Morphing - Tutorial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsqT7jp6bGA

Old Film Look - Tutorial

http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/old_film_look/

BBC THREE Intro

Time Lapse

Action Plan

Tuesday 28th

• Finish storyboard
• Continuous research
• Gather videogame clips (needed for opening montage)
• BBC three intro (with narration)

Monday - Finish Storyboard (Detailed) Friday - Produce the opening sequence of the documentary

We are looking at BBC's ideologies and values of the documentaries they produce. BBC are a public service broadcast that aims to inform, educate and entertain. They shows representations fairly in order to provide a fair argument so audiences can see an overall view. The documentary below, 'paronama' presents BBC's view on certain topics.

New documentary practices associated with cinéma vérité and Direct Cinema began to appear in the mid-1950s when technological developments made film and then video more portable, accessible and affordable. This allowed more people to engage in the practice of documenting. The 1991 video of Rodney King being subjected to police restraint is an example of the continuing power of this shift. An ordinary citizen was able to capture the police brutality with his camcorder, transforming him from a witness to an amateur documentary filmmaker. Scholars have cited the events following the widespread dissemination of the Rodney King video as one of the earliest examples of "participatory culture."

Today's new media continue to reshape documentary practices in significant ways. Recording technologies embedded within personal portable devices such as video-equipped mobile phones and hand-held digital video and still cameras have made it possible for vast numbers of people to engage in citizen journalism and "documentary practices." Additionally, Web 2.0 platforms such as video and photo-sharing websites and blogs now enable amateur "documentarians" to share and collaborate on content in ways never before possible. A practice thatHoward Rheingold and Justin Hall have labeled p2p Journalism, now exists at the blurred boundary where traditional definitions of journalismand documentary meet and influence each other.

Today, people use mobile devices in ways that open new possibilities for the practices of documenting—especially those practices involved in efforts to achieve "filmic truth." For example, in June 2006 a 93-minute remake of Pier Paolo Pasolini's documentary entitled Love Meetings(1965), in which he interviewed Italian citizens about their views on sex in postwar Italy, was shot entirely on a cell phone by Marcello Mencarini and Barbara Seghezzi. Entitled New Love Meetings, the remake was filmed in MPEG4 format using a Nokia N90. It is the first feature-length movie to be shot entirely on a mobile phone. Their premise was that even though they asked their subjects the same questions that Pasolini had posed, the results of their documentary would be clearly influenced by the medium they used to capture the images. They believed that the use of a cellphone, an instrument of daily life, produced an intimacy absent in Pasolini's movie, making people more spontaneous and open, creating a dialogue more like a chat than an interview. They propose that the line between subject and observer becomes thinner through such practices, as the documentary film-makers present themselves as "normal people" using their cell phones to preserve an instant. New Love Meetings is a prime example of how a specific emerging technology, the mobile phone, is shifting documentary practice today. (see External Links)

Surveillance is the act of observation or monitoring, usually of places, people, and activity, and typically without the subject's knowledge. Much of contemporary surveillance involves observation from a distance with the help of electronic devices, such as telephone tapping, directional microphones, covert listening devices or "bugs", subminiature cameras, closed-circuit television, GPS (Global Positioning System) tracking, electronic tagging, motion tracking, satellites, internet and computer surveillance.

• Hand held Camera -  encoding realism and ‘truth’
• Narrative Voice Over -  leading the audience into a preferred reading
• Vox Pops and Interviews with experts / witnesses / participants
• Often a shorter running time than non-fiction feature films
• Intercutting / Parallel Editing linking key scenes
• Use of Archive footage to support filmed scenes
• Surveillance (information) decoded by audience (e.g. about McDonalds in Supersize Me)
• Mediated culture – documentaries select and construct, thus encoding opinion and subjectivity
• Selective editing crucial to constructing meaning
• Often point of view with encoded ideology, preferred meaning
• Use of Establishing Shot and Close Up
• Observational, Interactive, Reflexive, Expository in format
• 3 act structure, closed investigative narrative
• Often single stranded, linear – one subject is often the topic
• Exploration of narrative themes, messages and values
• Different purposes – to entertain, inform, educate, satirise, shock, satisfy, provide voyeuristic pleasure and for propaganda purposes (see Triumph of the Will andCrown Film Unit documentaries – Fires Were Started, Britain Can Take It)
• Characters are often hyper real, exaggerated stereotypes e.g. Charlton...

This documentary has followed the typical conventions of a documentary furthermore it has used them extremely well in order to make this program and interesting and engaging documentary for its intended target audience. The documentary has made use of montage shown in the beginning of the documentary through the quick cuts of the different game play this gives an overview of the particular games that are appealing and are creating an addiction. Furthermore the video uses voice over in order to make audience understand what is going on relating to the moving image. And explain the points of the documentary.

We can see the use of interviews and real footage are linked, by using real footage this allows the audience to see the person addiction and therefore question are asked based on this. 

Opening Montage

Conventions of a documentary

 

Documentary

Actuality is the term for film footage of real life events, places and people as opposed to fictional films, which use actors, scripted stories and artificial sets.

Voice-over

the Voice-over in a documentary is a commentary by the filmmaker, spoken while the camera is filming, or added to the soundtrack during the production. Through this the filmmaker can speak directly to the viewer, offering information, explanations and opinions.

Interviews

The interview is a common documentary technique. It allows people being filmed to speak directly about events, prompted by the questions asked by the filmmaker. An interview may take place on screen, or off screen, on a different set. Interviews in a documentary give the viewer a sense of realism, that the documentary maker’s views are mutually shared by another person or source, and thus more valid. To achieve this much detail from what may be a one-hour interview, clips of only a few minutes are shown. Scott Mitchell will only ask questions that give a rationale that support the main theme presented within the documentary, and thus the viewer feels as though that this is the only view and the view they must believe correct. Interviews on opposing sides of an issue may be shown to give the viewer comprehensive information about a topic.

Archival footage

Archival, or stock footage, is material obtained from a film library or archive and inserted into a documentary to show historical events or to add detail without the need for additional filming.

Reconstructions

Reconstructions are also often used in documentaries. They are artificial scenes of an event, which has been reconstructed and acted out on film based on information of the event. Reconstructions generally provide factual information, and give the viewer a sense of realism, as if the event really happened in front of them live. They often indicate that the footage is not real by using techniques such as blurring, distortion, lighting effects, changes in camera level, and color enhancement within the footage.

Montage

A montage sequence conveys ideas visually by putting them in a specific order in the film. Narrative montages involve the planning of sequence of shots used to indicate changes in time and place within a film. Ideational montages link actions with words, and are often used in documentaries.

A different positioning of shots conveys different ideas to the viewer. For example, a montage containing a negative theme followed by a positive theme may give the viewer the idea that the positive theme is the main theme of the montage.

Montages in documentaries are usually linked with words that characters say. This visual representation of the characters thoughts helps position the viewer in the story, and helps the viewer better understand what the character is saying. It visually presents a progression of ideas on a screen.

Exposition

In a documentary, the exposition occurs at the beginning and introduces the important themes of the film. It is important because it creates the viewer's first impression and introduces the viewer to the content.

Dramatic segments of the documentary are specially chosen in order to catch the viewer’s attention. These shots are specifically positioned, such that the montage positions us to believe a certain theme presented by the documentary and this the documentary presents its view much more persuasively to the viewer.