What worked?
My favourite part about this project was filming the wildlife and the editing. At first, working in my group, we were all determined to get the work done and do it well. After a few challenging times and hurdles we had to overcome, we managed to get back into that mind set and that was when our documentary turned into something we could be proud of.Due to being on a farm, typically it would be quite difficult to find some pretty and interesting shots of the landscape, however the location we were on was quite the opposite. We found some lovely scenery, and we captured some artistic shots of bluebells. Although the wildlife was very hard to find, we still managed to capture a good amount and they really helped make our documentary come to life.
When it came to editing our documentary, we didn't really know what we wanted our outcome to be. We had a storyboard and a shot list that we stuck to at first, but we had so much interview footage, that we struggled to shorten it down. By going back to our edit, day after day, with a new set of eyes, we were able to keep making changes and cutting the interviews down. We also had some disagreements with what type of shot we wanted and whether something was working or not, but we talked these over as a group and came up with a solution, which I felt was a good thing for us to do.
The placement of the music, and the atmosphere audio is really good, and it brings everything to life while keeping the main focus on the interviews and the information being said.
What didn't work?
When filming the first time round, we didn't really know what we wanted which caused us to have very long interviews for us to cut around. This wasn't very useful for us, when editing, as most of the time, the presenter and the farmer were talking over each other, which meant it was very hard to get a clean cut.Also, as we filmed outside on a few windy days, the audio isn't the best. If I could choose one thing to improve or change it would be the audio from the clip mic and the H4 recorder. However, in the end, we worked well with what we had and it doesn't sound overly bad. There are a few clips of audio that sound quite windy, but they match the the picture on the screen, so it's not too out of place. However, we did try and diffuse the wind sound but we couldn't quite get it the way we wanted it to sound.
There were a few times in our pre-production stages, and even after our first shoot, where we didn't work well as a group. We had mis-communication issues, and disagreements that we didn't know how to overcome. This really put a stop to our documentary as we didn't really know how to deal with it at the time. After talking it through as a group, we all decided that we needed to get back on track and discuss our differences within the documentary so we knew when we were struggling or when we disagreed with something. This really helped us as a group, and it made us all strive to have a good outcome. Personally, I think this can be seen through our outcome and also how determined we were to get everything right.
What did I learn?
Within this documentary unit, I have learnt two very important things.- Making a documentary is challenging.
- There are so many different aspects of a documentary that you have to think about when making one. You have to focus on your target audience, and you have to make sure you are telling the truth. Not only do you have to think about the topic itself, you also have to think about how it's going to be shot, where it's going to be shot, who is going to be involved.
- There are also many different types of documentary styles which you have to look into so you can come to the decision on what style your documentary will be. When you pick a style, you need to make sure your documentary fits that style which can be quite challenging as you may have to adjust the storyline or the edit in some way.
- It's somewhat similar to making a normal film/TV programme, but you have to make sure it is factual and not made up, otherwise it could be argued that it's not a documentary. There is a lot of hard work and planning that goes into making a documentary and I didn't realise this until having to experience it myself.
- Working in a group is challenging.
- When you work with other people, personalities might clash and opinions might differ and it's very hard to deal with. But you have to overcome the problems, and you have to communicate with each other, otherwise the outcome won't be what you desired.
- At first, I struggled with working in a team when it came to communication and different ideas, but I got used to it, and I managed to overcome the problems we faced along the way.
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