First Video edit

First edit of documentary

Here is my groups first edit of our documentary, we have put together the two interviews adding in the cutaway footage between the pauses and at the start of the short film. Due to editing issues the music we used was unable to play making an awkward viewing.

More from planning stage (story bored)

With the planning stage, we made a quick messy storyboard for the opening sequence to get an idea on how we would make a professional start to our project.

Different sources from Raystede

When going down to Raystede  my group and I decided to pick up some leaflets and magazines to see what sort of activities and different aspects they do at Raystede. We also wanted to get a feel for the animal shelter looking at their different colour schemes and language they use so we can tie it into our documentary.  Here are a few sources we looked at when in the research stage of our documentary.

Evaluation of Video project

As a whole, I believe that the project went well and I gained and learned many different techniques for interviews that I can now place in future projects. Here is the first interview project me and my partner undertook when starting this course.

First interview production
As you can see with this by this piece my interview skills needed work, as well as the lighting, being dim and dark when watched back as well as the editing being jumpy and choppy. Because of my work within this project, I feel like if I re-did the first production the quality and look would be more professional.

Within this documentary I believed there were many aspects that worked well and looked good when watched back. For example, each interview had small pauses breaking up the long winded talk and slotted with small cutaway shots of the animals and the general surroundings. This created a better-paced flow whilst creating interest and sparking emotion for an audience watching. Music I thought also worked well and helped spark an emotion and set a different mood. Pauses that were created felt awkward to listen to but music allowed the pauses to be there without unwanted quiet sections.

An aspect that the group was unsure about was the colour difference between the interviews due to the lighting used in the location. The interview with Val and her dog Sol the footage was very yellow looking taking away the continuity of the project, to change this and make it more attractive to watch the group selected each shot and used the effects to try and correct the colour balance playing around with the different colours to cool down the look of the yellow footage, which worked well within the final edit.

A few aspects of the production we need to work on is the set up of the camera in the production stage. Within some of the shots, we had to rotate and zoom in due to the frame being slightly angled to the left creating a 'wonky' look to the first interview. To prevent this in future projects, we will have to set the camera up straight and compare it to certain objects in the frame to check if they seem straight or not. Another thing to look at when filming is to look into the white balance when filming making sure that we set up a white balance before filming in a room with artificial lighting giving the shot a warmer look than we would like.

As a group working as a team with this project we came across some bumps when planning, filming and editing. Due to all of our different ideas and opinion that clashed, arguments and disagreements did occur between us making editing and filming difficult and unpleasant. A member in our group believed she was being treated unfairly causing her to have rants over internet group messages by using curse words towards the rest of the group, again creating an uncomfortable environment to be in. This made it hard to film and edit creating more stress for this project.

Second powerpoint for Raystede project

Raystede from ameliajanew


Here is the group's second slideshow presentation based on the new project with the animal shelter. 

Inspiration from other animal videos

When first picking our main idea of the animal shelter we wanted to look into other different small documentaries of the same style to give us different ideas on what to include and what angle to go down.

RSPCA VIDEO 1
Here is the first video we looked at which is a video that was published on YouTube on the 3 July 2012. With this video we saw many aspects that we did not want to include in our edit. For example the voice over of the different animals speaking on their own behalf, which we thought would not suit our main theme and would not connect with our target audience. However, they did use cut aways that went with what what the interviewee was saying. She was also placed outside standing up when being interviewed which I thought worked with the enviomenint that she was in and the work she was doing.

600 miles home dog rescue video 2
Here is the second video we looked at, which is not a well known charity by more of a homemade documentary for a smaller charity. In this short video they used slow sad piano music which gave a viewer an immediate emotion and the main feeling to this video. I felt that this is a good way to start our documentary to five a viewer an emotion to start with and take to the end.

Action shots and other memories from trip to Raystede

Here is a few action pictures and shots from the production days of our project showing me (Amelia) focusing mainly on the main camera for the interview, making sure that sound, lighting and position was well fit for a professional style documentary.

 Each action shot shows a different location and a different interview that we filmed and came across during the production stage of our project. A s shown by the pictures I took charge of the main interview camera listerning to the audio and the quality of the picture.

Looking into human intreasts and questions

We started having trouble finding a interesting human intrest that cause tension when watching for a viewer. We started brain storming questions ideas around a human intrest we thought could be a suitable theme to go around with.

With this we tried to ask and come up with open questions for our interviewees to elaborate when asking different questions. 

Planning a filming schedule

When we confirmed our visits we then started to plan a small structure of  filming schedule to make sure that we were kept organised throughout our production stage.

Day 1 cut aways
13:00 – 13:10	Collect equipment from Silverstone storage room
13:20 -13:45	Get train to Lewis and taxi to Raystede
14:00	Arrive and talk to staff about the production section of the day
14:30	Set up equipment at right location
16:00	Film the Cut aways in the locations talked about with stuff
16:50	Leave to catch train and taxi back to Falmer

Day 2 (Interview filming) 24/11/15
10:00	Collect equipment from Silverstone storage room
10:15	Catch train to Lewis and a taxi to Raystede
11:00	Meet and sit down with staff to talk about what needs to be done and what angle they will be done at
11:30	Set up camera and lighting equipment at first location
11:40	Start filming first interview
11:50	Move equipment to second location
12:00	Continue filming with second interview
12:10	Move camera equipment to the third location
12:15	Start filming third interview
12:30	Go and capture more cut away footage because of the responses of the interview
12:50	Have another talk about how the staff want the editing to look and to show footage we have collected
13:00	Pack up equipment
13:20	Get taxi and train back to Falmer

Looking into Second idea (Emails) and ticket

When looking into other ideas we found and contacted an animal shelter called Raystede which is located in Lewis. A member of the group (Antonia) contact the education department and talked about what we would like to film and what days were available for us and for them. When we got confirmation from the animal shelter we emailed back and forward about times and dates that were acceptable.

 When finally we arranged days we booked tickets to take us into lewis allowing us to film and collect the different footage we needed. 

First idea for 'Bike Project' gone wrong!

When first starting this project we decide to look into and get in touch with a place called the 'Bike Project' due to their work on helping by teaching them how to ride and fix bikes. We thought that this will be a good subject to look at because of a human interests and tension being a vital part of out documentary to focus on.

Thebikeproject prezzo from ameliajanew

We put together and presented a presentation on the ideas and research we were going to look into when filming the main shots, talking about why where and when. A proposal was also written up to give the group a rough idea on how this production was going to be laid out and what ideas we were looking to focus on.


A proposal was also made sharing information on what we wanted to achieve with the bike project and the steps we needed to take.