Evaluation and Final Product

I decided to add an introduction to my documentary. This isn’t something I have really seen in documentaries before as there is usually only a short title sequence or sometimes it even cuts straight into the documentary. However, I have seen introductions in TV shows, Films and cartoons (often to introduce characters or actors). I thought I would experiment with the idea of a similar thing for my documentary but rather than introducing characters or actors it would introduce the people that will appearing in the documentary. This opening sequence first starts with the title of the documentary (‘Music Of Sunderland’) followed by my production company (‘LJR Media’) and accompanying logo. It then shows the word ‘featuring’ and begins to show a series of clips from each individual who will be appearing in the documentary with their names across the screen. I feel this makes it very clear who each person is, making this introduction music more effective than my original sequence. These clips show as the beat drops in the background music, I decided to do the introduction like this as it allows the sequence to flow smoothly as well as cut into the next part of the documentary just as smoothly. On top of this it puts emphasis on the music which I feel is an important thing as the whole documentary is based on music so the idea of sound design and implementing music is very present throughout the whole documentary. I think this worked very successfully as it showed the documentary title, my production company, introduced all of the people that will be featured in the documentary and emphasised the music used in the introduction. This was everything I was trying to accomplish with this introduction as well as giving myself some more experience with creating introductions and title sequences, it also reflects my inspirations to create this kind of introduction with shows such as ‘Friends’ which also use this style of title sequence when introducing characters.

I also created an introduction for the first part of the documentary. This part of the documentary was supposed to be based around the more recent and current music from the north-east. This part includes interviews from one artist (Toxeine) as well as two fans of the current generation of north-east music (Bailey and Kyle). The introduction for this part served as an introduction for the artist that this part would be surrounding (Toxeine). This introduction sequence consisted of a montage type introduction which included his name across the screen at the beginning of the montage. This played with one of his unreleased songs as the background music, which I used to time the cuts. The first version of this sequence was just under a minute long, I felt this was too long as it was around the same length of the title sequence for the whole documentary and it also played not long after the initial opening sequence, on top of this I got a few recommendations to shorten this introduction sequence. I done this by removing any repeated clips, shortening the time clips played for and making the cuts more frequent while still staying in time with the music, this gave the introduction more of an upbeat and higher energy intro which I personally feel is more attention grabbing to the viewer, I needed to cut the length of the introduction in half as to remove a part of the song that Toxeine didn’t want to be heard, with the edits I made I successfully done this and made the introduction just under 30 seconds, a little under half the length of the original introduction. I think this introduction was very successful as it gives an introduction to the artist without needing to really say anything as well as keeping viewer attention, displaying some unheard music and creating a smooth transition into the first interview of the documentary. This accomplished everything I originally wanted form the introduction and more, even getting many positive comments while it was in the development stage. I don’t think there is much I could have done better other than possibly tweaking the cuts to make them a little smoother.

Following this introduction was the first interview of the documentary with the Sunderland rapper, Toxeine. For this interview I set up the studio and 2 cameras at different angles. The background was completely black as to make Toxeine the main focus of the interview and not giving the viewer anything distracting or untidy in the background. I used the two camera angles as a way to create more cuts in the interview as it was going to be a fairly lengthy interview with the first draft of it coming out as a minute and a half. I used an off-side close up shot to focus on facial expressions and a head-on medium close up shot to pick up on body language and show hand movements when Toxeine was describing or explaining something. I also done a few cutaways to artists, videos and songs that were mentioned as well as a cutaway to him working in the studio when he was talking about recording his music. I also removed my voice from the interview as I stuttered quite often and my voice was quite loud and distorted with me standing so close to the microphone, I replaced myself asking questions with text on the screen displaying the question before each answer. I think this worked well and made the interview much smoother than it would have been if I was to keep my voice in asking the questions, I stuck with this interview format throughout the entire documentary as to keep consistency as well as completely removing the problem of me asking the questions. During the interview Toxeine’s phone rang, rather than removing  it I decided to keep it in as well as cut out the background music when it did. I done this to add a sort of comedic effect to the interview as I didn’t want it to come of too serious and comedy often gets a viewer attention and makes the product more refreshing to watch. On top of this I feel it makes the documentary feel more personal and engaging to the viewer as it shows mistakes within the documentary as well as showing the human nature of the artist being interviewed. The final thing I done was remove two questions, these were “Have you collaborated with any other artists/produces?” which was removed because the response was vague and irrelevant and “what is your current studio setup?” which I removed as clips of the studio were shown as cutaways earlier in the documentary. This made the interview a bit shorter as a response to a comment saying it went on a little too long as well as making the interview maintain viewer attention for longer and cut out any irrelevant parts of the documentary making it more streamline and on topic. I think this interview was very successful, maintaining viewer attention, answering relevant questions, previewing some more music and giving the documentary more authenticity by talking to a north-east artist. I don’t personally think there is anything I would change about this interview.

After this there was a short section where Toxeine talked about his new EP (Vodka & Bass) which he released shortly after the first interview. This was not originally going to be in the documentary but when I saw that it was released I asked if he would be willing to record a short video talking about the new EP as well as possibly some future music. This part was recorded at Toxeine’s house as it allowed us to have a nice area to set up the equipment effectively and also offered his studio to be used as a background adding to the mise en scene of the part. I set up the camera as a  medium shot at a slight angle, this placed Toxeine slightly of to the side (using the rule of three) as well as allowing his studio to be in view in the background creating nice mise en scene (as mentioned earlier).  I thought including the studio was an important thing to do as it is relevant to the documentary, being music related, and gave a change for viewers to see the artists studio as well as preview some songs, it also makes it feel a little more personal to the viewer similarly to the inclusion of the phone call in the first interview. It took a while to counteract the lighting as there were no curtains to block out the sun and it was a very sunny day however I think I managed to record it successfully without too much over exposure. Unfortunately the audio didn’t record correctly (probably due to incorrectly setting up the microphone) which meant I had to do quite a bit audio editing when it came to putting the video together. I had to adjust the audio mix to make it much louder as it was very quiet as well as look at audio effects and filters to find a way to get rid of the crackle and background noise as this was very prominent after turning up the audio mix. After a little experimentation I managed to find a denoise filter which fixed both of these problems after adjusting it to the correct level. I think this was a good inclusion within the documentary and gave a little more insight on the artist. There are, however, some things I think could’ve been done better, for example the audio was not recorded correctly so I think I could’ve spent a little more time adjusting the microphone settings, I possibly could’ve pushed for a little more information and finally I could asked about his unreleased song ‘LGBT’ which he allowed me to use for his introduction sequence. Overall I think this was a successful part of the documentary despite a few small things and it has taught me a few things such as audio editing (adjusting the audio mix and denoise filter) and how to better prepare before recording (making sure all equipment is set up correctly not just the camera).

I then moved onto interviews with fans of the current North-East music scene, the first person I interviewed was Kyle Noble. This interview went very smoothly, there were no interruptions, the camera and microphone were both set up correctly and by recording in the studio there was perfect lighting and a tidy background. I kept the interview short (only 4 questions) as Kyle isn’t as involved as some other people in the documentary however I think his inclusion is important to show a better variety and give a more outside perspective. I recorded this interview with a head on medium close-up shot and was edited the same way as the previous interview. I think this interview was successful as it was relevant to the documentary, added variety, gave an alternate perspective and didn’t face any issues. I don’t think there is anything I would change about this interview as it turned out exactly how I wanted it and it served its purpose well.

The other person I interviewed was Bailey. I ended up recording this interview on 2 separate occasions with the first being a little unorganised and the second being more planned out and well-executed. During the first interview we decided to attempt it outside as it was a nice day and we thought a local burned down pub could make a nice background just to give something more interesting to look at. This proved to be a bad idea as I haven’t had much experience with compensating for exposure so the picture quality was very overexposed meaning I had to fix it the best I could in editing, as well as this there was quite a lot of background noise as, with it being a nice day, there were a lot of birds chirping and people out on walks, etc. I set up the camera so Bailey would be set slightly of to the right, showing background and following the rule of three. This however, didn’t really work as despite asking Bailey to stand still multiple times he kept pacing meaning he would go in and out of the desired camera framing. When it came to editing I had a lot to fix, all of the shots where Bailey dipped out of frame had to be removed and a denoise filter had to be used to get rid of enough background noise for music to be used in the background. The most challenging part of the editing was trying to fix the overexposure, I hadn’t had any experience with this before this and got help from a couple of classmates, unfortunately despite their help the exposure was only slightly improved upon. Due to all of these drawbacks I decided to do a reshoot. This time I had a lot more preparation and done it in an environment that wouldn’t be effected by noise or risk being overexposed, I also wrote up some different questions, asking the same 4 questions I had previously asked Kyle as well as adding some more personally directed ones. I set up the camera as a medium close-up at a sort of angle pointing towards Bailey, with the space we had available this is the only angle I could film from however I made it work by making him look comfortable in the environment, having a turntable in the background (creating minor relevance to the documentary) and following the rule of three. Everything in terms of recording and set up went well apart from the audio recording as the microphone I had borrowed was damaged so I had to make do with the inbuilt microphone in the camera, luckily this wasn’t a big issue due to the location and there wasn’t much tweaking needed after the recording. After both of these were recorded I created 3 drafts of the interview, one using the original (poor quality) footage, one using the new (better quality footage) and a third using a combination of both. I created this third draft as I felt some of the answers from the first shoot were more relevant and in-depth so I tried to incorporate this the best I could. This third draft ended up being the one I finally ended up going with. I think this interview was effective despite obvious flaws (these being mentioned earlier with the first video shoot) as it showed yet another perspective and said perspective being from another age group with bailey being in his early 20s opposed to the other people being seen in the documentary so far only being 18. With the drawback I have faced with this recording and editing I have learned to take more time with planning and preparation as well as developing my technical skills with editing specifically regarding exposure correction.

The documentary then moves onto the second part. This part is intended to be about the older generation of Sunderland’s music scene, including a Sunderland band and DJ as well as a local fan of both the older and newer generations of Sunderland’s music.

The first interview was a of the lead singer from the Sunderland band ‘Joe and the son of Clark’. I had a short introduction around 15 seconds long which was just a short recording of the band playing live which I recorded on an iPhone 13 using 1080 60fps settings along with the band name showing across the screen. As this faded out The first question faded in and the interview started. There were a few drawbacks of this first interview recording, this was due to the interview taking place in a pub environment. The only chance I had to interview Joe was right after his set however the pub was still quite busy at this point, even at the quietest point of the pub there was still quite a lot of background noise. I set the camera up at the quietest place possible although there was limited space. I set up the camera as a medium close-up and adjusted the framing the best I could with the space I had. The actual recording went well although I knew quite a lot would have to be fixed in editing, specifically surrounding audio. In the editing the first thing I had to do was add a denoise filter, I adjusted it enough for the dialogue to be legible but I didn’t want the background noise completely removed as it would’ve made the rest of the audio very tinny and I also decided to use the atmosphere of the pub to my advantage and create a nice atmosphere within the video. I used my usual background music but I lowered it during the speaking parts allowing the background to be more atmosphere focused and then increased the volume of the background music during the questions so there wasn’t just complete silence during these parts. Towards the end of the interview the pub also died down and was fairly silent so at this point I also raised the background music to maintain viewer attention. I think this interview was very successful despite the drawbacks and the drawbacks I was faced with were unavoidable so no preparation could’ve made it any better.

The second interview was a Sunderland DJ, DJ Shem. Shem didn’t have a proper introduction as I didn’t have and footage of him outside of the interview and there was none available online or what he was willing to provide therefore his introduction was simply his name across a black screen for a few seconds. As this faded out The first question faded in and the interview started. This recording was a lot smoother than the previous due to the pub being fairly quiet now. The interview was recorded with the exact same camera set up as the previous one but with slight adjustments. There was no need to compensate for background noise so I just used my regular background music and edited it the same way I had with the previous interviews.

The final interview was an interview with Mark Wilson, a fan of Sunderland and other North-East music. This was recorded in a quiet and well lighted environment in order to avoid previous problems with audio and video recording. I set up the camera at a medium close up slightly looking down on the interviewee.  This interview went very smoothly, there were no interruptions, the camera and microphone were both set up correctly. With this interview I decided to ask the same four questions that I asked kyle. I wanted this interview to give an older fans perspective on the local music scene allowing the documentary to have a more diverse opinion as well as offering an alternative perspective. I think this interview was successful as it was relevant to the documentary, added variety, gave an alternate perspective and didn’t face any issues. I don’t think there is anything I would change about this interview as it turned out exactly how I wanted it and it served its purpose well.

Finally, I created a credits sequence. I went onto the graphics tab and created text, I then listed the names of all people involved in the documentary and then animated the text to be rolling credits. I adjusted the speed of the credits so it played slow enough for all the credits to be read easily. I then made the titles stand out more than the names, giving the credits a nicer look. Finally, I made sure the transition from the video into the credits was smooth and didn’t feel sudden. I think these credits were very successful and look professional and I have learned how to animate text in the process.