This semester has been my best semester of blog engagement most definitely because I was most interested in this course. I feel that in the second half of the semester I have really worked on reflecting and blogging about the project itself, group work and resolving issues with our project, which I think was lacking with previous blog posts. I also think I have made every blog post worth it, none of the posts are rambly, well maybe a tad but they all are significant in terms of reflecting or sorting out information or just finding better ways to do things and actually thinking about what I have learnt, which I think shows my engagement with the course. As for that digital dossier it went very unnoticed and I regret that I didn’t make a conscious effort to watch some of those documentaries and was simply due to a lack of time and also my need to be really focused on our own project and our own editing that I got very wrapped up in this. In hindsight it probably would have been really worthwhile to step back from our project and see something else to get some editing inspiration or maybe something would click. However, I think I made a really big effort to use the screening and apply this to documentary on a general basis and my own preceptions of it. I think it is important to make the most out of everything you see or do and that does mean critically reflecting on these things because they do mean something. I also think it’s important to use your blog as a reference point, which shows through some of my more dull posts which just outline things we have to do or dot points about what I am thinking about. It’s good to write things down so you don’t forget and I did use my blog to do these kind of note taking exercises, though probably did not indulge into these further and explain them later in following posts. I also feel that I made a really big effort to reflect and spend the last week after our film was finished to really try to figure out what went wrong and right and what I would do better next time and also what I have learnt about my own filmmaking and what I enjoy or don’t enjoy. Therefore this is definitely my most personal blog because at times I almost feel that I am trying to find myself through writing, which I really enjoy and therefore I actually loved blogging. I articulate myself much better in words than talking through it so I also used my blog as a way to communicate with my group sending them links to posts because my blog got to the heart of what I was trying to express. Overall I got a lot out of blogging this semester in terms of cementing my ideas and sussing out if they are fading or solid ideas that can tangibly be brought into our documentary, which I am really happy about. On one final note: Documentaries are much more enjoyable to make than drama and I think in comparison to last semester that really shows through my blogging.
So how did our documentary go?
Well, I think this is a hard question to answer because every documentary was so different, yet I wouldn’t say that our documentary stood out because we didn’t do anything that different. The documentaries that stood out were the one’s that embraced their topic and explored it the best they could and I feel that perhaps ours lacked slightly, apart from that opening fact sequence which I was really happy with. Overall, I am really happy with our documentary because it is polished, has structure and tells a story of something that I am really passionate about and that I’m really glad I did because it definitely has that humanistic stance to it. A representation of the human spirit. Therefore I am happy with the story. I truly am. What I am slightly disappointed about was not making the most of the opportunity of perhaps not doing more. There were so many documentaries that took brave steps and made the most of the opportunity, collecting footage and having an array of material to work with as well as inserting themselves into the documentary and showing that they had learnt. I wish that we would have tried all these things to really experiment and do something different that also captured the essence of Maggie. However, in saying this it was difficult because Maggie was very limited in terms of when she was available and therefore it was hard for my group members to get to know Maggie as well as I did, which I think was difficult for them.
So what does all this mean?
Be brave, take risks and don’t be afraid. Documentary really inspires me and I loved making this project and was really happy with the way Maggie was portrayed in our documentary I thought it was very ethical and presented her as a 3 dimensional character that I was not simply defined by her homelessness, which was always really important to our group. Therefore, I think we show what we originally set out to show. I also think it shows Maggie in all her elements through sadness, happiness and just being funny, which is what characterises Maggie to me. However, I think our ideas started out better and had more movement and as our options became less and things fell through we didn’t embrace this as much as we should or thought of a new creative strategy, with exception to our cutaways which I thought looked amazing and broke up the interior-ness of Maggie’s interview. I guess we almost ran out of time to think up something amazing, which is disappointing but something I’ve learnt a lot from. I think it’s really important to always share your gut instincts because your other group members may love it or hate it but atleast you know and I think a part of me is always a bit scared to express my ideas. Next time I’d want to do something that really embraces everything that documentary can be because in True Lies there is such an array of documentaries and they can really be anything you want them to be and I think I would love to play with that more.
After the screening I realised a few things about documentary and my own preconceptions of it and I was really pleasantly suprised by how amazing documentaries can be and also what works or doesn’t work as well. In terms of what works and doesn’t I think there are three categories documentaries with really great subjects, yet the film doesn’t take full advantage of them. Documentaries with not that great subjects yet the film makes the most of it and documentaries with great subjects who make the most of the opportunity. And then everything in between. I also realised that you can make talking heads work and what about that issue of subtitles? These are all my points today.
So what works?
To be honest I have no idea because documentary is so subjective and therefore what’s boring to someone is interesting to someone else. Therefore, I think it is always important to be original with style and explore the notions of things away from stereotypical representations. Example:
Australia’s Outback: The Whole Hog
This was one of my class’s documentaries and I thought that it was executed exceptionally. I thought they did really well from the rough cut, especially the ending by showing that the narrator was still unsure about the issue and therefore stopped this full sense of resolution. However, I personally have a few problems with it that reflect nothing bad about the production itself because I thought it was really clever, but proves my subjectivity point. Basically, what I wanted was to be shown that these pigs were more destructive that they were a major threat and I never saw this and therefore I think keeping in the killing of the pig still seemed unjustified in my eyes. This is a subjective point for me because I don’t think you should just kill animals for the sake of it, or for the sake of humans, even though I could appreciate where the farmer’s were coming from, they’re still farmers and they were represented this way through the very stereotypical country music. I felt that I was not seeing anything different and I left a little bit disappointed, because I wanted to be convinced and just wasn’t.
Oliver’s Girl
Another one from my class that I thought dramatically improved since the rough cut because it felt so polished and had Oliver in it more. This is my example where I think the talking head really worked because it was mixed with this really well shot active footage of Oliver. By incorporating this in more I think they really overcame the whole talking heads is boring a repetitive scenario, which happened with some of the other documentaries and shows that going out and sort of voyeuristically shooting is really worth the effort. This is because in other cases such as Making It and 43 Days there was not enough variety because you didn’t see anything else and therefore couldn’t stay engaged with the story, well this is what I found. I also thought the cut from one actress to the other in Making It was really abrupt and would have been more worthwhile and I wanted to see more of them not talking to break it up and show more.
was a key topic in terms of the issues surrounding subtitles, which is always an issue, where a lot of people made the claim that it would have been a lot better if we could understand what he said, but look were these people really listening. I agree it was hard to understand him, however I think it is our obligation as an audience to make the effort, even if it is hard to listen or maybe watch it again. We had a similar problem with our documentary because sometimes Maggie is difficult to understand, but I would never have given her subtitles because it is totally disregarding what she really has to say and stops people from actually listening. Also it makes fun of her and her inability to be completely clear, therefore I really think they made a good decision with this piece.
And now into one last point, you always have to respect the person you are interviewing. I thought that maybe the last documentary about the woman that talked to animals was a little bit a ‘make fun of documentary’ and maybe the group should have made a better effort to know this woman away from this that defines her because I thought it was slightly 2 dimensional. Even though I think it’s great to point out the contradictions of what people say, I think you always have to consider what else makes this person and present them as a whole, which I thought was lacking in this production. You need to make your interviewees 3 dimensional.
Cheer
Laura Wong. Arissa. Eric Calatayud.
Drama. Drama. Drama. The structure in this documentary was superb, the way it all built up and revealed and contradicted itself was tremendous. Therefore, I give this group a major editing congratulations, and as for Emma herself I still don’t know what to think. This documentary sums up what documentary is all about and really asks the question: what is the truth? Therefore, that question at the end: Are you performing for us? was completely spot on. Also it feels like this group really took a big risk going down this line and obviously went with their instincts and found one killer story, that I don’t think anyone would have suspected. I also thought it was really clever to show Emma in different ways physically, such as in her cheer uniform, without makeup and as a coach, because it creates a portrait of someone that is three dimensional and emphasises this whole sense of performance, which arguably is the whole point of this documentary. The editing as I have said earlier was tremendous in creating a really great dilemna as to who to believe especially in the story about living with Emma, where the story is told by the ex-housemate and herself, contradicting each other in perfect synch. One criticism or maybe a few. The story was dynamic the cutting was excellent, but I think it could have done without the text between the stories, because it was clear anyway and if they wanted a gap in stories they should have maybe had a montage sequence of her literally performing or something like that. I thought the text was redundant, which leads on to my next criticism being that I wanted to see her literally performing more. I wanted to see the pain she feels from cheerleading. Overall, this documentary showed that taking a risk and finding gold pays off and the true value you get out of making the best of an opportunity.
Kaleidescope
Ao Xu. Hui Xiong. Melissa Toh. Louise Chang.
If any of the documentaries stand out it is this one because it was made with so much effort. That alone gives this group for me a huge amount of respect. The best part was the combination of animation and real-life that emphasised the actual feeling of synesthesia making it more vivid. The inclusion of the girls making the sign and all those moments of reflexivity brought it together and broke it up, making it really genuine, without being clumsily put together. I also thought the voice-over was done extremely well, as I think voice-over is a really hard thing to get right and they got it spot on with the Sydney landscape clad in orange and upside down brought a really lovely stylistic element to the documentary. In conjunction they did really well in having multiple different point of views without making any of them redundant and the use of the ‘expert’ did not lurk into A Current Affair territory, she have a great context that all the other stories meshed off and made it really clear without being too statistical. I also thought that they chose really great places to film all their interviews, which added different textual layers, breaking up the landscape and giving each interviewee their own individual space to speak in. This documentary left me wanting to know more, which I think is a great thing and also that time and effort really pays off! They even wrote and recorded their own song.
I’m going to keep it brief because I tend to ramble too much and I want to make these reviews concise. One word to describe the screening: Incredible, filled with tender, hilarious, sad, profound, insightful moments from really interesting people. Impressed.
Yianni (The Independant Filmmaker)
Diane Vu. La-Ra Hinckeldyn. Maria Rita Skog.
In terms of style, creativity and overall cinematography I thought this film hit the spot because it was consistently within a certain style, reminiscent of the French New Wave, which directly matches the spontaneity and performance of Yianni himself. It feels like a film with characters who are playing themselves, which made me think of Godard’s A Woman is a Woman, so in terms of a really accurate and informed style that encompassed both character and place, it was incredibly well done. In terms of Yianni himself I questioned whether anything he said was actually insightful and meaningful, when everything seems like a bit of joke and feels over-performed as if every word he says is like him trying to be as profound as possible, yet he is not the least bit genuine. I thought about this considerably and then asked myself does this matter? and also with the style him being completely genuine probably wouldn’t have fit and I wouldn’t have liked it as much. The trick I think is its reflexivity that is purposeful; Yianni is a filmmaker, he knows the tricks and he performs for it. He almost becomes the filmmaker of the film, and we see that at the beginning when he talks about cutting straight to his mate smoking. In light of this it was great to see them not ignoring this fact. The film to me is emblematic of Melbourne’s indie culture, as much as it is about Yianni being a filmmaker. It is Melbourne’s cool culture, which the film mimicks through its own creative, stylised cool.
Paul sent us an email saying that perhaps we could also reflect on the course; what is good, bad, etc. I liked this course a lot better than I liked TV1, I think because I found making a documentary more interesting in terms of being creative, where with TV1 I felt it was very structured and left very little movement for creativity as we were meant to be Hollywood directed. Therefore, documentary was always going to be better, especially after studying True Lies, because I felt I came with an advantage in knowing all the things you could do with documentary, and how creative it could be.
the lectures
I thought the lectures were great, especially because we watched so much stuff. Robin’s lectures were great because they just showed us an array of different documentaries that we could refer to, and watch, which is what you want. I get the most inspiration out of watching what other people have done, so therefore watching previous years tv2′s documentaries was also really great and really important as it allowed us to see what we were capable of doing, because really some of them were amazing. I also thought the more technical lectures by Paul were really great, because that’s something we didn’t cover in True Lies and something we really needed to know when making our own documentaries. Liam’s lecture on ethics was also great, which brought in the ethical considerations from True Lies but applied it to our own documentaries. Overall, I was truly impressed by the lectures they gave us a full grasp of the course and were really helpful as well as inspirational in terms of some of the snippets we saw.
the tutorials
The three exercises we did were great in thinking about documentary and applying it in a practical manner. It also broke up the intense planning of our own documentaries. I think I really learnt a lot from these exercises and then was able to apply them later on. In fact I think we could have done maybe one more of these exercises, perhaps focusing on sound, even though the observational exercise did cover this I think soundscapes are really important to docos and I would have loved to kind of explore this further. As always all the technical stuff was covered really well from camera to lighting to sound, which we could then apply to these exercises and see where we needed to improve. In one of the last lectures, it may have been the last Paul showed a clip from Forbidden Lies where green screen was used. I think it would have been great to cover some more creative technical techniques that we could of applied to our docos, especially in the case where some of our docos were restricted to talking heads. Therefore, I think just even being made aware that we can do these things earlier on. In conjunction, I really liked Robin’s idea of showing a doco at the beginning of each tute, and I think this should be continued and span through every tute for the semester applying to whatever we cover that week. It gives something tangible to think about and talk about in the tute, because in the lecture we don’t really discuss the clips we see we just listen. Maybe, to place more emphasis on the digi doss we should use this to watch in class, because I feel that it is almost forgotton.
the readings
Some of these readings did cross over with True Lies, yet again the Rabiger ones were really great in terms of pre-production and making sure you’re really ready to film your doco. I also like that the readings stop in week 10 as it gives time to really focus on the editing process. Even though, some of the readings are a bit dry there are ones such as the interview readings with filmmakers that really made me think about what we were doing, and if we were doing it in the right way. Without, the readings I don’t think I would have thought about our doco as much as I had and I really think there needs to be more emphasis on doing the readings so that your group members are as engaged as you are. However, sometimes they are long and you don’t have time.
overall
I’m very pleased with this course, even though I do think it is the most time consuming and really is a lot of effort. However, I think that it is structured extremely well and that you have all these people around you to help you out whenever you need, which is my way of saying the staff are very accessible. I also think that all those how to movs and handbooks are so crucial and without them I don’t think we would have ever be able to export, etc. I feel that a lot of time goes into making this course a good one.
Now that our documentary is finished I thought it would be nice to do a series of reflective blog posts on different areas, which will also include reflections on other people’s documentaries after the screening. I am going away on the 3rd of November, so I really need to get these done before I leave.
I didn’t write a blog post on our own in class assessment because I thought it would be more worth while to write this after the editing process had finished so I could talk about my role as producer, director and also editor, and then reflect on my changed attitude to filmmaking or really what I’ve learnt about group work and the processes of a documentary production.
Producer
I would probably say that this role was the most difficult and frustration, especially when your subject is constantly on a rollercoaster of massive mood changes and therefore made the process of organising film dates almost to the point of impossible. I think I did well to deal with this myself, yet didn’t really communicate the difficulties I was having to my group members, which I assume would have been very frustrating for them. Producing is the most stressful because people are busy and you have to finalise dates and always be on the ball communicating between your subject and group members. It is also about being on top of all that pre-production stuff and being extremely organised. In having produced our drama last semester I have to say that producing drama is a lot easier because it’s formalaic, with everything lined out. Your director gives you a shot list and you strategically and practically go through it to create a schedule you cann actors who legitimately want to be in your film for rehearsals and everything is very formalaic you can write a step-by-step list of everything you have to do. In documentary because it’s less structured, a lot of the information is in your mind and you write down some shots that you need but all in all you have to work around your subject who is often unpredictable. What I learnt was a large degree of patience and that it is more important to make your subject happy than really anything else because you have a great crew that will organise everything else in terms of technical requirements. Especially, with Maggie it was about reassuring her making her feel as comfortable as possible in front of glowing lights and a camera.
Director
Perhaps I’m not cut out for this role, because it’s really difficult. I worked really well with Meenal to come up with a visual style and then was happy to let her go with the camera because I had built a trust with her and was fully trusting of her capabilities to use a camera. This is one area of the group work I was really happy with as it made me way less stressful on the day because all I had to worry about was communicating with Maggie and making sure we got the stories and information we wanted. Again, with documentary this is unpredictable; things that she had talked about previously with me she didn’t want to talk about to the camera. Yet, I was happy with this as she seemed in control of what she wanted and didn’t want to say, which was one of the ethical things Liam brought up when you’re dealing with vulnerable subjects- that they told you things that they didn’t want to. I would always say I don’t want to trick her into saying anything because that is being unethical and taking advantage of that vulnerability. In the first interview I probably didn’t go in as hard as I would have liked and talked to my group about what we NEEDED from the next interview, which made it a lot easier, except that Maggie wasn’t in the best place. Ultimately, what I learnt is that you need a lot of time with subjects like Maggie and heaps of flexibility so maybe if this was not a uni subject and I had infinite time to interview we would have kept building the trust and got a lot of information. However, I think all my previous research into aesthetics and what we were dealing with really made me prepared for what Maggie was going to offer.
Editor
I really loved editing. I literally edited as much as I could and it really paid off on the final days of editing where we could really focus in on fine-tuning. What I learnt: editing makes a film. That is it and also mastering Final Cut to a higher degree. I really understand now the reliance Observational doco makers have on editing because it allows you to embed meaning and make what your subject says more important mimicking how you saw it on the day. This goes back to all that pre-production stuff of really knowing your subject and being able to use your editing to convey what they want to say as truthfully as you can, because sometimes when they say something important to them they rush it and it now emphasises something unimportant. This was all about timing. What I also learnt: give your subject time. When we started editing we knew that Maggie was very spaced with her words or rushed through them and I think we were too eager to cut everything down to being really precise and fine, when we really needed to give Maggie’s words space, to let her ponder and let the audience wait to hear what comes next. When we gave Maggie space everything was a lot clearer, you could hear Maggie clearer and her words meant more, which was really important.
Overall
I want to edit. If I spent my life editing I would be happy. Editing is when you can really just think about everything and get to know your footage, whether it is good or bad and just let it speak for itself. It allows you to be 100% creative without having to worry about technical limitations, things going wrong, etc. It is also very inspiring and I often found myself going home and just thinking about the footage how we could structure it and how everything could link together to create a whole. I think I like editing the same way that I like writing essays or watching films, it’s about analysing each bit of footage and then putting it into a context that gives it meaning. It’s like making your own topic sentence and then filling in the gaps that convey that topic. Except, with the structural freedom that you don’t get with an essay. Editing is right up my alley it’s about seeing what isn’t there, what is there and then analysing it, creating and forming meanings that you didn’t think were there in the first place. It’s like being utterly shocked and suprised when that film makes that fatal twist.
Filed under: tv2 | Tags: cutaways, editing, finalcutpro, fine-cut, soundtrack
On Monday, we spent the whole day fine-cutting our documentary with precision, with the emphasised focus on our audio mix and overlays. We also re-configured the ending so it was less jarring. We also learnt some great editing tips along the way, which made it all in all a lot less time consuming. Firstly, lets talk about cutaways.
Cutaways
Cutaways need to be put in the right place so they do not jarringly pop out of nowhere. Therefore, you need to correlate them quite significantly with the running dialogue. When I went into the editing suites on Monday I had a feeling that we had just chucked in our cutaways without considering how they flow into Maggie’s words. Therefore, we spent some time alloting carefully where to have each cutaway cut in and cut out. Let me give you a tangible example:
In the cigarettes and milkbar story we have 5 different overlays throughout: two of milkbars, one of her arm in a sling and one of a packet of cigarettes. The milkbar cutaways come in when she talks about the actual process of robbing the milkbar, yet they came in right on the middle of one of her words, which made it seem very jarring and then there was a gap (a pause in her speaking) which was cut halfway through with a second milkbar cut. On the whole it was quite jarring. Therefore, what needed to be done was a slight shifting of the clips so that they sat at the end or beginning of a word to make it a much neater transition into the cutaway. With the packets of cigarettes the shot was too short and just looked like a flashing image. Therefore, we just extended it and it worked much better.
In using cutaways you have to make sure they’re not redundant. Gina and I spent about half an hour putting a cutaway in to cover a messy cut by using an emotional blank shot of Maggie’s face. Because we were messing around with this for so long we thought that perhaps it didn’t work and took it away realising it was not the cut itself that was clunky but the audio cut straight into the word, which brings me to my next amazing editing discovery.
Audio tip, especially helpful when someone links all their words together
Maggie talks throughout her interview in two distinct ways; either very slow with lots of space or very quick linking her words together. Whilst the slow works well and is easy to cut around the quick is very difficult as we can’t get any space before words as they are linked intrinsically to the previous.
Solution # 1 attempt to cut right at the beginning of the word (This doesn’t work very well and is what we used for our rougher cuts, because she comes in very quickly and half the word is usually cut off).
Solution # 2 put a gap in your audio to give it some space. This works quite well except does leave a gapping hole of obvious silence, and because Maggie does breathe quite heavily between words the gaps are even more obvious.
Solution # 3 add a gap fade in fade out. This was seriously the ultimate solution and eliminated the clunkiness of Maggie starting a word. We would extend the clip slightly and then fade into the beginning of the word we needed. Sometimes we did need that gap just to make the process of her telling the story less rushed and more poignant. So we would fade into and out of the silence, which made it a hell of a lot less noticable.
In working through these problems Gina and I realised that you really just have to persist to you get it perfect, we had the time to make each cut perfect so we had to ensure we did this, even though it was time consuming. What we realised was her part 1 Rodney story was very rushed and just seemed unimportant, when it is something that is really important to Maggie, and therefore by putting in gaps and making it longer it made it a lot more significant connecting more truthfully to Maggie’s story.
On a final note it is important to edit to the music, especially if it is particularly rythmic. In our beginning montage Sarah and Meenal edited each cut to the changes in the music, which made the edit ever so more impressive and because we used the same song in the credits it was important to do the same, where each change in credit links causatively to the change in music.
Overall, I think my editing has become a l0t better in terms of mastering short cuts and really thinking about every cut. I remember Paul saying in one of the lectures that your group should ‘high five’ for every great cut and as we edited on Monday I really understood the merit of what he was saying, because in documentary every cut is signifying something and you need to make sure that it is signifying the right thing and if it’s not ever-so-slightly you need to change it. I felt like I was being a meticulous snob, but atleast we’re all happy with the final product.
Since, it’s coming to that time to hand in our documentaries I thought it would be a good time to refresh on all those bits and pieces needed to hand in our documentaries. This is covered in Paul’s last lecture, yet it is very dot pointy and that 2 weeks ago feels like a lot longer than that. I thought what I’d do it re-visit Paul’s video manuals and write a check list for each component and what we have to check, etc.
compressing to mpeg2/ac3
- cntrl + click on the sequence you want to export and click export>using compressor
- in compressor click the preset media video from the left menu and check the following specifications: width- 720, height- 576, format- M2V (in the summary tab) and check that the video format is PAL and aspect ratio 4:3 in the encoder tab, the quality tab within the encoder tab should be set to an average bit rate of 5.0 and a maximum bit rate of 7.5
- drag the media video preset onto your sequence in the top panel
- drag the media audio preset as well, the file format should be dolby digital professional with the extension ac3
- right click the media audio preset that has been dragged onto your sequence and select the destination as other and select where you want it to save
- do the same with your audio preset
- click submit
media managing
- control+click your sequence and click media manage
- in the pop up window, under Media: make sure the drop down menu is set to copy
- tick ‘delete unused media from duplicated items,’ and ‘handles’ and set this to 02:05
- click the ‘browse…’ button and select where you want to save your project and call it ‘mm title of film’
- click ok and name your project
- click save
So, there is no video on DVD Studio Pro so I will revist my blog post on the lecture and see if there is anything written on it on the tv2 handbook blog. When I went on the handbook blog I found a document on doing the web compression, which is optional, but we didn’t do it last semester so this is probably a handy thing to know. It is a google doc link so I don’t think it is worth re-writing out, just a link here will suffice.
DVD studio pro
Hmmmm, so there is not a lot written on how to do this, basically from my lecture notes are 4 points:
- just keep the setting at 4:3 otherwise it will double squash
- set your display mode to 16:9
- build your project in DVD Studio Pro, don’t Burn
- burn using toast
Toast
- select the Video_TS and burn
- click ‘fit-to-DVD video compression’ if needed to fit your files on your DVD
And that’s really it. I know it’s not that an enthralling of a blog post but it will be easier when we have to do all this stuff to just have it written out and to avoid making mistakes. We want our film to be presented well at the screening and sometimes this just means knowing all those little technical details, but know them rather than learn them while you are actually going through the process so you are prepared!
