Lighting is very important, it can be used to direct the eye of the audience, emphasize elements within shots and can control the mood of the production. I am now going to research into different lighting techniques and then decide which ones will be most appropriate for my documentary.

Hard Light – Hard light is used to create hard-edged shadows; it is not usually the most flattering light for people so it is often used to accentuate the flaws in certain characters faces, characters such as villains or characters that are not supposed to be viewed as desirable.

Soft Light - Soft lighting is used to create soft edged shadows and is essentially the opposite of hard light. Soft light usually makes people look their best so it is generally used for less villainous characters and for when people need to look their best.

High Key Lighting – High key lighting is lighting that is very bright and has little contrast. It is created by setting the camera on a high exposure and It is used to convey positive moods and emotions along with a sense of happiness. 

Low Key Lighting – Low key lighting has a great deal of contrast and generally only has a bright light illuminating the rim of the subject, as shown by the blinds in the image below. The rest of the lighting is dark shadows and low lights which creates the contrast.

In the context of making my documentary, I think there will only be certain scenes where using special lighting techniques will be appropriate, mainly the car crash reenactment scenes as I feel in other areas my audience would expect the documentary to reflect the appearance of real life as much as possible.

Locations list

This is a list of possible locations I will be using in my documentary.

Shire Hall – At Shire hall I will be shooting footage of the bikers talking to members of the general public at the market which is held every Thursday as well as general footage of the bike. I will be using this footage for fillers between other shots and as background movement when there is information on the screen. 

Woods Browning – At Woods Browning I will be filming mock interviews with An emergency biker talking about what they do as well as a mock donor encouraging people to donate. I will use this footage to help break up my documentary and make it more dynamic as well increase it’s standing as an informative documentary.

Inside a car, on the roads in Bodmin – At this location I will be staging a pretend car crash in order to demonstrate a plausible situation that would require an emergency biker to be called out. The crash will be filmed inside the car with shots of bloody faces as this is the best way for it to look realistic on a low budget.

On the back of the bike, on the roads in Bodmin – A GoPro camera will be used to film the bike moving from the perspective of the biker. This footage is going to be gritty and realistic in contrast with the more ‘glossy’ footage of the car crash

I feel that these location represent my target audience and their needs because they are all local places and it is likely that many of the people watching it will be able to identify them, I feel this will add an increasing sense of reality for my audience to be able to see things happening on their own doorstep so to speak as opposed to somewhere they do not recognize.

Short script for the Biker interview

Biker script

Biker is sat comfortably on a sofa in a reasonably crowded area. The time is around midday.

BIKER 1: I’ve been an emergency biker for about 6 months now, in the daytime I work as a gym instructor. I don’t get paid to transport blood , organs or breast milk but knowing that I could be the difference between whether someone lives or dies is more than enough of a reward for me. 

Documentary Genres

Documentary genre research

Through doing research I have concluded that there are six main types of documentaries. These five different types are:

Exposes
Observational
Participatory
Reflexive
Performative

An Exposing documentary is a documentary that speaks directly to the viewer; often with a voiceover of a male voice as this is deemed more authoritative (voice of God) these documentaries are used to try and persuade the viewer and usually hold strong view points. An example of this type of documentary would be ‘Americas Most Wanted’ which follows the conventions of this type of documentary.

An observational documentary in its simplest terms is one that tries to show it’s subject with a minimum of intervention. These films are often reasonably unenhanced as too much editing would compromise the very ‘real’ effect these type of documentaries try to create. These first became popular around the 1960’s when more mobile and lighter equipment became available.  This type of documentary is often nicknamed ‘fly on the wall’ as this reflects the way it has been filmed quite accurately. An example of this type of work would be a lot of Richard Leacock’s work, in particular ‘Monterey Pop’ 1968 which was essentially a concert being filmed.

The third type of documentary is the participatory type of documentary. The maker of a participatory documentary a would think it is impossible not to influence the documentary to a degree. As they think this, the camera man will often step out from behind the camera and talk in order to avoid a God like voice over such as in an Exposing documentary. A lot of the time the most critical element of this type of documentary is the interaction between the movie maker and the subject. An example of this would be Michael Moore’s ‘Rodger & Me’.

A Reflexive documentary is a sub genre with some Brechtian elements of alienation. This type of documentary seeks to be reminding the audience that what they are watching is actually constructed. The filmmaker of such a documentary would want their audience to question the very authority of the documentary they are watching. An example of a documentary from this genre would be Nick Broomfield’s ‘Biggie and Tupac’ which is about dead rap icons.

The last documentary I will be exploring is the Performative documentary. These documentaries are quite subjective and personal to the one who is making them, they can include hypothetical re-enactments of certain situations that are designed to challenge our viewpoints of things. A good example of this could be Alain Resnais’ ‘Night and Fog’ 1955. This documentary is about the holocaust but is not a factual representation, but instead from the view of a survivor named Jean Cayrol, it’s entirely subjective.

Survey Monkey

I actually made this in january and posted it on facebook as you can see from the printscreen below.

This is the link to my Survey Monkey

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FFT76RH

Synopsis

Synopsis of ‘Emergency Bikers’

Throughout the UK Emergency Bikers are providing an invaluable public service and getting almost no recognition for it. This documentary provides an insight into the work of an emergency biker.
After a potentially fatal car crash Amy is losing a lot of blood. It’s at this point the Emergency biker is called out to help save her life by delivering the vital blood transfusion. This documentary shows the journey that these bikers must go through every time they get a call out, the pressure that they must deal with when they know that every second counts.

Documentary analysis

The Biggest Loser series five episode one

In this essay I am going to analyse the opening five minutes of the popular weight loss documentary ‘The biggest loser’ the reason I chose this documentary to analyse is that I am quite interested in documentaries that almost seem to cross over genres, for example in ‘The biggest loser’ it could be easily argued that there are elements present that follow the conventions reality TV.

‘The biggest loser’ series five episode one opens with an image of a clearly very overweight mans torso in a high angled shot. I find this quite interesting because often in our society, and particularly more stereotypical television programs, those who are overweight are looked down upon, however this camera angle reveals them to be in a position of power, perhaps because they have made the decision to lose weight by being on the ‘The biggest loser’ they are supposed to be looked at differently. All the while this is being narrated by a female voice and snippets of what she is saying are bursting onto the screen in bold writing such as “Highest in Europe” when she is talking about obesity figures. This further emphasizes what she is saying and is clearly there to add extra impact to what are supposed to be shocking revelations.

Everything about this opening is fast paced and exciting, there are quick zooms from medium shots of the contestants up to their faces, snippets of conversations, footage of them doing tough exercises as bridges of  fatty food being gorged on and sweaty crying faces. All this comes together to tell the reader that this is a very tough program, but one that gets results. I think this is really effective because this episode of ‘The Biggest loser’ really starts as it means to go on so to speak. The reader may very well be hooked already; they will want to see these people lose weight.

The title sequence is reasonably long for ‘The Biggest Loser’ but it features full body shots of each of the contestants and so it clearly changes after each series. There is very emotive, inspiring even, music featuring electric guitars and most likely keyboards to go with this title sequence. The images of the contestants have been merged with almost translucent animated tape measures that are moving. This is clearly symbolic of the contestant’s weight loss, and extremely subtle, in fact I watched this three times before noticing the tape measures were in the background at all. The title sequence is then concluded by the ebbing away of the music and the tape measure squeezing in the middle of the words ‘The biggest loser’ which is again, symbolic of weight loss.

Establishing shots of green fields followed by high angled shots of Presenter Davina McCall, which of course gives her a position of authority. After this, the personal trainers are introduced with quite serious, tension building sound effects which reinforces that these people mean business, followed by small, highly emotive, back stories of some of the contestants. This is another technique that draws the reader in, it makes them feel they know the contestants better and in many cases feel quite sorry for them.

In terms of applying this to my documentary opening, I think there are certain elements that I would like take out of this, such as fast paced montages of footage. I think the use of different styles of music have been extremely effective in this opening as well, and is also something I would very much like to incorporate into my documentary as I feel sound and sound effects can sometimes be overlooked (especially by amateur film makers) but is definitely a key aspect of documentary when trying to make the audience get a real emotional sense of what the documentary is about. 

Documentary analysis

My Big fat gypsy Weddings – My Big fat gypsy Christmas

As one of the most popular and most controversial documentaries of 2011 I felt it was important to analyse ‘My Big Fat Gypsy Weddings’ This is the sort of documentary that gets everyone talking about it, whether they happen to love it or hate it, they all know about it.

This episode of ‘My Big Fat Gypsy Weddings’ entitled ‘My big fat gypsy Christmas opens with an establishing shot of what looks like a small city at night, complete with Christmas lights and non diegetic  yuletide sound effects. There are reasonably fast cutaways of houses, trees etc all the while being narrated by an authoritative female voice. There are focal zooms on things such as Christmas trees to further emphasise the time of year in which this documentary is set.

There is a sudden change in music after the narrator says “A time to celebrate” at which point the music becomes more upbeat and a collaboration of different shots of girls clad in bright clothes hanging out of white stretch limousines, young girls in ball gowns and general clubbing is shown. I find this an interesting technique in the way that it was almost the calm before the storm so to speak, this is more what the reader expects to see when sitting down to watch ‘My Big Fat Gypsy Weddings’

I find it interesting how in this documentary opening, there is no presenter, there is a narrator of course, and there are the typical ‘experts’ in the form of a woman who specialises in making Gypsy wedding dresses and a man who owns a club that specially caters for gypsy gatherings, and in a way I think this draws the reader in more as they are not watching two people have a conversation almost, they are listening to people talking directly to the camera.

There is a diverse range of shot types and editing in the opening five minutes of this episode of ‘My big fat gypsy weddings’ on two occasions they almost seems to come together in a montage of three to four second clips. Over the shoulder shots are also used to show the dress making which further makes the reader feel as though they are there. As well as this, the camera crew have taken full advantage of the enormous dresses worn by both young and older girls with long shots that emphasize just how extreme these dresses are and extreme close ups of some of the many sparkling jewels that are sewn onto these dresses. In my documentary opening I would very much like to be able to use such a diverse range of camera shots  

In terms of editing and special effects, there is not a long session of opening credits, but instead a very short, five seconds at the very most, shot of the words ‘My Big Fat Gypsy Christmas’  which blooms in the middle of the screen surrounded by holly which further emphasises the time of year. This is something I would definitely like to incorporate into my documentary, in other words I think I would prefer to spend more time on the documentary footage, as opposed to spending a long time editing a long title sequence, I think if I did it this way it gives ff the impression that there is more information, exciting footage and interviews to get through, as it does in ‘My Big Fat Gypsy Christmas’.

Documentary analysis

Real Rescue Series 6 episode 14

In this essay I will be analysing the opening five minutes of the documentary ‘Real rescue, series 6 episode 14’ presented by Nick Knowles. I feel this will be a very important documentary to analyse because it uses a lot of real footage of the emergency services which is something that I would very much like to do in my documentary.

This episode of ‘Real rescues’ opens with a long shot of a man and a woman talking directly to the camera. The music is upbeat techno and could easily be being used to represent a fast beating heart. The man then goes on to narrate as clips of bad quality footage (perhaps filmed with camera phones) that are clearly snippets of the different rescues that this episode documents. I think this is quite clever in the way that it would draw the audience in, in a similar way to watching the news does, there is more anticipation at this point than there usually is at the beginning of a documentary because the reader knows what they are going to be seeing soon is real.

 It then goes on to show more professional footage of a call centre (presumably in a police station) and plays a recorded phone call of a little girl with added subtitles. This of course, pulls on the readers heart strings so to speak, especially when the young girl says that she is four years old and her mother is having a fit. She is perfectly understandable, so I think that the subtitles were added in to simply add emphasis to what she is saying, especially as there are no subtitles for anyone else’s story in the opening five minutes. 

Only after this does it go on to show the opening credits, along with more techno music, but with more high pitched sounds in order to create a fusion of sounds whish represent conflict. It also shows many two or three second clips of ambulances, fire stations, hospital equipment in small boxes with emergency service crews weaving in between them. The background of this all the while is blue, which connotes stability and trustworthiness.

After the opening credits have finished, the camera then goes back to the man and them woman, who then introduces the show again and informs the audience that they are in Hampshire’s police control room. The camera is then used to show a tracking shot of the woman, this is a bit wobbly though. In a way however, this only adds to the effect of the whole documentary as it reminds the reader in a way that, this is real.

In terms of editing, for the most part it’s continuity apart from the opening credits, subtitles and interviewees names appearing underneath them when they are talking. The music in the beginning is non diegetic of course.

Most people would consider the policemen that respond to the emergency calls to be in a position of authority. This is usually shown by high angled shots, however in this episode of ‘Real rescue’ there are continuous low angled shots which I think undermines the interviewees authority and is a convention that they should have followed. Even later on whilst in an air ambulance, there are only straight on, eye level shots. This contradicts the trustworthy image that the blue opening titles is trying to give off.

In conclusion, the style of this documentary seems very factual, the camera work is very basic, plenty of interviews and amateur footage are shown. To a degree I would like to incorporate aspects of this