Our Shooting Schedule

Today my group and I planned our shooting schedule for our film. We had to figure out when, where, who, we would be shooting for our film.

WHO
* Biology teacher - Ms Louis
Ms Louis will need to filmed as we will need an 'expect' opinion on what dopamine is. As a biology and psychology teacher we will film her talking to us about the effects of dopamine and how it works.

* Psychology teacher - McCalley
Mr McCalley is another expert opinion and will also give us insight in to the effect of dopamine and how it works.

* Ali's nephew - Kyreece
Ali's nephew is the reason we begun the journey to discover more about the effects of dopamine. We will film him being his usual self obsessing over his favorite TV programme. From this we will observe how he goes about trying to watch his favorite show by all means neccessary

* 5 random people
One of our ideas is to show a series of people answering our question "Do you know what dopamine is?" We thought that this would be an interesting touch to our documentary to see different people's reactions as to what they think dopamine is.

* 3 people we plan to observe.
Another idea we had was to observe people who are effected by dopamine on the computer, to show that everyone and anyone can be addicted to it not just Kyreece.

WHERE
* School library
Key place for interviewing teachers

* Ali's house
Here we will be observing Kyreece

* Westfield/West end
Where we will be getting the reactions of passers by

Ethical Issues Regarding Documentaries.

STRONGLY AGREE

1) Documentaries shape the truth

2) Documentaries represent someone's version of the truth

3) Raw archive footage is more truthful than staged scenes

4) Documentaries are more truthful than fiction

5) Documentaries capture the truth

STRONGLY DISAGREE

Today we considered the different ethical issues concerning documentaries. How will it effect ours when it comes to making our documentaries?

KEY WORD:

Versimilitude - means the truth. When something is trying to represent or capture the truth.

Different methods to create documentaries.

Errol Morris

...was born in 1948 in New York. He is a well known documentary making who mostly uses natural lighting when creating his documentaries. This is interesting as it shows his desire to create a natural piece of film, preventing anything artificial. Again, this links to what we are exploring "Do we capture or shape the truth?" He is also known to ask a broad question to his subject and leave the camera rolling. From this he has seen how someone can pour their heart out on camera not even taking into account that it is there (natural vs performance)

Ali G method

Ali G is a well known character that everybody knows for his documentaries which seem to be taking the mick out of who he is interviewing. Before interviewing, Sacha Baron Cohen would dress up as Ali G and set up where the interview would take place. From first impressions the person being interviewed would assume he is just someone on set not knowing he would actually be taking the interview. Ali G would quickly ask a few warm up questions whilst setting up making them rethink their prejudice of believing someone else (because of how he is dressed) would be taking the interview.

The Office

Is a fictional sitcom series created by Ricky Gervais first broadcasted in 2001. Although it is fictional and scripted the sitcom does take the form of a documentary. It creates a quite amateur style of documentary or a in other words a: 'mockumentary' with zooming in to create the narrative. The characters are also aware of the camera's presence. 

SO!

Who are the key characters in our documentary?

• Kyreece (Ali's nephew)
• 5 civilians
• Ms Louis; a psychology and science teacher 
• Dopamine 'addicts' Khalum, Andrew, Aidan....
• Mr McCalley; a psychology teacher

What strategies would we use to ensure our subjects do no 'perform' for the camera?

Subjects who shouldn't perform

- 5 random people

strategy: put them on the spot and ask them 'warm up' questions to allow them to get comfortable.

- Nephew 

strategy: bribe him with food/rewards

Ethical issues

Combined Treatment.

In a time where technology rules all, can we say that is not our obsession with technology but something psychological? Have you ever sometimes considered yourself to be an “addict” of some kind?

This film will be a full length documentary about the role of TV on young children. TV is something which is part of our everyday lives and as research suggests too much of it is bad for our children. However, our behaviour towards TV and internet is actually because of the largest drug that is released from our brain. We follow 5 year old Kyreece; and his behaviour towards his favourite TV show “Jake and the Netherland Pirates” From observing Kyreece this show is clearly the only thing he cares about in the whole entire world. This is 5 years of his life sat; glued to the TV screen. The documentary clearly stresses that his addiction to this show is a domestic problem and that any attempt to conceal him from it proves fatal.

The film then takes viewers on a journey, to see why Kyreece acts in this particular way. Some will say ‘Kids will be kids’ but maybe there is possibly a particular reason as to why he acts this way? To be addicted means to be addicted to a particular substance or a specified thing or activity. Can we suggest that Kyreece is perhaps “addicted” to this TV show?

 ­­­­______­­­­__ will show the viewer’s our search to find out why Kyreece is so addicted to TV. We are told information from experts such a psychologist and biologists who tell us that there is actually a psychological reason behind Kyreece’s unacceptable behaviour. We see them in their natural environment of a lab and a classroom to show that they are professionals. This is where Dopamine comes in, an internal drug released in the brain by our body helping fuel our desires. An animation breaks down what the expert has says and helps the viewer to understand the effects of the drug. We see a clear effect the drug has on humans discovering that there is a strong possibility that dopamine plays a part not only in his addiction to TV but ourselves.

So clearly not only is Kyreece addicted to TV but we are too! We then discover how not just Kyreece, but teenagers and adults are also affected by it. At this point we see what creates our desire to view more and more of something with observations of people on the internet and doing various other things. We are then left to question: “Are we really addicted?”

It’s crucial to inform the world of their unknown addiction to drugs. What’s your level of addiction?

Rough Planning/Ideas

Our Documentary Treatment.

Today we learnt about they key points to create a great treatment for our documentary. A treatment for a documentary is 'the opportunity for us a the creator to convince a third party that your documentary is worth making.' A treatment includes a description of the film itself and how we (the creator) will keep the project focused.

1. Have a punchy first sentence to draw the reader in; make them want to watch your film.
2. Begin with an overview paragraph which must include a title, the length of the film and a brief review of the story.
3. The next paragraphs should highlight how we expect our story to unfold (here we can include our point of view, the story and how we essentially plan to tell it, the characters in it etc...)
4. End the treatment with a funny or catchy sentence, like the opening to allow the reader to remember your film and have the desire to want to watch it.

Our Script Treatment:

In the lesson my group and I drafted up a treatment each and here they are:

*Mine:

 

After looking through all of them we picked out which parts we thought were the best from each one to create essentially a SUPER TREATMENT of our documentary.

Our Idea.

Me and my team mates Ali and Victoria are going to create a documentary which addresses the effects of Dopamine. The initial questions will be "Why is my nephew Kyreece addicted to "Jake and The Netherland Pirates" His uncle (who is actually Ali haha) is very concerned as to why he wants to watch this show all the time, wanting to find out more as to why he is so "addicted to it" The documentary follows this idea that Kyreece is maybe not just addicted to Tv but there is a psychological issue arising. We then discover it is actually a drug released in the brain by the body which highly affects us as humans.

Our documentary is more likely going to be an observational and expository documentary.

MyStreet.

We was given the pleasure of meeting Umut an independant film maker to help guide and talk us through our documentaries. This is his second time coming to talk to us which was really helpful. He asked us to take a look at a website called http://mystreetfilms.com/ which had a selection of short documentaries on different subjects. one that particularly stood out to me was 'Our Nation's Sons' which follows a group of boys trying to change their areas perception of boys.

1. What question was the Director trying to answer with the film?
I believe the director wasn't exactly trying to answer a question but change an answer. People heavily stereotype each other which is what this documentary  is addressing.

2. How did they tell their story visually?
Each boy told their story indiviually by expressing their thoughts on sterotypes of themselves in their area. Each boy was spoken to on their own with the camera on them. In certain parts of the film some sections are made faster to show progression.

3. How did sound and music contribute to the narrative?
Music starts the narrative and is played throughout. It is very sympathetic making us the viewer empathise with the people in the film. The voiceover is continued over different scenes to highlight what they are doing; again showing the progress. As the film goes on we see that the boys are making progress so the music changes to something upbeat; highlighting this change.

4. What does this documentary inspire you to do, and not do, with your documentary?
This documentary inspires me to want to use voiceover as the main focus of our documentary to show development. As we want to make our documentary relatively educational, talking through what is happening in the film will help the viewer to understand better. Also, there are interviews from different people giving different opinions therefore we see the different thoughts amongst the boys.