2000 word Drama and Documentary Evaluation - Semester 2

During this semester, we had the opportunity to produce both a five minute documentary and a five minute drama. I have found this module the most enjoyable and interesting to explore out of the ones studied this year, as I have enjoyed the experimental side to creating such different types of film and having such open briefs.

The documentary brief required getting into groups of six and planning then producing a documentary film with the theme ‘Liverpool Stories’. The brief outlined a requirement to work with students that had previously not collaborated with one another, which although was new experience, it was one which I found to be advantageous. I found being put in a position of sharing creative ideas and inspirations a good way to get to know each other.  I was assigned the role of Producer, which I was pleased with as I enjoy the organising and initial creating of a concept side to filmmaking. Documentary film is also where my main interest lies, so taking on this producing role was an enjoyable experience that I learnt a lot from. The group worked well together and I think this was partially due to the fact that no member of the group lost interest in the project and we all contributed ideas.  This reflected during the production days when we would discover new opportunities whilst on location. I think communication and early organisation were the main strengths of this group, as everyone was supportive, especially at times when it felt like there was a lot of responsibility for me to take on as producer. I think the fact that we contacted potential contributors early on and did a lot of early research was vital to how our production days ran in Liverpool and the final outcome. We initially had two ideas; a film documenting the story of The Vinyl Emporium, whose entire record collection was being sold on eBay and a film exploring the celebratory side to the Liverpool street art culture. With the record idea, gaining access to a location was a huge issue, as the store had recently closed down.  For this reason, we decided to develop the celebratory Street Art idea. Personally, I still prefer something more about the record store concept, as I feel that it is a story that really could be explored through film and would be more unique than a street art film. However, being the only member to think this and understanding the importance of access issues, I was happy to work towards the other idea.

One of the challenges of the producing role was initially approaching contributors. Previously when I have been involved with documentaries, I have not been in a Producing role so not been directly responsible for starting this. I got around this by planning how I would best approach this before acting upon it, which was to firstly research a few key street artists and organisations, and then contact only these few by email, as opposed to sending out lots of the same general email to many places. I was unsure whether to expect any response or interest, so was pleased to hear back from an organisation within a few days asking them to call them for a chat about the project. From this first phone call onwards, it led into our production coming together.

When it came to being in Liverpool, the first day felt a bit vague but did mean we were able to get to know the city ourselves which felt necessary. The interviews went very well and we ended up getting a lot more out of them than we originally expected to. Discovering that our contributors knew each other made our film feel like it captured a shared genuine passion for our subject matter through a community of people, which is an experience that I feel pleased to have caught on film. I enjoy the sense of unpredictability that comes with documentary and that opportunities can arise whilst on location which the film can end up being adapted towards.

In terms of the final documentary, I think it definitely communicates the subject matter from the celebratory angle that we planned to take, however personally I would have preferred a slower moving film.  Having a lot of interview footage from passionate contributors meant that it was a shame that the brief restricted the film to just five minutes. I also feel that we could have put more focus on holding close up shots of items which could have slowed the film down, letting the viewer have time to take it in.

Since this, I have noticed I appreciate the amount of detailed street art around Sheffield, which has originated from being involved with creating this documentary and learning from our contributors. Our contributors have also offered us the opportunity for a screening of the film during the International Festival for Business this year, which we are looking forward to creating a longer version for.

 

The second project was a five minute drama film conveying the theme of ‘journey’. This brief excited me as the theme of journey can be interpreted in so many different ways, which gave us the chance to really explore our creativity. I agreed to take on the role of sound recordist, which I did not feel too confident with, but wanted to challenge myself for my final project of the year. Sound design is an area to filmmaking that I hadn’t considered in so much depth before university, but that I have found can really add to the effectiveness of a production. I wanted to feel more confident with approaching the technical side to this film, as I have always had more of an interest to the creative side of coming up with and developing concepts and scriptwriting. I wanted to use the last production process of first year as an opportunity to try out new things.

Oliver and I choosing to work together again within a larger formed group was a decision that took time to make, however after talking to tutors about our concerns and trying to form separate groups on several occasions, we decided for the project’s sake in terms of the timing schedule, that it would be beneficial to stay together. We joined a group with Sarah, Adam, Rose and Louise and began developing a concept. The group both worked and got on well together and I think one of our main strengths was that we were organised enough, committed to and all passionate about the project from the beginning. This reflected throughout our production process, as it did not feel like the film was rushed or unachievable within the given amount of time. We also compromised well, particularly when working out a schedule to arrange assistant roles for when members of the group were unavailable.  

An early established aim for our film was to keep it simple. Our idea explores the fear agoraphobia, through the use of a single character, no dialogue and one space.  Although we knew this would be a challenge, the aim was to experiment with it. We also liked the no dialogue aspect to the film as it was a different way to approach how we have seen others explore fear as a concept. An early identified issue for us was the location, as this was an important element to our film. The considered possibility initially was Oliver’s house, which was not ideal as it meant travelling to Halifax when we felt more could be achieved and any problems dealt with more conveniently if it was a location based in Sheffield.  After discussing this with Lee, he offered us access to a location within Sheffield, and after a visit to this we agreed that this would be a more practical option and are all grateful for the offer of this. The process of working with actors was new to us, however we were lucky that we found our actor early on and were organised enough to manage our time around finding the right person. Through this experience, I have learnt the importance of getting to know the created character as much as the actor does, so that there is a joint understanding of the script and character build between the actor and filmmaker(s).

Although we were organised beforehand, during the actual shooting days there were times when we spent a long time working out where to position ourselves and I was conscious that we could be using this time to work with our actor and should have planned this out in advance. Luckily our actor had a lot of time, however if I was to approach a similar situation in the future I would definitely plan this out earlier, as this may not be the case. Other than this, there were many strengths to our group, which I became particularly aware of when facing technical issues with a faulty zoom recorder. I was grateful that the other group members were so patient and understanding as I tried to work around this. We were all keen to create a film we would be proud of as our last of first year, and we all worked collaboratively on developing our concept and inputting creative ideas equally.

With the finished film, I think we have achieved visually showing our concept in the way that we originally intended.  I am pleased with this, as I knew that the subject matter of the film was quite sensitive and that it was the way that we portrayed the fear visually that the film’s effectiveness would depend on.  Having always wanted to create a film about mental health, but being unsure how to approach this in a different way to how it has been seen many times before, I am pleased with the final outcome and the way in which we approached this. In particular as sound recordist, I discovered that a lot can be achieved with not just manipulating sound but also recording natural sounds from elsewhere to the filmed location in order to create a character’s headspace through sound alone. I found the process of this really interesting, and it has inspired me towards incorporating this technique into other film projects in the future. I also think that our themes of isolation and restriction by fear came across well by our choice to not ever place the camera in a position that would make the viewers aware of the size of the full room.  Within the editing stage, I think we could have collaborated further as a full group at an earlier point than we did. Although some group members did not seem interested in attending to review the edit progress, the rest of us knew the importance of all of us sitting down as a group and the editing being a collaborative process.  However, during the last week of editing the full group did all come together and review the footage, which was appreciated  as it meant we ended the project on a positive note.

Comparing the documentary and drama projects, I have discovered just how much content can be fit into five minutes worth of film, both visually as well as through audio. I also found groups of six to be more advantageous with the drama film than documentary.  In comparison to the producing role where I felt I learnt a lot more about the practicality side to filmmaking, with sound recording I feel that I learnt a lot more about the technical side.  I am pleased that I chose two very separate job roles and managed to learn a lot by challenging myself in trying out new areas.  I have preferred the process of putting a documentary together, however in terms of comparing the final films I am much happier with the outcome of our drama. I have really enjoyed the practice module throughout the year and have learnt a lot creatively as well as technically and personally to take forward to my second year.

Final Sound adjustments and gaining feedback

Today when watching our final film back, we discovered some slight tweaks with the structure of the sound that could be made in order to build upon the connection with the audience from the character's perspective, which is something we have aimed to achieve throughout this project. Oliver and I stayed in the edit suite for a while to try and work on these, before showing the rest of the group the updated edit and gaining any feedback.
 The group are pleased with these changes, and we have discovered that although they are only very minor changes, they do make a difference to the atmospheric feel to the film.  One of the most effective slight changes that we made was the choice to include a few seconds of complete silence as the character's hand moves towards the door before it freezes. Another one of these is when halfway during the panic attack sequence we chose to take out the ringing, almost white noise like sound, and just keep in the sound of the character crying and hold this for a few seconds, before returning to the ringing noise.

Before putting the finished film onto DVD, we asked some of the other course members in the edit suite to have a watch through to see  how our film was interpreted and if the main ideas that we wanted to get across were communicated. We got some interesting feedback from this - it seems that people understand the agoraphobia narrative, which is positive, and that the theme 'journey' that is outlined on the brief can be understood in a number of ways, such as a journey of progression, an interruption or change to an everyday journey and an emotional journey exploring a fear in depth, which is what we were aiming to achieve. We also found that people were looking into features of the background production design to search for clues about the character and their history, which is another aspect to the film that we spent a lot of time developing and wanted the viewer to work the character out for themselves, leaving them to discover the narrative and back story to our film without us directing them to think in a particular way through the use of dialogue or music.