MOVING IMAGE PRODUCTION NARRATIVE MODULE
EVALUATION
1. CRITICALLY REFLECT ON YOUR FINISHED FILM AND IT'S STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES - ANALYSE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHAT YOU INTENDED TO DO AND WHAT YOU HAVE ACTUALLY ACHIEVED. (APPROX 600 WORDS)
As a finished film, I think that the piece as a number of positive elements. A particular strength would be the opening sequence. The choice of music works well with the theme of the film, and the interesting use of super-imposed footage over a track of the word ‘forum’, sets up the rest of the documentary well. Obvious improvements would be the sound in some sections of the piece. It was difficult for me to gain clear recordings from the studio, due to the excessive amount of background noise, be it the tattoo gun, people speaking or music. If i were to do the project again, I will ask for the music to be turned down, or film when there is no tattooing taking place. This would give us better recordings and an overall more professional piece.
We intended to create a raw and informal film that discusses the concept of tattoos, through a main contributor in the form of Tacho Franch, the owner of the studio. Because of his twelve years experience and previous travelling as a tattoo artist, we were immediately drawn to him. From Argentina, he is an interesting character with a passion for his work, that gave us a lot of great quotes as part of his interviews. I think that we managed to gain our planned style well, because of the way that we interacted with Tacho. When interviewing him, it became more of a conversation, as we wanted to get a feeling of what he was like as a person. With having him in his comfort zone and tattooing as we spoke to him, we were able to portray him as himself, without him feeling uncomfortable. However I would say that a weakness of the project is that we didn’t gain an interview of him stood alone in a quiet environment. We intended to record this footage, however, he was very busy on the day of filming and only had time to answer questions when tattooing. What we did film did however provide us with good visuals, giving the audience something intriguing to look at.
Another strength of the film would be the aesthetically pleasing mise-en-scene of the studio. Filled with bright colours and interesting images, the space captured the essence of the subject well, and helped to portray the characters within the the studio. Cut-aways of this space work well in the piece, and this could only have been improved with the use of more. With limited space, we were unable to film as many cut-aways as we would have liked, without getting in the artists way. I have learnt from this to be confident and explain that we need more room. At least this way, it is possible for us to have the opportunity to gain more footage.
2. REVIEW THE PROCESS OF MAKING THE WORK AND WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNT FROM IT. (APPROX 400 WORDS)
We had restricted time to make this project, not helped by there only being two of us in the group. The exercise prior to this project was planned to inform this later piece, however, because we had issues with our contributors, we had to start again and find new ones at late notice. This was difficult and meant that because we started from scratch, everything we could have learnt in the 2 minute poetic piece, were mistakes that we made in this one (for example, learning to ask them to turn the music off in order to record clearer interviews).
Myself and Leon physically went into the studio to ask them if they would allow us to film them. We did this because we felt it was more personal than a letter or email, and would give us an immediate response. Thankfully, they were pleased to help and we later arranged a date to film.
We used a DSLR Canon 550D to shoot the documentary, and originally planned to have a two-camera set up. This became impossible, not only because there wasn’t enough crew, but Leon’s camera broke during filming. Thankfully, I brought my own so we managed to avoid the issue.
Because neither Me or Leon are editors, this process was difficult and Leon took over much of this role as I became more of the sound designer. Doing this has been a big learning curve, and allowed us to understand more about the layout of a documentary. When the film was viewed by our peers and tutors, it was understood that we should have had more footage of Tacho throughout the film, and either cut out the other interviews or maybe move them to another section. I think that had we obtained the footage of Tacho in a quiet space, we would have been able to do this, yet because of the sound and often repetitive style of set-up for the shots, it may have become boring for the audience.
Overall, I have learnt the importance of getting good contributors early on in the project. This is vital to creating a well-rounded piece that doesn’t feel rushed. Having the artists being so friendly and cooperative meant that it was a nice environment to work in and I think that this came across in the final film.
3. DISCUSS YOUR INDIVIDUAL CONTRIBUTION TO MAKING THE WORK, YOUR APPROACH TO GROUP WORK AND ANY PROBLEMS OR CHALLENGES YOU ENCOUNTERED WORKING AS PART OF A TEAM. (APPROX 400 WORDS)
Because there was only Myself and Leon in the group, many of the roles were merged and we both did our part in directing, producing and art direction. I have experience in sound design and because I am doing this for my skills module, we agreed that I would record and edit the sounds and leon would do much of the cinematography and edit. I would have liked to have the opportunity to work with the camera, and although I suggested a number of shots on the day and assisted him, Leon was not comfortable switching roles, which is understandable.
I think that we worked well as a team and being a pair sometimes worked in our favour. It meant that we did not have to rely on any one else to be able to film on a certain day, or have them getting in the way whilst filming in the small space we had. A problem with being a small group however, was that we were limited to the amount of equipment we could book out. Because we had to carry everything about a 20 minute walk through town, having items such as a track and dolly, tripod and microphones was strenuous.
I think that having one more member of the group would have been ideal, as it would have meant that we could not only have the two camera set up that we initially wanted, but also a designated editor that would have been more confident in this area.
Through sharing the roles, we communicated well as a team and didn’t argue once. We valued each others opinions throughout the whole process.
4. WITH REFERENCE TO THE TEXTS GIVEN IN SESSIONS AND THE MATERIALS ON THE READING LIST; REVIEW YOUR APPROACH TO MAKING THE WORK AND LOCATE YOUR PRACTICE WITHIN A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK. (APPROX 600 WORDS)
Introduction to Documentary by Bill Nicols, provides an examination into this genre of filmmaking. It focuses on elements from ethics to the form of a documentary. “The voice of documentary is each film’s specific way of expressing its way of seeing the world.” (Nicols, 2001, p.68) We have demonstrated this within our own film, as the voice of Tacho Franch communicates the subject of tattooing in his own way, something that is individual to our specific documentary.
We initially approached the documentary by finding a subject that we were both passionate about. Initially, this was about an interesting character in town, a busker that everyone recognised and wanted to know more about (something that we had learnt from our peers). Unfortunately, we were let down by this contributor, and so we had to think of a new idea that we both had a great interest in.
We wanted to create an informative and expose documentary that captured the life that lives within the ‘Follow your Dreams’ tattoo studio. “Documentary is not a reproduction of reality, it is a representation of the world we already occupy.” (Nicols, 2001, p.13). I think that we could have approached the filming more in this way, through instead of simply recording the reality of what was happening in the studio on that day, but maybe instead asked them to perform what they would usually do, but to the camera. For example, pretending to tattoo with the gun turned off. This would have drastically helped the sound design and allowed a lot more room to record something clearer, making the edit on Soundtrack Pro much easier.
Our method when filmmaking, was to not be too ‘proper’ towards our contributors, and instead, be quite casual and friendly towards them. I think that this drastically helped put across the easygoing nature of the independent tattoo shop. The conversational style of the final piece relates largely to the realist film theory, something that is expected of a documentary genre. Techniques such as the long take were initially part of our piece, however, we wanted it to keep it’s pace and fit with the style. If we were to keep these shots, the use of a soundtrack would have been vital, as listening to the ‘buzzing’ of a tattoo gun for a large length of time could get annoying for the audience to hear.
We wanted to portray an authentic representation of the studio and I feel that this has been successful. We have portrayed our contributors in a true light, helped greatly by how comfortable they are in their own place of work. By having an interview with a man as he was being tattooed, we were able to demonstrate this act from a new perspective to the audience.
The style of interviewing we chose meant that the interviewee was asked to state the question in their answer, to avoid any long delays in the final edit. This allowed us to remove the interviewer asking the questions, keeping the pace and tone of the film. To ensure that it didn’t appear they were talking directly to the audience, we asked that they looked at the interviewer. When talking to Tacho, this was not an issue as he was deeply concentrated in his work when answering questions.
Overall, I am very happy with our end film for the major project. We had many set-backs such as our small group and busy environment to record in, however, we did not allow ourselves to become stressed. We worked well as a team and communicated with our contributors well.
References:
Bill Nicols (2001) - Introducing Documentary - Indiana University Press
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