Project Evaluation:

To start this post off, I am not quite happy with the end result of our documentary project.

This project, for me, has been quite difficult. It seems that at every turn, something new had risen to make the process of making the documentary project more and more difficult. These ranged from problems with communication, meaning that sometimes not everyone knew what was happening or what had been done at certain times during both pre-production and post production, as well as problems with scheduling of filming times and also getting permissions from the shooting locations.

Despite these problems, the final documentary edit of 'Up and Coming', I feel, had some success. The narrative is cohesive with a clear direction from the band preparing for the gig to actually playing at the gig. The narrative develops successfully through our interviews which all give insightful opinions on the subject matter, sometimes giving opposing views to each other. These things all culminate to allow a clear idea as to the opinions we are trying to convey, that the independent live band music industry is starting to fall but might start to see a gradual rise in popularity, overall showing the current state of the industry today.

I feel that my own contributions to this project were mostly successful. I was able to make sure that all of the risk assessments were completed and making sure that we did actually have permission to film in these locations. Although I was unable to partake in the narration in the end, I managed to set the framework for what it became in the final project. Also, I feel that I was successful in my role as Producer as I was able to give good feedback that have overall improved the final edit.

If there were any improvements I would still like to address, they would be interviews themselves. I feel that there are not enough cutaways to different shot types during the interviews, as well as extra shots of other events while the interviewees are talking. Also, I feel that the surroundings of the interviewees could have been dressed slightly better to help inform the viewer of the interviewee's profession. Also many of my Producer notes were ignored by the primary editor which I am not happy about at all as most of the problems from the rough cut are still present.

Overall, I feel that this project was a slight success and I have learnt several lessons on how to work well as a group when creating a film/ television project. It has certainly been a learning experience despite my problems with the end result.

Last minute Final Development:

Unfortunately, due to feedback of my Voice Over/ Narration in the documentary, my voice over will not be included in the final documentary edit.

At first I was worried that this would effect my own grade as it meant that I am not now able to visibly show my contribution in this area in the final documentary but thankfully that does not seem to be the case.

I think the reasons for this change is due to the fact that I had recorded the voice over/ narration before we had properly started editing along the documentary and thus the voice over/ narration did not properly fit the images and interviews during the edit, calling for a re-recording. The narration has been re-recorded though not by me due to not knowing of the change until the last minute.

I'm sure that this will work out fine though I know that I have made this contribution originally and have documented it here on Blogger.

Werner Herzog Research, Contextualization to our Documentary:

Werner Herzog, born 5th September 1942 in Munich, is a filmmaker, producer, screenwriter, actor and narrator primarily known for his various documentary films. He grew up to Austrian and German parents and lived poorly for the majority of his childhood. His father had abandoned him and his mother when Herzog was just 12. Despite this, Herzog retained his father’s as he thought it sounded like a more impressive filmmaker’s name.

Later years of his youth saw Herzog gain interest in learning to be a filmmaker, even to the extent of stealing a film camera which he believed to have been his right to take for his own purposes. He had trouble getting people interested his attempts at filmmaking and thus had to work hard in manual labour as a young adult to enable funding for his first few projects. He later started to earn extra money while working on a documentary for NASA but soon fled to Mexico due to legal problems.

He learnt to speak English after graduating from school and buying a house in Manchester, UK. By 1962, at 20 years of age, he had made his first short film entitled ‘Heracles’, portraying bodybuilders doing mundane tasks. Herzog has stated that he was glad that this was the first film he’d made because he could look back on mistakes made when making this film due to fact he felt unhappy with the finished result

Werner Herzog is known for leading the West German Cinema movement which were low budget films greatly influenced by French New Wave Cinema. His films have received many nominations and many awards such as best director at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival and best producing for a film for his film Cobra Verde in 1987 which has a collaboration between him and his half brother.

Although not related to the subject matter of which we are looking at, 'Grizzly Man' is a perfect example as to how Herzog would create a documentary. We could use certain techniques which Herzog uses in these films.

'Grizzly Man' follows the life of a man named Timothy Treadwell who goes out each summer to an island inhabited by bears and proceeds to try and document his interactions with the bears through his own recordings. He tragically died in the early 2000s after a bear attacked him and his girlfriend during one of these expeditions. The main basis of the documentary primarily involves stock footage captured by Timothy Treadwell himself during the expeditions over several years, even just before the time of his death, and interviews with the people who knew him while he was alive and experts in the fields of animals and medical care. 

All of the sets in which the interviews take place are dressed to suit the person that is being interviewed. For example, an interview of an expert in the field of animals and bears in particular is surrounded by pictures of bears and even a stuffed bear is beside him. This sort of set dressing can greatly help our own interviews as the setting which surrounds the interviewees would allow viewers to immediately deduce which field the interviewee works in.

Another thing that stands out about the interviews is that the interviews feel very staged and scripted. Sometimes an interviewee's reaction, in particularly Treadwell's previous partner, feels noticeably fake with emotions changing every few seconds. In fact, the entire documentary has a scripted feel to its as if Herzog is telling a chronological story through teh stock footage and what the interviewees would have to say about events which would have taken place during the footage viewers have just seen. Treadwell is treated more like a fictional character during some of the documentary, documenting his life through deep descriptions of his personality and through other people describing who he is. This story-like narrative that runs through the documentary can help our own documentary as we are following the band and can document a scripted narrative of the band's process of getting ready for the eventual gig.

Werner Herzog can be a great reference point for our own documentary as we can use the footage that we capture as well as stock footage of other bands playing to construct a more scripted narrative. While the interviews we capture include the genuine reactions from interviewees, they can be meticulously placed so that  they fit into the narrative and add to a certain point in the story.

Producer Feedback

Here is the Producer Feedback that I have sent to the main editor of our group:

Producer Feedback:

-Good opening- Titles are great.

-Band interviews: Have subtitles showing individual band member names and their instruments and band (only those who talk)

-(1:21) tighten edit (get rid of cough)

-(1:35) fix edit here (sound overlaps)

-(2:09) Try to drown out background noise in Kate Upton Interviews (All of them) . Try the same for Emma Interviews (can hear Ollie in background)

(2:21) Fix sound edit

-(2:51) Keep music at low volume under Jack interview- Include cutaways to band playing (keep audience interested). Same with Abbie McArthy and other interview segments afterwards.

-(4:34) Mark Davyd interviews- make audio sound more centered than to the left ear.

-(8:30) Drown out band in Emma interview (if possible)

-(10:19) start to fade in the audio of band playing during Jack's part slightly earlier

-Tighten edits between all interviews (there are noticeable gaps between the cuts and when they start talking)

-Lower volume of last clip of band playing.

-Include my name under sound credits/ separate sound credit as well.

-Fade the audio between interviews

-Fade audio at the end, also fade to black (lengthen clip to accommodate for this)

This is actually really good. I'm certainly a lot more confident in the final project. Just needs those few tweaks and it should be all good :)

Final Script.

We now have a final script and I have now thankfully been able to complete the narration. We switched our focus from the band Bonhomie to Basement Cat in certain sections due to the limited availability of Bonhomie's members. I feel that this final script is very good, however. It is well structured, looks professional and gives clear indication as to how the documentary will run in its final edit.

Rattlesnake Completed Transcript

Thankfully, we were able to recover the rest of the Rattlesnake interview. this meant I was able to transcribe the rest of the interview in full:

Lifeboat House/ Chatham Dockyard Mini Documentary Project Final Edit:

Here is the final version of the Lifeboat House mini documentary we were commissioned to film during our trip down to the Chatham Dockyard. Due to the unsuccessful filming process that occurred at this time, I didi struggle to edit around these and try to fix certain problems. The main problem was the fact that the camera never stopped moving, meaning that there were no easy transitions. To overcome this, I decided to freeze the image when I felt like the camera should have stopped and then use a fade transition at those points. I feel that these are rather obvious and I tried to disguise them by using a grain filter but it did not work as well as i had hoped. 

I feel that this small project was a minor success, though we could have improved it with better camera work so that the edits would be easier to accomplish and the overall quality of the project would be improved.

Emma, The Attic Events Manager: Completed Transcript

I was asked to transcribe the rest of the interview with Emma, The Attic Events Manager:

Update on Group Role: Producer

After some complications arose during certain communication problems with my group, I called for some advice on what I should try to do to help my group because I was worried about how the final project may end up. Our group was given a meeting to discuss as to how we are progressing and to see if there were any problems that needed sorting out.

I stated my issue over the apparent lack of communication which has caused problems with scheduling, sometimes leaving unaware of a certain meeting or shoot or who is in charge of which area of the project. It was discussed that I felt like I needed to do more to put towards the project but felt unable to because the others in the group had taken all the jobs needed to do, sometimes without even letting me know. 

However, because of this meeting, we were finally able to agree on appointing me as the Producer for the documentary. On top of the narration which is in the works currently, this will enable me to make a bigger impact on the final project and show that I have more involvement than I initially that I'd had.

The role of Producer means that I will be watching over the editing process and advising on changes that should be made to improve the overall quality of the documentary. I will be able to say whether something works, if an edit needs to be tweaked or even if certain sequences should be shuffled to make the sequences more cohesive with one another.

I am happy with this role although I know how much responsibility is resting on my shoulders to ensure that the final produced edit is up to a high standard. I will aim to perform this role to the best of my ability. 

Valley Park School Risk Assessment

Documentary Script (Temporary)

Emma (Attic Events Coordinator) Interview Transcript

Here is the transcript of our interview with Emma, the events coordinator at The Attic music venue, during the filming at The Attic. This is just like the RattleSnake interview transcript with the parts highlighted that should be included in the final documentary. I have not transcribed the entire interview as I felt that her points started to become repeating upon watching the entire interview. This, however, should be plenty enough to be included the the Documentary and we would likely have to cut it down anyway to fit the time frame.

As stated underneath the transcript, if more is needed, I shall complete the rest of this transcript. I did also try to upload the original footage to go accompany this transcript but, similar to the RattleSnake interview, the file size was too big to upload, being even larger than the RattleSnake interview footage.

RattleSnake Band Interview Transcript

To help to progress further with our transcribing of our interviews, we all agreed to split the interviews between us. One of the interviews I transcribed was with RattleSnake. I've highlighted the parts which should be included in the documentary as we don't want all of the slurs and slang in the final documentary. I made some notes as to what all their names were because I couldn't remember them:

As stated, the video had frozen at that point. I am unsure of what has happened here but unfortunately, the rest of the interview appears to be missing. I will see if there is another version of this video with the freezing in the middle but for now I shall keep it as is.

I did try to upload the actual footage of the interview. However, unfortunately the video size is over the maximum limit.

Filming at BBC South East interview with Abbie McCarthy

The interview at the BBC Radio Kent with Abbie McCarthy proved to be successful and we were finished rather quickly, fully showing how we were able to efficiently if we put all focus into getting our shoot done.

Abbie McCarthy gave us a good interview with answers that were both insightful of her position on the live independent band scene and her opinions about it as well as giving us some good footage to use for our documentary. She did seem very passionate about the opinions she was giving and let us know, after shooting had finished, that she is truly worried about the state of the live music industry as a whole because it is something that is both important to her personally and her job.

The interview area inside the BBC radio Kent was very interesting. Firstly, we were asked to wait in a sitting room for Abbie McCarthy. From here we could see the radio presenter recording live in his booth with two other workers sat in a different room next to his, sorting through the various calls that would come through and even engaging in conversation with the radio presenter whilst on air. WE were escorted upstairs by Abbie when she  arrived to an office area where there were a large number of people answering calls, presumably on business with the BBC. I did wonder whether this would effect the sound quality with the talking in the background but fortunately this was not a problem. The interview space looked very professional and would allow viewers to recognize that Abbie is someone who has a profession in the business that we are tackling.

Despite this, I thought we we could have perhaps dress the area around Abbie a little better for the interview. We were on a time constraint because Abbie has do do an interview of her own shortly afterwards elsewhere but I think more time could have been spent on this. As it is, the footage shows Abbie sat on one of the chairs with a railing behind her and a mostly blank blue wall, with the exception of a few pieces of paper and a small poster for an event pinned to the wall. I think this works ok but I feel that we could have moved some of the events posters into a position nearer to Abbie which would have made it easier to catch the eye of the viewer and immediately let the viewer know what area of work she is in.

I was appointed as the sound monitor. Unfortunately, the shotgun microphone wouldn't sit in its cradle properly so we had someone hold the microphone in a position just out of sight of the camera. Overall, I was happy with the sound. There were a few noise in the background such a person taking a call in the offices and someone typing on their computer plus the faint sound of traffic from outside. However, these were very minor and can be easily drowned out during the editing process. Most importantly, Abbie's voice was clear and easy to understand, meaning we were able to get the information that we needed.

Unexpected shoot at the Royal Albion/ Concerns about the group

A situation occurred when I was suddenly asked to fill out the risk assessment for one of our shoots that was planned to be shot on the day of asking. This was all very sudden to me as I had not heard anything about any shooting on that day and thus had plans involving family.

Apparently the rest of the group knew about this development since after we filmed the interview with Mark Davyd at the Hotel Du Vin but had failed to notify me of this and thus I had no idea until midday when the filming was scheduled a couple of hours later.

Unfortunately, because of the severely short notice and the plans I had made that were already in motion for the day, I was not able to make the shoot. The shoot was taking place at the Royal Albion Pub where several gigs are held where we had planned to film more footage of the band 'Bonhomie' playing and more interviews with the staff and guests. This was planned several weeks ago before the filming at the Attic with no specific date. I'd hoped to have had some notice in advance as to what date this was, however. It is annoying that i was unable to make the shoot, partly because I feel that I am not helping the team towards our goals, but also because I don't have a first-hand account of how the shoot went to write about and put towards my written mark. All things considered, I was informed that all went well considering the group missing one person.

Despite these issues, I was able to complete the risk assessment for the shoot with relative ease and made sure that we did actually had confirmation of permission like I had done for the shoot at the Hotel Du Vin. Also, apparently

my main concern that has been somewhat prevalent in my time working with this group is our lack of communication. Sometimes I may not be told certain things and have to keep asking for update on what we each need to be doing. This proves very frustrating as sometimes I am left having no clue what I should be doing to help the development of our ideas and the shoots and reaching our final goal at the end. Because of this, I'm worried that my grade will suffer due to lack of proper development and not having the opportunities to §help put something towards the documentary. I am therefore jumping at every opportunity that has not already been taken by another in the group such as sorting out the background jobs such as the risk assessment and making sure that the cameras are properly booked as well as opting to do the narration for the entire documentary, making sure that I have contributed towards a large part of the final documentary whilst also pitching in any research and ideas that are necessary.

Documentary Research/ Contextualized To Our Project: Status Quo Rock On and On

Due to the nature of our subject matter, following set of independent bands as they prepare for their gigs and the overall scene surrounding the music industry, I decided that I would look at a documentary of a similar nature.

I am particularly interested in the rock band, Status Quo. Ive known of them and have listened to their music since I was a child and have always been interested in how they worked behind the scenes, with rhythm guitarist, the late Rick Parfitt, being personal musical hero of mine. Thus I immediately searched for a documentary on them that shows them outside of their comfort zones and not usually seen by the public.

Status Quo: Rock On and On is a just over hour long documentary, following the band as they go on a large tour during the early 2000s. Immediately, the film opens with professional footage of Status Quo playing one of their gigs, showcasing each band member playing their individual instruments and also the crowd chanting clapping wildly to song being played. Then there are small cutaways to the band members backstage being interviewed individually. Their answers are often throwaway comments, making it appear as if the interviewer has just caught them at an unexpected time and don't have much to say. This presents actuality as these would be the actual responses if the bands were caught out of their comfort zones. They therefore often appear unhappy or simply do not care for what they have to say. The interviewer is seen sometimes struggling to get a proper response, with the band often bouncing her questions back to her for her to answer for herself.

Francis Rossi, the lead guitarist and singer of the group, often appears cynical about the band and its fans, commenting about how they are appreciated by 'all two of our fans'.
Rick Parfitt, rhythm guitarist, is the one who bounces back the questions and altogether does not appear to care for the interviews and sometimes doesn't bother to give any sort of coherent answer.
John Edwards, bass guitar, is the only one who appears to still enjoy himself, conveying a light hearted attitude though not fully addressing the camera at any time.

There are multiple moments of reflection captured, primarily after one of their performances. They each are convinced that the show went horribly due to the fact they thought that the sound wasn't right. We get some actuality here as the manager comes on board the bus and tries to assure them that the fans simply did not care and appeared to be having the time of their lives.

The interviewer also tackles how their popularity has deteriorated due to personal health issues and the moving of the times. I feel that this links in with our documentary significantly due to the fact that the same thing is happening to the music industry as a whole with general audiences losing interest in live band performances. Status Quo were suffering from this lack in popularity in the early 2000s, showing that the industry was already starting fall apart. This shows that the state of the industry now must be comparably worse and we are trying to tackle the subject at an even worse state than it was over 16 years ago.

This documentary was good indicator as to what we would be facing in the subject matter during modern times as opposed to back then. It also showed us how we could structure our documentary through uses of cuts between professional recording and actuality scenes. We can make sure that our interviewees are out of their own comfort zones so that their real thoughts and opinions are captured on camera.

BBC Radio Kent Risk Assessment