shooting of our documentary
Overall we had two days of shooting our documentary: the first day in hospital and the other day in Paul's(our second charactor) house.
As a DOP I am in charge of setting lightings and assist director choose the camera angles. In the first shooting day our location is a office in royal melbourne hospital and an recording room in there. When I was writing the treatment, I think the lighting in the office maybe good, because there are natural lightings from the windows and artificial lightings from the room. But when we get there, the lighting is quite different from what I expected before. The lighting in the office is not good as the windows covers by another building's wall, so I decided to set up an Kino as the key light. We do not want use the light directly face the interviewee, we want a soft light because we are talking about a possitive thing . Because we forget to bring an reflector which helps to reflect lighting on charactor's face, so I made the key light face the wall in order to have some reflective lighting on the interviewee's face. The second location is a sound recording room, its big but no windows, we were filming the charactors sing in this place and recall their old good memories. In the sound recording room , I used two types of light equipments, a kino and two dido, Kno as the key light and dido as back light. The two interviewees sit in the centrer of screen so each dido face theri back , which make they looks like in the spot light.
The second day of shooting we went to Paul's home. It is a beautiful place with a big floor-to-celling window. So the lighting is quite nice, but the day was a rainy day, so I still need to set up one light to make the room bright enough to film.
In both shooting days I also did sound after set up the lighting. I hold the boom during shooting. It was my first time do sound, I learned how to place the boom to get the best sound resources. And it is really need to be strong to do this job!
Overall, I am in a good team, everyone help eachother doing their jobs, turns out that the result of our footages are really nice. Hope we will have a nice editing process as well.
Expository documentary review – Nanook of the North and Land without Bread
To make a good documentary it is better to watch some classic documentarries. So I choose Nanook of the North (the first full-length documentry in film history) and Land withour Bread as my learning resources. And reviews some points accoring to Nichols,' "Introduction to Documentary" .
In modern society, movie has been used by people as a format of expressing feelings, telling stories, documenting historical events, etc. To make a good film needs a good script, professional actors, refined and appropriate costume and make up, logical and careful editing, and good sound effect and music which is help to enhance the emotional expression. On one hand, as a form of artistic expression, movie combines the essence of human technology and culture. On the other hand, movie is initially invented as moving image, and was used as a tool of recording facts. According to Nichols’s Introduction to documentary, he states that all films are documentary, the difference is that one type of film documentaries of wish-fulfilment and the other one documentaries of social representation. Both types tell stories, but the narratives or stories are different arranged. Now most of the filmmakers and film companies tent to make fiction film which is the first type Nichols said. Because fiction film has many interesting story telling and narratives, it has wide range of audiences which are able to make filmmakers both famous and rich. But it does not mean that the second type of film - documentary film is not important. Documentary films intended to document some aspect of reality. The first feature-length documentary Nanook of the North film by Robert J. Flaherty is also a example of ethnographic film. Ethnographic film means a documentary film which aims to document theme of ethnology. It came in the 1960s as an important method for research in the filed of visual anthropology, when filming human groups in society. Human groups such as Australian aboriginal and Inuit. In this essay, there are two parts of discussing about ethnographic film with referring to two landmark ethnographic films which are Robert J. Flaherty’s Nanook of the North and Luis Buñuel’s Land without Bread. In the first part of this essay, it will focus on briefly talk about these two films’ characteristic as documentary film in relation to Bill Nichols’ taxonomy of documentary modes. In the second part, it will discuss the strategies and how the films explore truth of each of these films.
The Expository Mode
According to Bill Nichols’ taxonomy of documentary modes, Nanook of the North and Land without Bread should be both considered as expository mode. As Nichols states that “the expository text addresses the viewer directly, with titles or voices that advance an argument about the historical world. Expository texts take shape around commentary directed toward the viewer; images serve as illustration or counterpoint.” Referring this statement to Nanook of the North, there are many titles as the expository text to show the audiences what is going on in this movie. For example, in the beginning of Nanook of the North, Flaherty uses a preface to explain where, and what things he documented, and how he shot and edited this film. In the first scene of this film, to explain location Flaherty shows a map of north Quebec to audiences. When first introducing main characters of this film, director shows a title of character’s name first and follow by his/her face close-up shot. Such as introducing Nanook and Nyla at the start. It is much difference in film Land without Bread, it filmed ten years after making of Nanook of the North, the filmmaking technologies had developed, so it uses voiceover instead of subtitles. For example, when showin a church to audiences in this film, the voiceover tells that “this is a church”. The titles or voiceover always appears before viewers are able to see the images, it delivers an unproblematic and filmmaker’s subjective account and interpretation of past events. According to Nichols “These films are rhetorical, and try to persuade the viewer. The (voice-of-God) commentary often sounds ‘objective’ and omniscient. Images are often not paramount; they exist to advance the argument. The rhetoric insistently presses upon us to read the images in a certain fashion.” In Nanook of the North, before Nanook doing everything, the titles always comes first to tell viewers what will happen next, and in Land without Bread which is voiceover doing the same job. This characteristic of expository mode narrows viewers’ thought of film, and give them an unexpected story to watch. Technically speaking, using nonsynchronous sound in the expository documentary also because that location sound recording in sync became reasonably manageable round 1960 but expository mode prevailed in 1920s – 1930s.
The editing is used for continuity to link together images which support the argument put forward in the voiceover. “Expository mode generally serves to establish and maintain rhetorical continuity more than spatial or temporal continuity.” Nichols pointes that. As we can see in Nanook of the North, the scene of Nanook and his followers to trade with white peoples, start with they build the boat, then follows by a scene of they carry boat to the bay, next they sail and dry their boots then show that they already finish tread. This scene is not fluent in filming but in a logical order of editing. Otherwise the key word of narrative of expository is suspense. Nichols states that rather than the suspense of solving a mystery or rescuing a captive, the expository documentary frequently builds a sense of dramatic involvement around the need for a solution. Such as film Land without Bread, it is starting with a scene of people celebrating festival at a square than follows by a dramatic change to a poor village, which is strange and unpredictable to the viewers.
What is the differences of making fiction film and documentary – learning reflection
The productions are different in two semesters. In the first semester we made a fiction film, in this semester we are making a documentary.
To make a fiction film we have to write a script whihc means the story is original. But making a documentary, we have to find out what issue or topic we want to film, and then research the interviewees relateds to our topic. So even we choose a topic, but the story is giving by the interviewee. Sometimes documentary(eg.reflective mode) is filming the real person who "perform" themselves in the story, sometimes(eg.performantive mode) we just ask people to perform the story that based on the interviewee gave.
In our production, we focus on talking about Music Therapy, we found a therapist and a cured patient who benifited from music therapy. They are our main charactors we interviewed them and they are telling their story and performanced music in this documentary, so our documentary can be seen as reflective mood and performantive mood. Thus not like making a fiction film that we make some unreal charactors and find actors to be them, documentary is more likely to find the real person tell their real story.
Types of Film Lighting
As DOP I should have know the film lightings well. So I summerized the different types of lights and how they works in filmmaking.
The basic lighting setup for film can be done with three lights: key, fill and backlight. Each light has its own particular function. These three types of lights are usually combined with each other for the desired overall lighting effect. Whichever lights are used, the intent is to simulate the light that might occur under normal conditions in the filming space.
Key Light: The key is the brightest light and casts the primary shadows, giving a sense of direction to the lighting.
Fill Light: The main function of the fill light is to fill in the shadows produced by the key light without casting a distinct shadow of its own.
Backlight: Backlights, sometimes called hair, rim or edge lights, are placed on the opposite side of the subject from the camera, high enough to be out of view.
Set Light: A fourth basic light, the set light, may be used to illuminate the background. Usually the background is partly lit by the key and fill lights, as well as by several set lights.
Sony Ex3 tutorial (learn use new camera)
as I might be dop or camera in my group so its better to familar with new camera before shoot.
Review by DoP and Director, Philip Bloom, of the brand new Sony EX3 camera
Documentary treatment processing
After talking to our tutor this week about documentary treatment draft, we have refined our treatment in these points:
a letter to Emma of the copyright
roles of each person in the group
Documentary Treatment Draft
This week we have to submit our documentary treatment draft.
According to our topic : Music Therapy, we have touched our interviewee which is also the main charactor of the documentary - emma from royal hospital.
And we created a google doc to write our treatment.
Documentary Treatment Draft Link : https://docs.google.com/a/student.rmit.edu.au/document/d/15eSLsF7oiTuQ4rqPEA_tyBVKit5R9ZLk9IZrQSErwnY/edit
Idea of documentay
We are shooting a 6-8 minute documentary that examines the transformative power that music can have on people.
We would like a core part of this examination to be focused on music therapy.
In order to achieve our goals for this documentary, we would like to film the following interviews, scenarios and situations:
* A 30-40 minute interview with a music therapist about the practice of music therapy, why and how it works, success and failure stories, why they work in music therapy, and the impact that music has had on their life.
* A 30 minute interview with at least one patient who is undergoing music therapy to discuss how music therapy has changed their lives and/or condition, what their relationship with their music therapist is and how they interact with, listen to, and play music. If possible we would like to film with up to three patients to achieve a diversity of perspectives, but would be happy to speak with just one if that is all that is possible.
* In addition to interviews with the patient/s, it would be great to film them interacting with music in their preferred ways – listening or playing.
* A 30 minute interview with a family member/friend of the patient to get their perspective on how music therapy has affected the patient’s lives and treatment.
* We would like to film at least one music therapy session in as unobtrusive way as possible. If possible, it would be wonderful to have the opportunity to capture some additional shots between the therapist and patient after the session as required.
Each interview/filming session would involve one camera, and one boom mic recording the sound. There would be a maximum of 5 students taking part in the filming session at any one time, with one on camera, one or two on sound, one directing and one interviewing.
We are aware that there are potential ethical issues surrounding filming patients and potentially sensitive therapy sessions. We seek to take your guidance as to how best minimize the intrusiveness and discomfort that filming may cause for patients and/or therapists.
Short Film Performance Experience
At the beging of semester 2, I participated into a friends' short film. This time I am not a tech guy but a actor which is interesting and challenge. The director's name is Alice,a advance diploma media student at RMI. Her story is called Fat Boy. The synopsis is that : a fat boy is a nurd at school, he likes the beautiful girl in his class. One day the girl asks fat boy to do her assignment for him, as codition, she has to date fat boy once. However fat boy happen heared that the girl says something bad behind his back. So he decides to change and supprise the girl.
On the shooting day, I can be a actor as can be a DOP which I did before. The processing is interesting and I was inspired a lot. I think as a actor, I have to know not only how to performance also know how the camera will capture you in order to present good at the screen.
Home Page Link : https://alicefu.jux.com/
Film TV 2 – Documentary Concept
It should describe the
concept: focuing on present that a designer who is working on his/her new collection, includes drafts, processing of sewing and finally presenting the collection on the run way.
characters: a fashion designer, his/her collegers, moders, aduences.
location: workplace, coffee shop, melbourne city view.
outline the anticipated shape: the audiences will see the beautiful urban landscape of Melbourne and knowing the fashion culturul of this city by focusing on one particular designer or event - Melbourne Spring Fashion Festivel.