Developing Lighting Techniques

We have continued to experiment with different types of camera angles and shots, however, feel as though we need to begin to progress further with our documentary making. We have now begun to experiment with different lightings and camera positions, for example, one the main feature we have started to use is facilities within the drama studio at school, enabling us to create an almost spot-like effect for our interviews. We were able to lighten and darken different areas, creating a silhouette outline of the interviewee, resulting in a dramtic and tense effect, something that we can incorporate into our documentary. We have continued to take into account the conventions of documentary making by ensuring the interviewee is placed to the right-hand side of the camera, allowing us to conform to the expectations of documentary making. During our experimentation stages, we have based a lot of our interviews on unstructured interviews, something that clearly works well with our chosen topic. We will begin to now experiment with other types of interviews, for instance structured interviews, as well as develop lighting techniques further to result in a realistic and interesting effect.

In order to show this, I have printscreened shots from the video shown above this post, copied and pasted this into paint and then cut the shot to create a still image. Although from these images, the lighting appears too dark and the silhouette cannot be easily identified, by looking at this on camera we were able to establish different contrasts of light and were able to find a suitbale contrast that we would potentially use within the documentary.

Developing Camera Techniques

Now that we have established the basics of what our documentary requires, we have continued to experiment with shots, focusing on different angles and ways of shooting a speeding car. We have experienced shots from outside the car as well as in, in order to create an idea of what works best, as well as discussing areas that need to be improved, for example, we realised that the archive footage we will incorporate into our documentary needs to be current and relative to our chosen topic. The next stage of completing our documentary will to be research further and continue to look for more developed archive footage. As a group, we have found it difficult find archive footage, however, have agreed that it is a necessary component and will be an essential feature of conforming to the expectations of documentary making.

The Early Stages of Filming

Once we had completed our storyboard and began researching archive footage, after half term we began the filming process, experimenting with shots and contrasting angles. We used one of the group members cars to be able to capture the essence of speeding, of which we then focused on close-ups and mid-shots of the car, trying to establish the best possible angle in order to conform to the coventions of a documentary. We then discussed as a group that it would be more appropriate to use and experiment with more sophisticated shots, for instance, staying away from the typical shaky camera shots and allow other more interesting shots to be used.