Sound And Image Assessment 4

#1 Introduction to Documentary

Based on Bill Nichols six modes of documentary, the reflective mode is an interesting one as it shows the purity in the production when making the documentary. The audiences are made aware of the editing and sound recording aspects of the documentary. I find that it allows the director to capture the production of an interview or event as its purest form as it gives a form of consciousness to the audience about their relations to the documentary. This is very similar to the observational mode where an event is recorded in its purest form but without any intervention of the director or crew during the event. The reflexive documentary sets out to readjust the assumptions and expectations of its audience more than to add new knowledge to existing categories (Nichols 2017, p 128)

I would like to work that way in the future as I wanted to be involved as well as directing a documentary I find that it is interesting to show the production behind the scenes of the documentary to the audiences.

#2 No Direction Home

In the opening scene of No Direction Home by Martin Scorsese (2005), the scene introduces the singer-songwriter, Bob Dylan with one of his performances of the same title. The scene is cut to a foggy field with trees in a poetic sense as Dylan talks about time standing still. The music comes in to portray the types of songs popular during Dylan's childhood as he began to talk about his childhood with a shot of his childhood house. Thelma Schoonmaker edited this scene with pictures of Dylan's childhood and footage of a vinyl record to further portray his childhood and how he discovered music as the artist goes on. We can see the artist telling his story in an interview with clips of the artist during the time of the documentary is made. The scene follows Dylan's story when he talks about the town he grew up in by showing clips of the town and how the town is famous for its mines. He then continues to talk about how his father owns an electrical store and he used to sweep the floors there to learn the discipline of hard work. The scene portrays this by showing clips of the store and a newspaper with his father's picture in it.

In the scene of the interview, the shots are recorded in two different angles with a close-up and an extreme close-up shot of Dylan.

#3 Forbidden Lies

In this clip from Forbidden Lies by Anna Broinowski (2007), it opens with a visual interpretation of the 2003 novel with the same title. The audio in this scene is made out of layers of samples added during post-production. After the opening scene, the audio of the interview is recorded with a boom microphone to record the interview dialogues and is layered with different clips in different locations while the dialogue recording remained. In the interview scene of Dr. Amal A. Sabbagh, she is probably wearing a lavalier mic as the camera is placed a few distances away from her, which would amplify her dialogue with the audio recorded with the boom microphone. We can also hear some atmos of birds chirping in the background during the interview, which is recorded by the boom microphone as well. Sound effects are also used in the whole clip.

#4 Reflection on the Lighting Exercise

In the lighting exercise, we were tasked to set up lighting for two subjects. For the clip below. The camera is set up in a dirty over the shoulder shot, focusing on a subject while the other subject that is closer to the camera is out of focus. To set up the lights for this shot, the key light is placed at the side, between the two subject while having a fill light to remove any dark or shadowy area the key light will create, by placing it close to the key light and setting the key light a little higher and angled towards the subjects. Being the main light for the subject, the key light is set stronger than the fill light. We used another fill light to illuminate the second subject so that she is visible in the frame. We can see the changes in the images below:

Without lighting

Using a fill light on the secondary subject to illuminate her presence

Fill light on the primary subject

Key light illuminating on the primary and secondary subject

#5 Color Grading

For this prompt, I've made 3 copies of a clip with different color grading. To portray the before and after color gradings of the clips, I used the wipe effect to show the differences between the original and the color graded clips

This is a still image of the original clip

For the first clip, I wanted to try a simple natural tone by using mostly basic color corrections with an SL Big HDR LUT on in. To try and make the skin tone more present, I have also used the RGB color curve and brought up the red and green curve. The image below shows the changes on the right side of the image.

In the next clip, I gave it a noir feel by turning the saturation down to look black and white. Again, the left on of the image shows the original clip and the right shows the changes.

Finally, I wanted to try to give a more cinematic color grade to the clip to take advantage of the color blue that seems to be the majority color in the background. by using basic color correction and turning up the blue hue settings with the RGB curve. I have also use the SL Blue Cold LUT to further enhance this.

#6 Abstract/Haiku Edit

In this exercise, we are tasked to create an abstract or haiku edit made out of multiple shots. We mostly recorded the shots in one location and played around with focusing on different objects. The audio is recorded without any audio recording devices but the camera's built-in microphone. While editing the clips, I have noticed that the audio clips when transitioning from one clip to another, which tends to happen when taking different shots and without atmos. To solve this problem, I have applied a crossfade filter with constant power between the audio clip to give a smoother transition.

As a group, we have managed to record a total of 16 shots with an average length of 40 seconds, which gave me a lot of materials to create a form of a story that does not hold any real purpose to it. I love adding music to any sequence that I have when there is nothing really going on or dialogue in it so I have decided to layer my haiku edits with music to give some emotion to the edit.

Here is my Haiku edit with music:

Here's my other edit without music:

Since this is supposed to be an abstract exercise, I find that the usability of a clip depends on what your end goal for your abstract video, and that can be expressed in a form of art or experimental. For my Haiku edit, I would say that my edits are a little experimental by capturing what was surrounding me during that time. For example, I have captured reflections of the tree, a paper boat getting blown away due to the windy weather and the leaves dropping on the spectacles. There is nothing to say about lighting, unfortunately, as it was a cloudy day and not many shadows can be seen during that day.

#7 Reflection on the course

Taking this course has taught me a lot about film production, from handling a camera to directing. It was very interesting on how light can manipulate a scene by correctly placing the lights to a specific position to create a three-dimensional image through the creation of shadows from the lights. I have also understood the broader aspects of each role in a crew and that it is important to play your part and work as a team in order to create a quality scene. Even though the course is structured to teach the basics of film production to people who are new to this, I still manage to learn a lot and drives me to seek more advance techniques to better improve my skills.