Bibliography

1. Living with International Students. Greenwich, London: Viktoria Govedarova, 2016. video.
2. The Ordained Artist. Cedrick Jison, 2016. video.
3. Samuelson, David W. Motion Picture Camera Techniques. 2nd ed. London: Focal Press, 1984. Print.
4. Aufderheide, Patricia. Documentary Film. 1st ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Print.
5. Guzman, Samantha. "The Art Of Storytelling | Hatch Visuals". Hatchvisuals.com. N.p., 2013. Web. 9 Dec. 2016.
6. Aldredge, J. (2016) The 6 types of documentary films. Available at: https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/6-types-of-documentary-film/ (Accessed: 9 December 2016).

Analysis and Evaluation

Since being on this course, I have learned new techniques and skills. Some in particular have helped me create our documentary ‘Diverse Greenwich’. Having tutorials for Adobe software, such as Adobe Premiere Pro and Audition, has not only improved my skills and understanding of making films, but has also helped me understand the technical roles of the industry as well. I have a better understanding of Adobe Premiere Pro which has expanded my technical knowledge as an editor, and made me more confident to try new things whilst editing.

I feel ‘Diverse Greenwich’ was organised very well. Our producer made sure everyone was on schedule and where they needed to be on a particular date. Everyone in the group, including myself, communicated very well to each other. If someone was going to be late or could not make it our producer was always informed. As people we got on very well with each other which caused no disagreements and kept things civil and polite. Personally, I feel my contribution towards the group was satisfactory. I made sure I was complying with the schedule so I was editing when I was supposed to and communicated back to my group the progress I was making. I also contributed ideas for the documentary and made some suggestions to our director and cinematographer of shots we could get for the film.

When we shot the film, we kept the camera rolling whilst they answered all the questions so in the edit it was my responsibility to cut these down and choose the best shots to use in the documentary. This meant making the decision of what to use and what not to use. This also applies to the shots our camera operator had filmed of Greenwich, as I wouldn’t be able to use all of the shots he got I had to make the decision of the ones which would fit best in the documentary and to what the interviewee was saying at the time. It was also my responsibility to create the titles and credits for the documentary, which I learnt how to create in Adobe Premiere Pro.

We experienced some difficulties when it came to shooting as we were on a tight time limit so we had to sacrifice some footage we were planning to get. Some things we had to improvise as we did not have time to get all of the footage we wanted to. For example, we wanted voice overs of international students saying where they were from in their own language but because of the tight schedule we could not film this. Because of this, in the future I would get together with my group and sort out time management better. Also, I would’ve liked to try the ‘Voice of God’ technique for our documentary to set up the narrative more. I feel that our documentary lacked direction and think a voiceover could’ve have aided this.

In regards to the editing, although I applied a lot of skills and enjoyed the process I feel I could have been more adventurous with it. I feel that I could’ve tried more graphics work with the titles and colour corrected the images more. However, because we were going for a simplistic, minimalistic style I think that I complied to this look by using cross fades in and out to keep up the sense of momentum and keeping the colour as natural as possible.

Overall, I am proud of our production and satisfied of how we worked together as a team. Even though there are elements that I would change next time, there are positives that have come out of this experience as well. When I approach my next assignment, I feel I will be better prepared to accomplish the task.

Professional Practice

To make sure everyone was aware of the schedule of filming and editing, our meetings and contact details of the members of our group, our producer made a tables of all of these. In our meetings we discussed when we were filming and editing so we could agree dates together and then our producer wrote these up for us. This avoided any confusion and kept us on track with time. We also filled out risk assessments for the locations where we were filming, so we could make sure every risk was covered and that everyone was safe and aware of all the risks in that particular location.

Our producer filled out a Location Reece Form to make sure that the locations we were filming in were suitable for production, a kit list and a table showing our delegated responsibilities in our group so everyone knew what they were doing for pre-production, production and post production.  

Before filming, we asked our participants to sign a consent form to make sure that they were comfortable to be filmed, and so we had evidence that they had agreed to be filmed. To make sure our film was ethical, we researched issues that might affect our participants and our audience. For example, experiencing a ‘cultural shock’ after moving abroad:

Signs and Symptoms of Culture Shock

• Sadness, loneliness
• Preoccupation with health; aches and pains
• Disturbed sleep pattern
• Mood changes; depression, mood swings, anger, irritability.
• Unwilling to interact with others, withdrawal
• Loss of identity
• Lack of confidence and reduced abilities
• Feelings of paranoia

This may have been something that the interviewees did not want to talk about because they might have experienced this. We did decide to include an interview question about cultural shock just to see if this is something they would be willing to talk about. Fortunately, after going through the questions with them before filming, the participants were happy to talk about their experiences and talk about any cultural shock they had/had not experienced. Other than this, we did not really have a problem with ethical issues. Our interviewees mostly talk about how they feel being in a different environment which they were happy to share, and none of what they say raises any ethical arguments.

Editing is a collaborative process. It is important for the editor and director to work closely together to form the director’s vision. One of the things I have learned from my course is that “the story you go in to the edit with is often not the one you come out with” (Portfolio Production CINE1079, 2016). You have to be prepared and open minded when it comes to editing as what you intended to edit may appear differently. I worked closely with our director so I could make sure the documentary would fit to his image, and to make him aware of what would and wouldn’t work when it came to editing the footage we had shot.

I decided to use Adobe Premier Pro to edit our documentary as we have had training on this in other lectures (Craft and Technology CINE1078, 2016), and so I could build my knowledge of using this particular program. I was going to use Final Cut Pro as I am more familiar with it but as I could not access this anywhere I decided to use Abode Premier Pro. Because of our training in our editing seminars, I felt more confident to use Premier than I did before.

As stated in our proposal, “We will also be playing around with the contrast of the images by enhancing shadows to show some depths and dimensions. If during filming we did not get the correct ‘white’ background check, we will therefore then enhance the brightness and color temperature to create a clean space. As it is based on students and the life of students, we will include a variety of footage cut into the interview, such as; their day to day errands.” Unfortunately, we were not able to get any archive footage or filming of day to day errands as we ran out of time to film these.