Necessary contacts for this documentary are the film crew that is to be documented. Who in particular the documentary shall follow has yet to be settled; for now, the necessary contacts will be myself, Tyrin Padilla, and my partner, Xeryus Collins. We have each others' numbers, so I do not find it necessary to list them here. After all, you never know what kinds of telephone-ear-harassment may come as a result of sharing our numbers on a globally-accessible site. We live in a nasty world.
In order to succeed as documentary filmmakers, our interview questions must be in the vein of:
Who are you -- can you introduce yourself?
What does being a documentary filmmaker entail?
What makes you want to be a documentary filmmaker?
What do you like and dislike about documentary filmmaking?
What are some notable trials and tribulations of documentary filmmaking?
For any of the above, any good anecdotes?
We may also ask questions of those close to our filmmakers, such as:
How are you related to the filmmakers?
What do you think of their involvement with filmmaking?
For the interviews, framing and shot composition will be dependent entirely on the backgrounds available to us, to which adjustments must be made. Interviews typically are shot in CU and MS.
B-roll will include: CU, MS, LS, ELS of the crew in preproduction (working on computers), production (operating cameras, microphones, tripods, etc.), and postproduction (editing on computers).
The beginning of the piece will introduce the filmmakers at work, specifically in production -- they will be interviewing the subject of their documentary, displaying their skillz. Through what they say, we will be able to determine their relationship, their difficulties and successes, et cetera.
The middle of the documentary will include interviews to show the thoughts about and the effects of documentary filmmaking, making good, clear use of the interview questions listed above.
The end of the film will reveal the outcome of their project and their reactions; did they like it? Connect to their established feelings regarding filmmaking as a whole.
A script is unnecessary; voice-overs shall not be employed in the documentary.
This does seem like a very different idea for a documentary project, but there does seem to be some issues. First, are you going to be makign a documentary on you yourself making a "fake" documentary, or is this going to be a documentary of what it is like for a film crew to make a documentary. If it is the latter, you should not only use your crew as interviewees, you should also take advantage of the other film crews in our class, and maybe use different people from our class for interviewees. Also, you may want to do some extra research on the making of documentaries, just to add something else to the documentary.
ReplyDeleteI actually really like this concept a lot! It is similar to Tropic Thunder too. But like Robert, I see many waves gathering and headed toward your island of probable concepts in the near future. These challenges will be hard to overcome because you have said that you will use different groups and film crews in your piece. This inconsistency will cause problems because every crew is very different. You might want to limit your piece on two or three film crews as they produce their documentaries. I think this is a clever way to have the class do your work for you haha. I like that you will go through the process with the groups while making your film. I suggest that you include interesting parts and focus on the production part of the films rather than showing the groups finished with the filming and just editing together on a single computer. I think its obvious that this will be boring without some epic music in the background and tone changes every time the editor cuts a clip or adds effects. Just kidding, but you know what im trying to say, be sure to show the actual production of the film and it will be easier to do and more interesting.
ReplyDeleteIt seems as if you'll be following the mockumentary style rather than the traditional documentary, but it will be a nice change of pace. You have a basic outline set out in that you have preproduction, production and postproduction to help guide your piece. I think to really make this a success you need to make sure the comedy is flowing throughout. You need to show the outrageous over the top reactions with a little absurdity, but maintain boundaries and focus so that you dont fly too far out of the plot, so basically try to keep yourself under control. You obviously dont need to research anything, and your B-roll just has to be original and funny. Good luck, can't wait to see it come to fruition.
ReplyDeleteYou got some big cojones, boy. I think that if this does become your topic, you should take a more of a comedic stand. Like Trevor said, this seems to be a mockumentary and you should make it that way. Obviously this isn't a traditional type documentary so you need to make it different. The only thing that I'd see as a major problem is that you might get in the way of the other crew that's making their documentary. There's going to be technicalities that you must avoid like making sure your crew is quiet while the other crew is working. Also maybe if there's not enough room, you may need to make sacrifices. Anyways, I think that this can be an interesting concept. Good luck.
ReplyDeleteInteresting, interesting. I am rather intrigued by the whole “Docu-ception” concept. However there do seem to be a few minor flaws with this idea. Like C-Money said, you might have some troubles with the interference of other groups during their production, which seems quite challenging to execute. One other small problem that seems to appear is the lack of variation of B-roll within this “Docu-meta-ry”. What other B-roll footage would you be able to get rather than the group filming. Other than that, it seems very interesting and I am anxious to see how this turns out. Overall good job and good luck TyPad.
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