CMP Project
The processes used to
create the documentary
In the documentary project I was sound recordist and camera
operator. My initial role was sound editor, however due to circumstances I had
no opportunities to edit sound. This module enabled me to develop my
communication and team skills.
Lecturers initially got us creatively thinking by showcasing
experimental productions such as Pockets,
Skateizan, Eric’s Secrets and The
Archive. These films focused on a particular subject and provided
interesting information. The structure of the films segmented information to
allow the audience digest key information and to keep the audience interested.
The key to the documentaries was to not overwhelm audience with information,
but to present information in a diegetic format that is aesthetically pleasing.
Following these showcases and seminar analyses, we needed to
liaise with other students of the course to identify each other targets and
methods of achieving them. My personal target was to develop my experience in
the sound field. Though this proved difficult from time to time as students
hold different commitments and are in different circumstances, the majority of
students managed to cope and find groups to work in. The group I joined was
founded based on our interests. We all had different aims and skills we wanted
to develop, specific roles would allow us to develop these roles.
Another skill that I developed whilst in this production was
idea development, this group had many ideas, some that would conflict with each
other. We discussed for weeks the idea we would like to follow and some of our
ideas when presented didn’t appeal as much as we thought it would. Our final
idea, which me and Emily had sourced out almost at the same time seemed to be
the most agreeable and interesting of the batch. This did not mean we would
completely dissipate our previous ideas. As a group, we took the most
outstanding and complimentary thoughts from our previous ideas and used them to
assist bringing our final idea to fruition. This meant that everyone, even if
not directly got to contribute in some way or another. By this time, we had
just had Marcus join and we brought him up to speed with the progress of our
idea.
In my opinion, too much time was spent on the idea of the
project and not on the pre-production. This is debatably wrong as the idea
development would fall under pre-production, however I do feel too much time
was centred on the idea and this led to gaps in other segments of pre-production.
I had watched a few films to analyse how sound contributed
and sound techniques that were deployed to produce specific reactions from the
audience. One is the use of atmos to create a naturalistic scene. Others
included the build up to a climax or change.
The production experience was incredible, on the first day
of arriving in Liverpool we met with manager and coach of LHFC to negotiate
terms of our production. We (Emily) communicated in such a way that both
parties found beneficial factors from the end product.
Our documentary was aimed at people who could relate to the
interviewees of the documentary. This means anybody who had been threatened or
experience homelessness. Our secondary audience was the people who are still
homeless, this would be people who fall below F on the socio economic scale.
Our tertiary audience are football lovers and people who hold football as an
interest. This documentary would serve as an inspiring story to enjoy hearing
about football.
The finished piece reaches its goals. We wanted a
documentary that provided key information about the homeless football club. The
documentary was well received by our peers and the football club were happy
with the end result.
The pros are that the group came together and completed a product
we were all happy with. We worked to each other’s strengths and if there were
any concerns, a member of the team would communicate it over to the rest of the
team to attempt to resolve the problem as soon as possible. The days of
production went well as we travelled to different locations to interview
different participants that had come forward. The film is shot and looks really
nice and pleasing to the viewers.
The cons are the production took a little while to get onto
its feet. That time could have been spent getting in contact with more people
in relation to the subject to create a more objective view. Once I had been
away for a little while the crew had stopped communicating regularly to keep
myself up to date with what was going on, so I was unaware of the progress of
the production. Some ideas at the beginning were pushed too hard and I found
previous declined ideas were being reinvented to make them acceptable. The
sound editing could have been a lot better on the end product, I fear less adherence
was made for it once I had left, even though there was more than one sound
editor.
Along the course of this production I developed my skills
into researching. Being given limited amount of time to find a subject that
fits the assignment criteria and brief, forced the group into a situation that
require ourselves to deploy effective search techniques to find a suitable
subject. This included
The processes used to
create the drama
Creating groups for this project proved to be the most
difficult. I had personally noticed that people had started creating circles on
the course and this made it hard for people who were not part of a circle.
Personally I was not part of any circle, I was comfortable around the people I
had worked with previously, but I had not created a social circle.
I started to ask around to see who wasn’t in a group and it
seemed only the people who people found most difficult to work with before were
free to work with. This was a similar scenario for the CMP Production Skills
module. Out of sheer luck I managed to locate a few students who were looking
for group members.
The first group meeting I had missed, because I had a
presentation for the CMP Production Skills module, this left me at a
disadvantage at idea development as an idea had been decided in this meeting.
The meeting that I met the whole group was catch up for myself, as I needed to
understand the concept of the idea. This proved to be very difficult. I was
confused by the explanation of the idea and the concept. After a few group
meetings I finally managed to get on the same page as other group members.
Having a session with floor plans helped me slightly. The
production session was quite useful, I got to see an actor. The main problem
was the communication. Relating back to what I was saying about social circles
on the course, this only made it tense to communicate with people on the course
in seminars and workshops. Sometimes people would want to discuss ideas and
other days they would not or the feeling of segregation would slip in. This
made the workshop session beyond awkward and indigestible, in the end I
requested to leave. The post-production follow workshop really helped. I got to
edit the recorded footage from the day with the actor and the main objective
was to create a sequence that didn’t emphasise the problems that happened in
production. It was very difficult as I faced different problems such as: the
actor saying the wrong lines or the white balance being incorrectly set. Since
there was no ADR or re-recordings of takes the sound limited the sequence. In
the end I decided to edit around the sound also to make the sequence fit. I
inserted pans to support position and darkened the majority of the shot to
conceal unnecessary objects.
As I wasn’t editor for this project it was less useful in
comparison to the actual editor, however it did aid me to picturing how the
drama could look. The sound editing helped me to understand how the sound
editor could piece together the sound. Certain parts of the sequence I would
draw upon sounds from other clips of captured footage to make it flow smoother.
Once the group had drafted a first draft script and met
actors this really helped. The group hadn’t planned on using the actors from
the seminar prior to it, however it seemed that they were most suited for what
we required. The actor who read our voice over dialogue seemed more than
willing to feature in our film so we gave her the role. We got the other actors
to act the argument scene that would feature in the film and it worked out
really well. We offered the male actor the role as we needed an actor for the
scene, however the main character is who he would have an argument so we did
not require the remaining actor.
Our schedule was quite loose, most of the production did not
require definite dates as we had access to most of the locations and facilities
we required. Shooting on the bus required us to get in contact with the bus
provider and ask for clearance. No contact was made and the group had just
randomly set up on a bus we had got on, then recorded. I recorded atmos from
the bus we had boarded. The sound editor had not outlined any specific sounds
they had wanted, so I thought to record anything that peaked my interest and
would be an asset to the production.
One difficulty we had with this production was finding a
pole dancer who could act. The university has a pole dancer society luckily and
members of group were getting contact with people from the society, however
when the days of production approached, the reliability of the pole dancers
decreased and eventually we had to use one of the crew. She was a pole dancer
and actor so it worked, however without her in the group, this would have been
a hard project to commit too.
The pole dancing studio and the living room were easily
accessible. Amy was a part of the society, so this worked in our favour and we
decorated Izzy’s living room to get the look we desired. Whilst sound recording
in the pole dancing studio, I had thoughts about alternative ways recording the
sound of pole dancing. One idea that came to was using the hydrophone with an
end piece whilst Amy was performing on the pole. We only recorded once in the
pole dancing studio, so unfortunately I did not get to experiment with this
idea.
The last hiccup I personally made was with the recording of
the monologue, I had connected the shotgun microphone to Marrantz recorder,
however had forgotten to set it to the microphone. This meant that the majority
of the recording I made were in stereo and only a few were in mono.
To conclude, I have enjoyed creating this product, from the
current progress of the rough draft, not enough adherences have been paid to
the sound. The planning for sound was to eliminate it, which left the group at
a disadvantage. The powerful use of silence will most likely not be utilised.
The film looks nice so far and I believe the final cut will be nice.
Communication was pretty poor, our main point of communication was Facebook and
though the majority of society uses it today, it still isn’t professional or
completely reliable. Important information was either received late or received
at all, because of Facebook. The editor has not kept the group up to date with
edit and as I write this, I have still not seen the final edit.
