Observational Practice

As part of our mini documentaries we said we would film an observational style film, and so we came up with many ideas as a group such as bullying or following a famous person in school, but in the end we decided to film the journey of a pregnant schoolgirl around school. We chose our actor Rachel Coburn and came up with ideas of how we'd shoot it.
Here is our observation documentary, 'Underage and Pregnant: Rachel's Story':


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I liked this genre as I found it interesting to follow a subject around and allow them to tell their story; I feel that if we picked an interesting topic for our main task we could create an emotional yet interesting documentary. I have found through research and my hands on practical work that observational documentaries often have an emotional side which the public can relate to. I also found that it was engaging, fun to make and interesting for our audience. However I do feel as though we could get more involved within the documentary through presenting and more voiceovers.

Green screen testing

For our main documentary we came up with the idea of using a green screen for a small part of it, we knew that using an amateur green screen had certain risks with the main one being that the shot comes out looking completely fake. To make sure that we didn't get to the point of editing our main documentary and finding out that the green screen looked rubbish we decided to test it out first.


As we did not have the proper material we found out that we could use a blue or green cover as long as the colour was solid, the material that we used was all we could find at the time and it was only for a quick test to check that we could edit it.
Here is the video of our blue screen test:

By doing this test we have learnt a lot about using a green screen. Although we used a bed sheet like material the editing did work and the outcome wasn't the worst, however in order to use it for our final we need make sure we have the proper material. We found out that lighting is very important as shadows will disrupt the background and incorrect lighting could make it look obvious that you aren't in the place you are perceived to be. We also found that my green top could confuse the editing and often my top would become part of the background.

All together we found out that we need proper lighting, which we could get from our schools drama studio lights. And we need to make sure we purchase a proper screen or some chroma paint.

Documentary Planning

Last week we chose the groups that we wish to work in during our A level media project, I am in a group with George Nicholls and Zoe Woodbridge.

The first thing we have done is started to write down ideas for a documentary down on paper and discuss the different methods and genre we should use. I came up with an idea of making a series of short documentaries each with a different genre, so that we decide which one we thinks works best and ultimately which style we will use for our main task.

We came up with ideas for the mini documentaries, one being observatory, one mockumentary and one reality.

I decided to make a very quick mockumentary to try out camera angles, shots and voiceovers and so I made up a story and filmed around school. The mockumentary is about a boy who carries information around in a tube, but no one knows what the information is. We used one of our friends as an actor and then followed him round in an [poetic] style.

Here is the video:



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I enjoyed making a mockumentary as the ideas you can use are endless and its very fun to film and edit. I especially like the song choice that we had in this (chosen by Ellen) as it reflects the comedy of the situation and changes the atmosphere well. Although we literally took 1 hour to film it I think it showed us a lot about the methods of creating a documentary such as when following a subject around a hand held shot can often be very shaky and the audio when recording on location can be very quiet from all the background noise.

Sorious Samura

Sorious Samura (born 1964) is a Freelance Journalist from Sierra Leone, his two most famous films include Cry Freetown and Exodus from Africa.



Sorious's footage has often been considered too violent and disturbing to use and so has often been turned down by the heads of British Television. He was first heard of when correspondent Fergal Keane interviewed Sorious and used some of his material in a BBC report on Sierra Leone. This report got recognised and Sorious was nominated for the prestigious Rory Peck award for freelance cameramen and women, which he won in 1999.


Cry Freetown has become a very highly awarded and recognised film. It shows a brutal portrayal of what happened in Freetown, capital of Sierra Leone in January 1999, the film has succeeded in making the horror of this country's civil war a matter of international outrage. Sorious Samura shot the film at great risk for his own life, aware of the fact that the strong images he recorded were the only thing that could shake the world from its indifference to the plight of his countrymen, women and children.

Sorious's Cry Freetown documentary is a shocking, disturbing but all truthful insight to the violence and poverty of Sierra Leone. It shames the West in how we turned our backs when problems in Africa started arising, and since the documentary has been aired it has raised much awareness to the political problems which Africa has.

The documentary is shot with a hand held camera, on-location, uses synchronous audio and uses voice-overs by the documentarist (Sorious). However it also occasionally features Sorious infrount of camera as well which makes this a expository documentory as it exposes the problems of Africa.

Since Cry Freetown Sorious has done numerous documentaries including a reality series called 'Living With..' which took the reality genre to an extreme by becoming the central character in the subject by doing this he was trying to break the boundary between us (the people watching) and them (those before the camera)
The series included:

• Living with AIDs
• Living with Hunger
• Living with Refugee's

This is his documentary 'Living with Hunger':

The Boy Who Carried Personal Information Around In a Tube

As part of our research and practive into documentary making we have made a mockumentary. We wanted to explore genres of documentary and so have decided to make mini-documentaries to get a feel for different genres and hopefully decide on which genre we wish to use to create our main documentary piece. Here is our mockumentary on a boy who carries personal information around in a tube:

Useful websites for research

www.youtube.com is very useful for looking up different interviews with Documentary film makers, instruction guides on making props or how to get different effects and other research

http://www.youtube.com/user/4oDDrama is a useful channel on which you can watch all of channel 4's documentaries for free

http://documentaryheaven.com/ and http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/ allow you to view documentaries for free and at any time which is very useful for researching examples of different genres and film-makers.

http://www.documentaryfilms.net/ is a website which shows different reviews and information about the industry and also includes 'tips and tricks' for making documentaries as an amateur.

Nick Broomfield

Nick Broomfield (1948) is an Engligh documentarist who films with a small crew and Nick can often be seen in shot holding a boom stick (like pictured to the left). He has been awarded the BAFTA Lifetime Achievement Award for Contribution to Documentary and was given honorary doctorates from Surrey and Essex Universities.

Some of his well known and credited documentaries include:
Proud to be British
Kurt and Courtney
Ghosts
Biggie and Tupac

Nick has a reflexive film making style with him being often infront of camera and giving narative guidance. His films often show an insight into other peoples lives who have been affecting by different problems. His most famous documentary is Kurt and Courtney which was selected and banned at the Sundance Film Festival.

Ghosts is one of Nicks most famous documetaries which tells the story of migrant workers in the UK who pick cockles

You can watch ghosts at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLQhmmxaAY8&list=SL&has_verified=1

Nick Broomfields website: http://www.nickbroomfield.com/home.html

Michael Moore

Michael Francis Moore (April 23, 1954) is an American filmmaker, author and liberal political commentator. He has made 4 of the top 8 highest-grossing documentaries ever and all of his documentaries are expository and have criticised American government, healthcare, Iraq war and large corporations. He was also in Team America.

His top 4 documentaries are:
Bowling for Columbine
Fahrenheit 9/11
Sicko
Capitalism: A Love Story

Fahrenheit 9/11 is a 2004 documentary film. The film takes a critical look at the presidency of George W. Bush, the War on Terror, and its coverage in the news media.
It holds the record for highest box office receipts by a general release political film and is the highest grossing documentary of all time. It was awarded the Palme d'Or, the top honour at the Cannes Film Festival and was the first documented film to win the prize since 1956.
It is an expository film as it exposes the American government and media in a critical way.

Capitalism: A Love Story was made in 2009 which focuses on the financial crisis 2007-2009 exposing different elements of the American government with many other sub topics, there is a mention of religion and how capitalism fits in with religion. At the Venice Film Festival the film won the "Leoncino d'Oro" award , and the festival's Open Prize.

Louis Theroux

Louis Theroux is a well known British-American documentarist who is a former student of Michael Moore, especially known for his series called 'Theroux's Weird Weekends' and 'When Louis Met...'. He has also done a number of deeper, more controversial documentaries. His shy, quirky personality shows how different and abnormal his chosen film subjects can be and allows him to grow a personal relationship between the people he is following.

Examples include:

• Louis Theroux: Under the Knife
• Louis Theroux: Gambling In Vegas
• The Most Hated Family In America
• A Place For Paedophiles
• The City Addicted To Crystal Meph

I watched 'The city addiced to crystal meph' and 'The most hated family in America' which are both about serious issues which affect people but have a very high interest point as well. He is filmed infront of camera and interviews/debates in a light hearted, often comical way which lightens the mood off of the deep topic. The way in which he satisfies the audience by asking blunt questions which the viewers are also wondering makes it much more interesting to watch and shows how he can relate to his audience. These documentaries are of the poetic and reflexive genre as they are about human interest and he is infrount of camera providing narrative guidance.

When Louis Met...

In this series Louis accompanies different celebrities as they go along day-to-day business, interviewing them about they're lives and experiences.

• In When Louis Met... (2000–2002), Theroux accompanied a different British celebrity in each programme as they went about their day-to-day business, interviewing them about their lives and experiences as he did so. Celebrities included Jimmy Savile, Max Clifford and Simon Cowell and he was also meant to have a similar programme with Michael Jackson but it unfortuently got cancelled.
• The documentary focuses on human interests and in that respect could be seen as part of the poetic genre. However it could also be observational as it follows a person on their journey.

This is an interesting interview with Louis which finds out a lot about his personality and how he got into film-making, interviewing and how he has made his documentaries so interesting.


The other two parts of the interview are at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyyUPwc-beg&feature=related and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yD6IahyNlgk&feature=related