Documentary Project - Post-Production and Final Edit

     In post-production I watched Jamie and Bronte mix together Beth's recorded footage and my recorded sound. Everything came together very smoothly but we knew that we should had collected more interviews in Liverpool, to mix together in edit, other than Bryan. The style of cutting the clips together and the effects added to it were very interesting for us and our fellow peers we showed it to. Effects such as contrasting the footage together and fading it together to give it that kind of surreal element we found fascinating. The major part of our documentary we decided to edit was the sound clip of Carl as we noticed as a group the Bryan and Carl sounded quite similar and could make confusion. Bronte therefore added slight echo effects to not only change the feel of his voice but to make it not as recognisable to Bryan's.  

 

     Overall I was satisfied with our final outcome as I felt everything came together to make quite a grim, interesting short documentary about not just Liverpool but about that every city has its dark little secrets.

Documentary Project - Shooting in Liverpool

     The photo above is myself doing a microphone test at the beginning of our interview in Liverpool. It was the first thing we shot and it took place at a old book shop owned by our interviewee who was called Bryan. In this interview my director and editor asked Bryan questions on dark tales of Liverpool and then gradually began to focus the interview on William Mackenzie. Bryan gave us a good 20 minutes of great material of him discussing William Mackenzie and other strange myths from Liverpool's past. Overall I felt the interview went very well but I felt the sound on my part could have been improved as he spoke very quietly but I didn't want to ask him to speak up.

     We then moved on to gather different footage of Liverpool that could fit well with our short documentary. Firstly we went to the harbour to get indicative shots of Liverpool so its obvious its a documentary based in Liverpool and to also set the scene as well. I therefore recorded atmos sounds of the city and also of the Mersey River as we had some shots of the water to go with it.

     After we felt satisfied we then moved on to recorded shots of William Mackenzie's tomb and a graveyard near by to get some chilling shots to represent the ghost story we were investigating within our documentary. We later got the same shots at night time as well to have a contrast of the two that we could play with in edit to see which day time to what shot suits the most. We also shot in the cathedral next to the graveyard which was very interesting, especially when we went to the roof which allowed us to see across the whole of Liverpool and more. I took some more atmos at the cathedral and graveyard just encase in edit we felt that we needed some.

 

     At the book shop Jamie purchased a book on old tales and myths of Liverpool. We felt that a voice over of a reading of the book could fit into the documentary to bring more of a contrast of speakers as without a voice over it would have been just Bryan talking. Jamie's granddad called Carl, who lives in Sheffield, said he could be delighted to help and therefore me and Jamie recorded him reading a few passages of the book in a quiet part of his house. It sounded really good and made more of a range of voice to the documentary.    

 

 

 

  




  

Documentary Project - Sound Preparations

I wrote down a sound list and equipment list in pre-production.



Documentary Project - Group and Idea Development

My group with the chosen group roles consisted of:

Heather Kelland as Director
Isabel Wells as Producer
Beth Elston as Camera Operator
Myself as Sound Operator
Jamie Wiffen as Editor
Bronte Schoonen as Sound Editor

     We were told that our documentary was to be filmed in Liverpool between three days which meant we had to research on a topic within Liverpool we could make a interesting short documentary about that would be in our reach of achieving. After research our group came up with two ideas for a documentary we felt we could accomplish with the time we had there.

     Our first idea was to make a short documentary on a dead man called William Mackenzie who lived in Liverpool and by myth was buried only 5 minutes away from our hostel in a tomb above ground. We were fascinated by this idea as there is a myth that William Mackenzie was a drinker but a successful gambler by playing poker but one day he met his match with a mysterious character. He lost all of his money to this man but the strange man asks him to play one last hand even thou he has nothing to gamble with. The strange character suggests betting his soul and therefore loses his soul to what appears to be the devil. we felt this would be an interesting documentary that we could make into the length of 5 minutes with a couple of interviewees who are aware of the myth and have any thing to say on the topic. With shots of his tomb with the interviews and shows of perhaps graves and churches near by we felt this could be done.

     Our second idea was to make a short documentary on the Jacobs Biscuit Factory based and created in Liverpool. We had two approaches to this idea as we felt we could make a easy straight forward short documentary on the history, present and perhaps the future this Liverpool local factory and has given huge amounts of jobs for locals of the city. We also in our research found that recently there had been conflict between works and the bosses at the factory over new rules that had been tried to be made such as workers had to have permission to go to the toilet. As interesting as we felt this situation was we felt that we would be making things harder for us trying to get interviews on the matter especially off any mangers or bosses. Either way we felt that it would be an interesting documentary to make that locals of Liverpool may be intrigued to watch as it is a place they may see in close to everyday life.

     

     We pitched both our ideas to our seminar tutor and the rest of our peers. We received positive feedback on behalf of both ideas so it was up to us to decide which idea we would do. As a group we all agreed on the William Mackenzie idea as it is what fascinated us the most.

Documentary Project - Research and Influence

     For the beginning of this project I have research on a lot of interesting documentaries such as The Act Of Killing (2012), The Imposter (2012) and Marley (2012) but the film that I felt influenced myself the most was Dark Days (2000).

 

     Dark Days is a documentary made my Marc Singer on the homeless population who live permanently in New York in the underground tunnels. I felt this documentary gave me influence as firstly I was intrigued by his approach to the topic of discussion in interviews with the homeless in his film because you never hear him speak as he just lets them do all the talking. He lets them feel comfortable and be themselves throughout their interviews and there is a sense that Marc has not pressed them to discuss only on a certain topic but has just let them talk on their own accord. I liked this sense of freedom the interviewee has in this documentary. I also am fascinated with his choice of shots as these certain parts of the underground tunnels he has captured say just as much as the interviewees. An example of this is the shots of the shacks the squatters have made out of nothing but left over scarp from across New York.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Documentary Project - Reflection On My Own Practice

     For of our next semester we have been asked to make a short Documentary. I feel quite lucky as its a genre of film I have worked on in the past and felt it was necessary to publish my old work on my blog to show my understanding towards documentary film-making.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL5wjhnK6YU

     I was sound recordist for a short documentary made about a man called Tony Kennedy from Blyth, Northumberland who was a kit man for Blyth Spartans football club for over 1000 games and from that he earned a well known cult status amongst the people of Blyth. To my surprise my friend and director of the documentary went on to win a the Chris Anderson award for Best Young Filmmaker at the Berwick Film Festival.

     I felt throughout my time working on the making of this short documentary I learnt some skills with approaching people with interviews and the look a documentary should have. I enjoyed recording sound and seeing it on film made me confident I could take on that role again.