Test shoots
Test shoots turned out to be extremely different to how I thought they would be. When starting the documentary unit I envisioned choosing locations and test shooting there however due to the circumstances I tried to get as much practice as I could with what was available to me. We had to adapt to a whole new media of instead of meeting with contributors, doing them online on programmes such as Zoom, Skype and Microsoft Teams. Rather than worrying about what might not be possible I started to think about the positives that doing interviews online over these softwares could be. We are lucky that for our documentary one interview was filmed prior to any control measures for lockdown being put in place; although this interview initially was not filmed for the purpose of including it in our documentary and was for personal use, I'm really glad that I got it but looking back if I knew it was for a documentary I was have tried to adjust the lighting or block some out. We are also very lucky that Matt lives with his Dad who we were interviewing so that we were able to also get another face to face interview in that way too and I am glad as many coronavirus documentaries in the media at the moment are heavily saturated in online interviews using video call platforms and it feels positive to have two face to face ones.
We did still need to get one video cll interview in though and for this we were unsure to start with who would do it. Therefore I started to do some research on video call interviews different ways they could be filmed. There were to main options that stood out:
I had a practice when completing a family quiz and just filmed a segment from an angle that you could not see a reflection with the Tv although I would like to of framed it slightly better but it was more just to see how the audio and visual quality would come out.
the more that I started to look into interviews and video calls I started to see how video calling will be interesting to see how the interviewee responds. Something that I was worried about was that it may not feel real and natural, but as I read into it I found out that "In interviews people adopt a new persona, be it friendly or manipulative." (Nichols, 2001:6) I found this extremely interesting as I started to think about how an interview could potentially cause an interviewee to change or differ in who they are if there is a camera in front of them whereas if they are doing a normal video call and do not see a camera in front of them it may cause them to appear more natural and stick to who they are. For example when doing the test shoot of my family below during a quiz I told them I was going to film and got their permission although I tried to hide the phone camera from the shot of myself so that for them it felt like a normal conversation with family and it did feel very real. Therefore it has taught me that even though we may not be able to do some video interviews in person it may in fact cause interviewees to appear more real.
The final part of test shoots was focussing on the poem segment. We kew that we wanted contributors to film themselves but the struggle was thinking of the best way to do this, I was in charge of organising this and again did some research online to how we are going to get 28 people with all different phones; some of whom have never filmed anything before and some with lots of experience, to film themselves. I found a really useful video online that outlined the best ways to record yourself on a smart phone. This covered topics such as:
We did still need to get one video cll interview in though and for this we were unsure to start with who would do it. Therefore I started to do some research on video call interviews different ways they could be filmed. There were to main options that stood out:
- Screen-recording the interview on the device that it is taking place on.
- Filming the video call from an angle so that no screen reflections are seen.
I had a practice when completing a family quiz and just filmed a segment from an angle that you could not see a reflection with the Tv although I would like to of framed it slightly better but it was more just to see how the audio and visual quality would come out.
the more that I started to look into interviews and video calls I started to see how video calling will be interesting to see how the interviewee responds. Something that I was worried about was that it may not feel real and natural, but as I read into it I found out that "In interviews people adopt a new persona, be it friendly or manipulative." (Nichols, 2001:6) I found this extremely interesting as I started to think about how an interview could potentially cause an interviewee to change or differ in who they are if there is a camera in front of them whereas if they are doing a normal video call and do not see a camera in front of them it may cause them to appear more natural and stick to who they are. For example when doing the test shoot of my family below during a quiz I told them I was going to film and got their permission although I tried to hide the phone camera from the shot of myself so that for them it felt like a normal conversation with family and it did feel very real. Therefore it has taught me that even though we may not be able to do some video interviews in person it may in fact cause interviewees to appear more real.
After receiving permission for being able to film certain rainbows or signs that people had displayed outside their houses I began to film them on my daily walks. To start with my shots were a little shaky and framing was a bit off as you can see in the shot of the television above due to never filming a lot on my phone before. But due to the circumstances this was the only option so I began to practice filming as much as I could and testing different angles of posters and signs to get the best shot that I could get. The more that I began to film the easier it got, and thanks to online resources with lots of different tips and also challenges I may face. For example Steven Soderbergh discusses "because phones are so light they are very sensitive to vibrations." (Soderbergh, 2018) Therefore this was something that I took into account when filming short segments outside as I did not want there to be much vibration so I followed his guidance. Having online resources such as this short film were extremely useful in adapting to the new way of making film during a pandemic when we don't have many resources.
The final part of test shoots was focussing on the poem segment. We kew that we wanted contributors to film themselves but the struggle was thinking of the best way to do this, I was in charge of organising this and again did some research online to how we are going to get 28 people with all different phones; some of whom have never filmed anything before and some with lots of experience, to film themselves. I found a really useful video online that outlined the best ways to record yourself on a smart phone. This covered topics such as:
- How to get the best lighting.
- How to get the best possible audio recording .
- How to frame a shot on a phone.
- How to hold the phone correctly and still when recording yourself or how to make a makeshift tripod.
Filming with iphone, the complete guide to filming like a pro, 2018
This was extremely useful in covering many topics that I had not even thought of when it came to recording for the poem segment. I then thought of the two possible ways that the contributors will film the poem section:
- Filming themselves.
- Someone else that lives with them filming them.
Therefore created two test shot videos for the poem section; this include one video of me filming my mum and another of me filming myself. During them I tried to list some of the tips to get the best shot and I included a longer version of this in the email that I sent out to contributors in order for us to get the best looking poem with everyone filming it themselves. This did make me slightly apprehensive as I had no control on how the poem videos would come back or be filmed, but I had an input and tried to give as much advice as I could and overall I'm extremely happy with how the clips turned out and do feel this is partly due to the test shot videos that I sent out to everyone.
Bibliography:
Nichols, B. (2001) Introduction to Documentary. [online] At: https://ucca.ent.sirsidynix.net.uk/client/en_GB/default/search/detailnonmodal/ent:$002f$002fSD_ILS$002f0$002fSD_ILS:515565/ada?qu=documentary&lm=EBOOK (Accessed on 06.05.2020)
Steven Soderbergh on using an iphone to shoot and the future of movie making [online video clip from interview] Pape. HeyUguys (2018) 5 mins At: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=171&v=R2TzkL1UjrM&feature=emb_logo (Accessed on 06.05.2020)
Filming With iphone: The Complete Guide to Shooting Video Like a Pro! [online video clip from interview] Brown. Primal Video (2018) 17 mins At: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co21Gw7zqNY (Accessed on 06.05.2020)
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