Week Ten - Poetry Documentary (18/04/13)

In today's session, we started off by being told some further research topics that we could include on our blogs, these topics were:

• Bullet Time (The Matrix)
• The Special Effects used in Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey
• Side by Side Documentary

After that, we spent the rest of the session going through our documentary project that we are creating for the Moving Image Production - Narrative module. I started off by showing Chris the very first assembly that I had put together the day before and then he spent the rest of the lesson going through with us everything that we need to do this the project. 

We started off by looking at the process of editing the documentary. The process that we came up with was:

• Paper Edit
• 1st Assembly 
• Only interviews with Addie 
• 2nd Assembly 
• Cut down interviews 
• Add interviews with other people
• 3rd Assembly 
• Add voiceover or graphics to tell the facts
• Could possibly have a beginning middle and end at this point
• Rough Cut 1
• Add cutaways and the Escape poem
• Rough Cut 2
• Add a new voiceover or graphics to suit the footage
• Add music
• Rough Cut 3
• Pacing
• Intro and Outro
• Fine Cut 1
• Record voiceover in sound booth
• Fine Cut x ?
• Continue to add fine tune the cut

This structure taught me a lot, because whilst going through it, we were speaking about the elements that each section included.

One thing that I learnt was to use the interviews for the feelings, emotions and engagement with Addie and to use voiceover or graphics for the facts in the piece. This made a lot of sense to me after thinking it through with the footage that we have got and I think it would be a very good idea to add a voiceover. Also, Chris mentioned to use a girl's voice for the voiceover so that way we would have two entirely different voices. I thought this was also a good idea because that way, people won't get bored of hearing a similar tone of voice throughout the piece. 

I found out that the ratio for vox pops in a documentary is 10:1, meaning that for very 10 vox pops that are recorded, only 1 of them may be useable. 

We also spoke about the poem that we would like to use throughout the film called The Escape Movement. The entire poem was 3 minutes and 30 seconds so it wouldn't work if we just put the poem in there on a locked off shot as Addie spoke it for us. We decided that it would be a good idea to still use the entire poem but cut it up into sections to use throughout the film. I think this will work very well and am looking forward to placing the poem into the film.

After looking at the process of the film, we went on to structure our film. After a lot of talking and moving pieces around, we decide on a structure. The structure we decided on was:

• 0:00 - 01:00 - Introduction and Escape poem
• 01:00 - 03:00 - Bedroom Interview - Introduce himself, Passion, Brotherhood
• 03:00 - 04:00 - Park Scene and Interview - Inspirations
• 04:00 - 06:00 - Gorilla Poetry Night - Vox Pops - Performances
• 06:00 - 06:20 - Brotherhood Montage
• 06:20 - 07:20 - Riverside Poetry Night
• 07:20 - 07:50 - Golden Hour, Ending Scene - Future of Poetry in Sheffield

I think that the structure that we came up with will suit the film very well, getting our point across well.

We then finally went our a schedule for the next week up until the deadline of the film. 

Overall, I thought that this session was extremely helpful. I feel a lot better about the project now, knowing that we have a clear structure of the film and we know exactly what needs to be done and when it needs to be done by. I aim to have rough cut 3 done by next Thursday to show Chris in the session again to get his feedback one more time before the deadline on the 29th April.