Our Practice Documentary
What could you use from
this experience to improve
your final documentary?
How did you edit it?
Only from completing this practice documentary I think we have developed in the way we think and planned. In order to get the correct shots and positions we needed to plan how we were going to film on the two cameras. I think we need to do a lot of planning such as story boards and note our ideas thoroughly before we start filming for our final documentary. In our practice documentary we didn’t use any music or soundtracks; I think this is definitely an important element because I think it has a big effect on the audience.
What did you learn?
We had twice as much film so we needed to cut a lot of the clips out and use them appropriately. The clips needed to be put into order, starting with the author of the novel then clips of the students and lastly the interview with Mrs Cooper. Transitions needed to be used between the mixtures of clips because we used two cameras. Sound needed to be adjusted edited as we filmed the images of the characters on the board and the sound needed to be taken out.
Who did you interview?
From this practice documentary, as a group we were able to develop our basic skills from last year and try something different. We had to incorporate a variety of shot distances, at first, we thought this would be quite difficult because we were only filming the people straight on and its difficult to get different shots , therefore, instead of using one camera we used two, one camera used for filming the side profile of the speaker and the second which would film straight on - directing on their face. This means when it comes to editing we can use transition to switch to the different positions of the speaker making sure the continuity is smooth.
What is it about?
We interviewed Lynda Burges an established author and composer, who wrote the novel ‘Diemen’s and Thieves’ and the music alongside it. We also interviewed year eights who studied the novel in class and completed the workbook. We interviewed Mrs Cooper who teaches the year 8 students at Heathside School in Surrey the novel and encourages the children to imagine the characters and storyline beyond the end of the novel. Lynda reveals what the novel is about, why she wrote it and what influenced her ideas.
Our practice documentary is all about Lynda Bergers first novel; Demons and Thieves. We find out about the history of the novel, what influenced her to create it and how she works with local schools, as part of the government’s aim to get children reading and enjoying literature. We are able to get an insight into the character profiles in the story from the artwork she brought along with her, as well as the students and teachers opinions of the novel.
'Local Authors'