Commission Unit: Final Documentary

Today we submitted our final cut of the documentary and here it is.



I really enjoyed this unit and it has made me want to film more documentaries. Having a subject like this was quite hard as I didn't know much about it in the beginning but from making this documentary I have learnt about apartheid and we have all worked hard to make sure the audience will understand it to. During the filming and research stages of our commission unit we all had certain jobs to do, but when it came to the editing stage it was quite hard for all 3 of us to edit at the same time but I did learnt a lot from doing my bit and observing Lauren and Jane when they were editing.

Commission Unit: Nearly There

We've filmed all of the reconstruction, re-recorded the commentary in a studio so that it doesn't sound echoy and we have also filmed another sequence which we have added in to set up the family. There are just a few changes to make now and then I think we will be ready to hand it in. 

It flows really well now and engages the audience.

Narrative and Genre: Finished!

Today I handed in my final essay and I'm so glad it's over. I enjoy the research behind the essays but I find it hard putting all the ideas together. I handed everything in on time and I was really happy with my final essay.

Commission Unit: Editing

We have began editing the documentary now and we are all doing our bit to make it look as good as possible, for it to flow and to make sense. We are using lots of archive footage which we have found on Youtube to explain what life was like in South Africa and also show the different presidents coming into power. We are using commentary which we are recording on Garage Band to help set up the different characters and to help move the story along. We have been adding sequences of the family where we have needed to and we have just filmed a reconstruction which we will put in so that Ari's speech about his kidnapping is chopped down considerably as at the moment it is 6 minutes long and is therefore taking up most of our 10 minutes of commissioned time.

Film Reviews

Recently I have watched Fish Tank directed by Andrea Arnold and Monster the film based on Aileen Wuornos, a Daytona Beach prostitute who became a serial killer, which was directed by Patty Jenkins .

During a Narrative and Genre lecture we watched the documentary about Aileen and I was interested to see how she was portrayed in the film version. I thought Charlize Theron's portrayal of Aileen was amazing, she looked like her, sounded like her and she had even adopted all of her mannerisms. Watching the documentary and then the film was a bit strange as I already knew all the facts and so I didn't learn anything more about the story but I still think this film was a brilliant adaption of a true story and the way it was shot fit the genre perfectly as it made sense.

Recently we had Rashad Omar come in and give us a lecture on sound. He is a sound recordists and has worked on lots of great films and documentaries, one of the big films he worked on was Fish Tank and so after hearing his lecture I wanted to watch the film to see more of his work. A few of us got it out of the uni library and watched it. We all thought that the way it was shot, the sound and the acting was incredible but we were very disappointed in the lack of story line, we got to the end of the film and realised not much had actually happened.

Commission Unit: Update

For our documentary we will be filming a new South African couple as the initial couple were no longer available. The new couple are called Ari and Rita and they moved to the UK in 2008 because they moved to the UK so late in the noughties we have decided to interview and expert as well so that we can get some solid facts about what South Africa was like in the noughties and how people were effected by the reversal of apartheid.

Last night we filmed Ari and Rita's sit down interview and it all went really well, I worked on the sound whilst Lauren was behind the camera and Jane was asking the questions and keeping a time log. This Saturday Jane is filming Ari and Rita's eldest child doing fundraising as one of our sequences and then on Monday we will be filming the families evening routine as another sequence. We will also film them early Tuesday morning so we can get a sequence of their morning school routine and in the afternoon we will be going up to London to film Renee, our expert, at SOAS the university she lectures at.

We have all been set different jobs throughout the preparation and filming process and I think we are all starting to work well together as we are all now on the same page.

Narrative and Genre: First Draft

Today we handed in our first draft of the essay, I didn't manage to get the full word count but I wanted to hand in what I had so that I could get feedback and make sure I was going in the right direction. I still need to find some more quotes on online and portable media so that I can talk about how the narrative tools are effected by these transmissions. Once i have got some feedback I will flesh out my essay and make sure I include everything I need to.