Module Evaluation Proforma - Documentary Strand

There were a few weaknesses in my final film, ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’, most noticeably the soundtrack. We used a cover of Hans Zimmer’s ‘Time’ as the backing track for the first part of the documentary when Hannah talks about first being diagnosed with the brain tumor and her family coping with it as well as all the gritty technical details of her treatment. We used this to help build on the mood and themes of the content, however it does feel lazily put on underneath and instead clashes with Hannah’s positive and light humored attitude with it. It also was pointed out, that it almost tells the audience how to feel by being very slow and orchestral which can detract from the emersion into the film due to is cliché implications. Originally we were only going to use a few simple keys around parts that were contextually upsetting, so to amplify the mood, however due to resources available to us and deadlines, we agreed to go with the soundtrack as it (generally) fit with the themes. As the cinematographer in the group, I also believe that we used a lot of talking heads and a small variety of cut aways. This is because of contributor availability and other factors (e.g. weather, construction work in locations and not having permission for charity collection) which made us change the style of film we wanted to do. We originally wanted to film Hannah’s ‘daily routine’ and have her voice over and a bit of talking heads to tell the story over this footage, but in the end we decided to make the film more about Hannah telling us her story, making it more intense and personal in the process.

This potential weakness with the film therefore turned into a positive, as the interview footage was used mostly un-edited which worked really well for the modified theme of the film. This is due to the framing of the shot’s in both interviews, as when we see Hannah the screen is filled by her face and she is looking almost directly into camera.

This makes the audience instantly connect with her as it feels like she is talking directly to them and they can submerge themselves into the story. This modified theme clashed with our original idea to change between 2 camera angles in the interviews but as we later agreed, this would be very jarring and intrusive to the audience’s indulgence in the film. A further strength was the use of family photos, archive photos and home video in the film as cut-aways.

These were powerful emotionally as well as informative due to their placement with a voice over, but used in a way that the audience wasn’t spoon fed the information. Our original intentions with this images was to give the audience context and knowledge on the areas that Hannah was talking about as well as serving as good transitions to cover up cuts, whilst still being interesting and different to retract away from just solid talking heads. Finally the narrative structure of the film was well edited and thought out as it starts with a very powerful opening of Hannah talking about her funeral song. This engages the audience immediately with the narrative as they are intrigued by why she is talking about this subject matter. We then incorporated some of the poetic sequence we created to add to this enigma code which carries on until around 3 minutes in when the audience is told enough information for them to figure out she has had cancer. This style of storytelling was always intentional from the start as our original idea was to not introduce the brain tumor interview parts until the audience had an idea of what Hannah was like as a person.

We started the project by coming up with ideas for what we would want to make a documentary about. After brainstorming a few we all agreed on making a film about Hannah Jones and her story, the brain tumor and treatment, and how she has set up a charity and raised a quarter of a million pounds for it. After getting into contact with her and setting up dates to film, we began to think of ways to tell the story. We came up with our original treatment which was left un-touched and un-edited for a while as we developed our poetic documentary more. After one or two tutorials, a seminar and a lot of research, we had a set idea on what we wanted to produce. We used other films as reference and inspiration to create the poetic sequence we were happy with and then after screening and receiving feedback we carried on developing the main film. We did a location scout first before the scheduled weekend of shooting where we took stills and preliminary recordings of exteriors in locations we wanted to interview Hannah in. We then filmed the interviews and the rest of the footage according to the schedule and came back to Sheffield to review it. After a tutorial we decided to re-shoot the interviews of Hannah with a more personal eye-line and decided to scrap the two-take style as it was jarring and to ‘MTV’. The re-shoot went as planned by the shot list and we edited the whole film over the last few weeks with the help of numerous tutorials and peer feedback. What I have learnt from the experience is that framing and eye-line in documentary film really adds to the tone and mood of it and how the audience perceives the contributor. Due to our re-shoot, I’ve learnt that it is better to rephrase questions, mix up the order and/or add new questions into the mix to keep the spontaneity and genuineness of the answers given back by the contributor to make the content in the film not stale or seem scripted. Finally, I’ve discovered that your original idea and vision of the project in documentary can completely change after you’ve filmed it and throw you off as to how to construct the narrative. For example, I originally thought our film would be very heavy and upsetting as we learn of the troubles this young teenage girl went through in her life. However, after filming the family and her, our film couldn’t be depressing due to the attitudes and personalities that the contributors have.

I was the cinematographer on the project and so my main role and jobs were based around the camera. In discussions we would first decide what we wanted to do, such as what questions to ask or what content to film, and then it would be my job think and plan for what the best possible way to film it would be. This included writing up shot lists and floor plans which could easily be followed by any member of the group to keep could time efficiency on location. These were discussed openly with the group and then reviewed by myself and the director, Luke Finch, and agreed on before finalized and acted upon when filming. These included light positioning, framing, positioning of other members as well as dictating our schedule due to natural lighting, which I always consulted with Ellen our producer and she relayed onto Hannah. I filmed the majority of the footage we recorded which was over 2 hours’ worth, but on interviews, when we still thought we were going to use two shots and cut between them, I set up the static camera and its framing, then manned a shoulder rig with another camera on to try and capture Hannah’s movements and body language when talking about different subjects. Whilst I was doing this, Matt our editor, manned the other camera and made sure it ran smoothly. I also filmed a wide variety of exterior shots including time lapses, hand held following sequences, static shots and cinematic shots, unfortunately though we didn’t use the majority of these shots due to them not fitting in with are amended narrative. Finally, Luke and I went through all the home video footage, family photos, archive photos of Hannah’s treatment and selected the content which we thought would be best in the film. We did this both before and after redoing the narrative to find the perfect things to put with each part of the interview and whether or not to use them with or without voice over.

Our group worked really well as a team and we all helped each other out where we could. We had regular meetings to discuss our individual research as well as the overall project and how it was developing; we also spoke on Skype and Facebook to keep each other up to date with our ideas.

 

Skype meeting

The main issues our group had to overcome were dealing with re-shoots depending on the availability of the contributor and not our own schedules, this meant there was times where not all members would be available to film or help out practically, however they always made up for it by planning thoroughly in advance and keeping in contact as much as possible when separated from the group.

 From the beginning of the seminar, I did research around documentaries and sub-genres within them. The seminars we had also gave very good insight and examples of films styles of films that we may want to adapt or use when creating our own. Straight from the off, we knew as a group we wanted to do a painting a portrait style film of Hannah, much like the film Plank (2009) by Billy Pols which follows one subject around their area of interest/importance. For our poetic piece we took inspiration from the film Tarnation (2003) by Jonathan Caouette, because there is a sequence about 8 minutes in where he uses on screen text, small bits of voice over on top of a montage of home video and family pictures with a soundtrack in the background. In our poetic we used this because Tarnation did the same thing we wanted to do with the contrasting themes of happy family life, with hard hitting facts about their troubles as well. The overall research I did for the project was very helpful as it allowed me to contribute more to the group discussions with relevance, as well as ultimately improving our films quality and professionalism. Next time however, I would do more theoretical research into the makings of sub-genres of documentaries such as poetic, to broaden my understanding of the subject thereby increasing my potential to come up with creative and viable ideas.

Our film is based around quite a sensitive subject area (cancer) and so when planning the film and especially the interview questions we need to approach it with caution. We also needed to bear in mind that we may be bias in our questioning, and ask Hannah questions that may encourage her to answer in a certain way which could lead to misrepresentation. Bill Nichols ‘Introduction to Documentary’ was a text we were advised to read through in a seminar and it raised a lot of speculation into this area. “They speak for the interests of others, both for the individuals whom they represent in the film and for the institution or agency that supports their filmmaking activity” – (Nichols, B, 2001, Introduction to Documentary – Indiana University Press) We kept in mind our individual bias when asking the questions and shooting to make sure we didn’t influence Hannah in any way when asking and creating the questions, and allow her to represent herself in her own way. Finally in terms of our re-shoot, we were worried about the spontaneity of the replies we would get. “Self-consciousness and modifications in behaviour can become a form of misrepresentation…” ” – (Nichols, B, 2001, Introduction to Documentary – Indiana University Press). This was another point that we had to think carefully about when filming for the second time as we didn’t want to breach any ethical boundaries with our final film.

This being said however, I think the documentary was planned and filmed in a professional and efficient manner, we encountered only a small number of technical issues during the edit, and the re-shoot was our biggest challenge along with cutting down our footage to fit it into an interesting 10 minute documentary which I believe we did.