I was impressed by so many of the films screened. The one’s I would say was my favourite was Beyond Explanation. I thought it was a very good concept, in line with the topic of the Holocaust. What impressed me most about it was the idea of putting in the abstract footage. I thought it represented the chaos of the Holocaust and projecting it in front of the interviewee seemed to me a symbol of her looking back on the past that she managed to escape from.

Group House was very nicely shot, I loved the way the camera seemed so fluid as if I was standing in the house looking around and exploring it on my own. The lighting was very well done and so was the mise-en-scene. I loved the angles he used because they varied and were not boring at all. The only thing I didn’t quite get was some of the dialogue, but it was definitely nice to watch.

As for S(HE), we were happy with the result. I would have liked the interviews with Mahendran to be brighter, as we overdid the contrast and made him look quite dark. After watching everyone else’s films, I realized that we could have also played around with angles and depth of field a little more.

I learned a lot from the screening about the mistakes that our group made and also the others. I think learning documentary AFTER drama is a good idea because in drama we are the ones who call the shots, whereas in documentary we have to be prepared for many complications.

Murphy’s law – the biggest lesson of the semester.

I learned that documentary is not something that you can plan all too much for – a lot of it has to do with an organized mind and strong instinct. With the shoots, although we were rather spontaneous, it is always a good idea to scout the location and plan how the shots would look like so that there are no cases where it is difficult to maneuver the equipment. Overall, it was a fruitful semester.

Finally it’s done.

Kinda excited and apprehensive at the same time about screening night.

So just gonna list those i really liked.

Shared Spaces

Great Artsy style of shooting. I really liked it although the interviews were terrible haha but it encompassed to essence of what the palce was about I reckon. Great shots of graffiti wall through blinds. Loved the quirky choice of music ad the fish eye shots. Music often too loud over interviews.

S(he) the Life of a Drag Queen

Well put together and shot. Although it made me slightly uncomfortable to watch but it was good. Really nice flow and nicely cut. A liked that they showed the story and fight between 2 friends who drag together. Although I’d like to have known more about their backstory and how they started dragging and what they get out of it.

I Just Like to Believe

Religious topics can get abit offensive i find. But like i how they shot it from a point of view of one person. I actually went through something like him and i could relate to it really well. Nice shots and sequences although some made no sense and could be left out. I loved the ending sequence so so much.

Going Underground

This was a really awesome concept. I liked how they managed to follow it from production to finish. Gave it a really nice flow and direction. Liked how they include the little romance that was budding as a side story. Music was very very well chosen to fit the theme.

Well guess those few were the stand outs for me.This semester has been extremely tiring and i’m glad its over. A little sad as well. Bittersweet I reckon. Well guess this is it. Peace.

Just a quickie..

I couldn’t make it to the screening (I had work until 5.30 and I live over an hour away), but Clare rang me today to give me the update. Apparently all the films were pretty great, some were absolutely amazing (my bet was Josh’s film on the Holocaust, and I guessed right), and our film was pretty good when it was put up against everybody elses. Which is a relief. It’s Clare’s opinion, but we both have been through a lot with the film, so I am glad it wasn’t a disaster. The only thing was, apparently the audience found it hilarious. Which I guess is okay (they are entertained), but i felt a bit sorry for Geoff, Martin and Frank. They aren’t laughing stocks, they are human beings.

But its a lesson learned, as many things were this semester..

So we finally managed to get a hold of Chris after what seems like an eternity and we scheduled to shoot on a Friday before his fortnightly meeting with  The Big Issue. We went to his house and we got down to it. Everything went well during the interview. We doubled checked the audio to make sure everything was alright and things ran so smoothly it was unbelievable. We went with Chris to his meeting just to get some stock footage and cutaways to work with if we needed to. Filming the meeting was rather uncomfortable for me. There were certain individuals who didn’t want to be filmed and it made it hard to maneuver around the tightly packed meeting area. And I could sense that the people around me weren’t all entirely comfortable with it as well so I stopped after a couple of mins. At this point all we needed was 3 more hours of shooting and we’d be set! We arranged with Chris to meet the coming Sunday to finish up filming and that if he couldn’t make it then we’d be filming the following day. He assured us in all earnestness that he’d be good for it and that it was on. Unfortunately he canceled on us again.

Watching everyone’s films yesterday was great. I think a lot of people did great and there were some that seemed so professional in terms of visual style! I particularly liked the last film about the Holocaust due to the abstract visuals and the projection against the blue curtains. I wouldn’t have thought of that and was very impressed by it.

Our documentary was satisfactory but I think we overdid the colour correction as some parts of Mahendran’s interview seemed too dark when intercut with brighter and more colourful visuals. Other than that, I’m quite happy with the way things went over the course of this semester and the end result.

Liane, Juli, Kento and I structured some questions for the interview we had with Mahendran and Royce. Some were very personal questions and our concern was whether or not they would feel comfortable answering those questions. We decided it would be best to interview them in the comforts of their own homes, as being in a familiar environment would probably contribute to their opening up. We were fortunate because we come from backgrounds Mahendran and Royce could relate to – being from Singapore, Malaysia and being international students in a foreign country.

It also helped that the subjects and crew felt like a group of friends. However, I thought the downside to all that was we often strayed from the initial questions. We got to it eventually and obtained quite a bit of information and juicy stories about their personal lives.

This experience taught me that building a relationship with your subject is indeed a valuable thing, but one must know when to put the filmmaker’s hat back on.

So the screening to showcase all of our successful.. or perhaps, not so successful work was last night and wow was it a long one! Firstly, special mentions to Paul and the teams little intro that they oh so creatively organise before each screening. Must say, just wouldn’t be the same night without a fancy tv2 introduction! So I know, Paul and Liam would like us all to do a brief rundown on each of the films, giving feedback and thoughts but I’m sorry to say that wen you organise post- drinks after the event, the memory of each of the films tends to become a bit hazy so I’m going to do my best attempt for the ones that stood out to me on the night.

I shall start with the film that started the night:
“The transgender film”- This was an impressive start. What a great story and fascinating subjects! I know very little about this topic and I myself have never met anybody who truly felt they were born into the wrong body. The fact that these two participants found each other and started a life together makes their story even more rare and intriguing. I thought the way the film began with various shots of the first woman’s face, immediately caught my attention and when they revealed that this ‘woman’ started life out as a man, I was in shock. This gradual reveal, leading into another reveal as we slowly understand that the two participants are together was a very clever way to maintain engagement with the film and constantly give new information. The shots on the most part were well framed and the structure was well- thought out. The old photos of the participants in their past helped validate the film and give the participants background and meaning for us as viewers to be interested in their story. Top marks for this one!

“The warehouse film”- This one, my feedback is not so positive. Great concept for a documentary and the fact they found this place with such interesting people was very impressive but I felt the execution of the actual story and staructure of the film had much to improve on. The sound was of pretty poor quality, and although the subjects appeared to be quite the intriguing characters, we couldn;t understand what they were saying half of the time! If the sound quality was improved and the shot framing was more thought- out I think this film had the potential to be brilliant. So thumbs up for sourcing such a great film topic but as far as the film went visually and acoustically- it could have been a lot better!

“The fairy film” I would have to say, this film I did not understand. Yes it was aesthetically beautiful and the sound of the voiceover was of good quality but I have to ask- what was the story here? The film didn;t really progress anywhere and it purely sounded like a young girl reading a script over archival footage. the whole time I was watching this, I was wondering how much of this film was actually their own filmed footage and if they actually interviewed anyone to credit this as a documentary? So yes the film was presented well and reached a professional standard… but as a documentary? I’m not so sure…

“The eating disorder film” This topic has been discussed on so many levels and I feel like it has almost been over done in the years. What I wanted more of with this film was a deeper insight into the girls life suffering from this disorder. How was she viewed by family and friends, how was her life affected? To me the way this film was presented was very superficial and cliche. The shot of the apple and biscuit on the bench at the start and the shot of the girl jogging down the street made the film appear as though it had been quickly put together just so they had something to submit. I didn;t feel like the seriousness of the issue was actually discussed and if more people were interviewed so the viewer was given a reason to connect with the girl and really feel for her story, this would have given the story more credit. Overall, I think this film was a little bland and lacked the deeper exploration that was required to really convey such an emotive story.

“The Drag queen film” Once again, where do you find subjects like this? I liked this film because for a change, it presented a lighter topic and entertained the audience as much as it did tell a story. The participants had great camera presence and the footage of them performing was exactly what the film needed to really hit the climax we as viewers were expecting. This is a perfect example of how what you show and what you don;t show completely affects the success of a film…

“The speaking in tongues film” for instance was the opposite of this and shows just how vital it is to reveal the performance of something if you’re spending the entire film talking about it. This film surrounded the concept of speaking in tongues yet, we reached the end of the film and never once did we get to actually witness a person speaking in tongues. Alhtough this film was well- executed, the very fact that they didn’t show ’speaking in tongues’ in action, really let them down because as a viewer I was waiting the whole time to actually hear one of the participants perform ‘tongues’ and then they never did. It made the film reach a bit of an anticlimax unfortunately but I’m afraid that’s the reality of filmmaking. You have to dig deep to get what you want because if you don’t, viewers will be left feeling unsatisfied.

Lastly I’ll comment on the final film which visually I think was brilliant. By the time this one was screened, I was a bit over documentary and because the subject was rather dry and serious, it made it really hard to concentrate and appreciate the film for what it was as art. How they edited this film I don’t know, but the super-imposition of the graphics over the woman in the room looked spectacular and worked really effectively in conveying the sombre mood they were attempting. This looked very professional and I got the impression they would have spent a lot of hours working on it so I definitely think their time paid off. The film was excellently executed and I’m sure if I watched it again I could appreciate the effort they went to in structuring and composing shots with archival footage and graphics. Very impressive for a student film!

So there you have it. Overall, I was reasonably impressed with the quality of films but I think there was a big distinction between what I would classify as great works of art as opposed to films that looked like they’d been discussed over a coffee and put together last minute just as something to show on the night. I’m pleased to say that in my opinion, and I realize this may be biased since I was involved in the film, but in all honesty I do think our film of Hayden on Pentecostalism was by far one of the most successful films. We managed to convey an intriguing and interesting story in a beautifully unique visually artistic style. Our style was like no other on the night and at the drinks afterwards, we were approached by several peers insisting ours was one of their favorites. So I’m proud to say our group pulled off a successful tv2 semester and now it’s time to get out into the workforce and prove ourselves as true media professionals!

So I will leave it at that and sign off here, saying
Thankyou…
To Paul, Liam and Christine,
Annabelle, Lisa and Kara…

Thankyou for a great semester of tv production. I was challenged along the way and have come out with a film I am very proud of. If I could do it all again next year… I would have to say I probably would but for now it’s finally time for me to leave the world of study and enter the bigger, scarier world of… well… working life!

Farewell!

After the class saw our rough-cut, most of the comments we received were in relation to the structure of our documentary. Our initial structure seemed to be lost within the myriad of footage we obtained in the production process. The screenings of the rough cuts helped us help each other. Essentially, if people don’t get the gist of it in the rough cut, they probably wouldn’t get it even when its fully structured. We got a feel of each other’s movies and according to the other groups, S(HE)’s feel wasn’t very clear to begin with.

Although the initial idea was to focus on the personal lives and psyche of our characters and not so much on the fight they had, our group eventually came to a half-and-half in terms of narrative. The feedback and response of the other groups, Paul and Christine confirmed that the fight proved to be interesting and should have an equal part within the film.

I suppose with documentary there are exceptions to the rule of script and storyline as some things are highly unexpected and may not be what was intended in the beginning. If it works, work it.

Working with Juli, Liane and Kento was an experience. We were all in-sync when it came to discussions and everyone had a chance to voice out their opinions. Nobody was left in the dark – although we had issues with time

Communication is so very important within a group. Speaking up is one thing, listening is another. Being an active participant in the group does not only mean that you share your ideas all the time, but also taking the ideas of others and helping them as well as the group’s creativity. Our group were able to find that often-difficult-to-find middle ground and work through everything together as a good team.

The semester is over and I want to do a final reflection, but I don’t want to rant on about things I have already covered in this blog, because that is not going to be very interesting to read, and not very constructive as a ’summary’ of the semester’s work.

So..I thought I would be a little creative and venture back to my high school days, where we used the black hats to reflect on tasks..so I am going to say something positive about the semester, something negative, something i could improve on, and (just to throw it in there) something I have learned…

POSITIVE: I became much more technically capable. I had experience with sound and a little camera work previously, but this time I really jumped in and got my hands dirty. Granted, I did make some technical boo boos (like accidently shooting on auto focus) which were upsetting and cringeworthy, but I learned. And now I know I will never make those mistakes again. I also gained a lot more precision and skill in final cut pro, which I had always previously thought of as a pain in the ass.

NEGATIVE..I didnt really organise well enough – I had so many high expectations for making a doco and while I still really enjoy the process, all the trouble that occured with our film left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. We just had to get it done, which in the end made something I am not entirely proud of. I know I could have done better, and will strive to do so next year.

I COULD HAVE IMPROVED ON..my preparation. Knowing exactly what I want and having a picture in my mind. We sort of just went into this in a rush, without having a clear direction. For that reason, I think our film is a bit messy and doesn’t portray a clear message. It’s just..some people talking. I do like it, but I know there will be many other TV2 films that are much better. Basically i just know I could have worked a bit harder to make it better., in terms of organising, being prepared, taking the time to do things correctly, and working out exactly what I wanted before starting filming.

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING I LEARNED…is to work hard and get things done. Sounds simple, but how else does anybody learn? You can sit on the sidelines and watch others take control, but I learn best by doing. So by jumping in and making mistakes, trying new things and not being afraid of anything, I became a much skilled filmmaker. Of course, I’m not where I want to be, but i feel like I am not afraid to try anything, and I have learned from my mistakes. And I also learned that you just have to fix the errors and just move on, otherwise nothing will ever be completed.

Overall it was a pretty good semester. I’m not that satisfied with the film, but at the end of the day, I learned more than I did about filmmaking in TV2 so I guess it balances out in the end..

I wish I could watch all the other films – perhaps there is a dvd we can get?

Yesterday (Tuesday) was our final editing session. We had it booked from 9.30 – 12.30, but ended up staying past 5.00pm, because of various disasters.

First thing – Nicole and Martin just didn’t show up. No message, nothing. We all were aware of the editing times, so what happened to them? I couldn’t make Mondays session because I couldn’t get out of work, but I messaged well in advance to let everybody know (as we stipulated in our Collaborative Contract, an sms notification/phone call SHOULD be made if you can’t attend). What frustrates me is that people who don’t bother to show up get the same amount of credit as the people who put the effort in. Only at 12.30 on the dot (how convenient) did Martin call to ask what time we were editing. Urgh. Clare and I ended up staying much later (because of compression/exporting problems), but I just told him we were done. That kid has frustrated me all semester, he seems to prefer working on his own, at his own pace, rather than being part of a team. Which is fine – but why are you doing a Media degree then?

Anyway, enough of that. There’s no point crying over spilt milk, or whining about team members (or lack thereof). The only thing I will say in relation to that (and which was half the reason we took so long to edit) was that Martin had decided to do some editing all by himself, and fiddled with something – so all the aspect ratios were all over the place. Clare and I spent a while trying to fix it. He had basically just stretched out all the file footage and done something whacky with it, so it looked the same size as the rest of the film (not boxed in), with about 1% of the picture quality. We had discussed with Leo that the file footage was going to have to be smaller than the rest of the footage, simply because it was different. And we all agreed that was fine. So yes, needless to say, Clare and I were pretty annoyed. But we sat and tweaked, and eventually we had a finished product (after having to move editing suites about 6 times). We began making all of the file types: self contained quicktime, files for DVD (ac3 or dolby digital, i’ve had a mental black) as well as all the media managed files.

So we sat back outside with a few other TV2ers, all of us waiting for our DVD files to be compressed and ready to export (taking around an hour). Once ours was done, we asked Josh and Shu Shu to take a look (to see whether they understood the content, a slight concern of mine). Seeing as Josh is a whiz kid, I am so glad we got him in. He immediately said ‘oh no’ and our faces just dropped. For some reason (most likely because we had forgotten to change the settings each time we used an editing suite) our film had various aspect ratios throughout. Josh explained that we had sort of pulled our images out to make them 16:9, however they would only get stretched again while being screened, making them incredibly pixelated. This was bad news. It was about 4.00pm, and we were about ready to die. So we had to fix all of the issues (thanks so much to Josh for helping us, who is my personal TV2 hero now) and re-compress. I had to leave at 5.30, so poor Clare stayed. She’s a trooper. She sent me a message around 8pm saying she just got home, so it was pretty much almost 12 hours of sitting in an editing suite. How sickening!

We questioned how we could have missed how weird our images looked. To be honest, I think we just became desensitized. We just wanted to be finished so badly, our eyes glazed over to what we were actually seeing. Which is a lesson learned for me – always get somebody else to watch your work. It’s the same with an essay – always get somebody to proof read, because undoubtedly you may have made spelling errors or repeated things, because you lose yourself in the project and lose your ability to be objective about it. In our case, we lost the ability to see how ridiculous the footage looked. Because when Josh fixed it, it was like being thrown under a cold shower – it looked SO much better. Cleaner, brighter, just better.

So..that was our disasterous last day. Hopefully everything turns out alright, because I can’t make it to the screening tomorrow (I have to work until 5.30, and I live over 1 1/2 hours away). I guess I am just ready to be done with it, really. I’ll write a reflection soon. I am going to Europe in little over a week, and I really really just can’t wait to relax for once!

So Paul looked at our film and gave us some directions to work with. We decided to ultimately cut out our entire day of filming with Stef in it as it didn’t connect with Chris’ interview at all and it looked really disjointed. Rather disappointing as we had loads of good footage. Unfortunately it was not meant to be. Also editing this was a really different experience from editing a drama like last semester. When editing the drama, you had your story board, a set sequence of shots to be put together in the way it was pre-designed to be. But with the doco, it was all so open ended, open to what story of segments you wanted to emphasize and portray and how you’d like it done and in what sequence or tone. Well we managed to stick it all together and make it look as best we could. I’d have liked to have a little more time to maybe consult Paul one more time just to pick his brain for more insights but we were short of time. =(

So we started our editing process. What I felt we had the most trouble with was making both days of filming connect. The interview with Chris and the footage with Stef. Explaining her presence was one of the problems we faced. How much of it to use and how we would cut between both pieces of footage to make the most sensible and accurate story and how we’d like it to get across. This involved a lot of patient cutting and pasting and re shuffling of sequences and clips to make it all fit together. We spent 2 days putting everything we had together before we decided to get Paul in to take a look.

We went on another search for Chris around the city day and actually managed to hunt him down on Bourke St outside Myers. He was so surprised to see us, I was actually at that point pretty upset and wanted to let him know what all his cancellations have been doing to us and that we were ona  tight deadline. But when he talked to us his earnesty and genuiness made it pretty difficult for me to say what I initially wanted. I really hope he wasn’t playing us. I’d like to think he is nicer than that.

So, on the pre-arranged day, we sat waiting for Chris, we sat for 3 hours without him showing and thus we decided to go about and shoot by ourselves. Our idea was to use Stef as a surrogate for Chris and have her show the places he had taken us before. We finished up filming and thought that our footage was pretty good. We had like 4 days left to edit put it all together before submisson. Talk about cutting it close. =)

Jeg har netop set et indslag i TV 2 Nyhederne omhandlende antallet af kvinder i lokalpolitik. Budskabet var, at der er for få kvinder i lokalpolitik, og næsten vanlig stil blev der i samme moment også nævnt ordet kønskvotering, som en måde at rette op på denne ubalance.

Udover, at problemstillingen også gør sig gældende i landspolitik og er reel nok et eller andet sted, er jeg stadig af den klare holdning, at det dur altså ikke kønskvotering – hverken inden for politik eller i erhvervslivet.

Det må nu engang være en blanding af lyst, engagement og politiske budskaber og holdninger, der afgør om en given person bliver valgt ind i lokal- eller landspolitk, og ikke om vedkommende er kvinde eller mand.

Det samme gælder diskussionen omkring kønskvotering i erhvervslivet, hvilket jeg tidligere har kommenteret i et andet blogindlæg.

Ingen virksomhed er tjent med at have en ledelse, der er baseret på kønskvotering. Skal virksomheder overleve i en globaliseret og stærkt konkurrencepræget verden, må man altid gå efter at rekruttere den bedst kvalificerede kandidat.

Når det så er sagt, synes jeg det er helt fint, at man gør en ekstra indsats for at motivere og hjælpe kvinder til at prøve kræfter med ledelsesmæssige opgaver.

Thinking back on the self-assessment and peer assessment we had to do in the last tute of the semester, I’m questioning my ability (or anyone else’s, for that matter) to truly assess my/oneself. I gave myself a low credit. I think its a low credit, around the 60s out of a hundred. Not because I feel I didn’t deserve better, but because I want to be fair and just about the effort I’ve put in over the course of this semester. I’m not sure whether its because a lot has happened over the semester or if its because documentary isn’t an area I’m all too interested in; but whatever the case, I feel its important in self-assessments – be it in class or elsewhere – that I am honest with myself and to others.

I compared the amount of interest I had last semester to this semester. Drama was something I found more interesting in comparison to documentary – although our subject was very very interesting. I noticed that I felt more connected to the film last semester as opposed to this one. Perhaps its because I didn’t assume a particular role this time – our group decided that everyone would get a chance to take on each role so as to be fair.

So I guess it all comes down to whether or not each individual sees the self-assessments as a self-critique. I’m pretty sure I did, but I’m certain that brutal honesty with myself will help me learn from my mistakes for the future.

So at this point, Chris had canceled on us several times and we were getting quite worried. A month has passed and we haven’t been able to secure a date with him to film. We had booked out equipment on 3 weekends to film but Chris kept canceling on us each time. He still had not replaced his mobile phone so contacting him was a real chore. Stef and I even had to call the Big Issue to find out where he was working and actually went to look for him while he was working but unfortunately we kept missing him. I’ve actually walked around Bourke St and Collins St and even to Kings and Exhibition circling the area like a vulture scanning the area for Chris on some mornings.

This doco is proving to be a much more tedious and luckless project than the drama. In doing the drama, all situations and contingent plans can and were made. But with the doco it’s less structured. The filming style as well is alot less structured and left alot open to things going wrong. We had less overall control and I felt helpless sometimes after exerting all the possible means and ways to go about trying to solve problems.

So we met up with Chris just to have a chat and decide on a film day and what we would like him to discuss and what message our doco wanted to get across. He was really happy and excited to do it. His persona just exuded earnestness. So we met up on the decided day and went about shooting in the various locations around the city that we have talked about prior to this day. All went well and we were scheduled to meet up again in a couple of days time. One day before the next shoot, Chris called to cancel but unfortunately didn’t re-schedule another day to film. Also he lost his mobile phone and we had almost no way of contacting him. Another problem that arose was that the audio from our first day of filming was unuseable, it was entirely useless. At this time we still had some ways to go before we needed to edit so we thought that we’d have more than enough time to re-shoot all our footage.

So we went down to one of The Big Issue meetings. We talked to this guy named Chris, he was absolutely perfect for our role. We wanted someone young to show that homelessness just doesn’t affect older people.  Someone that a younger audience can relate to. He was well spoken, keen to share his story and was very articulate in explaining his situation. So now that we had settled our protagonist, we thought all would be smooth sailing.

So after discussing the various ways we can look to finding a protagonist for our doco, we decided to approach The Big Issue. Gemma from the Big Issue was an absolute delight, she was very keen on helping us and told us about their fortnightly meetings and that we could go down. She also recommended someone to us. She seemed really confident about him willing to tell us his story and that he’ll be more than happy to do it. We were really hoping to seal the deal as soon as possible so we could get an early start to filming.

NOT EVERYBODY ARE GOOD ON CAMERA. And this has nothing to do with physical appearance or acting experience. What I have learnt through the process of documentary making and study, is that casting the right people for a film is vital. In documentary, it is difficult because you are not casting experienced actors and more often than not, your participants will have little experience in front of a camera. For instance, you could find someone with the greatest story but they themselves just don’t know how to tell it. Telling a story is an art and some people when faced with a camera freeze up and just cannot relay their experience onto others. Others just don’t have any camera presence and although they can look good and say great things, the viewer jut can’t connect with them.

In making our documentary, it just makes me appreciate just how brilliant Hayden was as a subject. We were so lucky in finding Hayden for our doco because he has so much camera presence. He has the ability to grab a viewers attention and really connect and although I have watched the film numerous times by now, I still feel myself captivated by him. You find yourself not only listening to what he has to say but just watching him in pure hypnosis. It’s not because he’s amazingly good looking don’t get me wrong he does look great on camera! But it has more to do with the ability to connect with the camera and as a result, the viewer. The way he stares into the camera and speaks so honestly from the heart, as a viewer you feel an immediate connection with him. This completely drives our film and it i because of this strong presence that I think we were able to cut the other participants from our film. Hayden on his own has the power to captivate a viewer for a full 8 minutes without a moment of distracted hesitation. And to add with this amazingly natural talent of his, the content of what he talks about along with the way he delivers it is just absolute gold. No other way to describe it. Hayden, you’re a genius!

Although I’m disappointed to drop our other participants from the final cut, I think it will show in the final cut just how powerful a film based entirely around one person (and in the tight personal framing we have chosen to use) can really be. Both Christine and Liam seemed very impressed by Hayden’s amazing presence so I can’t wait to see the rest of the class’s responses to our film.

I’ll use this spot now to say:
THANKYOU HAYDEN.
The boy totally saved us from a slowly disappearing documentary!

Colour correction was an interesting part in the post-production of our documentary. It gave us all a chance to really set the mood for our film and play around with our ideas. Our intention for the colour scheme of our documentary was for it to be highly saturated, bringing out the brightness of our characters and story.

Most of the colours we used were reds and oranges. According to colour theory:

Orange is considered a warm color like red, but to a lesser extent; orange expresses energy. It has luminous qualities and has been used for attention-getting purposes, such as on caution signs.

Orange brings up memories of fall leaves, pumpkins and Halloween. It symbolizes balance, warmth, enthusiasm, vibrance, flamboyancy, and is demanding of attention.

Red is the color that we pay the most attention to. It is the warmest and most energic color in the spectrum.

We associate red with love, valentines, danger, desire, speed, strength, violence, anger, emergency exit signs, stop signs and blood.

Red can evoke a fight-or-flight response, raise blood pressure and make the heart beat faster.

We did our colour correction with the lights off, which was Liane’s idea. This enabled us to see the colours more vividly and avoid too much or too little saturation.

Little break from all of this doco process reflections! I thought I might get back down to basics and read up on how it’s best to actually tell a story. Telling a story sounds like a pretty simple task at first, seeing we spend most of our lives reenacting events and relaying stories onto friends and family as this provides us the the news we oh so badly crave. But when its not news we’re re- telling that’s based on fact or simply summarizing an event or experience, how do we structure a good story? One that’s both entertaining, informative and maintains attention and interest?

Going by my “Storytelling: A Checklist” advice here from the dossier, I thought I’d comment on a few vital storytelling ‘do’s’ and definite ‘do nots’!

*The first pointer on the checklist: Are you telling a compelling story and do your viewers have a reason to watch?

This leads me to point out a notable filmmaking mistake, particularly in the documentary’s I have recently watched; just because you as a filmmaker are interested in something your participants are sharing with you, before you put it into your film, you have to ask yourself whether the majority of your audience are going to feel the same way. I for one am not a big fan of documentaries and I believe it is for this very reason. So often, documentaries become dry and self- absorbed because the filmmakers become too involved in their subject and forget about what they are trying to tell the viewer. The viewer needs to be number one priority in the editing process! (You cannot keep everything! Make a directors cut for your own personal enjoyment if you have to!)

*Point number 2: Does the film offer mystery, intrigue or suspense?

A film needs to build and viewers always get restless! A good way to combat this is probably to slowly reveal new twists as the film progresses. In our documentary for example we will experiment with this technique by starting with Hayden discussing faith and Pentecostalism and then shock our viewers when he suddenly reveals how he has rejected all of these practices and beliefs that he spent his childhood growing up with. This also links in with the next point…

*Are you in the driver’s seat of the film, steering toward emotional and intellectual highlights?

In our doco, we want to evoke emotion from the viewer. We want them to feel emotionally connected with Hayden (our subject) so that when he does reveal certain aspects of his faith crisis, the film reaches emotional climaxes where both Hayden and the viewers experience emotional shocks and questioning.

*Have you created moments of discovery for the audience, can they reach their own conclusions about aspects of the film?

It’s important to give viewers options. Don’t just show and tell but explore and open up possibilities of question and doubt. We aim to challenge viewers with our film, asking them to question the concept of faith and beliefs as Hayden does and then form their own conclusions based on this questioning.

*When you introduce new information, do you do it in a way so that the audience can follow?

You have to remember in documentary, that the audience weren’t with you through the filming process. They have not been exposed to the sequence of events as you have and as a result only have the knowledge that the footage they have watched has provided them with. You can’t race ahead, throwing in information that will confuse viewers who are watching the film for the first time. Everything you put into the film, needs to be grounded by what has preceded it.

*Is your film “just another documentary” or will people want to tell their friends about it?

You need to make a statement. Whether it’s through content, film style or set design, somhow you need to make something about the documentary stand out to be something more than your everyday doco. Make people go away from it thinking and discussing! You want it to be a talking point through the days that follow!

*Finally, the ending. Does the story set up at the films beginning pay off at the end?

In other words have you finished the story? Have you set something up and finished it by the end? For instance if you’ve opened up a question of exploration at the start, have you answered it by the end? Or at least provided the fuel for the viewer to be able to answer it for themselves? In our film, we start with Hayden discussing Pentacostolism. By the end, we reveal his abandonment of the faith and his new views on what is such a powerful belief system and invite viewers to do the same. We leave them pondering, as Hayden does on what it is that really is important in our lives; searching for assurance from something greater than ourselves or seeking for it in our own friends and family.

Whether our documentary exploring Hayden’s story ticks all of the boxes for a good story- telling experience, we are yet to find out. But from my breakdown of each crucial pointer, I can only hope that we’re on the right track!

Henrik Juel, in an attempt to define documentary; posed a question to his class: What is documentary? A majority of his students described documentary as real, truthful and factual. That is to say that in terms of style, real actors, locations and narrative. In an attempt to make his class reconsider their answer:

“I can usually revitalize the discussion by asking if my cousin can be justified in claiming that he is working on documentary films, when in fact what he does for a living is to install surveillance cameras at gas-stations and supermarkets. After all, this does seem to meet the criteria of representing reality, of filming without the use of actors, and recording as truthfully as possible what is actually there – and it is not fiction.”

Documentary, in my opinion, is a representation of reality but not to be mistaken for facts or truth. Truth remains subjective and documentary films are merely one (or a few) person’s view of it. As my group and I were working on S(HE): The Life of A Drag Queen, it came to my attention that even though the footage and narrative we got were testaments from our subjects, we were still capable of manipulating the narrative to the way we saw fit.

So as Henrik Juel’s lecture goes:

“A film is not a mere representation, but a willed presentation of something made by someone in a specific way and for someone. The phrase ‘representation of reality’ is utterly mistaken as a definition of documentary, because the idea of film as mirroring is a false one and a very misleading ideal.”