Preliminary task: reflection and evaluation

What went well?

In my preliminary task, I believe there were many things that went well, one being the positioning of my interviewee. I deliberately placed the interviewee off the center to make it feel more like a conversation, creating an open atmosphere for the interview. I also believe that during the later stages of my preliminary task, I really hit my target of the kind of topics that I want to discuss and raise awareness for in my interview; such as the struggle of loneliness for young men.

What didn't go so well?

I believe the technical side of my interview wasn't as sophisticated as I would like it to be, this is mainly down to time constraints, as I am a boarder at college, and I only have limited time to film with people outside of college. I also feel as if some of my interviews didn't really correlate to my topic as much as I would like them to have.

What have I learned/ what will I do in my final task differently?

In my final draft, I will continue the idea of positioning my interviewee slightly off-center from the camera. I also plan to have a longer amount of time in half term to record my interview. Therefore, meaning that I can have a more sophisticated technical side of my interviews, such as a two-camera set up. In my final project, I will also plan to make my questions more structured, although still being open, I want there to be more of a specific answer; I want to make sure my questions are specific to the topics I want to talk about.

Comments

Codes and conventions of documentary

Preliminary task: editing using Premiere Pro

Although I have already decided that for my preliminary task, I will be editing using Davinci Resolve due to it being more accessible, while I'm at school, I decided to edit the preliminary task with Premiere Pro as well just to compare the results. I used Premiere Pro last year to edit my tasks but in my opinion, I found it far harder to use than Davinci Resolve, however now I am getting more comfortable with this software and would like to start using it more by practicing on it.

Critical reflection essay

According to Steve Neale, codes and conventions ultimately convey the idea of documentaries such as interview formats, non-diegetic voiceovers, diegetic music, onscreen graphics, and the use of mise en scene. ‘Our Silent Emergency’ by Roman Kemp (2021), doubtlessly influenced my documentary in its use of conventions. Kemp tends to narrate the documentary through a non-diegetic voiceover, which is an element that I have adapted in mine. During my research on Bill Nicholls's six types of documentaries, I gained the inspiration to create a participatory documentary; I felt as if this subgenre of documentary perfectly matches the description of what I wanted to create. This led me to believe my documentary was participatory because it includes people in front of the camera and not just my experience with the topic such as performative documentaries. Another convention in which I decided to research was editing and the use of montage and juxtaposition. In my opinion...

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