Final Major Project Unit: Research

I watch a lot of shorts, especially on Vimeo, and I'm coming across more documentaries. From watching them, I'm finding more and more things I like and don't like. I think these videos are much closer to our field, rather than trying to compare with something made on BBC. You find that on these platforms the style is more experimental as they have more freedom, and I'm always amazed at what talent is out there.

I watched this one recently, it's called 'Between Days' (from Nizar Pasalic). The whole tone is quite powerful, especially with the story being told. I like the pacing throughout, the grading and general shooting style. 

It's told through the voice of the main character, an older man. He sets himself up by telling us where he was born, where his family were born, when and where he met his wife and when they got married. So everything in the opening before the titles is the bare basics, to set the individual up and give us all the information we need. All whilst we see the inside of his house and watch him get ready to go out. Fade to black. Music fades out. 

Titles, are fairly simple, it gives us shots of the location to establish where we are with location sounds. The text on-screen helps to set-up the story and tell us what the focus of the documentary is. 

We then move back into the city as we follow the main character, everything is handheld and gritty (there has been some stabilisation work done in post). This has been edited down by a jump-cut. And we are now just an observer, following his life as it is just his normal routine. This style I really like, and for Finding Serenity, we have been finding out about our contributor's routines in the hope of telling their stories and how and where they find their serenity and peace. 

At around 4 minutes, he finally addresses the camera, but the filmmaker decides not to include this sound, but to use soundtrack. Now, it has almost become a 'fly-on-the-wall' documentary, but with a soundtrack and no diegetic sound. 

It's not the strongest of stories, but it aims to give an insight into another human's world. We then watch him write in his diary, which he talks about not in situation but in voiceover. And find out what else he does at his home, which he has been filmed doing. 

For our documentary, I think we're going to find that the stories are going to be very heavy. From past experience, you tend to get all the details and a lot of talking when you interview someone, and when it comes to the edit you only use about (what seems like) 10% of that. As you may cut an hours worth of talking with each person (4-5) into a half hour (or full hour) film. Plus adding the time you allow for dramatic silences.