Sunday 28 October 2007
Sunday 17 June 2007
'Park Life' Review
Director: Chintan Barot
Starring: European Robin, Blackbird, Carrion Crow, European Magpie, Great Tit, Blue Tit, Feral Pigeon, Woodland Pigeon, Common Gull, Black-headed Gull, Starlings, Green Woodpecker, Grey Squirrel, Red Fox
Documentary 2007, 10m 1 s
www.parklife-chintan.blogspot.com
Review
Parks are one of the last places we would think of when it comes to spectacular wildlife. Stereotypically when we think of wildlife we usually think of exotic palaces and wild animals such as the African Savannah with its Lions, Leopards and Cheetahs, but what about the animals in our very own parks?
‘Park Life’ is a brand new wildlife documentary which illustrates to the audience that you do not have to go to the ends of the Earth just to see some spectacular wildlife, as it can be right at your backdoor. The programme ventures through Rectory Park and watches how the wildlife and its environment adapt to the seasonal changes throughout a year. In this episode, you will see how the animals and the park adapt to the change from the ‘cold, harsh frozen season of winter’ to ‘the life giving season of spring’. With its catchy title sequence and stunning close up shots of the animals including the Robins and Grey Squirrels, Park Life will engage from the very beginning. See Squirrel acrobatics, meet the very unique Green Woodpecker, listen to the adorable Robins singing their little hearts out and watch out for the sly sneaky Red Fox tip toeing around our streets. This documentary gives a real insight into life in a park as the animals really immerse us into their world. Witness natures beauties unravel from the gloomy winter to the bright colourful spring. Park Life will allow you to see a side of wildlife you have never seen before.
Starring: European Robin, Blackbird, Carrion Crow, European Magpie, Great Tit, Blue Tit, Feral Pigeon, Woodland Pigeon, Common Gull, Black-headed Gull, Starlings, Green Woodpecker, Grey Squirrel, Red Fox
Documentary 2007, 10m 1 s
www.parklife-chintan.blogspot.com
Review
Parks are one of the last places we would think of when it comes to spectacular wildlife. Stereotypically when we think of wildlife we usually think of exotic palaces and wild animals such as the African Savannah with its Lions, Leopards and Cheetahs, but what about the animals in our very own parks?
‘Park Life’ is a brand new wildlife documentary which illustrates to the audience that you do not have to go to the ends of the Earth just to see some spectacular wildlife, as it can be right at your backdoor. The programme ventures through Rectory Park and watches how the wildlife and its environment adapt to the seasonal changes throughout a year. In this episode, you will see how the animals and the park adapt to the change from the ‘cold, harsh frozen season of winter’ to ‘the life giving season of spring’. With its catchy title sequence and stunning close up shots of the animals including the Robins and Grey Squirrels, Park Life will engage from the very beginning. See Squirrel acrobatics, meet the very unique Green Woodpecker, listen to the adorable Robins singing their little hearts out and watch out for the sly sneaky Red Fox tip toeing around our streets. This documentary gives a real insight into life in a park as the animals really immerse us into their world. Witness natures beauties unravel from the gloomy winter to the bright colourful spring. Park Life will allow you to see a side of wildlife you have never seen before.
Thursday 3 May 2007
Final Message
Overall I have enjoyed making this production. I felt that from the beginning it was always a risky project to do. Things such as not getting enough footage of a bird/mammal or poor footage etc. however I had confidence that I could pull it off. Three things that I believe was the reason that my production was a success at all was:
The whole project has been fun for me. From the filming to the editing. Only when waiting for the Foxes was my patience being stretched, otherwise I was lucky.
To conclude, in terms of the Media Studies Award Evening next year, I just want to wish EVERYONE GOOD LUCK! and may the best production win.
- As I am interested in animals, I had a wide knowledge of the animal kingdom and I felt that it has played into my advantage.
- Watching wildlife documentaries. Even before I carried this project out, I have been watching wildlife documentaries for many many years. For as long as I can remember. Once I learnt about the film language and documentary conventions, it was really easy to understand when I was watching them. Also when it came to editing, I had a clear idea/vision, of how to construct it and the script writing. But I was struggling at the beginning, however it was only once I made a link between things such as animals that I finally had a foundation to work from.
- I felt over the whole time it was probably my decision making that was the main reason. Every decision that I made, especially the BIG decision was spot on. Even from the beginning I had to make a choice of whether to do an animation or a wildlife documentary and their I have chosen the right one. Also my decision on whether to present my documentary or not, choosing soundtracks and many others.
The whole project has been fun for me. From the filming to the editing. Only when waiting for the Foxes was my patience being stretched, otherwise I was lucky.
To conclude, in terms of the Media Studies Award Evening next year, I just want to wish EVERYONE GOOD LUCK! and may the best production win.
Evaluation
For my practical production, I worked on my own and produced a wildlife documentary called ‘Park Life’. The documentary aims to educate and inform the audience about what animals inhabit our parks, at the same time showing that you do not have to go to the ends of the Earth just to see some spectacular wildlife, as it can be right at your backdoors. The words ‘Park’ and ‘Life’ demonstrate to my target audience, who are people that are generally interested in wildlife, that the documentary is exploring ‘life’, which represents the plants and animals, in ‘parks’.
To succeed in producing a professional wildlife documentary I carried out research into wildlife documentaries such as ‘Autumnwatch’, ‘The Blue Planet’, ‘Wild Events’ and picked up techniques such as voiceover, facts and figures, parallel sound, diegetic and non-diegetic sound, split screen, freeze frame. Also I learnt about the camerawork, such as long shots, medium shots, low angle shots, tracking shots, pans, tilts, zoom etc. and how different angles and shots can give different representations to the audience. After learning theses techniques I went on and applied theses to my own documentary.
I had great enthusiasm when we finally got the chance to start filming, as I personally am interested in nature and animals and could not wait to see what kind of footage I could gain. My big disadvantage, compared to professional documentary makers, was that I was on my own; therefore I could not gain a variety of different angled shots, whereas professionals have more than one cameraman working at the same time. One cinematography technique that I used was zoom in, which is often used by wildlife documentaries in order to make the audience feel as though they are right next to the animal themselves.
When it came to editing my documentary, I used ‘Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0’. Personally I found this time the hardest as I did not have the variety in angles and so I found it hard to construct my documentary, however I did have a large amount of footage meaning that I at least had a wide choice to choose from. After studying “Man with a Movie Camera” (1929), I learnt of soviet montage sequence and decided to apply this technique to the title sequence of my documentary. Also by using mise-en-scene, I put together some of the best shots in the documentary to engage the audience early on. Also the use of having a cross dissolve effect in between each shot allows the sequence to flow. In addition, I applied parallel music and used Terry Devine King’s ‘Nature Trail 3’ as the theme tune for my documentary.
Throughout my documentary, I used a mix of both diegetic and non-diegetic sound. The diegetic sound that I used included things such as Mr.Monro’s voiceover, to anchor meaning to the mise-en-scene. Music soundtracks, such as ‘Sly Spy’ by Igor Dvorkin/Duncan Pittoch and Paul Mottram’s ‘Drifting’ to make the documentary more engaging towards the audience. I also used sound dubs on bird songs such as the European Robin and the Green Woodpecker to emphasize their calls and demonstrate to the audience how beautiful bird calls can be. I combined this with non-diegetic sound such as the ‘natural sounds of the park’ to make the audience feel as though they are in the park themselves and to make the documentary more professional and authentic.
From the wildlife documentaries that I studied, I picked up on the fact that they have different styles of presenting a wildlife documentary. ‘The Blue Planet’ just shows animals and have Sir David Attenborough doing a voiceover, whereas ‘Wild Events’, the presenter Jake Willers is presenting the documentary with the camera interchanging between him and the animals.
I chose to do a David Attenborough style documentary. From ‘The Blue Planet’, I learnt that when watching an animal the narration provided by the voiceover explains the animal’s behaviour. This is something which I applied to my documentary. For example, when we see a noisy flock of Starling’s feeding from the bin bags, the narrator says ‘Here is a flock of noisy Starlings squabbling with each other over the best spots to feed as they pick away this bin bag’. Here I am explaining that the Starlings behaviour whilst the audience can see this visually. The voiceover is anchoring the meaning of the mise-en-scene. This is effective as it engages the audience and educates them about the animals and their behaviour whilst being entertained, whereas if it were to be just facts and figures, it would be too formal and uninteresting. This conforms to Michael Rabbiger’s idea that documentaries should include contextual information, but not too much or too little.
From my Module 2 studies of documentaries, I learnt about how a low angle shot, such as the one used in “Bowling For Columbine” (2002), where we see a ‘low angle shot of Michael Moore triumphant over the villain Charlton Heston’ in his view towards gun control, can portray heroism, power or superiority to the audience. From this, I applied it to my own documentary but with a different purpose in mind. Because a low angle shot can be used to show superiority and power, I used this as a way of glorifying the park and make it look more than just a place with trees and bushes. I also combined it with pans and ‘went across a tree with the sun’s ray’s shining through’. Although parks are set aside for our recreational and ornamental purposes, this shows the audience how beautiful the park can really be.
My documentary will be broadcasted at 6.30pm on BBC2, a public service broadcaster. I chose the BBC as it is a terrestrial channel and therefore I can reach a larger audience, furthermore, because the BBC is very successful when it comes to making documentaries such as ‘Autumnwatch’ and ‘Nature Calendar’. I chose the time slot for the programme to be at 6.30pm as this is when documentaries such as ‘Nature Calendar’ are shown. At the same time I am avoiding a clash with the BBC six o’clock news.
To conclude, ‘Park Life’ does educate and inform people about Parks and by using techniques such as low angle shots to glorify the park. Also I have gone through all the animals in the park, showing what wildlife inhabits the park, whilst using a linear narrative, starting from the morning to night in winter time and then waking up to the ‘life giving season of Spring’.
Word Count: 1,081
To succeed in producing a professional wildlife documentary I carried out research into wildlife documentaries such as ‘Autumnwatch’, ‘The Blue Planet’, ‘Wild Events’ and picked up techniques such as voiceover, facts and figures, parallel sound, diegetic and non-diegetic sound, split screen, freeze frame. Also I learnt about the camerawork, such as long shots, medium shots, low angle shots, tracking shots, pans, tilts, zoom etc. and how different angles and shots can give different representations to the audience. After learning theses techniques I went on and applied theses to my own documentary.
I had great enthusiasm when we finally got the chance to start filming, as I personally am interested in nature and animals and could not wait to see what kind of footage I could gain. My big disadvantage, compared to professional documentary makers, was that I was on my own; therefore I could not gain a variety of different angled shots, whereas professionals have more than one cameraman working at the same time. One cinematography technique that I used was zoom in, which is often used by wildlife documentaries in order to make the audience feel as though they are right next to the animal themselves.
When it came to editing my documentary, I used ‘Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0’. Personally I found this time the hardest as I did not have the variety in angles and so I found it hard to construct my documentary, however I did have a large amount of footage meaning that I at least had a wide choice to choose from. After studying “Man with a Movie Camera” (1929), I learnt of soviet montage sequence and decided to apply this technique to the title sequence of my documentary. Also by using mise-en-scene, I put together some of the best shots in the documentary to engage the audience early on. Also the use of having a cross dissolve effect in between each shot allows the sequence to flow. In addition, I applied parallel music and used Terry Devine King’s ‘Nature Trail 3’ as the theme tune for my documentary.
Throughout my documentary, I used a mix of both diegetic and non-diegetic sound. The diegetic sound that I used included things such as Mr.Monro’s voiceover, to anchor meaning to the mise-en-scene. Music soundtracks, such as ‘Sly Spy’ by Igor Dvorkin/Duncan Pittoch and Paul Mottram’s ‘Drifting’ to make the documentary more engaging towards the audience. I also used sound dubs on bird songs such as the European Robin and the Green Woodpecker to emphasize their calls and demonstrate to the audience how beautiful bird calls can be. I combined this with non-diegetic sound such as the ‘natural sounds of the park’ to make the audience feel as though they are in the park themselves and to make the documentary more professional and authentic.
From the wildlife documentaries that I studied, I picked up on the fact that they have different styles of presenting a wildlife documentary. ‘The Blue Planet’ just shows animals and have Sir David Attenborough doing a voiceover, whereas ‘Wild Events’, the presenter Jake Willers is presenting the documentary with the camera interchanging between him and the animals.
I chose to do a David Attenborough style documentary. From ‘The Blue Planet’, I learnt that when watching an animal the narration provided by the voiceover explains the animal’s behaviour. This is something which I applied to my documentary. For example, when we see a noisy flock of Starling’s feeding from the bin bags, the narrator says ‘Here is a flock of noisy Starlings squabbling with each other over the best spots to feed as they pick away this bin bag’. Here I am explaining that the Starlings behaviour whilst the audience can see this visually. The voiceover is anchoring the meaning of the mise-en-scene. This is effective as it engages the audience and educates them about the animals and their behaviour whilst being entertained, whereas if it were to be just facts and figures, it would be too formal and uninteresting. This conforms to Michael Rabbiger’s idea that documentaries should include contextual information, but not too much or too little.
From my Module 2 studies of documentaries, I learnt about how a low angle shot, such as the one used in “Bowling For Columbine” (2002), where we see a ‘low angle shot of Michael Moore triumphant over the villain Charlton Heston’ in his view towards gun control, can portray heroism, power or superiority to the audience. From this, I applied it to my own documentary but with a different purpose in mind. Because a low angle shot can be used to show superiority and power, I used this as a way of glorifying the park and make it look more than just a place with trees and bushes. I also combined it with pans and ‘went across a tree with the sun’s ray’s shining through’. Although parks are set aside for our recreational and ornamental purposes, this shows the audience how beautiful the park can really be.
My documentary will be broadcasted at 6.30pm on BBC2, a public service broadcaster. I chose the BBC as it is a terrestrial channel and therefore I can reach a larger audience, furthermore, because the BBC is very successful when it comes to making documentaries such as ‘Autumnwatch’ and ‘Nature Calendar’. I chose the time slot for the programme to be at 6.30pm as this is when documentaries such as ‘Nature Calendar’ are shown. At the same time I am avoiding a clash with the BBC six o’clock news.
To conclude, ‘Park Life’ does educate and inform people about Parks and by using techniques such as low angle shots to glorify the park. Also I have gone through all the animals in the park, showing what wildlife inhabits the park, whilst using a linear narrative, starting from the morning to night in winter time and then waking up to the ‘life giving season of Spring’.
Word Count: 1,081
Sunday 29 April 2007
FINISHED (week beginning 23rd April 07)
- This week I have completed my practical production, handing in my brief, production and evaluation.
- This week Mr.Bush looked at my edited production for the first time and fortunately he was very impressed, even I was shocked by his reaction. After we meet up on Thurs, Period 5 to tell me where to 'polish up' and tidied it up for the last time on Friday.
- Nothing is planned for next week as i have finished.
Tuesday 24 April 2007
Weekly Progess (Week Beginning April 16th 07)
- This weekend I aimed to finish my production and finish off my evaluation.
- Throughout this week, I have stayed after school with Mr.Monro, and he helped me edit the script and carry out the voiceover. It was on Wednesday, that the voiceover was done. However when I put it in my documentary, some bits that were said were not said confidently as Mr.Monro did seem a little nervous at the beginning, however when he got into the flow, he was excellent. Also by me giving him signals (thumps up to start, and flat hand when I wanted him to stop) and from theses signals, I felt that it worked better. So, on Friday, Mr.Monro re-did the parts of the voiceover that I did not like and put it together. Whilst on Sunday, I editied my Brief and did my evaluation. Also, at the beginning I had a BBC Ident- Predator, however I decided I needed a female voiceover to introduce the programme and so I have chosen Ms.Spencer to perform this, with Ms.Stevens as a backup.
- By the end of this week, I aim to complete my 'Park Life' practical production
Thursday 12 April 2007
Weekly Progress (Monday 9th April 07)
- This week I have been continue to edit and have made far more progress than I did last week. As I have other work to commit to, usless I have chosen a day to do Media, I have stayed up until 12pm-1am and done some work.
- This week I have finally found my opening tune to my doc (Nature Trail (3)- composed by Terry-Devine King), and I personally feel that I have created a introduction that even I'm astonished I could make with what I got and also how the music has fitted so perfectly with it. Also I feel its very professional as well and I proud of it. Also I have managed to fit in some of the other tracks I have and put them into the initial documentary. Also detailed touches were being made to areas. The only problem that I have found is that I actually dont have enough footage of the Blackbird. I am just about finished in making the final touches, then I think that I may need to re-create a new script for Mr.Monro to perform on the Monday we get back.
- I aim to finish my production and Evaluation by tomorrow as I have other work I must do (Friday 12th April 07). However I did say that I may create a different version of my documentary as well, a more 'Man With a Movie Camera' style. I will make ago of that however now I feel that my orginial production is working out I may not need to create the second version, however I will make a start on it.
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