Detailed Documentary Research

After shooting my first few clips and interviews I decided that I need to look more closely at the style of documentary I wish to create. My first two interviews came across as very formal and a bit blunt. I did not feel that this was a good style for me to choose.

So I therefore experimented with the feel of the documentary and conducted the next two interviews under a more relaxed condition and tried to concentrate more on capturing the personality of who I was interviewing.

One in particular documentary that I have looked at is 'Shermans March' by Ross McElwee

In this the creator has created a very relaxed feel to the film. There is a clear indication of a handheld camera being used with jerky and shakey frames, this gives us a sense of reality to the filming. Not only this but the careful positioning of those he interviews including the lighting and background.

As well as this he creates very interesting chots by varying them, in this case below there is the use of extreme close up.

 

 

 



In this screen shot you can see how he has purposefully positioned his interviewee near an open window in order to create a warm tone to the interview. Something I tried to recreate when I shot my fourth practice interview.

Again we see McElwee use this technique again, when he himself turns the camera around and films himself. This could be something I include in order to show reaction or give a different dynamic to the feeling of the video.

 

 

 

I also have looked at the famous Panorama documentary style. They are more of investigative journalist style, they take controversial issues and tend to show quite a bias opinion and side to the subect at hand. For example, John Sweeney, a well known Panormam journalist investigated Scientology. In this we see him follow one of the main leaders in this belief. Quite a forward style of filming that has a director and John Sweeney as the presenter himself. This may be too difficult to achieve on my own. However, there is nothing stopping me from attempting to create a revealing or argumentative piece similar to a Panorama.

 

I've looked at the way in which they interview people, the layout of the programme and ultimately decided to create a more relxed style clip of this that could fit into a long documentary about post 16 education. Just concentrating on the students view of how they find the post 16 education system.