Cheyenne Joseph // UCA Television blog

Dreams of a life Quick facts - Written by Cairo Cannon & Carol Morley  - a film that tells the story of Joyce Carol Vincent, whose body was found in January 2006 decomposing in her bedsit in Wood Green, North London, after she apparently died unnoticed in December 2003, surrounded by unopened Christmas presents with her TV still switched on - won awards from 3 different film festivals We were shown this documentary during a lecture and it was one of the most moving things I've ever seen. Partly because you cant help but put yourself in the position of the main characters. The creators captured the emotion from all the characters and there are multiple techniques used throughout to evoke emotion.  First major thing to note is the use of reconstructions to further illustrate the settings and what kind of life the main character (Joyce) was living.    Here is an image of the reconstruction of her home.  I noticed t...

My group: Saskia, Josh jones , me  My roles: edit supervision, go pro operator, camera B operator. Preparation   I've learnt so many things when it comes to the preparation, documentaries as a whole requires so much organisation and preparation and this is something that you must learn to keep on top of in order  for your documentary to work. Surrounding myself with people who are organised and are able to know what it is they want and have a creative vision is something that I feel lucky to have had on this project. I didn't really realise how much preproduction work would be needed to make a documentary, four example making a transcript, at first I thought it was unnecessary when I saw the amount of preproduction we would have to do but during the production I realised how necessary it all was. Creating a documentary is almost like creating art. It takes time and its processes cannot be skipped.  Filming When it comes to filming, working with...

So, We thought it would be a good idea if everyone met up, went through the footage and fine tuned the GV positioning. Whilst Saskia and I were not present, Josh went ahead and fixed some of the things that Helen asked. That was the use of a London skyscraper stock footage, instead it was changed to footage of margate and it really fit the documentary better. The only issue was that we did not leave a lot of time to completely add all the GVs before Helen's review but there was still improvements to show her.  Problems with making the fine cut: - There was so many clips to sift from -There were some shots that could've been used but it had no sound (my mistake) -We underestimated how long it would take to complete.  Pros of creating the fine cut;  - Josh's editing workspace was really organised and made it easier to find the necessary clips. Since we had 3 shooting days, it was important that this was made clear in the edit workspace otherwise it would've take...

Josh took the role as editor and so after our discussion and note taking on the shots, he went ahead and put together a rough cut. Saskia and I were still on hand to provide any opinions and help that Josh may have needed. When I saw the rough cut it I was so proud because I really had my doubts due to the shaky shots. It really worked though and really fit the style of documentary.  Helen was really pleased with the rough cut which made it even better. Here is the feedback we received;  - The story structure and order is good. - The music is good. - The narration is good.   - The title could be changed. - The music levels need to be lowered a little. - The aerials of London should be replaced with GVs of Margate. - GVs: change an establishing shot during the opening. Add in a GV of a drop off point. from us;  - Think about changing the music during Martina's initial interview. - Adjust the music levels. - Stabilise some of the ...

For our edit workshop we had an industry professional, (Tim Bethom) come in and show us a few things about editing documentaries. We were shown some of the things he edited and  he spoke about how much of it he had to cut out. I enjoyed hearing about what it is really like in the industry and hearing the demands made me wonder if I could do something like that as a career.  The task There were two tasks at hand; First we were given a script with highlighted bits that the director would've wanted in the edit. We then had to sift through the clips and create an interview sequence. And after that was created we had to go through the GV's and fill in the gaps/ cover the edits with appropriate footage.  So we were given stock footage and was told to separate and look through all the clips. As an editor you would have to have a clear picture of what you're needed to edit and so it was important for us to do so. After watching the clips through I was mostly over...

Shooting Day: 1,2,3 Overall I believe my group did a great job at capturing all the necessary footage. We have ourselves 3 days to fully complete the shooting. Josh is the Director and so he wanted an actuality style doc as it suited the topic better than a more structured, The first shooting day consisted of Josh visiting the allotment and getting as much GVs and images of the allotment. We needed as much footage to be able to establish the setting and illustrate the allotments to its full potential. I believe we effectively did so.  Shooting day 2 consisted of Josh and Saskia conducting interviews at the bottom plot allotment with Martina. They brought the prepared questions and got all the necessary information from Martina.  Shooting day 3 This day was the most important day as as we needed interviews with Jamie as well as get footage of the veg being picked and packed. My role for that day was to get GVs and set up the go pro in necessary places. At first ...

We all thought it would be a good idea to sit down and go through all of the footage we gathered over the 3 filming days as part of the post production. Josh took notes of our comments for all the shots so that when it came to making the rough cut, he had a better idea of what our overall opinions were. This was a great idea because of course we are not able to sit there with him all the time as he makes the rough cut. Here are the notes that were taken.  I must say, at first I was rather worried when I saw some of the shots that I did, I just felt like it wasn't good enough and I was really disappointed with my error of sound, Forgetting to with the mic on during some shots jeopardised some of the shots but I knew that all of them weren't going to be used anyway. I was also really worried at how shaky some of the shots were and I thought we were going to have to re-film because a tripod wasn't used. Although I knew it was actuality, I thought we...

Tattoo Tears (1979) Nick Bloomfield The documentary “Tattoo Tears” Is set in a young offenders institute in the late 70s in America, and in this Documentary we are able to pick out what elements make it different from the usual documentaries. Sound Equipment & sound edit techniques They have totally different equipment to record the sound; there would have been 2 people who are part of the film crew in here, the camera man and the sound operator. One technique that was used was the sound from the person in the cell continuing onto the second shot. The sound “bridges” two shots and in a way, hiding the edit from you. This is called a ‘Sound Bridge’ and is a way of fooling you into thinking these shots were joint together.. You can see this in the beginning when the sound from one inmmate in the cell continues into the shot of the guy standing outside the cell. Even non-diegetic music can have the same effect, in the sense that if it was being played over a sequence of sh...

In order for me to create a good factual programme I must know what is needed to make factual programmes and what is included to create the "factual" genre.  There are a variety of different types of programmes such as chat shows,talk shows like “Jeremy Kyle” magazine shows, reality tv such as ‘Big Brother’, TV news such as BBC news and Documentaries. Not only is there a wide variety of shows, they are also broadcasted and consumed in a number of different ways for example, the most obvious, television, and then there is cinema release, DVDs and internet streaming with websites such as 4oD, Youtube and BBC iPlayer. The focus here will be on TV documentaries and on TV news programmes and the conventions of each of these sub genres.  All factual TV programmes have conventions that they must include into their programmes in order to make it a specific genre. An important factual issue is also REPRESENTATION, the filmmaker (of news or documentaries), can choose to represent ...

Taking into consideration all the previous pre production documents and other discussions of what shots we want, A shot list has been created in order for us to know exactly what shots we need to get. As it is a 10 minute video it requires a lot of shots.  Below is just the first two pages so you can get an idea of our layout. 

Call Sheet & Schedule A call sheet and schedule was created for both cast and crew to be able to know what the plan would be for the shooting days. When you are working with other professionals it is important that correct, clear and necessary information is given.  page 1 and 2 Page 3 & 4 Page 5 & 6 I am really happy with the way the call sheet and schedule was created. A map has been put in to give greater understanding about the location and where it is. It feels really professional and I feel that its simple, clear details like this which heighten's the overall look and presentation of the documents. This is something I will always remember in the future for when I have to create pre production documents. 

A risk assessment was put together after the visit to the location, Generally it is important to do risk assessments because when working outdoors, there are a lot of unexpected things that can occur. It is important to think about all the possibilities of hazards, especially when we are getting so close to wildlife and nature. Our hazard rating was quite low but we still had to take extra care when filming. 

After the Second draft of the script was created, we now had a better idea of what we needed and so we now had to create interview questions to ask the main characters. Below is the list of questions that was created.  Prior to this, it was discussed between us that there needs to be questions asked regarding Wildlife. As we found out that the Windmill Community Garden's had a beehive from the interview that took place between josh and Jamie, we knew the importance of gathering as much information about it as possible because during my research on the wildlife of allotments, we found out that bees are so beneficial to the pollination of the crops and so this was definitely something that we needed. Here are some of the questions that was noted down to ask.  Now although we know the benefits of having bees, we would also need imagery to show it, it is more than convenient that they have a beehive on site as we would now be able to...

The draft script was shown to Helen where she gave feedback on what needed to be touched up upon. One of the main criticisms was the structure of our documentary. We needed to make sure that the problem that we were illustrating was held back a little bit, we needed to find a way of introducing it later into the doc and so by doing this we all sat down, went over the structure and wrote out a new one. We drew it up and even added the type of imagery we wanted to match the shots with. This gave us a better idea of how we wanted the story to go and we were now all on the same page about what visuals we wanted. It was at this stage that the idea of using a go pro would be a great idea. Here is what we drew up. I was really proud of our group effort to sit there and come up with a structure that really worked. Now that we had a better idea, we were confident with what images we wanted to film. Here is a better version: As you can see here, in our new structure we ha...

Josh was able to meet up with the the Windmill Community Garden's main workers and they became the main characters for our first script. He had an interview with them , transcribed it in order to  create a draft structure and script for our documentary. I was happy with the structure. Draft Script   Some of the feedback that was received; - The problem was introduced too early - Change the order so that Jamie (one of our characters) is introduced right at the start - Think about using the location to help set the story up - Think about what the ending might be: positive? negative? - Try to find some more contacts - Think about visuals as well as audio, not just audio as you can see, the area for visuals in the draft script was empty so now I know that even when doing a first draft script, its important to always have visual references. Our next  step would be discussing the overall outline of the documentary and making sure we fix all of the probl...

THE FINAL PROPOSAL WHAT? : 10 minute documentary   about   allotment gardening   in the UK. HOW? Style/Narrative: We will tell the story using interviews, actuality and sequences , and graphics to show information. Research will be used to present a balanced argument . The interviews will be done on location, on the day. A real feel. narratives will be mixed together. WHY?: We are doing this because we recently discovered that since WW2 the number of allotments in the UK has dropped from  1.4 million plots to just 330,000 plots . Also, the number of people on a waiting list for an allotment plot averages about   100,000 people   each year. So why aren't we building more allotment plots. Main aims- - Find out what is in place today for those  100,000 people  on a waiting list each year. How can they still access home grown fresh fruit and veg? - What  kind of people  still grow in allotment...

After all 3 of us pitched our individual ideas to Helen, we went through them and found that the most plausible idea was the one about farmers market's and fresh produce. After being told that the idea I originally chose was too short to fill in 10 minutes, Our next challenge was to research and find different aspects of the idea that would create a story. The roles were divided and we were given different topics to research for the pitch. Here are some screen shots of my input for the pitch;  Here is the story synopsis. This is what we wanted to include in our documentary.  For the pitch I wanted to talk about the pros and cons of farmer's markets and what it could do for the story of our documentary as it was a big part of it. I researched how it helped the environment as well as I thought that it was something that people needed too know. It also had to have an environmental aspect to fit the channel better. I then produced information on different farmers mark...