Originally our group decided to do a documentary on the subject of memes as it is a subject a lot of people our age can relate to and we already had a decent amount of knowledge on the subject. When we first pitched our idea to the class, the idea was well received, but we were warned that it would be a challenge to balance both aspects of a mockumentary and a typical documentary as we needed to stay professional. And we would soon realise that they were right. Due to our many issues we acquired during this original idea, we quickly decided to change our focus to another topic. I wanted to focus on a subject that could show off our knowledge of cinematography and film making so that we could receive the highest grade possible. Inspired by a Buzzfeed documentary series focused on unsolved mysteries and our previous Burger King project with a similar tone, we decided to create a dark toned essayistic documentary on the Brothers Grimm. We also decided that I would do the narration for the documentary, using a Voice of God technique to enhance the tone and mood. This allows the audience to focus on the imagery and narration more easily, which was the main aim of our production. Overall once we were set on our new idea me and my group were able to act on our assignment to a professional media industry standard.
Final Edit (Left) Schindler’s List (Right)
The main inspirations we used for this project was the opening credits for The Walking Dead. We noticed how they use iconography related to character names on screen when introducing the show and we wanted to use this to our advantage in our own documentary. We also decided to take inspiration from films like Schindler’s List that uses a modern black and white aesthetic to help the audience focus on the dark tone they are trying to set. We also used light elements of comedy which was heavily inspired by Buzzfeed Unsolved which features two co hosts bantering over unsolved mysteries.
Overall Thoughts on the Project
We decided we wanted to go down the route of formatting our documentary in an essayistic style to properly inform our audience on the subject. This was mainly due to us wanting to use a Voice of God narration all while having our footage being used for the overall continuity. I tried to format my script how somebody would almost format an essay with a few twists of comedy. We also wanted a strong correlation between visuals and narration in order to keep our audience engaged and I believe we pulled this off successfully due to our audience feedback.
Before we started designing a storyboard, we decided to script and record our narration so that we would have a decent idea of what iconography to show throughout our film. We felt that doing this the other way round would confuse the overall narrative. Correlation is the key to success.
I believe that due to some of our nature focused imagery, it allows the audience to fill in some of the blanks of the story in their own head. If we decided to make a dramatisation of events then the audience would only be focused on that instead of them inventing their own visuals in their head, which I believe is a lot more creative and important.
Focusing on a darker topic also gave us more inspiration for visuals as it is a much more broad subject iconography wise than comedy in my opinion. This helped me a lot as a director and by that helped Travis and Logan have a better idea on how they should shoot their footage.
I did find that a lot of footage that Travis and Logan had filmed around the church especially was a bit too much and slightly repetitive, however I believe it is always better to have too much than too little.
We wrote down our shot list for the documentary, which for the most part we stuck to. However we did add some extra shots later on in the process. We were able to film down at Tudor Grange Park for some eerie establishing shots of the local nature. We were able to get a variety of angles in our shots so that we would have options for editing which helped us a lot in the long run.
The same day we were also able to grab some shots of their book in Waterstones. Luckily for us they were illustrated which allowed us to tell our story visually as well as verbally. I felt that it was a good idea at the time to grab as many angles and shots as we could at that time so we wouldn’t have to reshoot anything at a later date.
We had a big focus on the mis en scene throughout the production as the imagery had to be strong to convey the story. After the narration we made a long list of potential props we would want to film including the book, twigs, birds and worn down nature. We wanted the props and imagery to deliberately correlate with the narration to create a cohesive story. We also had a shot for the Step Mother which has a bust of a women’s head and a see no evil monkey. We used this iconography to subtly tell the audience that all though somebody on the outside doesn’t look evil, they may have a hidden evil personality. I would probably say that due to having a better idea of iconography for the horror genre it allowed me to plan out different shots than my previous idea.
While filming we always had to keep in mind how these shots would look in black and white. This meant we had to get all the shadows looking aesthetically pleasing before we even started filming which made the process a lot harder but it was ultimately worth it as it greatly enhanced the horror tones we were aiming for. The shots we filmed in the Church and Graveyard only kept the tone even more consistent and created the most eerie atmosphere that we could expect for this project. The lack of colour helped our audience to focus their attention which was clear to me after I showed my film to the class.
The shots in the graveyard were probably our most successful shots we had as they captured the tone perfectly especially considering how much gravestones are associated with many aspects of horror. We were also able to find a feather nearby which we were able to enhance by blowing the grass that it was situated in.
We took the advice from Lee’s lighting workshop to heart when considering our shots. A lot of the shots were outside however making it harder to light. We used the sun as our main light which we enhanced with lights from our phone to give contrast to the shot.
The indoor shots were easier to control for lighting as we were able control the main light, which made filming the rings and Mickey Mouse doll a lot more of a simple task. This being said, I overall prefer the aesthetic of the outdoor shots as the natural light complements them more naturally, however I’m happy with the lighting in most of my footage.
Editing
After using the Final Cut Pro software for a lot of my previous projects, I was more than comfortable to do some basic editing and I was also inspired to try out new techniques to make my project just that little bit more creative. Sometimes when I was in the early stages of editing, I would open up videos that talked about creepy topics. Many of these videos can be credited to YouTuber “LEMMiNO” whose calm Swedish voice enhances the tone. As I was editing next to Logan I was able to share a lot of our ideas back and forth. Travis had already sent me a rough draft of his first edit as he has editing software at home. This greatly inspired me on what clips to use to correlate with the narration. One of my experimental edits that unfortunately didn’t make the cut used a countdown timer effect that I was able to create by displaying a number in the top right corner for a second and then the next number down the second after and so forth. This was initially used to create a sense of humour and Dora the Explorer-esque audience participation. However it just didn’t really suit the tone which was disappointing.
When it came to audio I was early on inspired by sentimental orchestral music as I’ve always found it one of the creepier genres of music. After searching for a while I came across some Game of Thrones inspired orchestral music that fitted with my narration far better than I ever could have expected. The narration was almost too synced up with the music which definitely worked to my benefit and greatly enhanced the tones of horror I was trying to express.
One of my edits greatly inspired Travis’s final edit. I was more than happy for him to do this as he had also helped me a lot construct my first draft and we were constantly exchanging our own unique ideas. Although myself, Travis and Logan used most of the same clips, all of our edits had their own unique creative flair and we were all pleased with how they turned out.
Travis’s Edit (Left) My Edit (Right)
In my feedback I was advised by one of my tutors to avoid using Disney footage in my documentary. However when I talked to many of my peers about wether to remove these clips and replace them with my own footage, a lot of people said that they liked the footage as it helped them to focus on the similarities from both portrayals of the story and reminded them of their childhood and helped to contrast some of the darker tones. After I ran a survey the results told me that most people enjoyed them. I had filmed some extra footage just to stay safe, however as a man of the people I have decided to keep the Disney footage in my final edit.
Thoughts on my Final Project
Overall, I couldn’t be any more pleased with how my edit turned out compared to my attempts on my original idea. It was undeniably a tricky subject for my team to compose a professional standard documentary as we were completely new to the subject before we had started. Now that I have produced my own documentary I have now got a better appreciation for the genre and the effort that goes into them. Due to us being passionate about our work I am probably not the best judge of its overall quality, but what I can say is that I am pleased with the majority of my peers and tutors feedback! Of course our project could do with a few tweaks here and there, but that can be said about most big budget Hollywood movies. Although this was still college work, I believe that me and my team had a lot of fun filming, and I definite highlight was being given a tour of the church and being given permission to film there, and without this project we wouldn’t have had that experience. Even though I think my team was originally divided on the new topic, we were able to pull a lot of knowledge out from our previous projects and come together as a team to produce a well made documentary on an interesting, not well covered subject.
Strengths
I believe that my final edit shows that it has taken inspiration visually, tonally and audibly from all the different topics that I’ve talked about in my research which is something that I expected to be a lot more tricky. However, everything seemed to gel together ultimately. Even though I hate the sound of my own voice, I have been informed by my peers that the narration turned out incredibly well as it gives good contrast to some of the comedic elements and enhanced the overall tone. We were also complimented on our use of mine en scene which I was pleased that people noticed as it took me a while to decide on some of the shots. The pacing of my documentary was also a strength of mine because when the audience was watching it, they were quiet when I wanted them to and laughed loudly at the comedy which I was greatly pleased by. Travis and Logan were also a great help, as without the camera work there would have been a lot more shaky visuals so I am eternally grateful to them.
Weaknesses
Probably the biggest weakness my team faced in the early weeks was when it came to communicating our ideas with one another. This can be contributed to having half term near the start of the project which meant we weren’t able to share our own ideas for the project so some of us had completely different ideas for the final project. I also feel that some of the footage I filmed myself at home was slightly shaky. Unfortunately I don’t own a tripod at home, but even if I did it probably wouldn’t have reached the height I needed for my shots. But luckily Travis and Logan are much more confident than I am with camera work and they did the bulk of the filming.
Improvements
It would have been a lot more productive if we had a solid team plan before starting this project and because we didn’t we lost valuable time. So on the next project I will definitely try my best to work on this. We also lacked a strong idea for our original project which caused a slight divide in our group.
What I’ve gained from this project is the appreciation for the documentary genre of film making as I had never paid it too much attention before now. It has even inspired me to watch Behind the Scenes documentaries on films which gives me a new insight on the media industry in general. And also that sometimes I need to be more honest with myself and speak my mind earlier on if I think an idea isn’t working even it slightly annoys my group. I have been working with Travis on every project since our original trailer project back in September and it is nice to see how much progress we have both made on the subject of film making.
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