In term 2 for Creative Media Production Project we were
learning about and analysing documentaries, what techniques make a documentary
and then finally to create our own documentary. The brief was called Liverpool
stories and we had to research things that were going on in Liverpool to
eventually spend a few days through there to get the filming done. We had to
work in a group of 6 and with people who you have not previously worked with,
and delegate a role to each person. In my group there was Ryan Goff as
producer, Olivier Chevalley as director, Jake Thompson as camera operator,
Elliot Carroll-Dunn as Sound recorder, Heather Hall as editor and myself as
Sound editor. In our first group meeting we all met in the library and started
to individually do some research on what could be interesting to make a
documentary from. We did this individually so that there was more chance of us
having a lot of stuff to choose from. I started my research on the news
websites around Liverpool for example ‘Liverpool echo’ where I tried to find
some current events that would be rich enough with information for us to make a
documentary out of. It was a lot more difficult than I originally thought as
many of the news stories were either not interesting enough to get enough stuff
for a 5 minutes film, or it just wasn't going to be possible to film. Instead
of looking through news sites what we all then done was sit round a table and
think of interesting hobbies, and then looked on line to see if there were any
companies that done something to do with this. For example we had looked at
things like gaming, skateboarding, bike riding (bmx or mountain bikes), etc.
After finding a few that seemed quite interesting, Ryan contacted quite a few
places to see if he could get any responses before we had to pitch two ideas to
the tutors and other students a week later. What was disappointing about this
was that we didn't really get any responses, not even to kindly tell us no and
give us a reason. Eventually Ryan had got in contact with a guy called Chris
via his facebook group for a company called re-cyles. Just in time for the
pitch Chris got back to us and sounded really excited about the idea, and the
company he works for had a really good back story that we could make a good
documentary about. What their company does is fix broken bikes and can even
teach you how to do it yourself for free. They used to have a workshop under
the student union but without any notice the union got renovated and they had
to move. They ended up working out of a shed in a yard in the middle of housing
estates in Liverpool just outside the centre, where they still worked for free
every weekend fixing the locals bikes. We loved the story and so did the tutors
as this idea was picked over the free running documentary. I think that one of
the faults my group had was that we didn't meet for many meetings before we
went to Liverpool, so when it finally came to going I wasn't too sure on how we
were actually going to go about filming it. Although my role was the sound editor,
it would have still been a good experience to have some say in what we film and
to have a go at filming stuff, which eventually I did get to practice on a
couple shots. But I still feel like I wasn't really heard which resulted in me
not really knowing what to say when we were on set which wasn't ideal as both
myself and heather felt quite out of place. The guys we met were however really
nice and all had great personalities and so much passion for what they were
doing. On the day we done the interviews we got more than enough sound from
about 5 of them explaining their individual story of what happened to re-cycles
and their old workshop. Jake, Olivier and Ryan all took some really nice shots
too and done well with using a steady cam, which in the edit ended up looking
really good on the shots of them riding down the streets. There were also a lot
of tracking shots used in the film but they were all really nice and the use of
the interview shots really mixed it up. When it came to me working at my role, which
was the first time I had done any sound editing before, I feel like there was
more I could've done. When we first got back to the edit suites Elliot and I
went through the sound clips he had recorded and pick out sounds of bike
wheels, gears, tools and gravel of the bikes on the ground. And I edited a
10-12 second piece of these sounds to go at the beginning of the film to set
the film up for the topic we were filming. But the rest of the sound track was
made by someone who had got in contact with Ryan who created music and wanted
to do something on one of Ryan’s project. His work was really good and fit well
with the tone of the film so we ended up going with his sound for the film,
which I had no problem with as I wouldn't have been able to create something
close to that especially within the time-scale we had. Overall I think that the
film as a visual piece looked amazing and some of the shots were really nice
and we had the pace of the film right, with the music fitting in perfectly,
only maybe a little loud at certain points. But we lost the narrative, and the
important part of the story of re-cyles, which is what, would have made the
documentary better since it’s such a unique story of so much passion.
The last project of the year is Drama and the requirements
on the brief are to make a 5 minute drama about ‘journey’. Like the last
project we had to find people that we hadn't worked with for Documentary and
again we were to work in a group of six with the different roles as the
previous project. In my group there was Oliver Guy as director, Louise Bailey
as producer, Rose Ryk as cinematographer, Hannah Grencis as sound recorder,
Adam Young as sound editor and myself as Visual editor. From the beginning this
group I feel was a lot more organised in the way that we had a lot of group
meetings that sometimes lasted for quite a while to discuss the film. On the
first meeting Oliver already had an idea, which was going to be a journey in a
person’s mind who is suffering from agoraphobia, and the journey would be how
far they get with getting over their phobia. Everyone agreed on this idea as we
all could imagine how it would look and liked the idea of having quite a slow
paced film with lots of soft focus shots, which Rose was enthusiastic about
filming. The first issue we managed to get over was finding an actor to fit the
profile we wanted, as we thought the film would look better with an older male,
preferable in his 40’s as this gives us more narrative to work with as he would
have more life experience. Oliver also liked the idea of his having an army
background as something that could trigger his phobia. We thought it was going
to be difficult until we found out about a website called ‘StarNow’ which has
profiles of actors of all ages, many willing to work in student films where
they wouldn't be getting paid. Louise uploaded a post onto the website with a
synopsis of the film and received a response from an actor called Jonathan, who
lived about a 40 minute drive away from Sheffield. However we then had the
problem on the set as we needed just one room, but couldn't use a bedroom in
student accommodation, so Oliver said we could use his bedroom. The problem
with this was that he lived in Halifax, which would mean all of us would have
to travel there and either find accommodation or stay at Oliver’s, which wouldn't be ideal space wise. This would also cost us a lot more money as this
would mean Jonathan has further to travel and might not want to travel that far
each morning for two maybe three days, but so far this was our only option.
However while having a meeting with Lee about how to best approach Jonathan as
this would be our first time meeting an older and experienced actor to work on
one of our projects, he told us about a room in a nursing home that would be
free for us to use. The whole ground floor of the nursing home just out of the
centre of Sheffield has just been renovated so there are no residents on that
floor and there were multiple rooms for us to choose from to use. This helped a
lot and was practically a bare room for us to decorate with as many props as we
needed. It also was a lot easier to take equipment over in a taxi instead of on
a train, as we had a lot, and made it a lot easier for Jonathan too. One thing
about Jonathan that helped us a lot is that he explained to Louise that he was
interested in this project as he used to suffer from panic attacks himself, and
he gave us some very helpful tips on how you behave when you have a panic
attack. He was also really easy to work with too and very laid back when it came
to us all discussing what to do next. Overall I think as a team all of us
worked really well together, Oliver and Rose took on other peoples input during
the filming and we all had a say in what we thought worked well and what didn't and I think this made the experience much better. Setting the room up was also
fun as we got to transform the room into what we wanted, hanging posters up,
and throwing rubbish around the room to help make it look more lived in. After
the two days of filming we were happy with what we had got and thought we had
everything we needed. However after the Easter holidays when I came back to do
editing I found that we actually could've done with having a lot more shots
than what there was. These were mainly cutaways or different angels of certain
shots of Jonathan moving from one place to another, just to help make the film
make more sense. I liked the shots we had got and they looked really nice, but
I was worried that people who had no idea what the film was about, weren't going to understand it. For example the shot before the credits is of him
looking out the window (to the camera) and putting a party hat on and blowing a
whistle, as today is meant to be his birthday, and I don’t think that is going
to make sense to people as we never shot cutaways of the birthday candles, and
only briefly see the calendar with the date circled. The editing went well I
think, and Jonathan was a good actor that would walk on the same foot all the
time and use the same movements which made it a lot easier to edit. I had to
use colour correction on a few shots but not too drastically and also a
stabilizer on a couple, which helped a lot and worked really well. Overall I
think the film is good, and had the potential to be a really good film. I just
think that we made a 10 minute film, which resulted in us having to get rid of
shots or shorten them down, which could've helped more towards the film making
sense to the audience.
