For this project, I was initially very overwhelmed as it was a topic which I have little to no experience of. But by creating mind maps, researching, and creating story boards, I soon began to feel a little more confident. But there was still a lot of apprehension. Soon after, I had mind mapped all my ideas, I knew exactly what I was going to do.
Sadly, my Nan, Mary Graham passed away in January which left me feeling alone and upset. So, after hearing about what the brief was and how broad it was. I soon knew that my journey throughout the grief of my Nan was going to be perfect for me to film about. I was thinking about titles and one thing that really stuck in my mind was whenever my Nan hung up the phone she would always say “I will let you go now.” I immediately knew that it was the perfect title for my documentary. For my research, I could not really delve too deep into the topic. Due to how soon after my Nans passing it was. I could not go asking my family all about her past. So, I wrote everything that I knew about my nan onto one piece of paper and went from there. I had researched into grief using various sources which can include books, websites, and primary research that I did asking people I knew about their own experiences with grief. Then came the difficult part, filming. This was especially difficult because I was going to be filming some raw footage of myself being upset. But I knew that this was going to be helpful for me when processing the grief. As soon as I had filmed my first bit of footage, I encountered a problem. The footage was not in focus. Unfortunately, it was not in focus because it was the first-time filming on a DSLR camera. I then gave up using the DSLR camera and began to use my phone which worked out to be better for the style of filming that I was going to do. Due to the unexpected points in filming, it was more accessible for me to use. Therefore, it worked in my favour. When looking at the footage that I had captured throughout the time of my Nan’s passing and funeral, I soon realised that I had too much footage. I had easily one and a half hours' worth of nonsense if I am honest. But I proceeded to go through that footage, taking the bits that I liked out and cropping the footage on my phone before beginning to edit using Premiere Pro as this was a software that I was not very comfortable with. When editing the footage, I came upon loads of different problems. At first, I could not alter the audio to quieten the background noise and general white noise. But I soon solved that problem by going onto YouTube and searching how do I alter the audio in Premiere Pro 2022. This then proved to be another problem, due to Premiere Pro 2022 only coming out recently, I had to go off what was previously shown on older YouTube videos. I eventually solved this problem and had gotten rid of the background noise. Then I encountered another problem which was that I could not add text or images over the top of the video and audio. But after a little while of messing around having a good look through premiere pro on an unrelated video. I finally had figured out how to do this. Finally, it came to the point where we were showing our Documentaries in class to the rest of the students in my class, I was nervous and apprehensive due to the subject matter. But, when my documentary was being shown to the other students and my tutors, I had left the room because of two reasons, one being that I found it exceedingly difficult to edit never mind watch it as a viewer and the other reason being that I simply do not like the sound of my own voice like many other people. When I came back into the room, I was impressed by the reaction. This was my baby for just over 10 weeks, and I was pleased to find that everyone liked my documentary. There was some feedback, and this was that there should have been some photos over the top of my original letter to my Nan to allow the audience to be captivated and not lose interest in the mini documentary. In addition, it was said that there should have been more photos of me and my Nan which was one of my greatest regrets from when she was alive, that I never took any photos with her. Overall, I am extremely proud of myself for being able to complete a documentary which means so much to me as well as having the courage to show others the documentary. This was the first documentary I have ever made, and I think that it was a successful documentary. I found it a lot more enjoyable and pleasing than I originally thought. This being said, I found that I was faced with many problems. If I were to redo the documentary, I would ensure that my footage was shot in landscape and not portrait and that there were more photos during the main scene. To conclude, my documentary has really motivated me to be less critical when looking at my own work and to have some more self-belief. I really thought that this project was going to be quite difficult, but I was pleasantly surprised with the final piece that I have made.
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