Permission to use video clip

So in our documentary, we need a clip from youtube that will help us achieve the professional look we are aspiring to get. As we have seen in many scientific documentaries, they have some form of animation and thats what this clip is. Below is a print screen of me asking for permission to use the video.

The terms and condition we do not want to break:

7.7 You agree that Content you submit to the Service will not contain any third party copyright material, or material that is subject to other third party proprietary rights (including rights of privacy or rights of publicity), unless you have a formal licence or permission from the rightful owner, or are otherwise legally entitled, to post the material in question and to grant YouTube the licence referred to in paragraph 8.1 below.

Depth of field

During my intense educational weekend, i finally found the name of the concept where things in the foreground are either blurred or in focus and vise-versa for the background. This is called depth of and the footage is raw footage of me trying to play with concept.

From looking a clips from other users of the EOS 550D, i came across this simple clip that pioneeried my inspiration to use depth of field to make my documentary more professional and less amateur.

The footage above is simply someone testing the depth of field concept at a skate park. Even tough some shots look look amateur by not conforming to common shooting techniques, there are some shots that i can visualise in a professional looking documentary.

Cannon EOS 550D Research

While taking home the camera to film my nephew and after watching footage after footage from documentaries to get inspiration, i came across the concept of field of depth that really intrigued me. To get that narrow field of depth in a footage you need to understand the exposure triangle. The exposure triangle consist of the elements. IOS, shutter speed and aperture. I watched a whole documentary on the camera i was using to film my nephew.

Ironically, the video used to help me understand the camera gave me inspiration in the establishing shots at 16:15 where simple shots help tell the narrative of the documentary. 

Evaluation 1st day of shooting

We filmed the responses people gave when asked questions about dopamine. When we met up in the cold, we were somewhat timid to approach strangers and ask them questions. We were turned down by a number of people and were feeling demotivated. To top things up, there were problem with the cannon 550D. The following message kept on appearing:


With those to hurdles combined we were going to call it a day. We thought to ourselves that we never planned through enough but just as we were leaving we saw a stationary man and decided to try our luck. With the success of him, a snowball effect occurred and we were on a roll. People were allowing to film them with ease and the mood really lightened up. We filmed a good amount of reactions and called it a day.

Final Story board

Shot List

A first draft of our shot list. It contains the scene, shot, shot type, duration, location and a breif description of the mis en scene of the shot as well as any other things that need to be included.

1st Day Call Sheet

A call-sheet for our first day of shooting

Callsheet 1

Storyboard rough draft

Above is a rough storyboard composed from our treatment the first image news reports on addiction and dopamine making it seem like an epidemic of some sort. We believe this is a good way to entice the audience as seen in successful documentaries like the wikileaks scandal documentary.

2). The second image is observation of my nephew; shooing him playing running talking etc.

At this point in time we feel a voice over will run throughout the documentary from this point with a piano

symphony.

3). The third is interviews with me or his carer highlighting the problem.

4). Fourth, transition shots. So, establishing shots to show a progression of a narrative.

5). Fifth, is an interview with experts on his addiction. No specific details have been confirmed.

6). Sixth, random cuts of peoples’ response to the question, what is dopamine?

7). Seventh. A YouTube animation showing synapses’ and hormone stimulation of the brain

with a narrator talking over it.

8). Eighth. Observing people that are addicted to other things.

9). Ninth. Interview of them

10). Tenth. Back to observing my nephew

11). Eleventh. A conclusion. We are currently working on the exposition of it.

12). Twelfth. Credits to end it.

Shot List 1

After completing our first draft for a storyboard, we made a detailed shot list showing everything that we need when we go out to shoot.

Our Shooting Schedule

Today we planned our shooting schedule for our film. We had to figure out when, where, who, we would be shooting for our film.

WHO
* Biology teacher - Ms Louis
Ms Louis will need to filmed as we will need an 'expect' opinion on what dopamine is. As a biology and psychology teacher we will film her talking to us about the effects of dopamine and how it works.

* Psychology teacher - McCalley
Mr McCalley is another expert opinion and will also give us insight in to the effect of dopamine and how it works.

* Ali's nephew - Kyreece
My nephew is the reason we begun the journey to discover more about the effects of dopamine. We will film him being his usual self obsessing over his favorite TV programme. From this we will observe how he goes about trying to watch his favorite show by all means neccessary

* 5 random people
One of our ideas is to show a series of people answering our question "Do you know what dopamine is?" We thought that this would be an interesting touch to our documentary to see different people's reactions as to what they think dopamine is.

* 3 people we plan to observe.
Another idea we had was to observe people who are effected by dopamine on the computer, to show that everyone and anyone can be addicted to it not just Kyreece.

WHERE
* School library
Key place for interviewing teachers

* My house
Here we will be observing Kyreece

* Westfield/West end
Where we will be getting the reactions of passers by

More planning ideas

Me and my group spent a session after the Umut Gunduz session visualising what our documentary would look like and consist of. The session with umut proved extremely useful in getting our documentary and question in the space of 2 hours. With a treatment done its time to get visual.

The Image above is what we thought of after finally getting our documentary and question together. It is simply a draft and breif outline of what we need to reasearch, whos going to cast in it and where would it be shot. At The bottom of the page is has a quick and short storyboard of what we think it would look like.

Passport Patrol (Documentary Analysis)

Ideas From MyStreetVideo

So we had a talk from a rising director of documentarys and he recommended to view www.mystreetview.com and check out the videos there to get some ideas for our documentary.

I found a video called roof level that is simple a video of the sky sped up. Although this video may seem irreverent to my documentary idea, the sped up effect has some potential in my documentary. I want the audience to know that my documentary happens over a period of time and not just in one day that may seem fairly amateur. This sped up effect can dictate a ongoing story which I think can fit in nicely with mine. 

'ROOF LEVEL' (2011) by Craig Murray for MyStreet Films from MyStreet Films on Vimeo.

 Diaspora In Smoke also has a sped up effect that i think could fit in my documentary with ease.

'Diaspora In Smoke' by Michael Buckman for MyStreet Films from MyStreet Films on Vimeo.

Different methods to create documentaries

Errol Morris

...was born in 1948 in New York. He is a well known documentary making who mostly uses natural lighting when creating his documentaries. This is interesting as it shows his desire to create a natural piece of film, preventing anything artificial. Again, this links to what we are exploring "Do we capture or shape the truth?" He is also known to ask a broad question to his subject and leave the camera rolling. From this he has seen how someone can pour their heart out on camera not even taking into account that it is there (natural vs performance)

Ali G method

Ali G is a well known character that everybody knows for his documentaries which seem to be taking the mick out of who he is interviewing. Before interviewing, Sacha Baron Cohen would dress up as Ali G and set up where the interview would take place. From first impressions the person being interviewed would assume he is just someone on set not knowing he would actually be taking the interview. Ali G would quickly ask a few warm up questions whilst setting up making them rethink their prejudice of believing someone else (because of how he is dressed) would be taking the interview.

The Office

Is a fictional sitcom series created by Ricky Gervais first broadcasted in 2001. Although it is fictional and scripted the sitcom does take the form of a documentary. It creates a quite amateur style of documentary or a in other words a: 'mockumentary' with zooming in to create the narrative. The characters are also aware of the camera's presence. 

SO!

Who are the key characters in our documentary?

• Kyreece (Ali's nephew)
• 5 civilians
• Ms Louis; a psychology and science teacher 
• Dopamine 'addicts' Khalum, Andrew, Aidan....
• Mr McCalley; a psychology teacher

What strategies would we use to ensure our subjects do no 'perform' for the camera?