Editing Practice Interview

In Week 4 we were instructed to edit together the footage that we shot in the previous week for the practice interview. For a practice interview the cinematography went quite well but there were still problems that we as a group need to work on before our final project such as editing; the editing for this piece was very basic and at times the cutaway shots looked very out of place. Also, when looking back at some of the shots there were rookie mistakes such as the shadow of the camera  being visible in shots and shaky camera work as well. Over the next few weeks we will continue to work on our editing skills and will have more time to edit our final piece meaning that it should be a lot smoother than this initial interview. Also, we will make sure that after every shot that there is no cinematography mistakes.

Practice interview

In the third week of the course, in groups we were told to do a practice interview in a documentary style about a students first day at Sussex. Using the interview techniques that we had been taught in previous weeks, my group and I went to my flat and interviewed my flatmate of his first day. I sat next to the camera opposite him and asked the questions to make it seem like he was looking into the camera even though he was making eye contact. We also used shot cutaway shots in a documentary style so that it wasn't just a constant interview. Also, before going straight into the questions that we were going to use as part of the interview, we asked general questions such as 'what did you have for breakfast' etc.so that it seemed more like a normal conversation than an interview. This helped a lot as when we started he was very aware of the camera but after a while seemed to forget about it. I feel like the shots taken were quite successful in terms of being documentary style as well as getting some good answers. We will be editing it together in next weeks class.

My Initial Idea

As our final projects are going to be done in groups, we were asked individually to present our own initial ideas for the final documentary before coming to an agreement of which idea we wanted to do. I had the idea of using a kebab shop as the main subject for the documentary staring with the opening time of the shop to the closing. The main focus would be the late night antics that go on in these shops and showing the comparison of the daytime kebab shop to the night time one. The footage that I would hope to get with this idea would be drunk customers at early hours of the morning, whether they were being rude or simply too intoxicated to order properly and how the staff deal with them. However, with this idea came problems, such as dealing with drunk customers and getting permission to film whilst the shop is very busy.

Reading notes: Bill Nichols 'Representing Reality'

Below are notes that I have taken from a reading by Bill Nichols called 'Representing Reality. They explain different types of documentaries which represent the subject of the film in different ways. However, my documentary has to be either observational or interactive (participatory).

-Situations and events, actions and issues may be represented in a variety of ways, there are a range of strategies that have arisen to represent text
-In documentary 4 modes of representation stand out as the dominant organisational patterns around which texts are structured: expository, observational, interactive (participatory) and reflexive
-The expository text addresses the viewer directly, with titles or voices that advance an argument about the historical world
-Observational documentaries stress the nonintervention of the filmmaker. They rely on editing to enhance the impression of lived or real time
-Interactive documentaries are where the filmmaker intervenes and interacts with the subject being filmed and illusory absence is shorn away
-Reflexive Documentaries work similarly to interactive but instead of hearing the filmmaker engage solely in an interactive fashion with the subject, we can now see or hear the filmmaker engage in commentary