Long Lens

Usually, documentary film is using long lens. Everything is happening in front of you and you will not know when it ends, that’s why we need long lens and keep shooting. However, using long lens effectively does not mean following everything like a fly. A dedicated shooter should know how to choose the right thing to shoot and adjusting position, composition and view depends on motion, emotion and how thing change. Knowing the person’s feeling helps the shooter to get a better shot. The long shots in documentary always shock the audience through the actual time it toke which could not be achieved by final cutting. Sometimes it is necessary to abandon shooting technique to make a complete long shot. For example how to use auto-focusing instead of manual-focusing to avoid defocus. For my project, shots usually taken on the sea, many shots will be unstable and I need to practice more about that.

Board Way

I took part in the interview studying and framing activity in Board Way. It is meanly about how to choose the right angle, height, background, sound-recording and view when we making a video. For me, I chose mid-shot which I think it easier to catch the motions and emotions of the interviewer and interviewee. For the angle, I chose 3/4 face and camera facing the interviewee to avoid them glance right and left. For the height, I chose eye level. For the back ground I prefer somewhere about the theme. It is the first time I engaged sound-recording which I am looking forward to learn. A clear sound-recording helps the documentary to preserve the reality. So, it is the most important thing that I need to learn.

Except for gaining knowledge, team-work is another thing I feel thankful and important. I don’t have many opportunities to work with others, but I think in the future I need team-work to finish my project.

'why and how as a director do'

In the past, the film I made is story film with specific environment, light and persons. While making a documentary film, the maker should be sensitive to catch the specific moment that sends the right message. As it is framing the real life, everything will happen only once, I need to be sharp of everything; have the sense of life to find out what will be easily ignored by other people and catch it with me camera. A documentary maker also needs to feel life with their heart and to find out the truth of life. That what I need to do as well, taking part in my life and feeling the environment and people with my heart. Then all my emotion will be expressed through my camera. Many shots will be taken by my sense. I think a video shooter should think about 'why and how as a director do'.

John Grierson

1.Do not summarize your topic. You can write an essay about postal service, but you must make a film about a letter.

2.Do not obey 3 basic principles: sociological, poetical, technical.

3.Do not ignore the script. Do not make a film with your luck. Once the script is done, your film is done. So, if you are making your film now you can start preparing the next one.

4. Do not think story can be told by only narrating, it should be told by vision and sound. Unnecessary narrating makes people uncomfortable.

5. Bear in mind that every single shot you toke is a part of your film. A shot in a wrong place can be bad, even the most beautiful shot

6. Do not create unnecessary 
shooting angle. An unsuitable angle will only ruin the atmosphere.

7. Do not use too many fast-paced cutting skills. The faster they are the more likely to be the most beautiful adagio.

8. Do not over use music. If you do so, the audience will refuse to listen to it.

9. Do not over use live sound. It is better to use it suggestively or complementally.

10. Do not use too many light effects, or make it too complicated. Dissolve, fate in and fate out is the punctuation of you film, they are your comma and period.

11. Do not use too many close-up shots. Save it until the climax. In a balance-structured film, close-up shots appear naturally. If they are too many, it will smothery and lost its importance.

12. When dealing with people, don’t hesitate. Human and animal are all beautiful.

13. You should tell the story clearly. A real subject must be told simply and clearly, but it doesn’t means to theatricalize it. 


14. Do not abandon the chance of experiment, the name of documentary all come from experiment. Without experiment, documentary has no value even not exist.

These 14 tenets from John Grierson are the tenets for me to look at documentary, and also help me to develop my own works.

storybook

THE BIG BLUE

Storybook

Thursday - (22/11/12)

Lecturer:Panton Hall

Documentary

After some case studies about documentary, I found that almost every documentary I watched have narrating. That let me think about how important a narrating is to documentary. It based on the image and written as the story goes. Narrating complete, or even improve, the image, but not repeating it. Generally speaking, I think narrating should be designed as the story goes rather than only simply talking about the image. Although it plays an important role in documentary, it is only a vehicle to make it easier for the audience to understand the idea. Meanwhile, I found that possible to make a good documentary without narrating through framing skills, sound-recording skills and final editing. Sometimes it narrows the gap between the creator and audience. I prefer to make a documentary without narrating.

Traverlling Birds

This video had spent Jacues Perrin and his crew 4 years, 460 kilo-meters of film and over 40 million dollars across over 50 countries and regions. 600 people involved, including 17 greatest pilots in the world and 2 scientific expeditions. A large amount of shots taken in different places, such as south pole, deserts, valleys and sky, make the nature admirable. During the first year of the project, they didn’t frame a lot, instead, they followed the migrant birds and off their guard. They didn’t start framing until the second year, they use special tools such as small planes, dynamical umbrellas and flying objects in the similar size as birds with a special hidden camera to frame the birds. Meanwhile, they fed some wild birds as actors to frame with the aircraft carrier and factories. All this serious preparations they have done made the video admirable and great.

The video was framing in many amazing angles which make the audience feel like they are really there, flying with the birds, so do I. There are a few words in the video, instead of it they use lots of live recorded sound and songs singed by choir. The whole video is the explanation of the first sentence of the video ‘The migration of birds is all about a promise’ which stay in the audience mind for a very long time. You will find that the earth have been changed a lot by human being by following the birds fly all over the world in 30 minutes. In that 30 minutes, the birds are the king of the world whole their living environment is now seriously damaged. The music playing when the bird was hit and the parrot successfully escaped really shocked me. The music mixed with sounds of birds flying and chirping in New Age way created the whole atmosphere of the whole video.