Research on documentaries

In today's lesson, we did product research on the documentary 'In guns we trust'.

This documentary was found on the website 'shortoftheweek.com'. 

https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2015/06/08/guns-trust/ This is a link to the documentary 'in guns we trust'. 

Research on short films

After researching short films, it will allow me to make a final decision out of the briefs i narrowed it down to.

I have used the website 'film for action' and 'vimeo'. On film for action i found many different short films.

This link http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/the-oceanmaker-2015/  shows a short animated film which tells a story in just 10 minutes.

This link is another short story  http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/dear-future-generations-sorry/  lasting approximately 6 minutes.  Although this video just shows a man speaking, i believe it is very effective. This is because the video focuses on the man in a suit against a very simple background. Below is the video of the short film:

This picture shows a medium close up of the man speaking. This means that the audience just focuses on what the man has to say as he is stating an important message. This allows the audience to engage instead of getting distracted by a background. 

The video then begins to bring in animated effects to match his point he makes. I believe the animation on a basic background causes it to stand out. 

Also, large, bold text is used. I noticed that the text matches when he says the word in perfect time. This is also very effective and something i may research more into. 

Research on documentaries

Research into brief number 7 - Documentaries

Because i like the idea of brief number 7, I have chosen to develop my understanding of the brief by researching different documentaries.

The main type of documentaries which i prefer are reality documentaries. However, there could also be other documentaries such as wildlife documentaries.

Below is an example of an introduction to a wildlife documentary produced by David Attenborough about wildlife. I have noticed this has many shots and clips of nature and landscapes with his voice as a voice over narrating the clips. The documentary also shows David Attenborough within the documentary.

There could also be a reality documentary filming people. Below is an example of a reality documentary filming peoples every day life. It has a woman doing a voiceover whilst filming the reality of peoples life. There is also a soundtrack.

However another form of a documentary could be telling a story but reconstructing the truth of the film. This could be having an actor to reconstruct what actually happened to somebody.

I used the website ' Wall of films'. This allowed me to view many different documentaries. I understand now that documentaries focus on a specific thing such as filming somebodys way of living.

http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/sweatshop-deadly-fashion-2014/  

This link is a documentary of the life of people working in a sweatshop in Cambodia. They interview many different sweatshop workers and use subtitles to translate the language to english. 

Decision of brief

After recieving my briefs and anaysing which one would be best for me, i narrowed it down to 4 different briefs to choose from

I have chosen brief number 3 as i believe i could make TV advertisements on the computer using the programme ' movie plus' which i used for my AS media final piece. This means my knowledge on the programme will allow me to develop and produce a more advanced TV advertisement due to the previous experience i had on the programme. 

This brief really interests me as i believe that making a documentary could be very fun as well as interesting as there are so many ideas to choose from for a documentary and it could come in many different forms. It could be from my own previous experiences or someone elses experiences which are very dramatic making the documentary interesting and intruiging. In order to develop my understanding of documenatires i will do some research on them. 

Brief number 10 has also caught my attention. This is because it is a short film, which is similar to my AS media. However, i believe a short film could be very hard as i would need to plan out a whole story line and make it short and precise so it lasts 5 minutes but has a plot and tells a story.

This is brief number 1. It shows we have to make a music video. I am very interested in this brief because in a music video, we could make it a short story. This is something i believe i will very much enjoy. 

Now i have narrowed it down to 4 different briefs, i will do some further research on each brief to see which one i will have the most ideas for and produce the most successfully by the end of my A2 media course.  

Evaluation of AS media

Brief summary

Above shows my final piece of our groups opening sequence in AS media. This film is about a district nurse visiting an elderly woman's home, and experiencing unusual noises and movements within the house. When the district nurse knocks on the door, there is no answer. This causes the nurse to enter the house , and this results in her feeling haunted by unnatural behaviours within the house. This film is based on a horror genre and we made it appear this way by the use of the soundtrack and camera work within the film to show the uncertainty of the house. 

Success in the film

I believe our film was very successful. This is because i felt that it met the genre of a horror film due to our correct use of camera shots, soundtrack, setting and dialogue. This enabled the audience to clearly understand and relate to the storyline. The soundtrack was quiet and got louder in tense areas of the film. This caused tension and made the scene eerie. The setting of the film was in an old house, it looked very dark showing it looked unlived in and dark lighting is traditionally what scary movies usually use. Also, we had a very detailed plan which enabled us to stick to the deadline. This allowed our group to become organised and everybody was aware of the progress of the film making and their job roles to meet deadlines and the criteria. I believe another success of the film was that was met the criteria of the brief. This is because we used a soundtrack as well as a wide variety of camera shots and titles.

pre production

production

post production 

Areas of improvement 

In our film i felt that we used many techniques to produce our film to the best ability. However, we felt that the continuity of our district nurse was one of the main areas for improvement. This is because in some shots the nurse had different coloured nail varnish and a different jacket on. Also, a man was driving the car and we tried to edit it to make it look like the district nurse actor was however we missed a part and you could see the man driving. I felt like the lack of continuity let our film down as continuity is a vital part for producing a film. if it is not continuous it could confuse the audience and appear like we did not spend much time on that aspect of the film making. Also, i feel our titles within the film were not at their best ability. This is because i felt the colour of white stood out too much in the dark setting. This drew the attention away from the film and the audience just focused on the titles. I also think that the position of the titles were not great. This is because i felt they did not fit in with the film and we did not film to leave space for the titles we just added them in. 

Audience feedback

As a group we feel that audience feedback is very important. This is because it allows us to evaluate our piece to see the success and improvement for the film. this allows us to imporve and expand in the future when we next make a film. It would help me in my A2 levels so i know what the audience like and dislike in a film. One member from the audience told us that they noticied the lack of continuity. This means we know to take extra care on continuty for the next time i produce a film. I believe criticial feedback is very important as it allows us to expand and improve for the next time so we learn from our mistakes. 

Introduction to A2

On the 11th June 2015 we were introduced to A2 media. We were shown 13 different briefs in which we could choose from to work on throughout our year of A2 media. Below are the 13 briefs we had to choose from: 

My understanding of a brief is the task in which we need to carry out in A2 media. It explains what we need to do and involve in our media piece. The briefs show different options varying from portfolios on video, print, web-based. audio or game software. Our portfolio would present our research of the chosen brief as well as evidence of planning and the final evaluation of the chosen brief. 

I believe these briefs are different to the brief from AS. This is because this year we have more choice in which brief to do to meet our specific preferabilities instead of being given just one brief to do for AS. Also, A2 briefs have more content so it means our portfolio has to be more advanced. However due to the research and knowledge we gained from AS media i believe A2 gives me more of an underdtanding of media and i can develop my ideas and final piece to a higher standard.