When I noted John Corner's codes and conventions of documentaries earlier on in this blog, I talked about the themes
Observation
"This is when the camera becomes the eyewitness to some of the events taking place". People inside of the shots are meant to be oblivious to the fact that there is a camera there. We applied this convention when we filmed a panning long shot of someone walking past the Thai Paragon.
This is similar to the documentary which I chose to analyse, 'Heavy Metal In Baghdad', where US Soldiers were oblivious to the fact that they were being filmed.
Interviews
"Documentaries rely heavily on interviews. Sometimes pictures and archive footage are dubbed over the interview to make sense of what is going on". We filmed plenty of cutaway shots and dubbed them over our interviews. Often these shots were shots either of food, menus or archive footage.
This is the very first cutaway shot the audience sees in our documentary. This shot also makes an observation because of the three oblivious people on the left.
In 'Detroit Lives', this is the first cutaway shot which the audience see. This is archive footage of Detroit Chrysler workers manufacturing cars. This cutaway shot gets dubbed over the voice of Toby Barlow.
Dramatisation
John Corner talked about the idea of Dramatisation and how the audience is sometimes eyewitness to the events unfolding on screen, perhaps in the form of an industry expert who is somehow related to the exposition. This is one of the main reasons why we chose to include Restaurant owner Anhar Miah in our documentary.
In 'The Devil Made Me Do It', they also used industry professionals like we have to explain their opinion which has a relation to the exposition. Like the screenshot above, it also uses subtitles to tell the audience their name and profession. Note the similarity in the framing of these two interviews.
Mise En Scene
"Mise En Scene is used in a way to advance the argument". This is why it was very important for us to film Janet Orr inside a kitchen because of her being a mother and that she has her own experiences of cooking meals for teenagers. In documentaries, the most important things film makers need to think about with regards to mise en scene is the location and the lighting. Clothing can sometimes be an issue because what they are wearing might not actually be related to the exposition. However, it is rare for there to be an issue in documentaries with clothing in documentaries as many people just wear what they would have on normally. Therefore, documentary makers do not have to worry much about how clothing can advance an argument.
When I watched 'Detroit Lives', the audience were presented with Entrepreneur Phil Cooley who was stood inside a warehouse. The documentary was trying to show the audience how Detroit is improving from all of the poverty, crime and drug use. I think that in our documentary, we thought about the lighting much more when we filmed Janet Orr. A lot of the time, 'Detroit Lives' relies on natural light for the interviews whereas we do not. This is a flaw where I feel we did better than the other documentary.
Question 2
Question 3
I wanted to get some audience feedback from my target audience and I decided that the best place to obtain feeback from them would be on facebook, since the vast majority of my friends fit inside the target audience. The image below is proof that I have done this. You can also read what I asked them to do.
This is some of the feedback which I obtained from my peers:
I recieved a 'like' from Katherine Moreira on my documentary. The very first comment which I recieved on Facebook was from Danielle Nunnerley, who was impressed by what she watched. The problem with recieving a like and the comment which Danielle Nunnerley gave me is that this audience feedback is quite vague. She does not describe which parts of my documentary she thought were "Very insightful, and really engaging". Therefore, I believed that so far I had done everything correct until I recieved more audience feedback.
Paul Pope has talked about a good use of cutaways. This pleases me because in my editing Diary, I mentioned that we did not have enough cutaways and that I had to get some footage from YouTube. I interpret this as evidence to show that we did have cutaways in all of the correct places.
Tim Mainwaring gave me my first comment of feedback that had a criticism as well as some positive feedback. I wanted negative feedback so I know where I need to improve next time. He spoke of the information being good but the voice asking the questions is too quiet. We cut out the voice asking the interview questions as hearing it in a documentary is unprofessional. Tim is talking about our narrator's voice being too quiet. It is likely he had to turn the volume up on his speakers in order to give me the feedback he gave me. If the voice asking the questions is too quiet, this means that the "Good info" I had was being disrupted slightly. If he had to turn his volume up, then this may have made the sound from our archive footage and interviews too loud. Thanks to this feedback, I now realise that during the editing process, I needed to turn the volume up when the narrator is speaking. I should have noticed this before otherwise the feedback could have been completely positive. I wore headphones in all of my lessons where I edited and I remember trying to establish a sufficient volume throughout. I thought I had done this correctly, but apparently I had not.
Richard Alan Clarke said that my documentary "looks just like something you would see on bbc4". Although he may have meant this as positive feedback, our documentary was created to be shown on Channel 4 because it attracts younger audiences and BBC4 often attracts the opposite. This is definitely something which I did not want to hear in my feedback. His comment could have been influenced by the Narrator, who did not speak as powerful as I thought he may have when we were recording. I should have realised this and found a different narrator, although this would have caused a delay to our editing process if we re-recorded.
When Richard says "looks like it was made in the 90's though", this is definitely some negative criticism that as a creator, I relish hearing. I now know that some of the techniques I used in my documentary could have been out of date and that their were better ways to edit my documentary than I have included. For example, he may not have liked how I have used the fonts in my documentary and feels that the transitions were very basic. If this is the case, then along with my group, I should have found a transition that would flow better with the takeaway theme of the documentary. This is what I would do to improve if I had another chance.
I decided to record another member of my target audience reviewing my radio advertisement, Print advertisement and my final documentary. This was an attempt to try and obtain a much more visual answer in comparison to Facebook. The answers I received were of a much better standard detail and there was a lot more detail.
Radio Advertisement
The way we edited our radio advertisement is definitely a problem after I received this feedback. "The sound bytes don't really tell you what the program is about". If she thinks that this is the case, then my sound bytes were definitely not relevant enough. When the Narrator asks "What impact does this have on teenagers?" I think that I should have chosen a better sound byte to use than when you hear the restaurant owner speak. I believe that this is also what lead her to to opinion of the narrator needing to tell the audience more about it. Since I am the person who wrote the script for the radio advertisement, it was therefore my duty to fit more information into my radio advertisement, despite it only being 30 seconds long.
Print Advertisement
I am pleased that she said the print advertisement does "catch your eye" and entice the audience into wondering what to advertisement is about. She says the words "for the average person" which means that she was including anyone in or outside of my target audience. This may not sound like a bad thing, but I am judging it in this way because the print advertisement is supposed to attract mostly young people. In hindsight, I would say that our print advertisement does need some more colour because the only colours which we did use were shades of oranges, reds or browns on the strap line, scheduling information, name of the program and on the sauce of the meal.
Documentary Review
This is not the first time I have heard about my documentary having sound problems despite the information it gave. Like Tim Mainwaring, she does mention that the voice about the voice asking the questions is too quiet. This was in comparison to the restaurant owner's sound being too loud. I should have tried to balanced the levels of sound to a volume between these levels as I would rather not give other audience members a "shock" like she said. I am pleased that she did tell me this because it shows that video feedback can be much more informative than taking answers from Facebook. In some ways, it has helped me gain a broader understanding of what Tim Mainwaring was talking about.
For more information, please view the 'Audience Feedback' section of my blog.
Question 4
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