Colour Correction

Over the past week we were looking at how our documentaries were shaping up for the hand in. I found the other two documentaries to be modern and interesting from start to finish. I also liked James’ use of multi-screen as it was innovative and interesting to look at in the edit. It allowed the audience to appreciate each tattoo in its regular state when zoomed in and to see the full tattoo when zoomed out.
Looking into colour correction was interesting and not something I had really thought deeply about before. Colour correction in short enhances and modifies the colours, hue and saturation of the video allowing the editor to create the right atmosphere with his/her video clips.
Below is an image I colour corrected

Editing an Interview

Over the past two weeks I have been working at the Money Race edit. This has been surprisingly time consuming. It has certainly been a learning opportunity as our inexperience in filming face to face interviews has thrown up a few problems for me.

Whilst reviewing the footage, it became apparent that we needed to make the film informative and also interesting to view. This meant using a variety of cut away shots of Hannah, the interviewer, the interviewees.
The first difficulty I had to overcome was the lack of cutaways in response to both Rob and Don’s answers. The second difficulty lay in the fact that we did not have enough cut aways of posed questions to the interviewee. This meant that I had to use a more creative way of editing using more archive footage to lay over the posed questions. Despite this, I think that the use of archive footage looks great within the interview and reinforces the questions in a creative way hopefully keeping the audience interested.

I have learnt that preparing questions for an interview is very important. Reviewing the footage more closely I noticed that my research into Don Foster’s career was very beneficial for the interview. I also noticed in his facial response and body language to our interest in his involvement with the warm front scheme, education ministerial career and comments about the BBC provoked a pleasing response from him and proved that I had done my homework!

Getting to grips with filming - The Don

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The 7th April was a day for correcting our errors and shooting enough film for our cutaways. The interview with Don Foster, the Liberal Democrat MP went well. He answered all the questions in depth which will be a valuable contribution to our film.

Selecting good questions is an important part of the process so that his responses don’t consist of yes and no answers. I think our questions enabled him to answer fully.
To set up the filming we had to work around his small office. Time was obviously important to him and we all realised that organisation and completing filming to time with minimal fuss is very important. Time is money!
We began by filming our interviewee only. We then followed this by recording noddies of both Hannah and Don Foster. We also recorded several over the shoulder shots of Hannah and some of her asking the most important questions.

With the lighting we had to position the camera away from the window and set the white balance. Fortunately the desk was in the right position in the office adjacent to the window allowing reasonable lighting conditions for the interview.
We asked if it would be possible to record the entrance shot of Hannah entering the building which was no problem.

We completed our paperwork with release forms and location agreements after the interview and Don wished us well for the completion of the film. It was a very productive day for filming. Now, back to editing!

Troubleshooting

There are so many things to remember when shooting on scene that certain parts of the process can be missed out. As part of the film we needed to record various shots of Hannah for continuity and storyline purposes.

Our main problem was that unfortunately during some filming, sound wasn’t recorded in the cutaways. We decided that we would have to shoot them again. As Hannah is the link character in our documentary, we needed to shoot her coming in and out of shot in Bath and her walking in and out of shot in the Rob Mears interview. We also had to remember continuity of wearing the same clothes.

It has been a great learning point for the group that it is important to record more footage than you need even they are pointless cutaways of shop fronts.

At first I believed that you didn’t always need sound for cutaways. Now thinking about the editing process, I think it could be beneficial even if the sound is not needed to include this in the filming. Including sound provides the finished film not only with continuity but also vital atmosphere if needed. This allows for a smooth seamless transfer between sections, without great pauses to panic the viewer.

My collection of newspaper cuttings and articles need to be worked into our completed film. We will do this in the publishing lab by photographing them and editing this into our final cut. Sourcing archive footage is also proving to be quite a problem. It is difficult to gain permission as people who have obtained and uploaded the videos to the internet often don't know where they have obtained the footage. I am not sure how much of our research material we will be able to use but am hopeful we could include as much as possible to create a more varied and interesting documentary.

Diary Dates

We have several dates that will move the project forward. On 7th April will be our interview with the Liberal Democrat MP Don Foster at his Bath office. The morning of 8th April is an opportunity for a lighting and grip demonstration. This will be useful for knowing what lighting will be needed in Don’s office for recording.
After the Easter break on 26th April we will be meeting. This is followed on 30th April by the rough cut of the film ready for final hand in at 4pm 6th May.

Green Gauge - Change to Documentary

As media students I suggested that it would be a good idea if we made the documentary more personal to us. The whole group decided upon making the documentary based around a member of our team.

It was quickly decided that this would be Hannah. The point of using Hannah as a direct subject gives an emotional tie with the audience keeping them interested in what’s happening. It also allows a stronger story line and variety in shots keeping the audience keen regarding the new visuals.

We are in the process of getting shots of Hannah outside the interview buildings and doing a piece to camera on her opinions after the interview.

Group Project (GGE) - Are British workers losing jobs to foreign workers?

The group project is going well with several meetings to move the project forward. Our schedule has enabled us to divide up the project allowing me to research newspaper articles, video footage and formulate some questions for our contributors.

After wading through past newspapers from November last year I found several articles about the use of foreign workers, photographs and headlines showing immigrant queues and articles about the growth of the BNP within several sections of our community including the police.

I was also interested to find articles about buildings, such as schools and redundant offices being occupied as homes with reduced rents. This helps people on low income find a home and reduces the vandalism of large buildings within the community. We hope to be able to use this information in our video.

Finding video footage was a more challenging task. I began by researching the BNP. Youtube provided some ‘interesting’ footage of Nick Griffin, the BNP leader at a red white and blue social gathering. I looked into the ITN news footage of the 1980s miners’ strike. These images could also be useful. I also researched the BBC motion gallery and Huntley Film archive but the footage has to be purchased as it is copyright. I will have to look into copyright issues if we want to use any of this material. I am also interested in the music that we will use. The music ‘Jerusalem’ is often linked to Nationalism as well as the music used for the Women’s Institute!

I also found:
Carl Orff's - O’fortuna = which could be used as an introduction for the piece.
Lee Dorsey - Working in the Coal Mine = related to the miner strike
Labi Siffre – something inside so strong ?
Bernard cribbins – hole in the ground ?

One of our contributors is Bath's Liberal Democrat MP, Don Foster. An interview has been set up for 7th April at his offices. We all have been thinking of questions to ask him. Here are a few of my thoughts.
So that our video can be different to others I thought that we could ask questions from our perspective as media students soon to be in the job market. This makes the film personal and has more of a direct focus.

My proposed questions for Don Foster Bath Lib Dem MP interview

As a supporter of the ‘warm front scheme’ in tackling fuel poverty,
how do you think that this has helped families to budget in the current recession?

As spokesman on education in the 1990’s,
How do you think education will help people to get better jobs for the future?

Avon and Somerset police missed out on 12 million pounds funding equating to 300 police officers.
Do you think that crime has increased in Bath because of the recession?

As media students and soon to be entering the job market,
what do you think of the BBC budget cuts and its impact on the independent production sector?

Do you know what proportion of the Bath community are foreign workers?
What sort of jobs do they do in this locality?
Do you think that local people resent foreign workers?

We are finding out about the growth of nationalism,
What do you feel about the increase popularity of the British National Party?

The Pitch - 12th March 2009

The writing of the pitch focussed our minds on making our subject interesting, engaging and to show that we had thought through our ideas clearly.
We divided our pitch into sections for us each to read out. This injected pace into the reading.

I put over the fact that the number of foreign workers entering Britain may be sparking greater support for the British National Party which is the central focus in our programme. I also explained in the pitch how we were going to use interviews as well as statistics in our film.

In our pitch we tried to get over the fact that although this subject is very topical and has been aired before, our video will be different because we will be getting up to the minute views of the public, locally in Bath. We will bring a new dimension to the subject because it will be produced by young people and it will portray this section of society’s views. We also aim to make this current, as we will be visiting a public meeting about the recession that I saw advertised in the University.

I think that our pitch went well and I am looking forward to working on my role which will be collecting archive footage, taking notes at the public meeting, finding archive and current newspaper research, recording and editing suitable music for the video.

Making A Video Project - Ideas

We began with our first production meeting where we brainstormed ideas for the documentary video project. We discussed several ideas such as the increase of tattooing in society, healthy eating and people’s opinions about food. The idea I was particularly interested in was the prevalence of diabetes in our country. I wanted to make a film about this as I am type one diabetic and often personal experiences make for the most interesting documentaries. However, on this occasion it was decided by the group that Rich had come up with an interesting documentary idea which would raise a question about the recent recession by asking ‘Are we becoming a more nationalistic country due to recession?’ We want to make a documentary that is relevant to today.

This will involve looking at past recessions by reviewing archive footage, researching current newspaper articles, interviewing the public by means of vox pops and supplementing the narrator led video with facts and figures.
Hannah drew up a production schedule in order to organise our time efficiently which details tasks for pre and post production to ensure tight scheduling and a clear overview of the whole project.

My initial reaction to this idea was not very positive, but the more I have researched the subject through newspaper articles, talking to people over fifty about previous recessions I am now quite enthusiastic about the video that we will make.