Enjoy Your Intermission

https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2015/01/29/enjoy-your-intermission/

What are 3 techniques that the filmmakers use to tell a compelling story?  What kind of mood do they create?  How do they accomplish this?

    Three techniques that the filmmakers use to tell a compelling story are a gradual build up, only using music at the end, and allowing the audience to connect to the people in the film. The way that the documentary starts is quite slow; with Roger Babcock mowing the grass and explaining how the process is therapeutic for him. However, this actually sets the tone for the whole film as it reveals the amount of love for this work that Roger has and adds intrigue. Another aspect of this is also the way that they used music. Throughout the film, there was no music; only natural sounds and the interviews. It was only by the 8 minute mark did they start playing music and they did so at the perfect moment. After establishing how much they love the drive-in and the reasons why they do, the filmmakers then reveals the biggest setback that they're facing; replacing the film projectors with digital ones. They explain how they need to make this expensive change or else they will go out of business. At this reveal is when the music starts, amplifying the emotions for the audience. The biggest technique that they used was by giving the audience the chance to connect to and sympathize with everyone in the film. The filmmakers don't just focus on the drive-in during the interviews, they also emphasize the personal stories behind these people so that you can feel their plights more personally. We learn about their motivations, what they love, their relationships and so much more, making the reveal of the potential risk to their business that much more impactful for the audience. The mood that they create is one that gives the audience a greater feeling of wonder for the drive-in business through the choice of interview responses and b-roll and, by using a conversational tone, they create a more personal atmosphere that helps the audience connect to the people running the drive-in.

Documentary Status

What is the status of your documentary?  What is each of your team members doing to support it?  What exactly have you been doing?  What are some challenges you've been having?  How can you overcome them?

    My documentary is fully complete; I finished the rough cut on the due date and then made some finishing touches to improve the quality afterwards. We got all of our shooting done in one week, getting a very good amount of b-roll and responses from our interviewees. Throughout the process, each team member did a very good amount of work. Nicole managed the communication with the teacher and class and also acted as a secondary camera operator, Amaya directed us and managed all the sound (getting very good quality as well), and I was the primary camera operator and DoP. During the week of editing, I did my best to work around the time constraints that I had due to AP testing by logging all the footage right after importing it and managing to complete the project to some degree on time. Some challenges that I had was in regards to the footage and premiere pro. I had merged the audio and video for the interviews so that they would be in sync and I would be able to more easily place in into the timeline without it going out of sync. However, every time I tried to drag the video (the audio alone could be dragged in but not whenever I tried with the video), premiere pro would freeze and remain unresponsive until I force quit the program. This issue was the same on a different computer so I had to figure out a way to include the interview video without running into that issue. I overcame this issue by testing if the freezing would occur with the original, un-merged, video and it didn't. Thus I had to instead sync the footage by using the merged clip to add markers then going to the separate video and audio clips and set the in points to those markers that I made.

5 Documentary Mistakes

https://www.indiewire.com/features/craft/5-simple-mistakes-documentary-filmmakers-make-69298/

In your own words, which of these are the most important?  Why?  If there were one more mistake that could be added to this list, what do you think it would be?

    I think that the most important thing to keep in mind is the driving question and theme. The reason why having a strong driving question and vision to start is important is because that is the foundation of the entire documentary; if you start on the wrong foot, it'll lead you down a path of destruction. The driving question is supposed to help guide you throughout the documentary process; dictating the entire production process through what you shoot, how you edit, and the story you plan to tell. If there were one more mistake that could be added to this list, it would be not shooting enough b-roll. The b-roll fills up a very large portion of the documentary and not shooting enough will make it that much harder to create the finished product.

3-Point Lighting [Unfinished]

What are three key points that the presenter makes about lighting?  Why are each of them important?  What is one point that you would like to learn more about?

How to Shoot an Interview [Unfinished]

What are three key suggestions that this video brings up?  Why are each of these so important?  How could you use them in future productions?

How to Interview People on Camera [Unfinished]

What are three tips that you think are the most important from this video?  Why?

Understanding A-Roll and B-Roll

What is the difference between A and B roll?  Why is B-roll needed?

    A-roll is your primary footage while B-roll is the supplementary or alternative footage. In documentary filmmaking, the A-roll is typically the interviews and B-roll is any footage that you use to back up the interviewee's answers.