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.