Documentary Praxis Blog

Initial Ideas

Due to being away from my fellow peers outside of Coventry and not knowing many of them due to this being my first year at Coventry University I'm going to plan on adapting ideas I can work on individually.

Some of the themes I can work around due to the current pandemic and lockdown rules tend to be mostly Lockdown Themed documentary's.  Going with this theme I can feel like I can express my struggles through creating a film around these lockdown rules into my work, linking my narrative struggles with my technical  struggles, eg: not being able to go shoot many places.  

Ideas I can work on, on my own:

• Lockdowns effects on mental health
• Lockdowns effects on Student Learning
• Lockdowns effect on Relationships
• How the Pandemic has affected the online world

I think the Idea I have settled on would be "Lockdowns effects on Students Learning" the reasons behind choosing were: the personal connection it had to me and the ease of finding willing participants to interview.

Adapting My Ideas

Going with my chosen ideas I started thinking of some technical ideas I could include into my documentary while writing a brief script for some parts of my voiceover 

Due to the difficulties of interviewing a subject at the minute due to the current pandemic I am planning on conducting my interview over zoom, although this might hinder a part of my documentary technically it is really the only way I can conduct an interview during this current time, while also helping link to the theme of the documentary.

Thinking about some of the other shots, I want a lot of shots looking out onto things, this to help link with the theme of being in lockdown and being trapped inside. I am lucky enough to be able to shoot with my girlfriends Canon DSLR to help me with this production.

Script

 

Editing

When I begin to edit my film together I will first set the baseline with the voiceover, laying that out in my premiere pro timeline first to give me an idea how long the film will be and how long each "act" will  go on for. In doing this it will give me a better Idea on how to edit my footage to help meet the time restrictions.

When first putting the audio in I noticed a lot of background noise to fix this I added a de-nosier and a de-revamp to my audio to help give me a clearer sound considering that I am recording this on a low quality microphone due to the loan shop being shut.

 

Promotional Poster

When developing my Promotional Poster I want to convey the ideas of being in lockdown through the imagery, much like what I tried to achieve within my documentary.

When brainstorming ideas for a title I came up with, "Locked Down, Shut In, Pushed Out" to convey the idea of lockdown within my work.

PowerPoint

To help develop my PowerPoint I think creating a basic script will help me bring my point across when delivering my presentation.