Rational

I chose the place portrait area primarily because it was nearby which would mean I could visit and explore the location often, but also because the area was so varied in what it contained. It contained everything from farmland to riverside, and bush too; also llamas. I used a portion of Tchaikovsky’s ‘The Nutcracker’ suite to tie all the elements of the video together and to try to control the way the viewer felt towards what was onscreen. I also edited the clips so they changed between different scenes on key points of the piece and used scenes that tied in with what the music was doing. Originally the video’s audio was purely the music, but I lowered the volume of the piece overall and in some places nearly completed muted the piece, and added the scenery audio back in. This showed more of the surroundings, without actually showing more of the surroundings. I also tried to keep the video light-hearted. Evidence of this can be spotted with the doggy doodoo near the start.

I settled on my Grandad, Lance Godfrey, as an interviewee because he has led such an interesting life. I seized this project as an opportunity to learn more about him. So, after changing from the initial interview topic and moving onto his adventures, and after 2 app failures I recorded 30 or so minutes of footage. A bit overkill but it was enjoyable. I picked a part that would fit well enough in the time given and edited together the important parts of the story. I liken the interview to some interview videos I have watched in Te-Papa. They did not serve as conscious inspiration but after watching my video it seems it may have been subconscious influence. The only sound in this video is Grandad speaking and the background noise. I left it this way because I wanted the video to be purely about him, with no frills or distractions. This too is in an informal style; formal is too boring. I used only one camera angle because I wanted to liken the video to a conversation; in a conversation you usually do not move about the person speaking.

I think my works fit into the casual, informal recording section of documentary film making.

Final Videos

This post includes my final Documentation Videos of my chosen person and place.

Farmland/Bush area documentation

Grandad on his south island bike trip

Minor inspiration

I just thought I would post this video here. It served to give me some minor inspirations for my nature video. I had reinforced to me that music in a video or scene can completely change the way you feel and the atmosphere of it all.

Storyboard for place recording

Here is the small storyboard I did for my nature documentation Video.

Its quite short but its to the point and I understand it. I think it gets the message across well enough.

Interview Process

This post documents the process I went through to achieve the finished interview video.

Interviewee: My Grandad

My initial plan was to interview my Grandad about his experiences being a conscientious objector during the war. Then as I thought about him more and more I realised (read: remembered) how much he treasured his family; children and grandchildren. So after coming up with some questions I changed the topic to his Grandchildren: (A few questions below)

So, I went around to my Grandparents house to have dinner with them and interview Grandad. The plan I had for this was to set my phone up and interview Grandad over dinner, in the end the idea was to show passing of time through the amount of food that was on Grandad's plate. The interview went well and I learnt alot more about Grandad than I had before (due to many anecdotes and digressions).

After the interview I checked my phone and the stupid app had stopped filming due to some unkown 'interuption'.

:(

So we scheduled another interview (morning tea the next day) and after hearing Grandad's side stories I decided to change the topic to one of his adventures as a mid teenager. He went on a bike tour of the south island during the second World War and he still had photos of his trip which I could show as well.

Some are below:

So we got started on the interview and this lasted almost 45 minutes (but felt nowhere near that). I checked my phone this time, and again it was interupted!

So I had learnt my lesson this time, I sat so I could see the back of the phone and regularly checked up on it. In the end I got plenty of interesting stories recorded, and chose the one that would fit into the time given and it still went over time.  :)

Feedback and video change

After showing the video for feedback and getting some suggestions I went back to fiddle with the sound in the video.

It was suggested I fade the music out in some parts to focus on the background noise instead of having plain music for the whole video. I can see what was being said here as adding the background sounds makes the video more dynamic and varying in content. IT also shows more of the scene without 'showing' it. 

I couldn't get the fade ins and outs to fit right so rather than fade the music in and out, I lowered its volume for the entire video and put the sound from the original clips back into it.

Here is the current cut:

Just a quick video progress upload

Just because I felt like sharing, here is the place portrait video, in portrait format, at its current edit. (720p it!)

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Documentation to follow.

Project And Process So Far

After reading the brief for this project I knew I wanted to document a natural space, possibly one that included man-made alterations. Just north of where I live is an area that features: A River, Bush walks, Farm Land, Farm Animals, and Wildlife so that seemed to fit the bill. It is an area surrounding a portion of the Hutt River - just north of Upper Hutt. (See Below - Area in red)

Here are some initial photo explorations of parts I might want to include in my end video.

As part of my experimentation and exploration I also created a timelapse between 6pm and 8pm to see A) how well the app worked (Osnap on iPhone) - and B) what the timelapse at that time of day would look like. (The timelapse can be seen at the end of the video below)

From this experimentation with the timelapse I have learned various things I need to change or would like to experiment more with, such as changing to look at the moving shadows on the ground rather then a sunset, or changing the image capture rate. Oh, I also learnt to have 100% battery before shooting.

The following video is a sort of roughly edited 'mood' video to give an idea of what I might like to include in the end product - some ways I might choose to shoot or what I might want to document.

Included in the video are some experiments such as using a tree branch as a tripod, tying it to the branch with my headphones (see below picture) and being ready to catch it should it fall. I also played around with different camera angles as I walked and a timelapse is also included.

'Mood' Video

I also took an audio recording of the river from about 2cm above a portion of the small rapids.

I haven't done all that much experimentation in regards to the interview yet but I plan on interviewing my Grandad. During World War II he was a conscientious objector and so I plan on basing the interview around this part of his life. As far as I am aware, life wasn't pleasant being a conscientious objector in World War II so I'm toying with the idea of doing something along the lines of "While many men went to war, many men stayed behind, and fought anyway" because they too fought a war, but it was more of a civil nature.

I haven't done much by way of interviewing so far because he has just had a tooth rebuilt so I'll give him a few days :).

This, is me.

My self portrait - taken through a window with a bush on the other side of it.