Introduction to the course

In the first workshop of the course I was informed what was going to be taken place over the following weeks, shown examples of existing work and was introduced to camera angles that would be suitable for my project. It was explained that over the course I would be creating a short documentary of less than 4 minutes in a group of me a three others, consisting of either a theme of a specific place or person. I was also informed that the documentary had to be either an observational or participatory styled piece. As I haven't studied documentaries before, I was unfamiliar with these terms. However, the terms were explained in class before I was shown examples of short documentaries that fell under these genres. An observational documentary is where the camera is an 'invisible' observer  whereas a participatory documentary refers to a camera silent observer but its presence is evident to the film viewer. The examples of documentaries shown were also used to give me knowledge of camera angles that work well in documentaries and what ones don't. For example, when doing a shot of interviewing always make sure to get their whole face, as in one of the documentaries there is a shot of the subject talking and it is so close up that his chin is cut off the shot. Also, I learned that when doing an interview shot that the subject should be looking as close to the camera as possible without it looking forced or them focusing on the fact that the camera is there, in order to avoid this, when asking questions to the subject I should stand next to the camera to allow them to make eye contact with me- drawing their eyes away from being directly at the camera which could cause them to be nervous.