Progress Update:
- Well this wednesday and the last have been a mess! I was supposed to finish my survey last wednesday, but I had to do my LNAT exam so I pushed the time for filming a bit later - my camerawoman got confused and was unable to make it. So I rescheduled it for this wednesday - both camerawomen were unavailable. I know my production schedule allows for flexibility, but I hate when things dont go to plan!
- Thursday 24th = an interview with a friend
- Friday 25th = interview with plastic surgeon. I am uber excited. I hope it will all go to plan!
Will update again by the end of the week...
Showing posts with label Diane. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Diane. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
The Human Face, BBC Mini-series, John Cleese
What I picked up on from the first part of the series:
- Cleese is a comedian and he began the documentary with a bit of humor e.g he was standing on a face, some of the background music was comical.
- All the interviews were medium shots, which I found a bit unusual as usually documentaries of this kind often have close-ups of body language etc.
- Most of the music was instrumentals.
- In most of the interviews, the interviewee was seated in a dark place with lighting. This made reinforced that I definitely need to check the lighting in the plastic surgeon's office and any other locations as I don't want to have to carry unnecessary equipment.
- There was use of both colour and black/white.
- Cleese is a comedian and he began the documentary with a bit of humor e.g he was standing on a face, some of the background music was comical.
- All the interviews were medium shots, which I found a bit unusual as usually documentaries of this kind often have close-ups of body language etc.
- Most of the music was instrumentals.
- In most of the interviews, the interviewee was seated in a dark place with lighting. This made reinforced that I definitely need to check the lighting in the plastic surgeon's office and any other locations as I don't want to have to carry unnecessary equipment.
- There was use of both colour and black/white.
- The only things that were zoomed in on were the magazines and photos.
Survey
So I began my survey of 100 people today...
Some of the problems I encountered today:
- Location: the initial location (Islington high street) was problematic as there were (eight) charity workers working in the same location. We decided to move and ended on property we didn't know was private property (middle of N1 centre). The most successful location was near Chapel market.
- Amount of people: many people were reluctant to become a part of the documentary, in the time available, we managed to survey 40 people. 22 were willing to be filmed, 18 only wanted their voice recorded. The amount of males and females were equal also.
- Equipment: one of the crew members was a media student (a friend as suggested by Rebecca to help out), she was late and although this didn't affect the actual taking of the survey, we actually completely forgot the mic! It was only until we brought the equipment back that Rebecca brought it up and the crew member mentioned that we needed it.
I guess I can call this is a learning curve (or whatever they call it) seeing as I have 60 more people to do.
Improvements for next time:
- Remember the mic!
- Begin the filming later (as I started at 10:30) around lunchtime
- Change of location possibly?
Some of the problems I encountered today:
- Location: the initial location (Islington high street) was problematic as there were (eight) charity workers working in the same location. We decided to move and ended on property we didn't know was private property (middle of N1 centre). The most successful location was near Chapel market.
- Amount of people: many people were reluctant to become a part of the documentary, in the time available, we managed to survey 40 people. 22 were willing to be filmed, 18 only wanted their voice recorded. The amount of males and females were equal also.
- Equipment: one of the crew members was a media student (a friend as suggested by Rebecca to help out), she was late and although this didn't affect the actual taking of the survey, we actually completely forgot the mic! It was only until we brought the equipment back that Rebecca brought it up and the crew member mentioned that we needed it.
I guess I can call this is a learning curve (or whatever they call it) seeing as I have 60 more people to do.
Improvements for next time:
- Remember the mic!
- Begin the filming later (as I started at 10:30) around lunchtime
- Change of location possibly?
Monday, November 7, 2011
My Schedule for the month
SCHEDULE:
- Wednesday 9th - Survey of 100 people
- Wednesday 16th - Focus Group (?) (Needs a location asap)
- Friday 25th - Interview with plastic surgeon
I have done a time management matrix and the survey is my number priority!
I have completed a large proportion of my research, but I've yet to watch documentaries related to my topic (as all of the documentaries I have watched for technical reasons aren't related to my topic). Some of the documentaries I have chosen to watch are:
- The Human Face, 4-part BBC Series, John Cleese, 2001
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0280262/
- America the Beautiful, Darryl Roberts, 2007
http://m.imdb.com/title/tt1040007/
- Never Perfect, Mai Anh Tran, 2007
http://m.imdb.com/title/tt1103165/
- Wednesday 9th - Survey of 100 people
- Wednesday 16th - Focus Group (?) (Needs a location asap)
- Friday 25th - Interview with plastic surgeon
I have done a time management matrix and the survey is my number priority!
I have completed a large proportion of my research, but I've yet to watch documentaries related to my topic (as all of the documentaries I have watched for technical reasons aren't related to my topic). Some of the documentaries I have chosen to watch are:
- The Human Face, 4-part BBC Series, John Cleese, 2001
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0280262/
- America the Beautiful, Darryl Roberts, 2007
http://m.imdb.com/title/tt1040007/
- Never Perfect, Mai Anh Tran, 2007
http://m.imdb.com/title/tt1103165/
Progress and Feedback
The EPQ session on wednesday really motivated me! Rebecca went over Primary and Secondary sources and I'm definitely guilty for believing that my GCSE knowledge of it would help the project, the brainstorm added some new types of sources that I will use for my project e.g. Focus groups.
The sheet on "Prioritising your workload" has also enabled me to actually sort out what I need to plan for the following week.
The feedback on my project proposal has really helped also, what I've taken from it:
- Do a Management Matrix
- Add more books! (My research so far only includes a few books for my project and so this is crucial)
- Develop production schedule
The sheet on "Prioritising your workload" has also enabled me to actually sort out what I need to plan for the following week.
The feedback on my project proposal has really helped also, what I've taken from it:
- Do a Management Matrix
- Add more books! (My research so far only includes a few books for my project and so this is crucial)
- Develop production schedule
Monday, October 17, 2011
Reading up on Documentary making
I decided to read up on documentary making before I actually start filming:
Book: The complete guide to Digital Video, Ed Gaskall
What I have taken on from this book:
- Always have a filming schedule!
- Always think of these questions beforehand: What is going to be shot? When is it going to be shot?
Are there any interviews? Will there be dialogue?
--------------------------
http://pov.imv.au.dk/Issue_13/section_5/artc1A.html
"Guidelines for producing a short documentary by Kirsten Sørensen, Mette Bahnsen, Henrik Holch, Gitte Hvid and Lise Otte (makers of Jutta Ravn, 2000):"
What I learnt from this article:
- Use tv and/or film documentaries as primary inspiration > "discuss the qualities of each film and note the good elements. This will probably give you an idea of how you want to structure your own film."
- Ethics: From the beginning you must consider whether you are portraying people appropriately. Are you twisting in any way the image(s) of your subject(s)? Respect your subjects (which includes an honest representation of them) must come before making a great film.
- Interviewing: "If your film contains an interview session it is important that you experiment with different interview techniques before you start shooting."
----------------------------------
In the next few days, I will:
- watch a selection of documentaries (from sites such as
http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/films/category/documentary/)akes or breaks a documentary film in order to learn about which kind of genres and filmaking styles I like.
- Create an outline of documentary
- Organise interviews!
Book: The complete guide to Digital Video, Ed Gaskall
What I have taken on from this book:
- Always have a filming schedule!
- Always think of these questions beforehand: What is going to be shot? When is it going to be shot?
Are there any interviews? Will there be dialogue?
--------------------------
http://pov.imv.au.dk/Issue_13/section_5/artc1A.html
"Guidelines for producing a short documentary by Kirsten Sørensen, Mette Bahnsen, Henrik Holch, Gitte Hvid and Lise Otte (makers of Jutta Ravn, 2000):"
What I learnt from this article:
- Use tv and/or film documentaries as primary inspiration > "discuss the qualities of each film and note the good elements. This will probably give you an idea of how you want to structure your own film."
- Ethics: From the beginning you must consider whether you are portraying people appropriately. Are you twisting in any way the image(s) of your subject(s)? Respect your subjects (which includes an honest representation of them) must come before making a great film.
- Interviewing: "If your film contains an interview session it is important that you experiment with different interview techniques before you start shooting."
----------------------------------
In the next few days, I will:
- watch a selection of documentaries (from sites such as
http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/films/category/documentary/)akes or breaks a documentary film in order to learn about which kind of genres and filmaking styles I like.
- Create an outline of documentary
- Organise interviews!
Pilot Study
Rebecca suggested that I conduct a pilot study - which I did. I did the pilot study on 10 random people; I received positive feedback but some of the improvements included:
- have tick boxes instead of having the respondent circle things in.
- (question 3) "how would you describe your nationality?" - the options are not clear e.g. "Shouldn't 'Black African' be 'Black British' instead of having "British" separate? I have decided to reconsider the options available for this question.
- (question 4) "Do you believe that there is a 'mathematical formula' for beauty?" - a few of the respondents were confused by the question and so having an explanation of what this is (before the question) may help.
- (question 7) "Why do you think that less ethnic models are represented in fashion, magazines etc?" - some of the respondents were confused as to what "ethnic" meant and felt the space available to write was too small. To solve this, I will add in brackets what I mean by "ethnic" as to prevent confusion and create a larger space to write an answer.
- (question 10) "What does 'beauty' mean to you?"- one of the respondents said having this as a closed question wouldn't allow people with other perceptions of beauty to answer how they really feel. Although I understand this, having this question as a broad question would make it harder for me to analyse the question, especially as people would come up with various definitions of beauty.
- have tick boxes instead of having the respondent circle things in.
- (question 3) "how would you describe your nationality?" - the options are not clear e.g. "Shouldn't 'Black African' be 'Black British' instead of having "British" separate? I have decided to reconsider the options available for this question.
- (question 4) "Do you believe that there is a 'mathematical formula' for beauty?" - a few of the respondents were confused by the question and so having an explanation of what this is (before the question) may help.
- (question 7) "Why do you think that less ethnic models are represented in fashion, magazines etc?" - some of the respondents were confused as to what "ethnic" meant and felt the space available to write was too small. To solve this, I will add in brackets what I mean by "ethnic" as to prevent confusion and create a larger space to write an answer.
- (question 10) "What does 'beauty' mean to you?"- one of the respondents said having this as a closed question wouldn't allow people with other perceptions of beauty to answer how they really feel. Although I understand this, having this question as a broad question would make it harder for me to analyse the question, especially as people would come up with various definitions of beauty.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Plan
My project now focuses on "The Formula of Beauty" and if all goes to plan *fingers crossed*, it will follow my rough week by week layout.
Week 1 = carrying out a questionnaire of public opinion on their perception of beauty.
I will post the full plan as I go along..
Week 1 = carrying out a questionnaire of public opinion on their perception of beauty.
I will post the full plan as I go along..
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Woop Woop first post!
*Sigh* as with every project, you always encounter setbacks...never thought I'd experience one even before I started! Let's just hope the rest of the project isn't like this...
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