#1 Introduction to Documentary
Comparing to a fictional film production, documentary is a more serious and challenging field for filmmakers. As a non-fictional creative work, this specific type of motion picture requires people has to remain two features at one film work: the reflection of reality and the spirit of exploring.
After reading Bill Nichols’s Six Modes Documentary, I emerged a huge interest in participatory documentary.
Participatory documentary is becoming increasingly prevalent in the contemporary media industry. It is very identifiable when people watch different documentaries or shows. Bill summarised in his book that the participatory documentary is the combination of the compilation of footages and perspectives from interviews.
There are two essentials in a participatory documentary production: the active engagement of the director and using interview as a major approach to explain the idea.
To be specific. I only acknowledged two modes of documentaries before I had a comprehensive understandings of documentary. The first one is the expository mode which use voice-over to illustrate a truth; and the observational documentary, which is normally used to record the real event or social changes at the time. Both of these two modes are pursuing a high-purity subjectivity in the film.
Documentary is always considered as an objective film form that leaving personal stands outside the camera. Especially in the war, documentaries were produced for political uses.
However, expressing is the nature of any art form, no matter they are still art or motional art. As a continuous developing film form, the contemporary documentary also should to satisfy the needs of people when want to represent their own thoughts about their surroundings, and export individual ideology. In that, the raise of participatory documentary broke the pattern of traditional filming habit. Since that, director’s personal opinion started getting involve, filmmakers become more active during the filming, and have more power to control the orbit of the documentary.
Moreover, having interview in the documentary is another reason that I consider participatory documentary is more competitive in the market. Audience may get tried easily when the commentary rattles away for one or two hours. In that, a real face to face interview may be more attractive.
Meanwhile, interviews also can make a stronger statement about the subject(s) and the idea in the film. In the participatory documentaries, subjects have the power to speak for themselves. Comparing to the explaining voice over in any other types of documentaries, the speech from the subject(s) is more persuasive.
Furthermore, interviews which contain a subjective opinion of the interviewees can cultivate a more independent judgment of viewers. Spectators who watch a participatory documentary will be influenced by the conversation in the interview. Therefore, it is natural that audiences may generate their personal thoughts about the subject in the documentary, and review the whole film in a more critically perspective. Additionally, Bill also pointed out that while people watching the film, an interview also can stimulate audience’s curiosity about the film, transform them from a bystander into a witness and increase their senses of engagement.
Last but not least, besides enriching the content in the film, interviews also can contribute to other fields in the society, such as the anthropology and sociology. Bill gave some interesting examples in his book. For instance, from the perspective of medicine and social welfare, the interview can be regarded as a countable case history; when comes to a psychoanalysis context, it can be a decent therapeutic evidence; in terms of the media industry, a documentary-style interview has already become an important section of reality shows.
Personally speaking, participatory documentary gathers the fun part from the television program and the rigorousness of traditional documentary. Thus, I consider this specific mode is a very feasible option for people who tend to seek a way out to represent individual ideology or to reveal the issues of their surroundings.
#2 No Direction Home
From the view of my personally opinion, this two minutes’ participatory documentary clip mainly focused on two questions: Who is Bob Dylan? What makes a boy become Bob Dylan?
In the very beginning of the clip, director used several stage performances to introduce the subject in this film. Bob Dylan has considered as a terrific music icon for the past half a century. In that, using his performance as the opening can come straight to the point in the first place. Moreover, due to the popularity of Bob Dylan, his classic performance also can grab audience’s attention effectively.
The answer of the first question is obvious. Bob Dylan is a boy who found music since he was little. After four shots of a pale wood which covered heavily by snow, Bob’s interview came on the screen. Director used many photos to replenish his story, such as the little Bob, old street views and mine field in the 50s of 1990.
The second question is more complicated, but the answer also hid in the film. The succeed of Bob not only relied on his incomparable talent, his creations were also deeply influenced by the external environment.
This two minutes’ clip may be regarded as a quick peek of the full film. As an audience, I received a pretty clear message about this film’s content. In the rest of the film, I think they will keep focusing on the life journey of Bob Dylan, and trying to decode underlying drive forces of his life decisions. Meanwhile, his stage life will be the definite peak in this film. From the perspective of shooting technique, this film may also keep using pictures, previous videos, and corresponding objects’ pictures to visualize and replenish Bob Dylan’s speech in his interview.
Additionally, the atmosphere in the rest of the film may still remain a melancholy vibe. As Bob Dylan said himself, no one can make the time still. Stage stars are always flanked by countless fans, and also enjoy the gratification of wealthy. However, as the pale wood symbolized in the film, life is desolate. Even Bob Dylan, a huge star of the era, he still can’t against the elapse of time and the advent of unexpected accidents.
(Due to the cultural disparity between western countries and China, I never heard about Bob Dylan before I watched this clip. I did a quick research about him after my first watch, and got a brief information about his life. If I made any misunderstanding of Bob Dylan, please excuse my mistake and I made that absolutely unintentional.)
#3 Forbidden Lies
The audios in Forbidden Lies included four parts. The speech in the interview, the audio of reading Forbidden Love, the audio during the exterior shooting, and the sound effect in the scene-reappearance. Three of them were synchronization recordings, the interview, the reading, and the exterior shooting recording. The sound effects were post-scoring which recorded in the studio and edited in to the film during the post-production.
Firstly, there are two interviews were recorded in this clip. The first one is the interview of Rana Husseini. Her interview was filmed in her office. She is a journalist in Jordan, and she represents the doubting voice from the public. The second interview invited Dr. Amal A. Sabbagh as the guest. Due to her age, social title and speaking manner, she represented a potent figure of professional in this film.
Another important audio was a lady’s voice who was reading Forbidden Love in a well-equipped studio. It can really help audience who did not read the Forbidden Love can have a better understanding of the ongoing content. Meanwhile, her reading and the speech in two interviews were also the voice-over during the scene-reappearance section.
The exterior shooting was led by Rana Husseini. Rana tended to investigate her doubts by matching the timeline of the brands in Forbidden Love. Therefore, all of her speech and conversation were important evidence. In that, her phone calls and the actual dialog with the brands’ owners were recorded very thoroughly during the filming.
The last type of audio in this clip was the sound effect in the scene reappearance. The scene reappearance was one of the most crucial components in this film. Firstly, it can promote the film became more entertaining; secondly, the purpose of this film is to demonstrate the authenticity of the content in Forbidden Love. The sounds effects in the scene reappearance were recorded in the studio. Director tend to use both visual evidence and sound effect to point out the logical vulnerabilities in the book will be more effective than a lengthy speech. For instance, when talking about the cigarette brand that protagonists used in the book, the sound of pulling the drawer and snapping lighter were very identified.
Additionally, director also turned down the noise from the real environment to ensure the voice over can be continuously played very clearly.
#4 Reflection on the lighting exercise
It has been said that film is an art of light and shadow.
One month ago, I filmed a short film. Therefore, I would like to reflect my own work as the example in this section.
My story was about a young girl who was attacked by a stranger in the midnight. The whole film was shot in the night. In this context, the motivating of applying light was to make everything clear. Meanwhile, as a crime film, lighting also can be used to create a suspense atmosphere and increase the tension in the scene.
I applied two kinds of lights in the film. In the first part of the film, (before she tucked into the blanket), we had a soft, warm-toned light in the bedroom in order to create a sweet, harmless atmosphere. (Screenshot 1) As the story developed, we changed our light into a hard, cold-toned kind to build the tension. (Screenshot 2)
(Screenshot 1)
(Screenshot 2)
Lighting definite is one of the determinant features of an excellent shot or a great film. The Screenshot 3 was a scene when protagonist crouches in the blanket. There was no light under the blanket. We placed the light in front of actress’s face and lowered the angle of the phone to lighten her face. (We used the function of flashlight on the smartphone.) We also adjusted actress’s face many times to find a best angle of her face. It can be seen that we had a hard, cold-toned light in the scene, and 3/4 of her face was in the light, and 1/4 of her face was in the dark. The actress’s face turned pale on the camera, the cold light also made her seem more vulnerable and helpless. This is what we wanted.
(Screenshot 3)
It is undeniable that setting lighting is one of the most time-consuming tasks during filming. However, a splendid lighting can really level up the quality of the whole film. The final outcome makes every seconds worthy.
If I have a second chance to re-filming this story, I will definite rent a professional light. Although I had two different colour-toned lights in the film, due to the backwards of filming equipment, the contract of lights between the first part and the second part was not distinct enough, and the outline around actress’s face was too blurry.
In the future, I will pay more attention to lighting section in the pre-production period. Lighting is the precondition of every filmmaking in the world. A precise light design can promote the film seems more professional, and also can relieve the pressure in the post-production process. Although we can use editing software to make up flaws of footages, there are still many problems that are irreparable, such as the noise. Hence, mastering lighting is the duty for every filmmaker.
#5 Colour Grade
(Original clip)
(First time of colour correcting)
Changes and Reasons:
- Increased the temperature: turn the picture into a more warm and peaceful tone.
- Slightly raise the exposure: make actress’s face brighter.
(Final piece)
Changes and Reasons:
- Raise the contrast: turns the colour on the screen more real and colourful.
- Reduced the highlights, shadows, and whites: the skin tone of this actress is bright, however, the background in this scene was also in a white tone. Adjusting highlights, shadows and whites down can promote the actress becomes more outstanding in the frame and stop integrating with the background.
2.
(Original clip)
(First time of colour correcting)
Changes and Reasons:
- Increased the temperature: building a sweet and warm vibe.
- Adjust the tint into a purple tone: keep building a romantic atmosphere.
- Increased highlight: brighten the picture.
(Final piece)
Changes and Reasons:
- Slightly reduced the exposure and raise the level of contrast: make the footage more colourful, and highlight the actress who stands in the middle of the flame become more outstanding. (Emphasis the main subject in the flame.)
- Increased highlight: make actress’s face seem brighter.
- Reduced shadows and blacks: emphasis the outline of actress’s face
3．
(Original clip)
(First time of colour correcting)
Changes and Reasons:
- Reduced the number of temperature and adjusted the tint in a green tone: based on the content of the footage, a murdering scene should has a cold colour tone.
(Final piece)
Changes and Reasons:
- Slightly reduced the exposure and increased the contrast: in order to darken the picture and create a suspenseful atmosphere.
- Raise the highlight: emphasis the actor in the frame.
- Reduced shadows and leveled up the whites: use shadow to create a hopeless atmosphere in the room, and also strengthen the spooky figure of the murderer.
#6 The Abstract / Haiku edit
The Haiku exercise was fun. Shooting random things in our surroundings, and recording sounds that we thought useful was both challenging and engaging. However, problems emerged when we moved to the editing process.
To be detailed. The overall quality of our recordings was fine. We recorded several different kinds of sounds in the campus, such as the sound of the footstep, and the sound of wind. We also chose three beautiful Haiku poems on the handout, and we decided to read each of them in two speeds that we can have more options when we edit the footages. In the end, we had six recordings of Haiku poems, each of the poems had a normal speed vision, and also a very slow vision.
I was the one who read the poem, and I learned an important thing after I replayed my recordings. It is better to place the microphone has a little distance from the people who is speaking. I was holding the microphone in my first read. After we listened to the recording on the computer, we found that my voice was not clear and also accompanied with a very unpleasant sound of the current. Meanwhile, the noise of my breath was loud. After that, we put the microphone in a relatively distant place on the table, and then we had a much better quality of recordings.
Furthermore, we also confronted the problem of the insufficiency of resources. The usability of our recordings showed an opposite situation comparing to our qualities.
When we recorded our audios and footages in the class, we did not put too much attention on whether there is an underlying connection between them. Therefore, what we had were plenty of footages that totally irrelevant, and also hard to group them in a logical order. In the end, I added some easy effects in the sequence in order to integrate the style of recordings and videos.
The Haiku exercise means to improve our ability of juxtaposing the audio with the video. In that, the underlying logic between different footages and audios is crucial. A single shot cannot become a film (except for the long shot film). Every shot in a good film should interwork with each other. For instance, a close-up which follows after a middle shot can help audiences to get a closer view of the scene.
It is not indicating that there is a rigid rule for editing. Editing can be very various. Same footages which are edited by different person will be created into very diverse results. Nevertheless, the integrality of a film is the basic rule for every finished work.
#7 Reflection on the course
Sound and Image is my first course that requires us to study as a real media worker. Practical experience is crucial in the working field. However, most of my bachelor courses were focused on theories.
This course not only taught me how to use various filming gears and software, most importantly, it helped me to develop the habit of reflecting. It is so important to review what we did, and think how to improve in the future. Besides the actual skills that I learned, I feel more grateful about this new habit.
Feel, Catch, and Love 