Editing the footage

I have started editing the footage for my documentary. Using what I have learned in Premiere I have started putting the footage together and adding the audio files from my sound recording session.

I have used sound clips from a royalty free site of crowds chanting for my opening.

This screenshot shows how far I have gotten already. 

Sound Recording

I have recorded audio files for my documentary. Using studio equipment I have recorded the voice over for my documentary. With the microphone set to cardioid I closed myself in using the carpeted walls, and recorded my voice over. The sound was recorded by audacity, and i have now exported all the sound clips into WAV format, and begun editing in premiere.

Some information I found Useful

During the filming process of my documentary I did some on-line research to find tips on how to get people to feel comfortable in front of the camera, and how to approach people in a good way so that they respond to your request to interview positively.

The research led me to a few different sites, but I found that one site had some really good advice for novice film makers. The site dealt with issues such as how to ask people for interview, and how to deal with people seeming negative to your requests or your work.

"FINDING THE CONFIDENCE to approach strangers for their story, their photo or permission to film can be a challenge.

There are many emotional and mental stumbling blocks that can prohibit you from approaching strangers for your travel media. You may not want to be rejected or bother anyone. You may not want to interfere or draw attention to yourself. Perhaps you are questioning your ability to assert anything meaningful."

The article mentioned some topics which a lot of people would not like to mention, such as finding the confidence to approach people, and what to say when you do approach them.

It also covered how to react to what people may say on film, and the recommended way is to just let them be themselves, do not try to force answers and praise them for what they do decide to share.

It also documented that some people are afraid to be in front of the camera, because they are "afraid of their own existence" leading them to shy away from the camera.

I found this information very useful when conducting my work.

http://matadornetwork.com/notebook/how-to-approach-strangers-for-photos-video-or-an-interview/

Finishing Filming

I visited the club today to gather more footage and conduct my interviews. I managed to interview a senior member of the club, who even spoke about the clubs early days, and two players who have both been at the club since they were young boys, and spoke about the community between the guys at the club.
I also managed to get some more footage of the team whilst they were training.

Unfortunately the club house was closed so I did not manage to gather footage inside the club. So my interviews were conducted outside at the end of their training session and inside the changing rooms, which has the colours of the club on the wall, so hopefully this works as a good setting for my documentary.

Now that I have gathered all fo my footage I will begin editing and record my voice over next week.

Filming

I began Filming today for my documentary at the Dunvant ground. I managed to collect footage of shots I had planned in getting. One of my ideas was a pan across one of the stands and I managed to achieve this, along with a shot of the goal posts. I also got footage of a rugby game being played.

A problem occurred during filming, the camera was displaying messages that the battery was low, even though I had charged it for a few hours the night before to avoid this problem.

All together I managed to collect 14 videos, and hopefully enough of the game to use as filler. Though I did not manage to question anyone as my plan was to do the interviews after the match to try and have an after match theme to the interviews.

Though these problems occurred I have now arranged to re-do the interviews at a training session on Thursday the 5th of April.

Although these difficulties came up, my experience filming at the club today was a good one. Many people were interested in knowing what I was doing and a few offered ideas of interesting and different things to film at the club. I look forward to returning to the club to finish off my work, and a different setting will give me a new opportunity to get footage of the team training as well as playing during a match meaning that I can now have more variety in my collection.

Preparing to begin filming

In a few days I will be filming my footage at the Dunvant Rugby club.
In preparation I have drawn up story boards to give myself Ideas of what footage to get. I have also written the dialogue for my voice over which I will be recording on Wednesday. Hopefully my voice over will be long enough to cover a decent amount of time, and I am aiming at getting enough footage that matches the flow of my voice over so that the documentary is linear enough to be followed by the average person.

Story Boards

I have begun drawing story boards for my documentary, just a few rough sketches to give myself some idea of how I want a few scenes to play out.

Experimenting with lighting

I have been into the studio for a session experimenting with lighting.
I went along with other members of my class and experimented with lighting.
We used in total two blondes, one red and two reflectors to create hard and soft light. We also experimented with filters, trying to see what effects we could get by mixing two different streams of light.

Back up Idea

I have thought through my initial idea and I can see that there are various elements to consider with this idea. My main access to the club is on days when the team are playing, this could mean that if a game gets cancelled last minute I could be left for up to a couple of weeks before I get a chance to return and conduct the filming. Because of this I have decided to decide upon a back up idea that I can use if worst comes to worst and I need to do something else.
So as a back up to the rugby club idea I have decided that I could make a promotional video for Swansea. Either based around its night life or what its like to live in the city. I could easily get footage of the city, and interviewees would not be difficult to come by, if needed I could even conduct VoxPops to get a quick and to the point view of the city.

Dunvant Rugby Club

For my documentary I have chosen to use the rugby club at Dunvant as the subject. I have chosen the club as it has a long history within the sport of rugby and even things down to the name of the field the club uses as a ground has a history behind it. My ideas to include in the documentary are things such as a shot walking from the front entrance out to the pitch speeded up for an introduction, footage of present day and past games as filler footage to use when interviews go on too long.

I have spoken with a member of the club named "Elvis" who films the games and he has offered to supply me with old footage of the team playing.

I have also enquired about talking to older members of the club but to no avail, they seem to attend less often that younger members and players so i may not be able to conduct interviews with the clubs owners but I should be able to talk to the teams coach or the team scout.

Ideas for a documentary

I was thinking of using Dunvant Rigby Club. Since two of my housemates play for the club I have been to a few of their ome matches and even been on the bus with the team to an away game. The club has a long history and after speaking to a member of the club I think if done well it could be a good idea.

Although at the moment this is just an idea I would like to progress it further.

Lighting

Seeing Light

On the light spectrum there is a small section of light that is visible to the human eye.
This section contains the colours known as Roy G. Biv or Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet.

The way we see colours is through reflected light
White reflects colours back
What we see is the light bouncing around off objects

There are two types of light
Hard Light
Soft Light

Inverse Square Law <-2000w       at 1 meter 2000w      at 2 meter 500w     at 4 meter 125w
Double the distance quarter the watt

Positioning of lights
Different light positions are required under different circumstances such as skin tone, shape of face and even glasses

http://www.davidjameswilliams.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/lighting-tutorial-8.jpg

This image shows an example of a studio lighting set up, showing the position of the camera, hard lights, back light and reflectors