research

Introduction

For my project I am doing a football documentary where I ask football fans about the teams they support which ill try to make them elaborate as much as possible in order to get enough infromation to make the documentary.

What is a documentary? 

A documentary is a non fiction movie which captures reality. Documentaries are often used to reveal an unusual, interesting or unknown angle. It talks about a story that has already happened.

Conventions

Conventions are something that happens more than once such as horror for example, you get jump scared more than once.

Narration conventions is a type of technique employed by the writer to make a meaning of the story. They can include such things as characters, setting, plots. Narration is usually know as the voice of god.

Voice over conventions is whats recorded after the production, which is later added in the edit. By the person knowing what the story is about they are able to add additional information to the viewer and give their own opinions to help understand more of what is going on.

Archival footage conventions also known as stock footage, is material obtained from a library or film. This is because no one was around to film it.

Re-Enactment conventions are scenes that have been reconstructed to tell an event that has happened but there was no one around to record what had happened so no archival footage. so they get information from the story tellers and try to re enact what happened.

Interview conventions are made to get people perspectives of a subject and are usually to gather information for the interviewer. The interview is conventionally placed on the left or right side of the frame. the interview must be in eye length with the person you are interviewing. 

Modes of documentary

There are 6 modes of documentary: poetic, expository,observational,participatory,reflexive,and performative.

The poetic mode is considered a subjective interpretation of the subject,, essentially meaning its biased. An example of this happening is Ross Kemp on gangs which is meant to be a factual documentation of gang culture but clearly the picture below does not show an everyday occurrence and is merely constructed to show what is considered of gang culture.

The Expository mode is where the documenter speaks directly to the viewer through the used of voice overs or subtitles, and through this create a powerful argument and point of view. An example of this is blue planet this show uses direct voice over, aimed at the viewers. The narrator's voice David attenbourgh is very typical of the conventions of this mode,his calm and relaxing voice is called the voice of god.

The observational mode is emphasising the documentary filmmakers engagement in observing the subjects daily life and circumstances and documenting them with an unobtrusive camera. An example of this is Frederick Wiseman's documentary, high school which takes a fly on the wall approach into north east high school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 

The participatory mode believes that the documenter has to have a certain level of influence on the footage and facts. This allows a certain level of clear of clear evidence on the documenters presence effecting events. An example of this mode is Vertov's the man with the camera where nothing but the lives of soviet citizens, specifically the films cameraman and editor, are filmed to display the state of the soviet life.

The reflexive mode uses specific footage and information that will lead viewers to a specific outcome and therefore essentially make the decision of their opinions for them. An example we are going to use is the 1933 documentary: land without bread. It shows the reflexive method by simply showing only the bad points of the society, which highlights only one side of the argument.

The performative mode is the opinion of someone who has seen or experienced something. It is usually confused with participatory. It exposes them to factual points during the process. An example of this is alain resnais night and fog a subjective, survivor account of the Holocaust, recounting a biased opinion of the vents that have taken place. 

The purpose of interviews in documentary

The purpose of interviews is to get information out of the person being interviewed, but in order to do that you have to be very clever in the way you interview. In order to conduct and interview you have to research the person your interviewing in order to ask him questions that you can then find out their opinion on. You also have to feel engaged in the person your interviewing and stay in eye contact with him. By feeling engaged he person your interviwing might be more comfortable in speaking to you, so he may tell you more information than what he has told other interviewers .You should also keep filming when the interview is over to try and get some real or true information out of the viewer. An example of who did this was louis theroux in the jimmy savile interview, he ended up getting some new information from jimmy. So the purpose is to get new information out of the person you are interviewing.  

Question types

An open question is a question that cannot be answered with yes or no meaning the person your interviewing will have to go into more context which keeps the interview going for longer period of time.

A closed question refers to any question for which a researcher provides options from which to choose a response.

A single question is where a user is asked to pick only one answer from a pre-determined set of responses of two or more options.

A multiple question is where someone is asked to choose one or more from a limited list of choices.

A direct question is where you ask a question what they can say rather yes or no then when they tell you, you ask another question making them explain.

A leading question makes the person your interviewing carry on talking about the subject and even go off to other subjects.


Research on my idea

For my research I will be looking into documentary's to get ideas how to conduct interviews and how to edit the documentary. I will also be researching into football documentary's and see how they conducted their interviews to get some ideas. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WabvZTw4m3o

I had a look at this documentary and i was very blown away about how football had affected their life and i was just inspired to do a football fandom documentary myself to see if this was true about all fans. 

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14660970.2014.961381?journalCode=fsas20

I also had a look at some websites and this one caught my eye and told me a lot about how football fandom has changed over the years. It also tells you about the different types of fans which was really interesting. The website talked about how some people who consider themselves fans are not fans at all according because they haven't been to a game or met a player.

Practise interview

My survey

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/GM58JHJ

How can creative choices affect our perceptions?

Filmmakers use creative choices to affect our perceptions, so we feel engaged in the film. Some of these creative choices are the micro-elements (such as Mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing, sound). These are all used to change our perceptions by making us see the subject in a different way. Perception is a view someone has on a certain topic and creative choices in films can change our perceptions in different ways as I said before microelements, camera angles and narrative etc can change our perceptions. The creative choices are how the filmmakers use these. For example, a low angle shot makes the picture on the screen bigger which makes us feel small. The following essay will involve Mise-en-scene, cinematography and editing which will be explained in the following paragraphs.

Music is an element of sound and it is also a big factor in changing people’s perceptions because it makes people feel different emotions which makes people express themselves more. Researchers from the university of Groningen once said, “Music is not only able to affect your mood -- listening to particularly happy or sad music can even change the way we perceive the world” (Science Daily, 2011) Music can make people feel different emotions and it’s also a creative choice a filmmaker can use to change people’s perspectives.  An example of this is M. night. Shyamalan “Unbreakable” The end scene changes the viewers perspective with the music, the music is quite intense and sad because its meant to be an emotional scene since Bruce Willis character David Dunn has realised his friend Samuel. L. Jackson’s character Elijah Price is a murderer then it begins to play the sad music to make the viewer feel that betrayal David Dun felt, so this is how by making the viewer feel this way it changes their perception on Elijah Price.

Mise-en-scene is important in filmmaking because it sets the scene, for example scenery which is a part of mise-en-scene, when the scenery changes our perceptions change as well, for example if it’s a rainy stormy background it makes the audience feel quite frightened or uncomfortable but if its set in a warm living room it makes the audience feel cosy and happy. In the movie (Moonlight 2016) director Barry Jenkins said, “sense of societal atmosphere is inseparable from his cinematic sense of actual, even meteorological atmosphere”. The atmosphere from the scenery can change people’s perceptions because of the creative choices of the filmmaker. An example of how movies use scenery in mise-en-scene to change people’s perspectives is Steven Spielberg’s “Schindlers list” in one of the scenes you see a little girl in a red dress and this is the only color you see throughout the movie then you see the dress again but it is not on the little girl, this is to make the little girl stand out. This is a very creative way to change someone’s perspective of the movie. 

Cinematography is important in filmmaking because they can change our perceptions with certain shots for example in the first paragraph the low angle shot makes the subject on the screen bigger and makes us feel small so from this it is changing our perceptions. Frank Darabont’s the green mile you see a low angle shot of John Coffey which makes him look huge, in the movie he’s meant to be 7ft, but the actor was only 6ft5, so they needed to use low angle shots to make him look big which changes our perception of him. Marijke Vankets said, “I believe that in fiction, the camera always lies, it never tells the truth, it is the ‘make believe’ that creates the emotion.” So we shouldn’t believe what the camera shows us.

Editing is important in filmmaking because they can change our perceptions by making something look different for example a picture can be photoshopped to change our perception of that person or object by making it bigger or cropping something out.  Rose Eveleth once said, “susceptibility with modern image-editing software at our fingertips like Photoshop, and it’s a recipe for disaster.” So, by people editing an image it can change our perception of what that person or object looks like.

In conclusion to all of this is that creative choices can change our perceptions of what we think is real is not real at all and we are being tricked by the cameras to make it look real.

 ScienceDaily. (2011). Music changes perception, research shows. [online] Available at: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110427101606.htm [Accessed 6 Feb. 2020].

Jenkins, B. (2016). 5 Essential Elements of Successful Mise en Scène in Film | Lights Film School. [online] Lights Film School. Available at: https://www.lightsfilmschool.com/blog/mise-en-scene-in-film-afk [Accessed 6 Feb. 2020].

Diply. (2016). 13 On-Set Secrets About 'The Green Mile'. [online] Available at: https://diply.com/16799/13-on-set-secrets-about-the-green-mile [Accessed 6 Feb. 2020].

Vankets, M. (2010). Can cinematography influence audiences ? – The Belgian Society of Cinematographers. [online] Sbcine.be. Available at: http://www.sbcine.be/?p=1579 [Accessed 6 Feb. 2020].

Eveleth, R. (2012). How Fake Photos Are Messing With Our Perception of Reality. [online] PetaPixel. Available at: https://petapixel.com/2012/12/14/how-fake-photos-are-messing-with-our-perception-of-reality/ [Accessed 12 Feb. 2020].

The supporters- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryTHtAF599E

The supporters is a short 5 minute documentary about football fans. The documentary only contains 2 of the 5 elements of documentary which is chill footage and cut aways. The cameraman films the footballers reactions without them knowing so they can get a real reaction so it isn't biased because they have seen the camera. They also use alot of cut always to other fans getting similar and different reactions so it is also not biased. There isn't any talking or interviews happening since the documentary is just about seeing the football fans emotions which is a lot different that I am going to do with my documentary since I will be conducting interviews since I want to get more of their thoughts and opinions of football more than their reactions since I cant film them at games. There is also very little cut away footage of the football players but that's just to tell the viewer what the fans are watching in case they didn't know. Overall my documentary will be very different to this but it will be a good  help in how to create my documentary and lay it out.

What its like to be a football fan-  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5XSkTCGUYo

This documentary is a really good example with what i am going to try to go with, it involves 4 elements of documentary, the one it does not include is process footage. The documentary has a lot of primary footage, you only see some archival when he is interviewing the man talking about something that has already happened that he wouldn't of been able to record himself. Although he has an interview in his documentary its the same man which means it can be biased, so for my documentary i will be interviewing multiple people to avoid the documentary being biased. When the man is talking it cuts away to pictures of what he is talking about which I will also be doing in my documentary. There is also primary footage of what the man has to go through with travel to get to a game which unfortunately I will not be able to do. 

In my opinion the second documentary is better since it includes more conventions than the the first one. The first documentary only seems to have primary footage of peoples reactions during games, their is no commentary or interviews whereas the second one has both which I think getting people's reactions is good, getting their opinions is better although the  second one is biased since the interviewee only interviews one man whereas the first documentary gets the different peoples reaction to the games. The first documentary also seems to long since its just the same thing happening whereas in the second one their are lots of stuff going on like his journey to a football match, interviews, archival footage popping up as he talks etc. The second one is also what i'm going to try to go for and is gonna help me a lot of how I am going to edit it.