Documentary Short

Part A

People have interesting stories about their life to tell but no medium or audience to tell them. It is our job to use film as that medium to share their true stories.

Objective

Choose someone who has an interesting story about themselves. This story can be a memory, how they got to where they are today, their thoughts on a certain subject...just something that is interesting and true about themselves.

The video will only be about 2-3 minutes in length so it does not have to be a long story, just a short effective one.

Check out the Documentary Examples

Think of three people who would not mind a video about their story. You will be choosing one but it is good to have backups. The person speaking in the interview does not have to give it in English if you use subtitles to translate.

You can choose anyone however you will receive additional points of you choose someone who is not a student. Usually the older they are, the more they know and more stories they have to share.

In a new email to Posterous, write the person's name and a summary of their true story that they would share for the three people. Then search YT and vimeo for a short documentary about a person that is under 5 minutes long and post the link to the spreadsheet along with the title. Then get a CA student to post a Posterous comment on which idea sounds most interesting.

Part B

Planning your Shoot

You should have contacted the person you will be featuring for the documentary and talked about what story you want to bring out.

Your overall documentary grade will count as double value so do your best.

You may also want to include a few photos taken in the past if they compliment your video footage and storyline although watch the photo documentary example first.

Learn

Next, read the text and view the videos on the learn page to learn about shooting a documentary.

Requirements

In this documentary assignment you will apply everything you learned. If you apply these requirements correctly, the end result will look really good and professional. If you just shoot and edit without using all of these the video will look amateur. The list may seem like a lot but you should be including these in your video second nature by now.

• Use each of the angles & subject shots appropriately at least once
• (the subject shots can be a person but does not always need to be; eg. focusing on a bus passing by because the interview talks about how they ride the bus each morning)
• Include the following action shots appropriately at least once: vertical pan, horizontal pan, head on shot, & tracking shot
• Apply the following cuts: Jump Cut, Action cut, Cutting rhythm, Progressive cut, one of the three match cuts, & most of the documentary will consist of frequent Cutaways from the person interviewing and the B-Roll (lots of B-Roll)

Upload

When you are finished, move all your footage to your Macbook and create a backup of the video files in dropbox or an external flash drive. Take a screenshot of the list of video files. Next Import all your footage into iMovie into a new project and event called classID Documentary and take a screenshot of footage in your iMovie event to post to Posterous and the link to the spreadsheet.

Part C

Editing

Now the fun part! Editing! Your total running time of your documentary should be 2-4 minutes in length.

The most important part of the content is that you really go deep and try to bring out the story in your editing. Don't sway away from the thesis sentence of the story too much and make sure it is interesting...but the story does not have to be amazing to be interesting...it can be common...you make it interesting with your editing skills and cutaways.

You will import all the interviews first and put them in order of how you want to tell their story. Then you will use many cutaways from your B-Roll film to go along with their interview. When you insert these cutaway clips use the cutaway feature in iMoive after you place a clip on top of the interview clip on the timeline. Do not have extended amounts of time when you show only the person being interviewed as the audience will lose attention. Use frequent cutaway clips and make sure you meet all the cuts, angles, and shot requirements listed previously.

Subtitles

If you are using subtitles, try to make it appear like the following in iMovie:

• White text, the lowest font size which is value 1, first text option, and you can choose if you need a black outline

As you listen to your audio, you want to look at the audio levels located on the right side of iMovie. The target range of the green bars is about 60-75%. If the bars spike into the red then edit just that little part of red to bring the audio down, but don't bring it down in the whole audio clip.Do not insert any credits at the end and you do not have to insert a title unless you feel it will really enhance your film.PostUpload it to your YT channel in the following format:"Creative Title" - a documentary on their first & last nameThen in the description, write out the requirements and times:

cutaway: 0:33

match cut: 1:33

progressive cut: 2:45

List

Subject Shots

Extreme long shot:

Long shot:

Medium:

Medium long:

Close up

Extreme close up:

Angles

Eyeline:

Low:

High:

Aerial:

Dutch:

Cuts

Jump:

Match (any):

Action:

Cutting rhythm:

Progressive:

Action Shots

Vertical pan:

Horizontal pan:

Head on:

Tracking:

Post the Vimeo link to Posterous and the spreadsheet. Have a CA student view your documentary and leave a quality comment on what they liked about it and three things you could have done to improve it. If you would like comments from Mr. Heil, ask him after a CA student has commented and email him the link.

You will receive a big grade for this part of the assignment that you are turning in.

Part D

Final Final

Reading the comments from your video, decide how you want to edit your film one more time to make it even better. You may refilm parts but you may not change people or refilm the whole thing. You must use at least 50% of the footage edit and narration you turned in from the previous part.

After you have all done, export it as Large setting and upload it to your Vimeo account and save a copy to your dropbox. Use the following Vimeo title format: "Creative Title" - a documentary on their first & last name. Post the link to your Posterous and the spreadsheet. Use the same format you used from the previous part to indicate all of the cuts, shots, and angles in your film that were required and place that info in the description of your film.