RESEARCH & PROPOSAL
RESEARCH & PROPOSAL
PROJECT AIM
To produce a documentary
WHAT ARE DOCUMENTARIES?
''A documentary film is a nonfictional motion picture intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education, or maintaining a historical record''
(Accessed via Wikipedia 2017)
THE IDEA/STRUTURE
I originally came up with a range of idea's, for this documentary project that consisted of the following possible outcomes.
• A recent or local event
• The story basing around my nans or granddads story
• To cover some form of artist/musicians or performance based
• Technology/Ditgial world - How it effects us/how its changing
• A place (Town/city) with a different culture or way of life
• Travel (Those who travel for a living)
After some thought & discussion , I've have came down to focus on the digital aspect of our world to answer the question ''Are we living to far into a digital generation?''
The story will follow 4 main experts in the social media platform & digital age. Where a series of questions will be asked in order to form there opioion on the digtial age & the to answer the question ''Are we living to far into digital generation?''
I will go out & explore how local bussinss's & local online users have adapted & use technology in order to understand to what extent are we being too dependant on the internet, social media & technology
The documentary will aim to be around 10-15 minutes, with filming to take a maximum of two weeks - following interviews & standard filler shots, where it follows the stories & lives of the interviewees. The overall project will be rather faced paced backing up the idea of us possibly living to far into a digital generation.
SUPPORT
After taking a documentary out in my first year as my final major, its allowed me to understand the type of shots and also the ways that I need to take things out in a different way, fixing & approving upon the mistakes and errors I had last time. And because this project is rather different from my last documentary, I feel it sets a challenge and something that interests me into finding out.
TYPES OF DOCUMENTARTIES?
1) Poetic documentaries - ''A documentary that has a topic which is personal to the people involved, usually the presenter and interviewees. It emphasizes some aspects of the person’s life and presents these via music, camera shots and angles and the editing. It can also be quite artistic in the way it is presented. Music is key as it develops the mood and tone of the story being told including the messages and values hidden within''
The man with a movie camera, uses all these different types of shots, including fast pace motion & slow motion, creating a rather poetic documentary, where he films from dawn to dusk. Soviet citizens are shown at work, interacting with the machinery of modern life. To the extent that it can be said to have "characters," they are the cameraman of the title and the modern Soviet Union he discovers and presents in the film.
2) Expository documentaries - ''Documentaries in this style are usually non-fiction films. There is direct access to the audience. There are social issues assembled into an argumentative frame with a narration voice-over emphasizing what is happening with argumentative logic''
With the voice over, explaining everything about the panda, it brings out information & understanding to the audience, becoming a form of a expository documentary. It brings out the issues, in a augmentative way to bring out points.
3) Observational documentaries - ''A documentary where the filmmaker is a neutral observer. (from the outside looking in) Life is lived and observed. It can then be seen how people/animals react in different situations. The filmmaker is normally out of shot so they cannot influence what is happening. Nothing is rehearsed or staged, this means the camera crew have to rush around, resulting in poor shaky looking footage''
Observational documentaries are simply documentaries that, watch. A single frame that observes whats happening & then follows another shot for a period of time. There's no real story, or acting or speech - just the simple outside look. As shown above it simply watches animals and objects to see how they react & what they do.
4) Participatory documentaries - ''A participatory documentary is where the events and situations presented are influenced and altered by the presence of the filmmaker''
This is a simple form of a participatory documentary, where the presence of the filmmaker/presenter asks questions, to get a certain answer - it creates the mood & answers he wants to get for his video.
5) Reflexive documentaries - ''A documentary where the audience engages with the content of the documentary as it happens, they acknowledge the issues of realism and representation and modality judge them when they arrive. It shows the constructive nature of the documentary showing not necessarily the truth, but a reconstruction. (‘a’ truth, not ‘the’ truth). The audience are made aware of the process throughout and the audience are made aware of the editing, sound and recordings''
Reflective documentaries are almost like behind the scenes, the show the process of the making, and with the example above it does it beautifully in a way that shows us different angles while still showing the main frame view that will be used officially.
6) Preformative documentaries - ''A preformative documentary acknowledges the emotional and subjective aspects of documentary and presents ideas as a part of a context having different meanings for different people and are often autobiographical in nature''
Tongues United is a film that gives a voice to communities of black gay men, presenting their cultures and perspectives on the world as they confront racism, homophobia, and marginalisation. It's preformative in the sense of music, & actions.
RESEARCH RELATING TO MY DOCUMENTARY
I wanted to take research out into films, websites, & books that directly focused on the same topic, this way I would be able to gather shot idea's & information/facts on my chosen topic.
ARE WE TOO DEPENDENT ON TECHNOLOGY?
I came across this video title ''Are we too dependent on technology? I thought researching into a similar title to my video/the question I wanted answer would bring up some interesting video's and even films, however there isn't overall too much covering this topic despicably in film form.
This video however opened up in a way that, I feel my video will open up like, showcasing all technology, internet & people, and during viewing this it's allowed me to think a little closer into how I want my film to open & to start story boarding it in basic for now.
This video also included something important that I want to include in my documentary, I want to include facts, facts that other people have found to be true in this chosen topic, facts that can come across as surprising, although this does it in animation and text form, I feel I will more include facts over voice over form.
TECHNOLOGY ADDICTION & WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT | BEN HALPERT | TEDX
After further research I came across a series of similar video's/topics on the YouTube channel, TEDX - I came across this video by Ben Halpert, He talks about how children now grow up to have toys that are laptops or toys that are phones and when they are a few year olds they already have their own real mobile phones, giving detailed facts & information throughout the TEDX talk. What I found interesting about this one, is the way he talks about how our generation is now growing up.
It shows just how our world is & how it will continue to stay like this unless we change. Although it's just a talk, I feel it gives great indepth and informotion that I could possibly use & credit in not my research but also within my production.
CAN WE AUTO-CORRECT HUMANITY?
This video by Prince Ea blew up back in 2014 when it was uploaded to YouTube & various other social media platforms, that was 4 years ago and the issues he addresses are the same today, we could even say worse.
Using facts & figures to put his points in front of huge audiences in a poetic way.
This video is very effective in the way that it's produced & the way that it connects with people directly, influencing peoples view's, it shares his personal views & that's how many people are brought in & connected with his idea's.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do for a documentary but after noting idea's down and understanding the benefits & disadvantages it came clear that a challenge would be presented either way, if I wanted to create something new & opening to myself. After coming across a few similar documentaries, that gave me real inspiration to find a meaning & story behind my idea.
My documentary will be in the style of a Participatory documentary, to where the questions I ask will influence the experts & professionals I ask to answer the question, ''Are we living to far into a digital generation?''
After not only researching into the types of documentaries but also similar documentaries that will be presented in further blog posts, it came to my understanding on how the shape the story with not only interviews but visuals in a way that will make the story come to life & become interesting to the audience.
I also talked about the types of shots i will use and how they effect my production, the close ups are really going to focus upon the detail of what the interviewees say & the response they give & the wide shots & medium close ups will show the world with live in from a outside perspective to showcase how little our world really is.