Proposal
Rationale: During this year i have done film, graphic design and games which will help me during my FMP. In film i have learnt many camera shot types and different angles and how they impact a film and what effect you want to create in a certain atmosphere, for example a high angle may be used to assert dominance or authority. Also the different codes and conventions of the genre of a movie for example a horror film may contain dark lighting, blood and suspenseful or silent sound and symbolic codes and mis en scene. Furthermore, i have done many graphic work using photoshop such as creating 3d models, posters and mini animations. I have learned many photoshop techniques which i can be comfortable at using and creating many designs. I have also done a bit of games such as learning how to use unreal engine to create assets and gameplay. I will be using these techniques and implement these in my work for my FMP.
Project concept: The project i will be doing for my FMP will be a group project in which we will be filming a documentary in pesaro, Italy where we will be capturing the culture and lifestyle. I will be working with some other media students and filming and editing. This will link to pocket planet as we will explore the culture and various different lifestyle in an another country. I will also be filming, editing and working in the graphic part of the project. We will be creating a poetic documentary in which i will be researching how poetic documentaries are created and how i can implement these in creating our documentary. I will research into some poetic documentaries and some directors that create documentaries and influence my work.
Evaluation: I will reflect on my work by looking at what i did good and what i could improve when looking at the final product. Also i will be filming and capturing many b roll when at the location and show what went wrong and which clips i didn’t want to use in the final product. Furthermore, i will reflect on the edit and see what will fit to the music and what flows well with the music.
Pitch
Secondary research
Here is an example of a poetic documentary the dream and is the style we are going. However, some shots may be hard to obtain such as drone shots as we do not have access to a drone. This could have improved the documentary but we will manage without it and use other shots and angles to make up for it. The music will guide our documentary through our footage we captured. The poetic documentary is driven by the music and environment which is our goal in this project. This poetic documentary makes the audience feel a certain mood in a positive and happy way as the music is upbeat and the shots complement the music which guides the documentary. This shows that in our poetic documentary we want to capture our experience and set a certain mood in the documentary.
This creator of this documentary is called Conor Outerbridge and is a Film maker/ photographer/ Digital creator. He created this poetic documentary and uploaded this on YouTube which surpassed 1,359 views and 46 likes. This suggests that this mode of documentary is not well known and popular which is what we are exploring for our project which is also shown through the survey. The response to the documentary was very positive as many aspiring film makers loved the aspect and the visuals and were inspired by his work.
This poetic documentary had over 25 thousand views and 700 likes which it did very good on youtube. The feedback was very good as the viewers liked the documentary which is shown through the positive comments. The film maker represented the country Pakistan really well which was guided through the well edited and beautiful shots and was well put together. The music fit really well into the shots and created a relaxing atmosphere which told a narrative shown through the music choice and songs. Dawood Murad is film maker and photographer that creates visual videos and poetic documentaries about bis travels and experience.
This poetic documentary explored the theme of time which included some visuals of clocks, time-lapses of movement and time of day. the shots capture visuals of of nature and the weather showing the gradual time through the morning till night. The documentary got over 40k views which it did really well and seems that a lot of people enjoy it by the responses as lot of people seemed to understand the theme. Also many people learned from this documentary and were influenced such as school students and film makers.
Audience Profile
The origin of poetic documentary
Poetic documentary was first introduced in the 1920s however the term of poetic documentaries was used till 2001 by Bill Nichols introduction to documentary. This identify the 6 modes of documentary which included poetic documentary.
Poetic documentaries use visual rhythm over continuity as they aren’t focussed on maintaining continuity from scene to scene. The goal is to edit the shots to create visuals and rhythm that shows the audience another view of the world. This means it doesn’t have to include a particular narrative as it has to set a certain mood or feeling.
Poetic documentaries approach the genre in an abstract way than the norm which is shows through the visuals and use of shots to create a feeling to the audience.
Koyaanisqatsi 1982:
This is an example of a poetic documentary which was directed by Godfrey Reggio. The documentary is wordless and shows the contrast of slow motion and time lapse to show the cities and nature to show that cities and modern technology have an impact on peoples lives.
Rain (1929)
Another poetic documentary by the director Joris Ivans which uses detached shots to show how it feels to experience a rainstorm in Amsterdam. This is shown to set a certain mood and to show the view of part of the world.
A survey about documentaries to gage what people are familiar with
Primary Research
This quantitative data that we did was a survey which shows that the poetic documentary style in not as popular as people are not familiar with the style as majority are more familiar and used to long narrative documentaries. However out documentary will tell a narrative through our shots, angles and music that the music students will create. This shows that our documentary will allow us to show people the poetic documentary style and get some people that may have never seen it get familiar with it as the documentary is short and impactful and engaging which i think people will like.
Interview
Mood Board
Poster
This is a poster design for our project which my role was to create the graphic part of the documentary for promotion. I created this poster using the techniques i learnt over the course in photoshop and got others opinion on the poster which i used they liked. The images were taken by me and the other students using our cameras which i used in the poster and made the saturation down. For the main big image in the middle it was quite difficult to do to make as i imagined which i watched a youtube tutorial to make a real life photo into a art and abstract type image which i think makes the poster pop and gives it a contrast to the black and white photos.
schedule
This is the schedule for our trip to Italy on what we will be doing on each day there. It shows what days we will be working and when we will do it. However, This did not go to plan as some days we ran out of time and only got to get some shots as we had to do other tasks . Also when we went to explore the city and environment around us we got some shots just in case in generic which helped. We also has the music students in mind which they had to get field recordings and had to go to the studio.
Reflective journal
During our trip we captured lots of shots which then we sorted the clips into different folders for example a trash folder which are the clips we may not use and a folder for keep. However, when importing the clips to premier pro we lost some clips which we could have used as we had some really good shots but we made do with what we had as we could not do anything about it. I was disappointed as these clips could have been used and improved the doc. Furthermore we started our edit during our stay there and had a bunch of problems as the laptop we had was very slow and took a long time to cut and add clips and we could not add the effects we wanted to which we rebooted the computer. This caused us to be behind schedule and slowed us down, fortunately we could borrow a mac book which helped us a lot and sped things up.
In addition, we made a draft edit with a draft song which the music students created as they decided to make a better version of the song. This meant when we imported the new song into premier pro the clips did not match with the beats so we had to rearrange and add more or change clips to make it fit with the music and not look weird. Also when we had an extra day to film as we were heading to Urbino our bikes had been stolen which slowed us down which then resulted us to use the bus and sometimes walk. This also meant we could start the edit of the documentary and see what worked and didn’t.
Also when looking for secondary research i found it difficult to find some films and directors as the genre we are doing is not as popular and a well known type of documentary method which was a challenge.
This is the editing stage of the documentary using premier pro which we got all the clips together and matched them to the us the mood it sets is calm at the start and then starts picking up. This was the beginning phase of the documentary which we experimented with some clips and got our groups idea and opinions.
This is an interview we had had filmed which would also be apart of which we will include at the end of the documentary. The process we filmed was that we had some problems whilst interviewing people that the sound was horrible and didn’t sound good which resulted us in getting a mic from the music studio and recorded the audio using the mic and filmed the interviews, This meant that when importing the clips to premier pro we also had to get the audio files and sync them with the clips. This interview will tell our experience and how the process of filming the documentary and the visit to Italy for example how the people, food and culture were.
Final Documentary
Evaluation and reflection
This piece of documentary creates a relaxing and calm mood which is guided through the music and shots. The aim for the documentary was to capture this feeling and to capture the life and atmosphere in Italy, which makes this a very important part to represent our experience with the culture and mood in Italy, as if we did not capture this feeling it would not show the meaning of a poetic documentary.
The theme of pocket planet was explored as we did a good job representing and capturing the culture and life in Italy which not only shows our experience there but also the cities we explored. there was diversity included as we explored a different part in the world and the people in the country.
Overall, the project of the documentary and the trip went really well as there were some problems we faced but at the end it went really good. The experience in Italy was amazing and the culture which made the overall documentary and our experience a lot better. The weather was also good which really helped to get some good shots for the documentary. The music students really helped as they went to the studio in Pesaro and made a track for the film which sounded really good and fit within the documentary. The people in Italy were really nice and helpful as they didn’t mind us filming to capture the Italy life. The documentary shows our full experience and perfectly captures the life, mood and culture of our visit in Italy with the relaxing music to support all the shots and complete the documentary. At the start of the project i felt very excited for the documentary and filming and working with music students in Italy.
We did face some problems whilst there as we got behind schedule many times due to weather situations and we ran out of time during the day to get some shots. In addition we had lost our bikes which also didn’t help. However, we did well and captured great shots which were able to show the culture and life in Italy. Next time when doing a project like this i would certainly get extra equipment such as cameras, hard drives and laptops as anything could go wrong. This would help significantly as not only would it solve some technical problems we faced but also would speed things up. In the end everything worked out and turned out good, next time if there was a opportunity to take part in a project like this i would do it as its an amazing opportunity and experience and lots of fun, i would definitely recommend taking parts in projects like this and experiencing new culture and places.
Bibliography
Outerbridge, c., 2022. [online] Youtube.com. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STJ-lJa8tNc> [Accessed 12 March 2022].
MasterClass articles. 2020. Guide to poetic documentaries: 4 examples of poetic modes. [online] Available at: <https://www.masterclass.com/articles/guide-to-poetic-documentaries#quiz-0> [Accessed 11 March 2022].
Media Studies. 2022. Documentaries – Codes and Conventions | Media Studies. [online] Available at: <https://media-studies.com/documentaries/> [Accessed 16 March 2022].
Masterclass. 2022. Film Documentary Guide: 6 Types of Documentaries. [online] Available at: <https://www.masterclass.com/articles/film-documentary-guide#6-types-of-documentaries> [Accessed 16 March 2022].
Ivens, J., 2022. Joris Ivens – Regen (1929).avi. [online] Youtube. Available at: <https://youtu.be/6ADNWzg4ZmE> [Accessed 26 April 2022].
Reggio, G., 2022. Koyaanisqatsi (1982) Scene – The Grid. [online] Youtube. Available at: <https://youtu.be/QI2IlA3ztIo> [Accessed 29 April 2022].
Murad, D., 2022. The Trail of Happiness | A Poetic Documentary. [online] Youtube. Available at: <https://youtu.be/kDJ5MWCU31M> [Accessed 28 April 2022].
Hurford, D., 2022. A POETIC DOCUMENTARY. [online] Youtube.com. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZDoX_Ua4N8> [Accessed 13 May 2022].