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Editing - Mobile Documentary

Filming Process - Mobile Documentary

Initially, it was difficult to find a time that suited both us and Kayla but we managed to find a time that suited us both. Also, we originally planned to film the documentary in the Wicked Cafe but it was too noisy for us to pick up Kayla's answers properly. Therefore, we decided to move the interview into the media room with a blank white wall to provide a quieter environment.

The actual filming of the interview was smooth and was done very quickly with a lot of content covered. Kayla expanded on every question a lot and this gave us a lot of footage to use in the documentary and to edit. As expected, Kayla had a very different perspective to give then an average English student and this helps to make our documentary more interesting instead of being boring and typical.

When filming our cutaways we were running short of ideas. We could only think of the typical cutaways you see in a documentary i.e. people passing, etc. We tried to think up some new original ideas but it was extremely hardly considering the small field that we were making a documentary about. Despite this, we came up with numerous different cutaways that were used in the documentary that linked to what Kayla was talking about e.g. phones in use.

Planning & Research - Mobile Documentary

Whilst planning the documentary, we had many different aspects to consider such as the interviewee, location and the content of the documentary itself.

Firstly, we decided to interview Kayla as she was born in South Africa and moved her later on into her childhood. We thought this would provide a different perspective of mobile phones and how her "mobile life" progressed during her time in South Africa and also when she moved to England.

Also, we decided to film it in the media room as it was a simple, quiet place to do it. It allowed Kayla to express her ideas properly and thoroughly without being distracted by background noise. We also asked her to get her mobile phone.

For cutaways, naturally we decided to use mobile phones and different shots of students in the college on their phones to demonstrate how powerful they've become. We also decided to use shots from the internet or typing in, and also doing the same with a phone and speeding up the process to display a question.

We also thought a foot-shot would look good. This involves placing the camera on the floor and recording peoples feet and legs as they walk past to create the effect of a lot of people.

Codes & Conventions - Filming & Editing of Interviews

After watching two seperate documentaries, I was able to identify a number of different codes and conventions that could be useful when it comes to filming my own interview. I watched both "In the Teeth of Jaws" and also "The Simpson's 20th Anniversary 3D On Ice". In both documentaries I noticed that the questions asked by the interviewer was never included in the actual footage, only the answers were shown in response. In addition, the interviewee never looks directly into the camera and seemingly looks at the interviewer or slightly aside from the camera whilst answering the questions.

Also, I noticed that the background of each interviewee reflected either the content of what they were talking about or a personal reflection of their job total. For example, Matt Groening has cut-outs of each Simpson character behind me, reflecting his creation of the characters. Each background was relevant to the programme e.g. Matt Groening's creation of The Simpsons can be seen in the background.

Both programmes strictly follow the thirds rule. Every interviewee is sat in either the left or right third of the screen making the composition of the shot a lot more interesting.

I also noticed that both documentaries had suitable cutaway shots that were relevent to what they were talking about and seemed to demonstrate a point.

As well as this I noticed that whenever a new person was being interviewed there was a small graphic to introduce them and their profession/involvement with the documentary. This can be seen here in the Jaws documentary. There is also a small picture of a shark which makes the graphic even more relevent.

Lastly, all of the shots used to interview the people were either mid-shots or close-ups, or medium close-ups. This can be seen her in The Simpsons documentary.

There is never a light source behind the interviewee and, most importantly, the questions are cutted out whilst the interviewee elaborates on a specific point. ~