Evaluation

Along the journey I have referred to my project proposal and I feel that my finished work reflects what I hoped to set out and accomplish.  I feel that the work that I have produced is to an extremely high standard as I have researched different styles of documentary as well as looking at several practitioners along the way for inspiration.  I set out to create a narrative for my documentary and I feel that this has been completed and the documentary includes an observational story, linked together with studio and location shoot footage.  The only aspect that I would like to change is the amount of cameras used during the location shoot, as I did intend the piece to be a multi-camera production.  Although I did use multi-cameras for the studio shoot I would have liked to use more than one for the location shoot, although this was not feasible.  To conclude, I am extremely pleased with my documentary, as it follows my proposal that I planned.

Synchronising The Studio Audio

Today I received the finished audio, recorded from the studio.  Previously I had been using the guide audio for my edit, but now I am using the mixed and mastered version, and I can already tell a huge difference in quality and sound.

I had to sync up the audio so that it was played at the same as the video.. This is something that I have done before, so I didn't really find it difficult to do so.  To sync up the audio, I firstly had to import the audio into Premiere Pro, to do this I double clicked the import and selected the file that I wanted.  I then copied the files the folder wanted into my fold, with all of my other work, including footage.

Once the files were in my folder I then dragged them into the the timeline, and lined put them next to the footage that the audio was for.  To sync up the audio to the footage I then dragged the audio to the start of the footage and checked to see if it was or wasn't.  As I just dragged the footage without properly checking to see if it was in the correct place it was obviously going to be out of sync.  I then watched the footage, and listened to the original guide audio to see if there was any obvious sync up points that would make the task easier.  Luckily for me the drummer of the band taped his sticks together at the beginning of the song and this picked up by the microphones.  This was a good guide to keeping me in sync.  I then listened and looked for the first drum sticks taping, and moved the audio on level with the footage.  After I had done this I then played the footage through, cancelling out the guide audio, and playing the studio audio to see if the footage was in sync, it was.  Once I had done this I then synced up the rest of the audio to the remaining footage and checked through several times to make sure that the footage was all in sync.

Final Major Project Exhibition Ideas

Once my documentary is finished I am going to exhibit my film.I have been thinking of different ideas of how I can exhibit my film.  Obviously as the piece is moving image I am going to need to use a monitor to present my work, but what size monitor am I going to use to present my documentary.

Usually documentaries are shown on television, so it would suitable to show my piece on an average size screen, that represents a television that would be found within a house, but this is not always the case.  Documentaries such as Arctic Monkeys Live at the Apollo was shown in cinemas before being released on DVD.  The performance was also shown live in Germany to a large amount of people via streaming through to a cinema live screen.

I also need to think about the aesthetics of my exhibition.  Having my documentary shown on a monitor on a site space isn't very relevant to my piece.  I want people to see the space and atomically see that the exhibition is based around a band.  To do this I could use band posters and place them on the walls of my space.  This is relevant as bands often use posters to advertise themselves, so this idea does link in and show relevance.

I have also had another idea, whether it is feasible though is the question.  I had an idea that the band that my documentary is based about could play an acoustic set to open for my documentary.

Narrative

I wanted my documentary to have some form of a narrative structure, with a beginning, middle and end, following a chronological order.  As some of the footage that I have is shot in the studio and live, I thought that it may be quite difficult to form a narrative structure for this.  So I came to decision that I could use the links between songs, and place them in chronological order to accomplish a narrative structure.  Although saying this, not all the links and cutaways are placed in chronological order, especially at the beginning of the documentary.

Firstly, at the beginning of the documentary I used footage from on the way down to London.  The footage was taken from a service station.  To open the documentary I used clips of the band walking down the car park, then it cuts to a shot of the band sticking a band poster up over an advertisement.  The footage that I used sets the scene for the documentary, as it firstly shows the band, and it also shows the atmosphere and the personality of the band.  The fact that it also shows the band poster also the sets the scene for the documentary as it allows the audience to see the poster and automatically assume the documentary is based around a band.  I then faded the footage out.  I then decided to show footage of the band walking past the camera as if they are walking out onto the stage.  Again I felt that this footage was suitable to set the scene and establish to documentary.  This shot also fades to black, then the band name, and documentary title cuts in (in beat with the music) then fades out to the studio footage, which will hopefully settle any unfired minds that the documentary is about a band.

The first link between two songs shows footage of the band in the mini bus travelling down to London.  I felt that this footage was appropriate because it shows the beginning of the journey,which fits in with the narrative of the documentary.

The second link between songs was taken from soundcheck, which is were I got footage from the middle of the day, and it shows the band preparing the sound and putting all their instruments and gear in the right places.

The final link between songs shows the band in the green room back stage preparing to go on stage.  This was the just before they were set to go on stage so it runs in chronological order throughout the documentary.  Although this was the last link I used between songs I also feel as if this link still makes up the middle of the documentary as it doesn't signify an ending.  So to overcome this I kept the camera recording whilst the band had just finished playing live.  This shows them praising each other, after the gig which I felt was relevant and suggested the end of the documentary.  I could have included footage from the journey back, but I was finding it difficult to find a relevant ending, compared to when they had just come off stage.

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