Now that we have accumulated footage from the required interviewees, we have downloaded the footage onto a apple mac and begun to edit and add voice overs to the footage.
The total amount of time footage was 20 minutes, so we had to narrow it down and keep doing so until we had enough space to add other clips from cartoons as evidence to support our documentary. The editing will take the majority of our time trying to slim it down to the required time as we have to select portions of the clip that we think are the most relevant to our case and will provide a balanced un-biased argument. The voice over will provide the audience with additional information that had not already been mentioned earlier in the documentary leaving them more educated about the topic.
Thursday, 19 November 2009
Thursday, 8 October 2009
Storyboards
To form the structure of the documentary we have to make a storyboards. Storyboards are essential in the process of making a documentary as they help you to work out what shots you are going to use, what locations you are planning to shoot your shots in, the order of the camera shots.
The first storyboard we put together was a draft of the cartoons we were going to use and where we were going to put the interviewees in between shots of the cartoons. It also included writing explaining what we were going to do in the shots and what type of person we were going to be interviewing.
The second storyboard is similar to the first draft, this storyboard includes still shots of potential interviewees such as head of years, parents and school children. The final storyboard will include still shots of the people will we interview. The writing on this second draft storyboard is more detailed than the first.
After discussing the storyboard with each other, me and my classmate charlie decided that we would add narration over shots of children playing in the playground at school, watching cartoons, playing with siblings so that we could portray their behaviour to the audience making sure at the same time that we are showing a balanced argument.
Unfortunately Blogger will not allow me to upload the storyboards onto this post.
The first storyboard we put together was a draft of the cartoons we were going to use and where we were going to put the interviewees in between shots of the cartoons. It also included writing explaining what we were going to do in the shots and what type of person we were going to be interviewing.
The second storyboard is similar to the first draft, this storyboard includes still shots of potential interviewees such as head of years, parents and school children. The final storyboard will include still shots of the people will we interview. The writing on this second draft storyboard is more detailed than the first.
After discussing the storyboard with each other, me and my classmate charlie decided that we would add narration over shots of children playing in the playground at school, watching cartoons, playing with siblings so that we could portray their behaviour to the audience making sure at the same time that we are showing a balanced argument.
Unfortunately Blogger will not allow me to upload the storyboards onto this post.
Tuesday, 29 September 2009
Interviews...
On Monday 28th September, me and my classmate set out for Cleves junior school.
When we arrived we proceeded to interview a group of students and teachers. We interviewed two head of years, four students all in year six and a deputy head.
From the four students we discovered that they had matured from violence in cartoons thinking that they were "stupid and not very interesting" and had progressed onto more mature programmes. These responses surprised me because i was expecting positive attitudes towards cartoons, but these children seemed to have a thorough dislike for the cartoons that we asked them about.
When we started interviewing teachers they shared our views about children watching cartoons, one teacher told us behind the camera "the younger children are more influenced by the cartoons they watch, we often see during breaks little groups of boys play acting martial arts or throwing air punches often trying to imitate something they watched on the television, but personally I've found as they progress through the school years that they often move away from the more influential cartoons onto more mature programmes and i can say as a teacher I've definitely seen a change through their work, they become a lot more focused and their school work becomes a better quality, of course you do get the occasional student who doesn't settle down but that's very rare."
Overall we were very pleased with the responses to our questions, even if some of them were unexpected, they gave both positive and negative sides to the documentary providing us with a good balanced argument. Now we have uploaded our footage onto the apple macbook we can start the process of editing and adding factual information.
When we arrived we proceeded to interview a group of students and teachers. We interviewed two head of years, four students all in year six and a deputy head.
From the four students we discovered that they had matured from violence in cartoons thinking that they were "stupid and not very interesting" and had progressed onto more mature programmes. These responses surprised me because i was expecting positive attitudes towards cartoons, but these children seemed to have a thorough dislike for the cartoons that we asked them about.
When we started interviewing teachers they shared our views about children watching cartoons, one teacher told us behind the camera "the younger children are more influenced by the cartoons they watch, we often see during breaks little groups of boys play acting martial arts or throwing air punches often trying to imitate something they watched on the television, but personally I've found as they progress through the school years that they often move away from the more influential cartoons onto more mature programmes and i can say as a teacher I've definitely seen a change through their work, they become a lot more focused and their school work becomes a better quality, of course you do get the occasional student who doesn't settle down but that's very rare."
Overall we were very pleased with the responses to our questions, even if some of them were unexpected, they gave both positive and negative sides to the documentary providing us with a good balanced argument. Now we have uploaded our footage onto the apple macbook we can start the process of editing and adding factual information.
Arranging Interviews
Now that we have decided what type of people we will be interviewing, me and my classmate have decided to conduct the interviews at Cleves Junior School, which teaches students from Year 3 to Year 6.
We both decided that this would be an ideal location because it meant that we could gain different sides of the arguments from teachers and students, we also thought that the school would ideal because we had both attended the school at that age.
We first made contact with the school through e-mail to the headmistress, who then forwarded it onto the head year 6, Mr Russ.
We then exchanged several e-mails with Mr Russ explaining our documentary and what we planned to do, arranging a date to arrive at the school and a time.
We arranged to meet Mr Russ on Monday 28th September, where we would interview a group of students and teachers that Mr Russ had selected with our questions.
After arranging the time and date we then had to plan our questions, making sure that they were different for student and teachers.
We both decided that this would be an ideal location because it meant that we could gain different sides of the arguments from teachers and students, we also thought that the school would ideal because we had both attended the school at that age.
We first made contact with the school through e-mail to the headmistress, who then forwarded it onto the head year 6, Mr Russ.
We then exchanged several e-mails with Mr Russ explaining our documentary and what we planned to do, arranging a date to arrive at the school and a time.
We arranged to meet Mr Russ on Monday 28th September, where we would interview a group of students and teachers that Mr Russ had selected with our questions.
After arranging the time and date we then had to plan our questions, making sure that they were different for student and teachers.
Tuesday, 15 September 2009
Archive Searching
In this double lesson, me and my classmate started to search for clips from children cartoons that are renowned for violence. These cartoons include The Simpsons, Family Guy and South Park. We chose these cartoons because they are very popular with children and teenagers and throughout each episode portray a measure of violence.
When we were searching for the clips we wanted snippets that would create a balanced argument and back up the points we were making through the documentary, meanwhile we were looking at these clips we had to keep in mind what type of people we were interviewing and which side of the argument they would be on.
At the end of the double lesson we had chosen a selection of clips from the three cartoons that we hope will balance the argument, unfortunately due to the website we could not put up the clips we had selected for our documentary instead i have put on a pictures from each clip we think will end up on the final version of the documentary above but this may change.
Monday, 13 July 2009
Research continued
To further my knowledge of conducting interviews and their techniques I have been conducting research into well known journalists such as Micheal Moore, Nick Broomfield & Louis Theroux.For each of these, i have researched their filmed works to get a better understanding of how to direct our documentary and what shots would be useful.I have studied Nick Broomfield's "Aileen: The Life and Death of a Serial Killer" which emphasised the strong tone and excellence of the documentary from the camera angles to the set up of a shot.Also i have looked at Louis Theroux's "The Most hate family In America" and "When Louis Me the Nazi's" both of these documentaries kept the continuous narrative of a concerned tone including the camera shot of Theroux's face to the answers of a question.Finally i have looked at Micheal Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" and "Bowling for Columbine" which proved to be very helpful with my research of other documentaries because of the difference in camera angles and movements from steady cameras to shaky, disorienting shots which helped to differentiate the documentary from the other two.
Experimenting continued
In today's lesson we experimented with shots for our final documentary, these shots are aimed to be used when the interviewer is narrating facts, figures and opinions to the audience.
These shots also have to relate to the topic of the documentary as well, for instance for our draft Charlie has shot scenes of playgrounds, school corridors and school classes. Whilst these are running the narrator will be talking about a topic which will relate to the shot and documentary otherwise the audience will become confused and loose interest.
For our draft we have also experimented with music, again this is used to make the documentary more appealing to the audience. We have had to find a music clip that coincides with the tone of the documentary, for instance you can't have eerie music for a documentary about the origins of a music label. Instead you have to have music that relates to the topic just like the shots from the previous paragraph.
So for the documentary about the origins of a music label you would probably have music from bands owned by that label, for our documentary we have chosen music thats starts with screaming and laughing children and keeps an upbeat tune throughout the draft documentary, this music may change for the final documentary as the tone of the documentary may have changed, but the music will always relate to the topic.
These shots also have to relate to the topic of the documentary as well, for instance for our draft Charlie has shot scenes of playgrounds, school corridors and school classes. Whilst these are running the narrator will be talking about a topic which will relate to the shot and documentary otherwise the audience will become confused and loose interest.
For our draft we have also experimented with music, again this is used to make the documentary more appealing to the audience. We have had to find a music clip that coincides with the tone of the documentary, for instance you can't have eerie music for a documentary about the origins of a music label. Instead you have to have music that relates to the topic just like the shots from the previous paragraph.
So for the documentary about the origins of a music label you would probably have music from bands owned by that label, for our documentary we have chosen music thats starts with screaming and laughing children and keeps an upbeat tune throughout the draft documentary, this music may change for the final documentary as the tone of the documentary may have changed, but the music will always relate to the topic.
Experimenting Interviewing Techniques
The video above is me and Charlie experimenting with different interviewing techniques to create different atmospheres for the audience. The first technique of the art teacher was used to create a positive atmosphere for the audience, we can tell this from the lighting used and the position of the interviewee in the shot, you can see that the shot is slightly shaky, this was my best attempt to keep the camera as still as possible without using a tripod.
The second shot of the sixth form student walking down the corridor whilst talking was created as a tense atmosphere and and to convey to the audience that this person is very busy and maybe a professional, we had hoped to have other people to come into shot and get the student to pretend that she was signing a form or otherwise, further emphasising the interviewees professional status. This shot is often used in documentaries to mostly create tension.
The third and final technique of the interviewee sitting down is to create an opposing view of the interview. We can tell this from the content of the interviewee and the position and lighting used in the shot. The lighting above the interviewee creates shadows across his face further emphasising the point that the person doesn't agree with the interviewer. The position of the character shows the audience that the person is very confident about his views and therefore reclines in his seat.
All of these interviewing techniques were practiced to help us get a better understanding of them and help decide what of shots we would use and what atmosphere would be created in the process. Overall i think that this exercise was very helpful and that we will definitely be using some of these techniques in our final documentary.
Thursday, 9 July 2009
Planning
I have now spent at least two weeks of lessons researching with my classmate for our documentary "Are cartoons a bad influence on young children?" in books, online and from other sources. This research has helped us to get a rough idea of what content we will be using in our documantary.
In this lesson today we started to plan for our documentary, today we planned a draft storyboard using still images taken of people from around the school describing the camera shot and captions to explain why. These still images will help us get rough idea of the people we need to interview and what kind of shots we will need to use.
This storyboard will help us when the time comes to start shooting for our documentary, it will act as our guideline and also help us to change old ideas for better ones.
The storyboard we created today is just a draft because the stills are not images of the final shots as we haven't even started shooting yet. When we have finished our final shooting and the documentary has been edited and finished the final storyboard will have images from the final edition of the documentary.
In this lesson today we started to plan for our documentary, today we planned a draft storyboard using still images taken of people from around the school describing the camera shot and captions to explain why. These still images will help us get rough idea of the people we need to interview and what kind of shots we will need to use.
This storyboard will help us when the time comes to start shooting for our documentary, it will act as our guideline and also help us to change old ideas for better ones.
The storyboard we created today is just a draft because the stills are not images of the final shots as we haven't even started shooting yet. When we have finished our final shooting and the documentary has been edited and finished the final storyboard will have images from the final edition of the documentary.
Monday, 6 July 2009
Research
Over the past few lessons me and my classmate have been researching the background of our topic "Are cartoons a bad influence on children?"
In my first lesson i researched on the Internet for reports by well known professors of psychology and behaviour. I found that using doing this research have proved to be helpful and gain a better understanding of the subject.
In the next couple of lessons me and my classmate Charlie researched in books from some of the people I found on the Internet during my own personal research. Some of the books that we have read are: 'Television is Good for your Kids' by Dr. Marie Messenger Davies, 'Children and Television' by Bob Hodge & David Tripp and 'Understanding television' by Andrew Goodwin & Garry Whannel. These books have proven to be very useful in our research as they include statistics and quotes from interesting and reliable sources.
From these books we both gained useful facts such as:
"Children spend up to 18,000 hours watching cartoons up to the age of 18, that's as many hours spent behind a school desk."
Such facts as these will be helpful for the narration of our final documentary in the hope to shock and inform the audience.
http://kidshealth.org/parent/positive/family/tv_affects_child.html
In my first lesson i researched on the Internet for reports by well known professors of psychology and behaviour. I found that using doing this research have proved to be helpful and gain a better understanding of the subject.
In the next couple of lessons me and my classmate Charlie researched in books from some of the people I found on the Internet during my own personal research. Some of the books that we have read are: 'Television is Good for your Kids' by Dr. Marie Messenger Davies, 'Children and Television' by Bob Hodge & David Tripp and 'Understanding television' by Andrew Goodwin & Garry Whannel. These books have proven to be very useful in our research as they include statistics and quotes from interesting and reliable sources.
From these books we both gained useful facts such as:
"Children spend up to 18,000 hours watching cartoons up to the age of 18, that's as many hours spent behind a school desk."
Such facts as these will be helpful for the narration of our final documentary in the hope to shock and inform the audience.
http://kidshealth.org/parent/positive/family/tv_affects_child.html
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