DOCUMENTARY; FILMING SCHEDULE

Week beginning 24th of April, we are starting to film our documentary. At the moment we have 2 main days planned of filming. Firstly as Jake has already completed his detox, so we already have around half our footage for the doc, we need to film GVs, some generic shots that we can link in to the narration that we get Jake to do, this will include some shots of different pieces of technology, phones etc. Some of this will also come from our pre-production, as we want to do some visual stuff from different social networking sides, such as views of Jakes profiles etc.

Our second day of filming, Wednesday the 26th is probably our most important. This is the day we will be filming with Jake, we are going to be interviewing him, asking him about how the detox went, how it may have changed his opinion of social media as well as his general opinion on social media and teenagers dependency on it. Furthermore we are going to film some sequences with Jake that we can layer within everything else.

Something that is still really holding us back is that we are yet to find an expert that we can get Jake to interview, after calling and emailing many people we cannot get through. We are currently using the a website that almost acts as a directory to find psychologists so we are hoping that on Monday we can give a few of them a call and find someone who would be interested in taking part.

DOCUMENTARY; PRE PRODUCTION INTERVIEWS

As we near closer to filming, i wanted to look into the art of interviewing. A main component of our documentary will be out two main interviews, one with Jake which will be a reflective piece about his  about how he coped with his digital detox - containing mostly open questions that will allow Jake to explain to us everything he felt whilst doing his detox and having no use of social media. Secondly we are going to be interviewing an expert in the field, someone who will be able to provide some context to our audience about what we are trying to present on screen. Therefore there are two main things i wanted to look at - how to set up an interview and how to create the best questions to achieve the answers we want to achieve. Looking into a website these are the 10 main advice points for a good interview


1) Prepare your questions
    Have questions ready fully related to the topic at hand

2) Avoid 'yes' or 'no' questions\
    Only want to attract feelings and long answers, yes or no provide no real substance for an           interview

3) Prepare, but be spontaneous
    Preparation is key, you don't want to appear to your interviewee like you don't know what you're doing, having question prepared is very important but remember that more questions may come up in your mind based on their answers and that is okay

4) Make the interviewee comfortable
    In order to achieve maximum honesty from the interviewee in terms of their answers you have to make them feel comfortable

5) Don't give out specific questions in advance
    Giving out the questions in advance would give the interviewee chance to prepare answers - think about what they want to say, we want first impressions so we cannot give the questions out in advance
The following are more just points that we as a group need to think about when filming the interview:

6) Get the interviewee to repeat the question
7) Proper positioning of interviewee
8) Keep your mouth shut
9) Ask for a final comment
10) Don't stop filming when the interview is over

DOCUMENTARY; VALIDATION

After our final feedback/tutorial session with Helen before our easter break (and filming) we spoke about the ideas of WHY teenagers use social media. We came up with a few ideas that i wanted to look into further and that will defiantly create some talking points for our documentary.

1) Validation
- Do teens use social media for validation?
- And if so in what form?

Originally social media was created as a means of communication, for family and old friends to be able to communicate and in a way share their lives together, sharing and exploring old memories. However, this has changed now because people, especially teenagers use social media as a means of validation. Instead teenagers now use social media as a means to compete and validate things within life. The biggest example of this that i can think of is snapchat and streaks. Within snapchat you can have streaks with certain people if you snapchat everyday; this is validation of friendship. Having a snapchat streak with someone (which involves snap chatting them everyday) is seen as a validation of friendship; almost like someone appears better friends with someone if they have snapchat streaks.

2) Glorification                                        Does social media mean a glorification for life?

Living life through social media is something ever teen is prone to see. There is a belief that social media evokes competition between teens, and with social media they can glorify their life, post pictures and statuses/tweets that make their life appear a lot more exciting than it actually is. Teens can post pictures of certain things just to compete with their peers as to who has the better and most exciting life.


3) Narcissism 

Teens have started to loose sight of their life, they have started to live it through a mobile phone instead of enjoying life for what it really is. The biggest example that we have found of this is the idea that of people videoing concerts, instead of enjoying and being in the moment right there and then, teens film it through the screen to view over and over again. Furthermore this then begs the question, do they film so they can physically watch again? or do they just film for their own narcassistic value - to show their friends and family to prove they were there.

In the Project
These ides of validation, glorification and narcassism is something we would defiantly like to explore in our documentary. In the current hope of finding our expert we really want too look into the psychology behind teens and social media; how it can effect them in both positive and negative aspects - and if it will affect them in their later life. In essence we would like to ask Jake these questions and about whether he experienced this loss of validation during his detox.





 

DOCUMENTARY; 10 MINUTE BREAKDOWN

As we near closer to filming, we have organised a 10 minute breakdown of what we want to include in our documentary. I believe that this helped us a lot, especially considering this is a group project, we all have different visuals and ideas and so righting everything done clearly and coherently helped us to visually think the same and all want to include the same thing.

10 Minute Breakdown

Beginning

• Timelapse of Jake with his phone (facts and narration over the top) - post production/facts in social media bubbles (facebook status)

• Vlog to begin the opening with an introduction to what he’s about to do - in the car or house on the way to meet us
• Showing him with his social media and film him logging out of social media (screen switches off like a tv)

Middle

• Start detox videos (video diary footage) and if he does any more vlogging- can add this in also to add to the story
• Interviews with the specialist & ( Jasmine maybe )
• Filler shots (GV’s) - between the vlogging and interviews etc
• Timelapse of Jake without phone - shows the story/timeline - CLOCK IN THE CORNER - ACTUALITY
• Countdown of days with / without phone? (1 hour or 1 day without phone) in the corner

End

• Interview with Jake at the end to reflect on what he had been doing and how the detox affected him (conclusion)

DOCUMENTARY; EXTRA RESEARCH

Barely Legal Drivers

Barely Legal Drivers is a BBC Three documentary programme in which the cameras follow two different teens each week as they embark on what they think is a 'teen lifestyle' documentary when in reality it is their driving that is being put to the test with their parents secretly watching. A ex traffic officer then decided. based on their driving, whether they need extra driving lessons or deserve a car of their own. This programme uses different codes and conventions that i can take influence from.

1) Firstly, at the start of each episode comes up some facts based on driving and young drivers, this is a very effective thing to do because it introduces the programme to the audience, its a nice introduction before we meet the characters of this particular episode. Moreover, it also gives the audience some context to what they are watching, seeing these proof based facts at the start of each episode provides some background as to why this programme is being made and it defiantly makes people carry on watching because they would want to see these facts come to life. The facts are also paired with multiple GVs that relate to the situation i.e. pov shots of driving, l plates etc.

2) Secondly, another feature of the programme is the use of an expert. In order to judge the driving of the teens, the makers bring in an ex traffic police officer, who is someone who knows exactly what they're talking about and would most likely be someone the audience would trust, increasing the validity of the programme.

3) The camera has two different aspects that i found interesting. It is in a blog style format but not in the same way that we know today, rather than the character sitting there holding the camera to their face in the typical youtube style vlog format, the character is instead sitting on her bed looking directly into the camera talking. Moreover, the camera has a very handheld feel to it, this is to allow them to follow the action as it happens and is obviously a widely used convention in most documentaries.

How it can influence my work
There are many ways in which i believe the conventions used in barely legal drivers can affect my own work. Firstly, the use of an expert is something we are trying to find, we are looking and contacting different experts with backgrounds in social media work who can provide context and realism to our work, in a similar way to how they have the expert in Barely Legal Drivers. Secondly we also want to introduce our documentary with some facts or figures, not in the same way as barely legal drivers had the facts come up on screen whereas we would like to present ours through narration.

DOCUMENTARY - PRE PRODUCTION UPDATE

As we near closer to filming dates, we are putting in place all of the necessary organisations ready for filming. Before we actually start filming, i would say that my main contribution to the group documentary so far, is casting. I have been the person to contact and cast our main characters. Jake, our presenter/vlogger i have been liaising with and detailing what and how we would like him to be involved, to further this we as a group are going to meet with him next week, to finalise all of the finer details and make sure that everything is ready to go. Also, i have been in touch with Beneden School, regarding possible interviews with their students about their recent 'Phone Fast', they have taken my name and number and are hopefully going to be coming back in touch with me once their schools half terms are over.

In terms of filming dates, we have two preliminary set of dates. Firstly, we would like Jake to undertake in the Digital Detox on the 12th - 15th of April, this will not involve us being there as a crew filming, but mainly Jake doing what he would normally do for himself on his own youtube channel, blogging his daily life, but this time he'll have no social media, and within these days he'll be running into some issues that he would normally be able to use social media to get out of. Secondly, we have a second set of filming dates, in which we will film all of the GV's, sequences and other interviews that we need. This will hopefully be taking place on the 24th - 28th of April.

DOCUMENTARY; SEQUENCES AND ACTUALITY

Directing Documentaries
- Documentaries do not just 'happen' they have to be researches, meticulously planned, scripted and set up. Throughout the pre production, production and post production Control is the key.

Sequences - what is a sequence?
Just as with drama, we direct sequences for documentaries which represent reality. Close ups are the key, repeat the action and beware of continuity, make sure your sequences are interesting, creative and relevant and properly set up for light and sound. Wherever possible shoot sequences with a  tripod. When dealing with paid talent you can usually ask them to do whatever you creatively want for the film, when dealing with members of the public however, this is more potentially tricky. Ensure you have talked through your plans with them prior to the shoot so that you know they are happy with the arrangements, gaining trust is key to dealing with 'real' people - this is built up during the pre production process, your research should highlight potential actuality and relevant sequences which will 'tell the story in pictures' so you can plan this in your shooting script.

Get good coverage - shoot to edit
The art is to get as many options as possible for your edit, i.e. shoot lots of different angles which will cut together for continuity, remember the rule of 3 close ups for every wide shot - break each shot into action and reactions shots to give good coverage. To ensure you can always 'cover' your edits, it is essential to shoot cutaways, GVs are a great way of doing this. They are generic shots which are relevant to the subject and location which can be slotted in anywhere to edit, they need to be close ups or defocused wides.

Actuality
Actuality is a type of documentary filming which captures events and does little if anything to control them - realism. Therefore, in contrast to sequencing, you will NOT be directing the action but responding to it. Thus, actuality is very difficult to film and thus to edit - you cannot control the action so therefore controlling your camera and what you shoot is even more important. They are often shot handheld to improve responsiveness and flexibility - in fact conventions have evolved whereby the 'wobbly' look of actuality is expected and adds to the sense of 'reality; and events unfolding unfettered by the production team. Thus planning is vital for such shoots, you need to do a careful recce so that you are aware of potential challenges during the shoot and can devise ways of dealing with them.

Actuality Shooting Strategies
- Letting the subject enter and leave the frame
- Apply the rules of sequencing by controlling what and how you shoot filming
- plenty of reactions shoots
- Filming cutaways, establishing shots and non-sync wide shots
- Always get wild track/buzz-track

SCREENING - AILEEN; THE LIFE AND DEATH OF A SERIEL KILLER
What questions was the film trying to pose?
- Mental Health - is it right to put the death penalty on someone who is visibly mentally unstable?
- Does it prevent crime (the death penalty)

How can the characters test the hypothesis?
-Her mother told the story of Aileen's childhood, her childhood could be what affected her mental stability