MOVING IMAGE PRODUCTION NARRATIVE MODULE
EVALUATION
PROFORMA
YOUR
EVALUATION MUST BE 2000 WORDS IN LENGTH AND MUST ADDRESS THE POINTS BELOW -
PLEASE NOTE THIS IS AN INDIVIDUAL PIECE OF WORK.
1.
CRITICALLY REFLECT ON YOUR FINISHED FILM AND IT'S STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES -
ANALYSE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHAT YOU INTENDED TO DO AND WHAT YOU HAVE
ACTUALLY ACHIEVED. (APPROX 600 WORDS)
Our
completed documentary “Urban Exploring” has turned out very similar to our original
idea, I feel it works well as an instructional and emotional piece that has a
very specific and easily felt tone that was one of our main aim throughout. My original
idea of the film was a little different, the visuals are pretty much the same however
I expected the interviews to be manipulated so that they sounded as though they
were recorded on the shoot and aid them at the time. Although this was not the
end product I think it gave the piece a more poetic and artistic feel which
lends itself well to the subject material. Overall one of the strengths of the
film are the visuals, the poetic and artistic imagery was something that we
tried really hard to put across and I think it has paid off. It is clear when
watching the film that we have carefully considered the composition, lighting,
focus and all aspects of mise en scene to create visually engaging material.
One
of the disadvantages of our film is that whilst the focus on artistic images
fits the subject well and our specific subjects, our social actors, are clear,
understandable and friendly not showing their faces or actual interactions with
things forces an emotional wall between the audience and subjects themselves. The
lack of sync sound, the lack of character and the lack of commonality between
most audience members and the subjects all work against the film giving the
audience less and less to identify with. The emotional connection instead comes
from the locations and the tone that defines the film comes from the abandoned appearance
and general loss conveyed by the images. The audience also instead identify
with the sense of exploration and nostalgia of being in dark abandoned buildings,
it appeals to the dark rebellious childhood in which the audience too participated
on some level with some kind of “urban exploration”. I think we missed a trick by not getting any
stories about them in the locations we were actually in, one of the best parts
of the film is when one contributor talks about something he found in Stanley
Tools our third location, we should have expanded on this throughout the
documentary and used more of their stories.
I
think the sound aspect of the film is another one of its strengths, I feel that
the general ambience of the soundtrack perfectly articulates the emotional
feeling the visuals convey, the creepiness and emptiness it adds help to
poeticise the piece. A disadvantage as I have already said is the lack of sync
sound, again it makes the film more poetic but makes it harder to identify with
the situation and the subjects, I think the choice not to use it has strengthened
the piece on the whole as the poetic feeling is coherent through sound and
camera. I feel we could have added to the soundscape of the film by using
industrial sounds to articulate parts of the camerawork and speech whilst keeping
the slightly creepy atmosphere created by the sound track and adding relevant
and poignant foley.
I
am extremely happy with our end product, as the camera man I feel I had a
particularly large amount of room to experiment with the form and shot setup,
the freedom the subject allowed me helped me and our director create such
haunting, engaging visuals. Our original plan was to explore urban exploring
and I think we achieved it in an interesting way that does connect well with
audiences. One of my favourite things about it is how after watching it almost
everyone has said "I remember this one time I was in an abandoned building
like that..." glad audiences can actually identify with it, although that
was not a reaction I had at first expected it is definitely one of the films
biggest strengths.
2. REVIEW THE PROCESS OF MAKING THE WORK AND WHAT
YOU HAVE LEARNT FROM IT. (APPROX 400 WORDS)
The
first and possibly most important thing I learned from this documentary is that
having a lot of footage is always a good thing., in past projects I have
undershot, in this one we spent a lot of time shooting and got lots of cutaways
and experimented with focus, ISO and lighting to ensure that we had enough
footage and it paid off. Not only that but the planning and discussion of
camerawork and overall tone was extremely helpful, the conversations I had with
Stephen Maclean our director informed the expression of the film and was always
at the back of my mind when setting up a shot.
Whilst
filming a poetic short to inform the final piece was a module necessity I think
the process allowed us to play with the form a little before committing to a
specific idea. It allowed us to try out narrative and camera techniques we may
have been afraid to use without testing. The process of experimenting with the
material before committing is one I would repeat in the future, our documentary
would not have been as strong without it.
Another
central thing to our planning and filming process was our reccies, we looked at
5 locations before shooting 4 of them a few days later. This gave us the chance
to plan for time, for shot set ups and for equipment. The shot planning was extremely
important, whilst I do not work particularly strongly from shot lists they gave
me an opportunity to plan some of the more complex shots which reduced the
amount of time it took for setup. The reccie also just gave me some time to get
comfortable with the surroundings and let the visuals sink in, I found that the
things I remembered from the reccie, the features of the building that stuck in
my mind were the things I wanted to shoot. In some cases it wasn’t until a few
day after the reccie I realised I had paid so much attention to a hanging piece
of wood or a specific piece of graffiti, without the reccie I may never have
shot those images at all.
Technically
I learned a lot about how to use DSLR’s, about ISO’s and F stops and how
manipulating them alter the light qualities, although I knew about these things
I paid more attention to their specific functions within this piece of work
than ever before. I also improved my skills with a track and dolly, I had used
them once before but the extent of their use in this piece is one of the
defining features of the third section of our film and the specific framed
stopping and experimenting with the starting points for the camera helped me to
learn a lot about what is aesthetically pleasing and what just doesn’t work.
Throughout
this project I have learned how beneficial planning can be, whilst previously I
have strived to do more planning this time I felt the benefits thus reinforcing
their importance. I have learned valuable planning and shooting lessons throughout
this project and feel my camera skills will strongly benefit from those
lessons.
3. DISCUSS YOUR INDIVIDUAL CONTRIBUTION TO MAKING
THE WORK, YOUR APPROACH TO GROUP WORK AND ANY PROBLEMS OR CHALLENGES YOU
ENCOUNTERED WORKING AS PART OF A TEAM. (APPROX 400 WORDS)
I
feel our whole group was dedicated and worked well together, we all performed
our jobs to a high standard and that comes across in our final piece. Although
in the planning stage there were a few cases of communication break down I
think by the time we were shooting everyone had a strong sense of the final
goal and felt as though they were working as part of a whole rather than individuals
within a project. I feel as our projects subject was partially about visual
shots and we focused a lot on camera work my individual contribution to the
final project was extremely important.
Before
shooting we decided that both me and Stephen Maclean would shoot the
documentary, having two cameras shooting as often as possible, this meant we
could get a lot of footage even if we were pressed for time. Originally I was a
little worried that Stephen’s work as a camera man and director would allow him
to get the most important shots or even effect whose images were in the final
edit most. However whilst working on location with Stephen and in the planning
stages we were both clear about what and how much we wanted to shoot, on
location we developed a kind of short hand and were able to get the job done efficiently,
this gave us time to have fun and experiment, benefitting out final project.
Stephen’s helping with the camerawork is greatly appreciated, I feel we had the
same images in our head and appropriately consulted with each other on shots resulting
in a high quality of carefully considered work.
As
I was so interested in the work and invested in the camera work I would have
liked to have been part of the editing process however after hearing that thing
in the editing room were a little tense with too many opinions already working
against each other I decided to leave the editing to Stephen and Allie our
editor. After watching the final product I am really happy with the edit, I
wonder where a few shots have gone but Im sure there are good reasons for not
using them.
I
would be very happy to work with this group again. Our project was well planned
and well executed, this is one of my favourite projects to date, I enjoyed
making it and have enjoyed watching the final product.
4. WITH
REFERENCE TO THE TEXTS GIVEN IN SESSIONS AND THE MATERIALS ON THE READING
One
of thee most influential texts I have read has been Bill Nichols’ Introduction to Documentary which covers
many of the basics of the documentary genre, whilst we did not specifically set
out to create a particularly poetic piece our film definitely falls into the
modes of poetic and expository, we shed light on the specific hobby of urban
exploring through a mainly poetic approach. I feel ethically (a big factor for
Nichols) we treated our subjects fairly, their only specific wish was not to be
identifiable and I think we were vague enough with their images that they could
not be identified by a third party. Other than that there were no ethical
debate about the documentary, we considered the morality of trespassing but
decided it was worth the risks. I think as far as “representing” the world in
the same a lawyer may represent his clients interests (Nichols p41) I think we
do well to present the “case” for urban exploration as an interesting and valid
hobby, as a victimless crime that is pleasurable and should be viewed as such,
not as the actions of a criminal nuisance. As far as Nichols’ “three way
relationship” between film maker, subject and audience the film is clearly I talk about them to you whilst we don’t
have a presenter or voice of god narration it is clear we have a positive view
of the “urbexers” and it is that opinion we are representing and shedding light
on.
Another
text I have read is Stella Bruzzi’s New
Documentary, in chapter 2 Narration
Film and its Voice Bruzzi talks about the use of narration, whilst we have
not used “voice of god” narration our interviews, without subjects faces, non
synch and without audible questions have many of the qualities of voice of god
narration. She describes narration as a technique which “emphasizes
the unity, and imaginary cohesion of it various elements; so the dominance of
the narration covertly seeks to emphasise the incontrovertibility of the images
by refusing to dispute and doubt what they depict”. Whilst she ignores
this traditional narration and focuses on documentaries that break that
convention it is clear that our documentary uses interviews in the same
narrative way many films use voice over narration. Although we do not deviate
from that classic narration the fact that it is all actually interview saves it
from being too conventional and boring, the narrative they put across is personal
and unpolished unlike a voice of god narration.
One of the most
influential films for me as the camera man throughout the project was Regen
(1929 Joris Ivans) the poetic imagery of this film informed our own
poetic and final films greatly. The poetic side of our documentary is very
similar, carefully shot, using almost only a collection of cutaways and mainly
creating a general tone more from images and tone than from spoken content. I
feel that we could easily remove the spoken side of the documentary and not
lose too much content, create a piece even more like Regen however the
influence of more conventional documentary is obvious in our use of interview
to tie together the “evidentiary editing”(Nichols p30).
I think that we
have created a fairly poetic conventional documentary, we do not break any
specific conventions or challenge the form however we have used the poetic and
the expository modes of documentary well to create an interesting piece about
urban exploring.
Bibliography
1. Nichols B. (2001). How do documentaries differ from
other types of film. In: Introduction
to documentary. usa : Indiana
2. Bruzzi S. (2000). Narration, The Film and its
Voice. In: New Documentary. USA and Canada
3. Ivans J. (1929) Regen.
Netherlands
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