Finished
I handed in my coursework to reception and am happy with how this module has gone. I have learnt things and enjoyed it! I am happy with how the final piece came out. If I had to change anything about the final piece, I would maybe have some kind of background music but I could not find any that matched. I would have a few more close-ups of their faces because most of the close-ups I have of their face did not look right because they were talking.
Edit plan
| Video | Audio 1 | Audio 2 |
| John and Zain skating in the woods with a few close ups in the middle. There will be close up shots throughout this whole documentary! | John talking about when he first began to skateboard | Maybe some kind of gentle music that is faded down from the titles. Or just the noise of the room I recorded John in. Both would run throughout. |
| Getting in the car and driving off. Close ups. | Continue talking about skateboarding before moving on to talk about if he can do it, others can too. | |
| Shot by cars. Close ups. | Talk about how he has always wanted to do a skatetrip and he is doing it because of his Dad and how John wants to make others lives easier | |
| Zain and John skateboarding up the hill and a close up of Zain. Close ups. | John talking about how he did not want to do the trip on his own so got Zain involved.
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| Shot my willen hospice and a close up of John. Close ups. | Talking about his Dad being diagnosed with cancer. | |
| Low shots by lake and shots in my street. Close ups. | Talking about why they are skating from Glasgow |
This is my origional plan for editing. When I had my good shots, I had wrote down the audio and images and tried to mix them together to see what would go together best, I was going to scan it in but it was pretty messy and doubt anyone would be able to read it!
100 words sypnosis
SkateforcancerMK
From Glasgow to Milton Keynes
By Faye Minister
SkateforcancerMK, from Glasgow to Milton Keynes, is a three-minute long documentary about the amazing journey two teenagers are planning. It all began when John’s father was diagnosed with bladder cancer. After fighting it for three years, he passed away in September 2010, which sparked John to embark on an adventure to raise money for Cancer Research UK. John did not want to do this alone so his friend Zain joined him along with a team of people to help him out. In July 2011 they will be skateboarding from Glasgow to Milton Keynes and this documentary shows the reasoning behind this extreme journey.
Production Log
Here is what was said during my interview with John.
Where is the trip taking place?
The trip is going to take place from Glasgow, Scottland to Milton Keynes down the west side of the country through a load of different towns and terrain which will be quite a challenging experience.
What made you want to do this trip? Where did it start off from?
The whole trip started out, I mean, ive always wanted an excuse to do a big skateboarding trip but I have never had the drive to do it but 3 years ago my Dad was diagnosed with bladder cancer. He fought it for the 3 years but it became terminal and my Dad passed away in September of 2010 which just kind of sparked me to do something to try and make others in the same positions lives a bit easier. So I wanted to do something for Charity and the first thing I thought of was a massive skateboard trip. We hen teamed up with cancer research and we went from there.
How has the planning gone so far?
The planning part of this is the hardest part, I mean it takes me an hour to write an email but we have been so lucky to have found a lady called Carole Osborn who has recently become one of the chairmen for cancer research because of her work. She has helped us out so much from booking hotels, to vans, to getting the name out there, to raising money! But the thing that motivates me to do it, is if someone like me can do it who is a bit of a novice and has no experience in this field, it goes to show other people can do things like this that seem undoable but then turn out to be massive like the big skateboard trip we are planning.
When did you start skateboarding?
I actually didn’t start skateboarding til a later age. I was 16 when I got my first skateboard and started out obviously trying to do tricks and all the stuff everyone does when they first get a skateboard but gradually I have found a more old-school style so I started skating like bowls and half-pipes and stuff like that and really loved that but gradually its just developed from there into longboarding which I love doing Its a fun way of making everyday transport fun to do. I love my longboard and when it comes to doing a trip like this there is nothing else for it really, its perfect and I love longboarding, I really do.
How are you finding training your body for this trip?
I think the hardest part of this thing is just training. The sheer physical-ness of it is just mind-boggling, its like 30 miles a day so that’s more than a marathon a day. Me and Zain both just love kebabs and beer normally so this has been a massive task for us to get in shape for us to do this trip so that will be an interesting part of the journey to see if our bodies can cope with the physical strain.
Why did you ask Zain to join you on the trip?
This trip is really personal to me and I knew that I didn’t want to do it on my own so there was really only one person for the job and that would be Zain. Me and Zain have been friends for you know my whole life and as much as I hate to love him, he is the best person for this and I am very excited about doing this trip with him.
I asked John to talk a bit more about his Dad and this is what he said.
Obviously having my Dad diagnosed with cancer was one of the hardest things I had to do and hardest thing for any family to go through. It really opened my eye to how much cancer there is in the world and how many families are affected and it just made me want to do something about it. The trip started from Glasgow because my Dad was a very patriotic Scottsman, he lived and breathed Scottland, from the land to the whisky so I mean we are taking a journey up there to scatter his ashes I may and then start the trip in July, will be the only way to honour him
Reflection 4 – Evaluation
The editing process has gone well for me. I managed to pick out the good shots from the 20 minutes of footage and selected the best parts of the audio. I then fitted the images to the audio and played around with the effects til i was happy! Originally I had planned to open the documentary with a home video of John and his father but there was an issue with getting hold of a DVD and I was not sure if it was going to look right with the rest of the visuals of the documentary. I thought of doing the whole video in black and white but some of the colours in the footage are really nice and I did not want to lose that detail so decided to do some parts in black and white instead. I played around a lot more with effects than I had originally planned to but because skateboarding is seen as ‘cool’ I could get away with it. Although I had to make sure that I did not over-do it because it could have taken the focus away from the audio. I changed the order of the visuals quite a few times because I thought the audio was better fitted with different images. I also took on the advice of others and experimented with different orders by copy and pasting my timeline into another sequence. I am happy with how the shots and come out and really like the black and white shots that have just one colour showing. My editing skills have greatly improved throughout this module! Beforehand, I thought I knew Final Cut pretty well but I have learnt loads about effects during this module. I feel like I have become more confident with the equipment and of my own judgements in film making. I have not worked on my own on a project before and I am glad I did because I have gained more independence and confidence in myself. If i was not sure about how to use a certain piece of equipment, I had to learn how to use it on my own. I had never used the Marantz before and because I was on my own, I had to work out how to use it without relying on others. I have really enjoyed this module and the feedback sessions have always been beneficial to me.
Editing process so far
I looked through my 20 minutes of footage and thought it would be quite hard to cut down to three minutes! I started off cutting out all the obviously bad bits and it gradually got reduced down. I then chose my favourite shots and cut out the movement of the camera inbetween the close ups and it turned out to be about 3 minutes! I now have a rough edit but the main thing i am considering at the minute is where abouts to put all the close ups. I could just have them all together or i could put them so they re-occor throughout the documentary. I have now recorded the sound and will upload that tomorow. The only slight problem was that John’s dog wanted attention so kept making noises so I had her down next to me and stroked her to keep her quiet while we were recording!
For this module, I have no had a specific production schedule for this module because I was reliant on when Zain and John were free and they generally did not know when this was til the week beforehand. I decided that once I got the footage, I would try and edit everyday til it is done which has been true so far! It is going well though.
Reflection 3 – Analysis
I think my shoot went well. It was a shame that the ground was wet but we luckily didn’t get rained on. I got most of the shots I wanted but got quite a few other shots because of John and Zain’s input and because I thought of a good shot once in a location. I did not get a shot of them walking away from the camera with their boards because I already had 20 minutes of footage and thought I had a few good shots that could end the documentary well. I learnt that unforseeable circumstances can change certain shots because I wanted a shot on top of the multistory car park but there was scafolding up so could not film in that location. Therefor I had to consider other locations. Lighting is not a strong point of mine and in my screen test the lighting came out dark so I focused on trying to make sure the light came out OK. I know I a can edit this after it is too dark but getting it right on the shoot is far easier and I think I done much better with the lighting on this one. I had never used a Marantz sound recorder before but found it easy to use.
Sheffield film festival
I enjoyed going to this film festival, it was something different, a new experience! It was strange walking in to watch a documentary and looking at all the older people around you knowing that anyone of them could have been part of making the documentary you are watching. The first documentary I saw was called ‘Travelling fields and into eternity.’ We missed the beginning of this and it took me a whole to figure out what it was actually about, but it was really good! Was about how Finland are planning to build a 3 mile long area underground to hold 300,000 tons of radioactive nuclear waste called Onkalo which means hiding place. It is mainly interviews with those involved and I just found it so interesting. They all had different opinions on how they should let the future know that there should not be dug on or whether they should just hope that no-one remembers it so no one bothers to try to dig there. It is a hard situation to figure out because everything could have changed in the future; language and signs could be completely different! How will the future know not to dig there? I think the documentary was really well done visually and I would love to see it again! It got me thinking and kept my concentration the whole way through.
The second documentary I saw was called ‘Secrets of the tribe.’ It was not really what I was expecting but I did find it interesting. It took a while to get into the main story and I thought it was going to end at many points but kept on going. It took 8 years to make!! It was about anthropologists visiting this tribe and one of them is a paedophile and rapes young boys of the village. It shows the destruction of disturbing tribes. We are also told of a flu epidemic and they are given vaccinations but many get ill and die. This one guy from the tribe blames them for coming and disturbing them. It is quite upsetting but went on a bit.
Reflection 2 – process/development
During this project, I found it hard to think of visuals that I could use to make the documentary look effective. I thought having John as a talking head would be sufficient at the beginning because that was when he was talking about his Dad so would be interesting to listen to and also the emotions shown would be good to look at. I played around with the screen test and old skating videos because I knew I wanted to include skating for interesting visuals, but I was struggling with how to make the transaction between a talking head and skating. I done research by watching similar documentaries and realised how I needed to consider the visuals in different ways from different angles. I am motivated to do this project because of it personal to me and am proud of what the boys are doing. I have realised how many visual sides they are and from this, I have broadened my creative thoughts to try to think out of the box. I have realised that there is much more research and careful planning involved when making a documentary. My creative skills have improved in the way that I think about conducting an interview by using a variety of questions to get the answers I want out of the subject.
John's Mum and Dad
John's Dad with some of his brothers
Reflection 1 – Research
When I was first set with the documentary brief, I had a few ideas in the first lecture but decided to go for the skateforcancerMK documentary. This was because I know how important it is to be personally involved in the documentary and I already had a good relationship with John so knew he would be comfortable talking to me. By choosing this I knew that he would be a reliable contact and was very keen about doing the documentary because he actually wants one made about it! I thought this documentary would be interesting to the audience because it is about a very difficult journey by two boys in memory of one of their fathers who was lost to cancer. Although doing something in memory of someone is not a rare thing, the journey they are planning is such a challenge. I have learnt that is it very beneficial if you can get a good rapport with your subject and how making a documentary on someone who you can rely on answering your questions and contacting you is ver beneficial. I have also learnt that it is important to consider all possibilities but creating something that is important to you will show in your final piece.
Documentary Shooting Script
I began to write the shooting script for my original idea and I just thought that I could do a lot more with it visually. In this, there is no talking head, it is all visually based on John and Zain. Here is my shooting script for this idea.
| Picture | Sound |
| Open with a home video of John and his family | Sound of the video or a piece of music |
| Text on screen at end of home video saying the title of the documentary | Sound of the video or piece of music
|
| Long shot of Caldecotte lake looking pretty then Zain and john skate across the screen | John saying when his dad died of cancer |
| Shot of John and Zain standing together with their longboards by the lake | Saying how the cancer started off |
| Various close ups of them such as hands, feet, eyes | Bladder easier to cure, Saying how it spread and became terminal. His personal part. |
| Close up on feet on board as they skate off, low angled shot of them skating off | John wanted to do his part to raise money, raise awareness, find a cure |
| Loading skateboards into the car
|
Doing a skating trip with best friend Zain from Glasgow to Milton Keynes |
| Unloading and Skating down brickhill woods | How many days it will take, how many miles |
| Sitting on or next to longboards at the bottom of the hill | Support from Carole Osborn, family, friends |
| Walking off away from the camera carrying their longboards | Want to try and contribute to making a difference |
| Fade to black then credits | Music |
Mumford and sons
A friend of mine told me to watch this documentary about the band, Mumford and Sons. She said this is how she would expect the skateforcancer video to look and I think she is onto something!
I really like how it is done visually with the variety of shots and close ups. I am thinking of scrapping my origional idea of John being a talking head for the first half and just have visuals like this instead. It would be close ups of John and Zain in various locations with shots of them skateboarding and just having fun.
Real lives treatment ideas
My documentary subject is John Stirling talking about why he is skating from Glasgow to Milton Keynes to raise money for cancer research UK. It will start with him sitting down in the comfort of his own house talking about how his Dad passed away and how it has driven him to start skateforcancermk. He presents himself well when talking in front of the camera so will have it mostly him talking about his Dad with cut aways of pictures and maybe a home movie if I can get hold of one in DVD format. When he begins to talk about the skate, I am going to have him and Zain, (who is doing the skate with him) skateboarding in various pretty locations. I did not know whether to have voice over while they were skating or have John talk, then skateboard.
For the transition from him talking about his Dad, to having the visuals of him skateboarding, I am going to have John and Zain standing in brickhill woods with his board and will say where he is skating from Glasgow to Milton Keynes and how many miles it is. They will then skate off. The next shot will be coming down a hill in Milton Keynes and John will stop in front of the camera and say another fact about their trip then they will skate away. This will continue in different locations until they have said everything they need to say about the trip.
OR
Have John’s voice speaking over shots of them skating. When he talks about the skating trip, there will be shots of them skating in various locations. Brickhill woods is a very scenic place and where they would be skating is quite a steep hill in between the trees. Another place would be at Willen Lake where there is an overflow pipe but there is the worry of the skateboard falling into the lake which has happened before, and that it might be wet because of the season. There would be some fast paced shots of the skateboards wheels to help with the transition between locations. I think it would be good to have a shot of them skating down a street because that is what they are mainly going to be skating on on the trip. John will be talking about the trip in terms of distance, time and the support they have gained so far. He will also say how he is preparing him and Zain are preparing themselves for the trip.
John does not want the documentary to be depressing, he wants to show that although his Dad dying was awful, a window has been opened (his words) because he now has the drive to try and make a difference. He wants to show that he is passionate about doing this skate in memory of his father and to hopefully help others.
Sheffield tomorrow
tomorrow we are going on a trip to watch the documentary film festival in Sheffield. I have never been to a film festival so am quite looking forward to it! On the other hand.. I don’t like coaches much, I always need the toilet, and sometimes get travel sickness. Hmm, well we shall see how that goes! Here is a link to the festival I am attending.
sorting out time..
My documentary is definatly going ahead so now I need to sort out how I want it to look.
I was thinking of different locations such as brickhill woods because there is a road running down the middle of it where the guys use to skate. There is also the overflow pipe at willen lake! Most of the pictures that I have of them skating in these locations are on my hard drive which is broke..
In the workshop, everyone seemed to like my 1 min video and Ken had been saying about putting a personal spin on our documentary. This is personal to me because it was one of my best friends Dad who passed away and yesterday it was the anniversary of my Grandad’s death who passed away from stomach cancer. I was told I just need to think about the style etc. I am going to base the storyline on how John came to the decision to do the skate with a few details from it. This is not going to be my only documentary about their trip, I may go with them and am going to film them after they have done the trip to talk about their experience.
I will think more about the style and talk to John to see if he has anything particular in mind.
Here is a video in the overflow pipe of when John managed to do his first drop in.
The Elephant Man and The Goodfellas
I really enjoyed watching the Elephant Man, cinematography wise, it was so well done! My favourite shot was the doctor walking away shown through a clean circle on a dusty window. There are many close-ups to show emotion and many zooms. The light changed from when the elephant man is happy in the light hospital, to sad when in the dark freak show. High and low angles are used to show power and vulnerability such as the vulnerable nurse and when telling the ‘owner’ of the elephant man to leave. There are a few shots that could look like photos if there was not slight movement. When we see Joseph Merrick for the first time, it is dark and it left me wanting to see him properly which caused suspense. The sound was based on human emotions, there was water in the alley way when the doctor was upset and there is loud breathing is many parts.
Goodfellas was also a good film! I liked how they used red light on the gangsters to give them impression that they were evil. At the same time as this, a low angle was used to show their power. I love the shot of when the main character is running away from the explosion! A similar shot to this is used throughout in the way that the footage is paused while someone talks about what is happening. There are many low angle shots that show power and many point of view shots that make you feel like the characters are speaking directly to you. There are over the shoulder shots and lots of narration with the picture showing what is going on.
I could relate this films to my documentary in terms of cinematography by close-ups to show emotion from my characters. I could have some point of view shots while they are skateboarding and could use different angles to show vulnerability or power. I can do shots of people skateboarding across a nice background like a lake etc. I can use most of the cinematography ideas from Goodfellas such as the pausing of the footage and all the narration used over the picture.
Screen test video
If I was to change something, I would change the lighting. I used natural light and it looked fine through the camera but when i uploaded it onto here it seemed darker. The sound is slightly echoey but I think it sounds ok. There are a few parts where you can hear John taping so that is something I will have to make sure he does not do on the real thing. I like the way he speaks about it with the pauses and I have watched it many times, yet I am still not bored of listening to it. I edited it on Final Cut which I found easy enough, but I had never put text on it before but it was quite simple. Apart from me struggling on the train with the equipment, it went well 
skate for cancer screen test
I went home yesterday to film John as a screen test for the documentary on skateforcancerMK. I really enjoyed filming him, probably because I laughed a lot, but it all went well and I got some good footage! I thought John might feel a bit awkward and start wiping his hair off his face and just generally playing around but he didn’t do much of this at all! He found it hard to figure out how to begin but once he got going he was fine Was good to see him too! I know John has wanted some footage of what he is doing for a while so he was well up for it! I put together all the footage of him talking about it so that it can be put on the skateforcancer youtube channel and facebook page. Here is the full footage;
The shorter screen test is just uploading to youtube so will be in my next post.
22nd October
Yesterday we had a lecture with Ken in which we were shown various documentary makers and a bit of their work. Firstly we were shown part of Fredrick Wiseman’s documentary Titicut Follies which was about a mental institution. It was named this because it is what a talent show for the inmates was called. It was made at the time where cameras were held on shoulders and no tripods were used. There were no forms to fill out and no health and safety! Most of the documentaries were purely observational film making and the story was told by the pictures on the screen because there was no narration or interviews.
Errol Morris was an expressionist documentary film maker and believed in different truths, this was shown in his documentary ‘Thin Blue Line.’ This was about a man being wrongly accused of shooting a police officer and the part that I saw showed a police officers point of view and the guy accused point of view about an interview. Errol Morris got the real killer to admit it during his documentary and I intend to watch this! Seems very interesting. Ken also mentioned Guildford 4, I had not heard of this so I just researched it and now understand that 11 people were put away for a bombing that they did not commit but were released eventually.
We were shown part of Aileen – Life and Death of a serial killer by Nick Broomfield and I am going to watch this! Looks interesting. We were also shown Michael Moore who I had heard of before, I have watched the first half Bowling For Columbine and found many of the facts on there unbelievable! Especially the part where the audience is told that you get a free gun when you open a certain bank account, that’s insane! From what I can remember of it, I quite like the way that it is done, how Michael Moore is the one exploring the gun situation in America and I learnt quite a bit! The last person I was told about is Kim Longinotto. I have looked at some of her documentary’s and am going to watch one called Theatre Girls.
We then went to the workshop where we talked about our documentary ideas. I really need to think about how mine is going to look. I know the story very well because I am involved in it so this gives me an advantage. I know they will feel comfortable talking to me about it but I am unsure of how the emotions will work on the camera. I want it to be about John’s experience and why he is doing the skate but I need to think much more about the style of it!
After this, we had a workshop about lighting. We had to use the lightmeter and adjust the camera settings according to the light meter reading. I really enjoyed doing this and my group finished the tasks very quickly and began playing around with different shots. I have the camera we used set aside so that I can get it out on Monday and will put the pictures we took on here.
Documentary ideas
SkateforcancerMK
John Stirling and Zain Taylor are skateboarding from Glasgow to Milton Keynes in aid of Cancer Research UK. John’s Dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer roughly 6 months ago and he recently died. They have chosen these locations because John’s Dad was born in Scotland and John was born in Milton Keynes. John wants to do something to help raise money to go towards eventually finding a cure for cancer. It would be John speaking about his experience and why he is doing this and shots of them skating, training and at meetings can be used throughout. Here are some pictures of John and Zain.
I went home at the weekend and went round my Nan and Grandad’s house and my Grandad started telling me about something he had complained about but I had no idea what he was on about! I thought this could work as a documentary for this project because he just complains to official people constantly to try to get his way. He is very stuck on his views and when he is not happy with something, there is no stopping him complaining. The problem with this is that there is no way that I can limit all his complaining into three minutes. The way I thought of doing it was just having many explanations of who he has complained to so it would be more of the linking speech such as ‘i said if you don’t get back to me about this issue by midday then I am going to take this to a higher authority. So they didn’t get back to me so I went to a higher authority!’ When he was telling me this at the weekend, he was waving a cheesy stick around. Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures of him on this computer.
I watched a documentary called Born Into Brothels by Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski. It was not what I was expecting and was shot very strangly. There were many stills and at some points I had no idea what was going on! But the more it went on, the more I liked seeing the childrens pictures. Some of the bits between the pictures I had no idea what was going on and didn’t know if it was just showing the rough transactions in their life but would have been better if it was clearer. The story was shocking, expecially the insults the adults said to the children! I would have liked to hear the children’s opinions more.
Summer Documentary Production work
-Talk to people you think you know and find out something you did not know about them.
My Dad told me about a car crash he was in when he was 11. He was on a trip with his Grandparents and was sitting in the front. He started to fall asleep so his Nan who was sitting behind him tried to prop a pillow behind his head, his Grandad who was driving tried to help but knocked the steering wheel and ended up going into a lamppost. There was no law on seatbelts so my dad smashed his face on the window screen. He still has scars on his face! The UK law for having to wear seatbelt came in for children in 1989 and 1991 for adults.
-Talk to someone you would NEVER normally talk to and get to know them.
I barely ever talk to taxi drivers and when I do it is usually about what I am doing etc. I made the effort to find out more about a taxi driver while on my way to work. He went to University in Ghana and studied law which is a side of Ghana you never hear about! On TV Ghana is nearly always showing the poor side of it and I have not seen any coverage about the more wealthy side! His story about what University is Ghana was like would be interesting to watch.
