Documentary Evaluation

Documentary Style

The documentary style which I presented my 3 minute wonder in was a mix between reflexive and expository. It was part reflexive because I wanted to explore with the usual boundaries of documentary, and make something slightly out of the ordinary, although I used a similar template of a normal documentary I tried to experiment more with the content, such and shot angles, audio and layout. It was part expository because even though it was trying to be more quirky and weird than others you still had the expository side which included facts not opinions, captions etc.. 

Topic

 I chose my topic (Bipolar Disorder) because I was rather intrigued by the concept of the mental illness and how it worked, and also having a good friend with the disorder I got to see how it worked and effected him in everyday life, so I wanted to bring his feelings and emotions to this piece of media work, even though some people disagree I didn't manage to do this. 

Use Of Camera 

With some of my camera shots I was trying to achieve shots of an amateur filmmaker, for example a home video or scenery shots. With other shots I was trying to show loneliness and the different emotions which were involved with bipolar disorder. In the shots of my interviewee's lower half (hands, knees and lower leg) I was trying to show that his identity wanted to be hidden but also I wanted to give you a small image of his figure so that you had some idea of what he looked like, these shots also showed low feelings, because the camera was at a low angle and the room was dark, instead of being well lit. The lighting in those shots also helped because you couldn't make out fully what was in each shot, which is the same as bipolar because parts of the illness aren't quite well understood by people without the illness. Between all of my clips I used a pixel/white noise screen to give the effect that it had been filmed on an old video recorder.

Use Of Sound 

Overall with the sound I wanted to give it a tense and unknown feeling, I achieved this by using very little or no sound, so for example I used no music, and in the shots of the scenery or amateur filming only the ambient sound was used or the interviewee's dialogue was used. When the interviewee was talking his dialogue would overlap into another one of the shots to give the effect that the certain clip had been filmed over (this was to show that sometimes expressions in bipolar can be covered up and also to give the old video recorder effect). The interviewee's dialogue was made deeper using a pitch-shifter on premiere pro, this was to hide the identity of the interviewee and also to give the documentary a tense and almost expressions which are unable to be understood. 

Use of editing

The editing was a risky part of my documentary making, mainly because it can be mistaken as basically a crap mash together of random clips, although, I was trying to achieve this with the simple editing. Like I said in earlier points in this post I was trying to give the effect that this was recorded on an old video recorder, although with the time in which I had to make and edit this I did not reach the point which I wanted to. I tried to achieve this video recorder look by giving it simple cuts between each clip and each piece of white noise. Also the clips which appear when my interviewee is talking have a double meaning. The first meaning is to make it look like the clip had been filmed over, the second meaning is to show that his feelings can be covered up when he is in different points of his illness. I made my text up to look like that from the beginning of an old tape/vhs, I used dafont.com to get a correct font shape and then edited the rest using Photoshop.

Overall I tried to give it a very simple and video recorder look. Even though I did not achieve it to how I wanted to I did do alot of research into how it can be done, and one of the best ways was to actually re-import the whole project from a vcr, I am not skilled enough to know how to do this and many other of the editing techniques and I also only had 2 weeks to complete the documentary.

Use of mise-en-scene

I used a dark and tense feel in all of my shots, especially with the shots of my interviewees hands. The mise-en-scene in my other shots were supposed to make the viewer feel lonely and tense like how people suffering with bipolar feel, I went to a railway station and used the mix of concrete (Bridges, Roads, Railways, Man made things) and greenery (Trees, Fields, Grass, Natural Things), This help me to achieve the huge differences which the bipolar sufferer would feel (Extremely Happy or Extremely Sad). 

How Happy Are You With Your Finished Product?

Overall I am fairly happy, I don't think that I personally had enough time to record and edit my documentary to reach the standard which I would have wanted, but for my level of expertise and time I believe I haven't done too bad, especially as I was working completely on my own with a little help from others. Looking at the finished product, some people may think that this has had 'no thought put into the editing or shots but I don't think many people also enjoy this sort of documentary style like I do.
If I had the time I would like to make a second cut of my documentary with maybe some better shots and even subtitles so that the interviewee is easier to understand.

Most of the points I weren't too happy with have been explained in my recent points in this post.