Evaluation/ Reflection- Documentary

The whole class had 6 weeks to plan edit and finish our individual documentaries, due to that opportunity most of us took our time and left it for the very last week, which made us do it in a rush. I changed my idea many times, firstly because the person who would be in the documentary didn't cooperate and the time table between her and me wouldn't match; then me and my partner decided to work on a documentary similar to a video that Amy showed to the whole class, it also didn't work because the background noise was too much which couldn't even be edited in Adobe Audition. Finally me and my partner decided to work by ourselves and do a day on our lives, I took the opportunity that I was working on my photography project and made my documentary on it, it was easy because I had done all the research I needed and I just had to write the script which is on my "planning questions". It is about my photography project which is based on editorial fashion; I chose to work on my project because it was the only idea I had at the moment and the easiest one I could do in a week time. I also found it interesting and beneficial to myself to talk about my project. 

My documentary is more participatory based because It is about designing a storytelling process that honors and reflects the voices and leadership of people impacted by an event or ongoing situation. I used some documentary techniques such as voice-overs, interview, and subtitles. the voice overs were needed because the shots of me talking would be a lot longer and boring, the viewer would prefer to see the process of my project than me talking; that is why I decided to put no more than 10 seconds of shots of me talking. I also had to add subtitles because I was talking too fast and it wasn't very understandable, and I ran out of time to re-record it. I don't think I have developed any new skills with this project apart from my timing with Adobe Premiere Pro, I took less time editing than ever, which I think I kind of challenged myself and set a new goal.

I used a camera on the tripod to film myself photographing, using different angles and positions. Some of the footage shows the camera moving which is where I got one of my classmates to film a few parts which I used for my documentary. Apart from that, I worked independently and I think is way better because we are challenging ourselves and taking responsibility for how the project is going to come out. I had some problems while filming which was the background in the studio that had to be fixed and that took time, which I mentioned in the documentary, another problem was with editing, I had to put subtitles throughout the whole video, because I couldn't have time to redo the voice-over,however, I had already booked the equipment needed but the tv studio and the photography studio which were the best places to voice record because they are the most silent rooms, were busy and I couldn't waste any more time with it, also, i couldn't have time to change the music which isn't copyrighted, it would again be too long to lower and higher the sound of it. .

My final product looks decent, however, I believe I could have a better quality maybe because of the setting the camera was on and the way I exported probably. I think I did really well this time compared to the other documentaries I've worked on and I really enjoyed also working individually, I think it was a bit needed because I could have things done my way and I was able to see what I am capable of doing. My favorite bit of the documentary was the beginning and end because I started off with our journey, a shot of the train arriving at our destiny, and at the end I use another shot of the train leaving, the blurry contrast was also hard to get because it had to fade slowly; it was a little bit challenging. I also think the font of the title used looked professional, I am proud of myself. What could've gone better was if I used more than one camera to get what is going on around, and film a lot of people that came to see the studio and learn more about photography, while Zehra and Scott talked to them.


For the previous documentaries that I worked on, I had to start off in doing a study case to all three of them because all of us had to understand how they work, what are the techniques used in each one of them, what can and can't be done, and the definitions. In the total, I worked in three which were, participatory; expository; and; observational documentary.

For two of the documentaries, it was in a group and the other one of them was meant to be made individual, to fulfill the documentaries we brainstormed it, searched for definitions and examples. then one of the participants of the group came up with the idea of how British teenagers and children wear make-up since a very little age which we thought wasn't appropriate so we all agreed to work on it.


In the expository mode, it is more like an interview which I quite enjoyed and along the way I and my group worked really well and it was easy to get the pre-production done because all of us; me, Precious, Dierty, and Rozina, did our part that we were organized to work on. We came along some problems which were setting up the camera in some of the shots and in some of the scenes the camera were too shaky. We received the feedback and we reflected on it to not have problems like those again.
For this first-ever documentary, it wasn’t difficult to find people to be interviewed, in fact, I believe one of our strengths is the communication with our colleagues and others, making it easy to get a variety of people to be part of our project. Then two of the group participants which were me and Rozina, edited it, half each and finally uploaded it. I feel like we all worked really well, communication between us is what was not lacking, we listened and also gave our opinion, got our work done on time and got a not bad result.

The second documentary which was participatory was a little bit more difficult to be done since it was an individual project. I and my colleagues all had all the work in our shoulder. I wished to remake the participatory documentary because I made this one in a rush and wasn’t happy at all about the results, in addition, I didn’t have much to edit for the fact that I used one camera only in a tripod in a mid shot. This was a lesson to myself that from that day on I knew that taking my time to work on a project is always better than working in a rush. Another con is that there was a lot of background noise and I couldn’t get rid of it even using premiere pro. This documentary was based on social media and its relateds.

The third documentary was an observational documentary which was also group work which was me Rozina, Zehra, and Neset, the documentary was based on a daily routine of Zehra and some of her struggles in the college, so we didn't have to do much research and since it was observational there wasn't much talking apart from subtitles.

• What is your documentary about?
• How did you come up with your idea, why did you choose it, did you idea change and at what point?
• What documentary mode(s) did you use? E.g. observational
• What documentary techniques did you use? E.g. voice over, interviews
• What skills did you develop through this project? (consider practice tasks, planning, filming, editing)
• How did you manage your time?
• How did you work with others?
• How did you work independently?
• What problems did you have? How did you solve them? (consider practice tasks, planning, filming, editing)
• Evaluate the finished product (your 5 minute film) - what went well, what could have gone better and why

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