Presentation of 2 min film

We have now presented the film and have received feedback on the piece and taken into consideration what was said so this can be reflected in our 10 minute film. I greatly enjoyed seeing other people work, in particular the morris dancing, t-shirt and the poetry documentaries.  

Post production on 2 min piece

Editing has been finished on the post production. while I only had minor part in the picture edit as I was asked my opinion on it before it was picture locked, I had a far more substantial role in the sound edit as I was the sound editor. for this project I had to do such this as clean up the interview sounds and cut them so they sounded cleaner, I also spent a large amount of time working on lowering the noise of the scene involving singing as the peak noise of the scene fluctuates frequently. my final challenge in the sound edit was editing the audio so it not only sounded nice but also had audio of the director directing his cast hearable, as this documentary is focused on the behind the scenes crew and what goes into that, i felt it was important to be able to hear the director at work without it sounding too strange to the viewer, though this was a challenge I feel I pulled it off.

More filming

We have been filming more rehearsals which have been going well and have been able to get interviews with the director, producer, stage manager and the production assistant. we hope to use some of these interviews in our 2 minute and 10 minute piece to help explain not only what seussical is but explain some of roles and responsibilities of the crew behind the scenes.

Filming begins

We Have begun filming for the documentary. For this documentary we have had to film at the rehearsals for the "Seussiacal" musical, as I am in charge of sound for this project, I have had a large challenge in finding a way to record the rehearsals general atmosphere and singing/acting, whilst also being able the focus the sound recording on people who may be of interest. I was able to get over this problem by using the cameras the record the general atmosphere whilst using a mirantz and sennhieser microphone to record anyone or anything i wanted to focus on, namely the director and producer.

Doc watched: Lost in La Mancha

This week I have watched the  Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe documentary Lost in La 
Mancha. the documentary follows acclaimed writer and director Terry Gilliam has he tries (and fails) to make a film entitled The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. The film focuses on production and the production team and how everything that could go wrong did go wrong.      

I chose to review this documentary as i feel a documentary focussing on the production and the production team is a good research for my documentary on the production and production team of a musical. I also felt that the use of certain scenes could be emulated in our documentary, for example there are scenes that are simply production meetings and Terry Gilliam looking at paper work and timetables, however these scenes still come off as interesting and fun to watch if we can make our audience feel the same during similar scenes in our documentary then we would be on track to make a excellent piece. it is also useful to note how the documentary is able to capture everything that goes wrong, this is something we hope to copy into our documentary as it is of course well known that documentaries and films in general are interesting when there is large conflict driving the plot.

Over all I really enjoyed the documentary and would love to create something similar.   

Test shoot and pitch

This week me and my group were able to film some test footage of a Seussical rehearsal. the shoot went well with all the footage looking and sounding great.

the test footage was shown during our pitch to help give an idea of our intentions. I feel the pitch went well as we were able to clearly explain our idea and intentions as well as show proof we can get it done. I also feel that the use of a clip from the nations best am dram was a strong choice as it worked well and was very similar but still different to our idea.

Doc watched: Donor unknown

This week I watched the indie documentary, Donor Unknown. It is a feature length, light hearted documentary about group of children from all over the united states of america who have the same sperm donor as their father. the documentary focuses on the children, how they found out about their father,how they met each other, and also what the father himself is like.

The donor himself Jeffery Harrison is shown to be an upbeat and artistic man who happens to also be a drug addict living in a motorhome, the story shows that even though jeffery donated simply out of a need for money he has met up and communicated with his children several times and is ultimately a good person.

The style of Donor Unknown is very much an observational piece with no presenter or interviewer shown on screen. however the contributors to the documentary all talk to the camera and the films audience. I like this style of documentary as it feels to me as if what we are being told is a much more personal secret by the contributed and the viewer rather than information wormed out by a presenter. I also enjoyed the tone of the piece as for the most part everything is presented in a bright optimistic fashion.

Overall I enjoyed the documentary and feel it could be a great influence on my own work in the future such as the documentary I make in this module

sources:
http://www.donorunknown.com/