaluation

I'm really pleased with our end product, aside from some of the flaws. I think it's a reflection of the hard work that we've put in and specifically the editing that has pulled all of the footage into a neat structure.

I have learnt a lot about documentary filmmaking, it's the small things that you don't consider when you start that are the most important things. If I was to do the project again, besides other things, I would get all of the performers to introduce themselves and what they do and I'd make sure that the interviewer was always at a fixed point from the camera on the same side so that the interviewee's have a similar point of focus. I think however, we got wide variety of people that means our documentary gets a multifaceted view and the viewer doesn't get bored with the same two faces, but rather sees three or four regular faces and some cutaways to others.

I think the team worked well together, especially since each one of us assumed some aspects of the directing that there was a definite lack of. I feel as though James and Rhys worked particularly hard in their areas and Natalie took up the challenge of being put into a group mid way through and still managing to find her place in the production team - she was a very valuable asset to our group and brought some interesting ideas as well as an assisting hand. Lewis got some very useful close-up cutaways that we could use - especially the shot of the guitar being tuned, he saw the opportunity and asked the band members straight away which got us a very clean shot to cut to.

I feel that my contribution was valued by the group, and I felt heavily involved through every stage of the production. My main duties were organising the schedules, organising the interviews and conducting them. On the day, I got permissions of performers and public. I feel that I've tried to keep everyone on task throughout the entire process and I completed a lot of the production documentations. I gave input on how we should structure the piece and spent a lot of time with the editors during the editing process. Overall, I enjoyed the role even though I found it stressful at times because in the end it's very rewarding to see the production through from beginning to end and be a part of it in all of the stages, no matter how frustrating these stages can sometimes be.

Fine Cut

Despite our differences in opinion of structure at times, I think the group worked well to choose a range of shots and interesting dialogue to make up our documentary.

The sound was dipped at points to allow the interviewee to be heard clearer and louder over the music they were playing underneath as shown here :

Once we were happy with the structure, James went through and tidied up the visuals using a little colour correction and effects such as fades and Rhys went through and cleaned up the aural areas that needed a little cross fading or tidying.

Below is a picture of our exporting process, we had one problem when it exported into 4:3 but we soon fixed this issue and we're pretty happy with the overall finished work.

Edit Logs

Having not done an edit log before, we weren't sure what had to be included but Natalie took on the task well and here are the edit logs she created for us:

Sound

Today, Natalie, James and I met with Rhys to incorporate the sound into the piece. Rhys had transcribed the interviews (pictures below) and this proved very useful as Natalie and I could begin to narrow down which elements we wanted to put into the piece whilst James and Rhys worked on syncing up the sound to the imagery.

(Double sided transcripts!)

(Restructuring written concept)

There was a slight problem in that the sound was recorded in some instances on the marantz independently of the images and the crew hadn't used a clapper or click to let an editor know where to link up the sound. Some of these problems were solved by the actions of the performers (such as a drummer counting in on his drumsticks) but the process was still painstakingly slow and took the best part of 3 or 4 hours.

James began a rough edit but we also began a second sequence so that we might try out the new structure to see if that worked better than James' current one before deciding to continue tomorrow.

Broken Record

Broken Record by Esbe

I really like how the artist uses gentle instrumental music interspersed with very easily recognised mechanical edited sounds to great effect in the piece. It somehow manages to be relaxing, uplifting and upbeat simultaneously. I can see imagery fitting really nicely with this piece as if it was composed for filmic use but at the same time it works as it's own piece. I think this is to the artist's credit and the music is well rounded.

Tutorial

After our tutorial with Esther, she confirmed some of our thoughts that the footage was excessively grainy and some of the framing was a bit wide with too much space but said there was potential in the piece. She suggested we put in some close-up shots to give the piece more dynamic range and to make it less slow paced.

This is something we immediately remedied. She also mentioned that we could benefit from writing down what shots we have in what order away from the computer in order to get a clearer idea of the structure. Below is a picture of this process:

Rough Assembly

James, Natalie and I met again to begin the rough assembly. Due to not having sound to sort through, it didn't take us long to put together something that was structured in a visually pleasing way with a mixture of performances and interview. This is like to change because we don't have any idea of what is being said during interviews and as this is the integral piece to our documentary, this edit is a very basic idea of what imagery we plan on using.

Capturing and Logging

This afternoon, James, Natalie and I began capturing and logging the footage. The going was slow because we separated each clip as we went along and there was two and half tapes worth of footage to sort through but after labeling all the footage, we managed to have a look through some of the shots.

We all agreed that the footage was incredibly grainy and this could be due to gain issues however, aside from that and a few framing issues, we were pretty pleased with what we'd got. We decided to return to start a rough edit tomorrow in time for Thursday's tutorial with Esther but Rhys is still working on the sound and we aren't certain we'll have it in time to complete a rough edit with sound so we are planning to put together a rough assembly instead with the option of completely restructuring when we have the sound.

The Janitor

Above: Still from The Janitor

The Janitor is a short documentary by Josephine Anderson which has some good ideas but I think could be improved in certain areas. The lighting in some of the shots is not considered and the composition and structuring of the story is plodding. I think this could have been improved by further interviews with a wider range of students, as it becomes a little repetitive and even just the use of close ups to create a more dynamic feel and break up the interviewee's would help the piece flow and give it a better pacing.

I particularly liked the camera on the cleaning cart in the still shown above but I think this could have been used to a greater effect than it was.

Images above are by the artist Phlegm, whose works are shown here. I walked past this today and it was very thought provoking. I admire graffiti artists because they put their work out there for the entire city to see, in a forum where all demographics can look at it. This style is very distinctive which makes the work instantly recognisable, I appreciate the apparent enthusiasm shown by the intricacies of the work.

Camera Logs

Today I reviewed the camera logs which Natalie created and maintained. We have a lot of footage but won't be able to log and capture until Wednesday due to other deadlines and commitments.

Here is a copy of the camera logs:

BUSKING: THE UNDERGROUND TALENT

CAMERA LOG

LOCATION: Liverpool		Date: 06/03/2012
Shot No.	Shot Description		Length
1	Timelapse: Liverpool Centre		20:03:00
2	Cutaway: Bond Street		00:02:75
3	Radio City Tower		00:09:21
4	Docks/Sign		00:31:21
5	Wheel		00:09:01
6	Cutaway: CU Wheel		00:22:16
7	Dock LS of Wheel		00:28:24
8	Dock Entrance		00:19:24
9	Dock Entrance/Road		00:07:19
10	Beatles Museum Shots		00:19:24
11	Stone Archway		00:16:03
12	Christopher Mitchell		07:46:23
13	Enrique (Saxophone)		01:10:23
14	Public Interviews		02:59:11
15	Kevin Welsh Part I		01:29:23
16	Kevin Welsh Part II		01:29:14
17	Band 1 Performance/Interview		12:50:15
18	Cutaway: Street 1		01:33:19
19	Angus Carpenter		00:38:00
20	LIPA Shots		07:21:14
21	Johnny Sets Up		03:06:24
22	Johnny Interview		07:01:06
23	Guitar Case CU		00:46:17
24	Performance 1		02:40:05
25	Performances		17:28:00

Created by: Natalie Obank

Date (of Typed Document): 10^th March 2012

Jonny Walker Interview

Today we went to film Jonny Walker's interview and performance and we had to travel there to arrive for 11. James drove us, so there was only space for four people including him. This meant we had to prioritise our crew for the day. Obviously the sound and camera man were essential and I needed to go as the main contact for Jonny and to be interviewer. Tom's contribution had been very little in Liverpool so we decided that my presence was probably more necessary. I was a bit apprehensive as we'd yet to meet Jonny but when we arrived, he was well prepared and happy for us to film him setting up, performing and an interview for which he had some very interesting and useable answers.

Overall, I think the day went very well, despite a slight hiccup with the need for new tapes and the Marantz not wanting to record or turn on halfway through our filming. Jonny is a valuable contribution to our piece and I think the decision to travel to meet him was to our advantage even though it took up more time and effort on our parts.

King of Kong

This documentary is very well edited in terms of creating a story; the filmmakers have created a very clear underdog or heroic character (Steve Wiebe) juxtaposed with the villain character (Billy Mitchell) and this is done by very clever cutting between the two, juxtaposing opinions stated by other people as well as cleverly cutting between things they both say and the use of music to amplify this.

The music slowly builds not only the tension but the sense of character that we get from each person - namely by using Wiebe’s own playing to exemplify his hand and eye co-ordination or skill at gaming (as it’s used over his game play of Donkey Kong). There are a variety of 80’s tracks which set the games in their own zeitgeist but there are also some classics such as In the Hall of the Mountain King which set a humorous tone. They are also used to set a sense of pace and connect the viewer to the gamers world, used in conjunction with visuals from the game.

The shots are considered and it is clear that there is heavy editing to ensure that their story comes across to the audience and we are fed a representation of the characters the filmmakers want us to see. There is some use of archive footage that is cut to from the gamers stories and this gives us more of an insight into the competitive gaming world being the same now as it was then. A lot of the gamers are just as serious about the gaming now as they were then and this is shown through this cutting back to the archive footage and the content of the gamers appearing to be just as serious.

I think that the filmmakers have created a lot of the storyline through the editing, juxtaposing the two personalities and being very selective of which parts of interview they use to create these characters, in this sense it is a triumph of documentary film creating a narrative for an audience but I think that the filmmakers have to be careful of misrepresenting their subjects. Having watched this documentary a few times, it appears more constructed each time I view it, and so I find that the filmmakers may alienate the viewer from the subject matter by trying to manipulate their feelings for the central characters. Having said that, on first viewing the film is very enjoyable and holds an audiences attention so it can be viewed as a success.

Liverpool Trip: Tuesday 6th

Having decided the previous night to start shooting at 10am , I had arranged for everyone to meet and be ready to leave at 9:45am in the reception. Natalie and I waited almost quarter of an hour before we set out without the others to decide where we should start shooting and I texted the others (again) to tell them where we'd gone. At about 10 past 10, they turned up with the equipment and we began shooting. The day started in a disappointing way as when we first arrived in Church Street there weren't any buskers around. Putting it down to it not being peak times for them, we decided to just get some cutaways from around the city, aiming to return to the centre in Church Street for lunchtime.

We were happy to find a lot more buskers around but it was not encouraging that when we asked to film them performing, we given very blunt declines or we were faced with a language barrier again. Not one to be easily put off, I continued on and found someone willing to let us film their performance and get an interview. This small victory put some more wind in our sails and soon we had willing participants at every turn, even when we tried to get opinions from the public. However, the interviews with the public are very biased as the only person who gave me a bad opinion didn't want to appear on camera.

Overall, I am pleased with how the day went. We didn't really stick to the schedule as it was much more dependant on buskers than I'd first envisioned but the schedule had been very loose anyway so it wasn't an issue. My main jobs were to find willing interviewee's and performers and interview them, prompt the crew to set up and check they were happy with what we were getting. Natalie made sure to take logs of camera and sound when she could but Natalie and I also found that we took up the role of director as I felt there was a lack of input from Tom who didn't appear to be interested in the task we had ahead of us. We tried to get him involved but he wasn't engaging so we decided to take on his role ourselves.

Liverpool Trip: Monday 5th

On Monday, I arrived at stores at 9:45 as pre-arranged with the team but had to wait for half an hour for the others to arrive so I could collect equipment. Lewis had contacted me to tell me he would meet us at the train station and James got in contact to say he was not very well so couldn't come on the trip. This left me with Rhys and Tom to collect equipment, test and get to the train station but we were soon joined by Natalie as her group had been disbanded. Having an extra pair of hands to help test and exchange equipment made all the difference.

Everything went smoothly after this little hiccup until we arrived at the hostel and so were late leaving for lunch and reccying. This meant that we left at 3:00 so our first priority was to get food before we set off on Church Street. We decided to get a time lapse of the street so spent around 20 minutes filming that before we explored the street and I tried to talk to some of the buskers. Unfortunately, a lot of them didn't understand English so we gave up for the day and decided to begin again on Tuesday. Before we packed up for the night, I sat down and made a rough shot list for the next day because it became clear that the director wasn't going to be involved in this.

Below: Rough written shot list

Questions

Rhys and I wrote up a list of questions we wanted to ask the contributors.

Some examples of these are:

(for the public)
How do you feel about street performers?
How do you think street performers contribute to your area?
There is new legislation that could put some restrictions in place for street performers, how do you think having restrictions in place will affect your community?

(buskers)
What made you become a busker?
As a street performer, do you feel like there's a sense of community?
How do you feel the new legislation will change your livelihood?
What are the public's reactions to your performing?

(Jonny Walker)
What made you become a busker?
Do you have a sense of community with other buskers or is it more competitive?
What are your favourite locations to busk in?
Do you get hecklers and if so, how do you deal with them?
How has the busking scene helped to promote your music?
How will the council's legislation affect you in the long term?
How do you think it will change the Liverpool busking scene?

We also had some questions lined up for the local councillor but I haven't recieved a reply from him, so we are trying to get a statement instead of an interview.

Shooting Schedule

Today I created a rough schedule, it is very sparse because there has been no input from the director and we do not have any scheduled contributor's for Monday or Tuesday so will be working around where we find buskers at the time. Jonny has said he'll definitely be available on Thursday at 11 so I've included my ideas for this in the schedule also.
I plan to print this and show it to the crew members when we are testing the equipment so they have a rough idea of the locations and the time we have available. I also want a hard copy so I can refer to it on the day and make sure we are running on schedule, however this will change depending on where we find the most street performers and how many agree to be in our documentary.

Locations

Following another conversation with Jonny, I made a list of places that buskers tend to perform. Jonny suggested some locations I'd already found such as Church Street and Bond Street but he also suggested Lord Street and Mathew Street which look promising. I have checked on google maps to see how viable walking to the locations are and it appears that they are very close to the proposed hostel so I think we'll be able to easily use these locations. Do to filming on the street, there are no permissions to obtain as it is public areas, however we will have to obtain permission from anyone who agrees to appear in the footage - such as interviewee's and performers. I am therefore printing off a supply of contributor forms to take with me to Liverpool.
I also jotted down Jonny's contact details on a contributor contact list so I can refer to that if needed.

Initial Treatment and Contact List

Today's pitch went well and it was supported by an initial treatment which was written up yesterday. It helped to have it on hand during the pitch so we could refer to it and I think this strengthened our pitch but I do think that our pitch in general was not as strong as it could have been because it was the first time we'd done a pitch.
I also drew up a crew contact list so that I could refer to it should I need to get hold of anyone: