music style.rock music

At the end of our project, we may use some rock music to create a exciting, passion, get action environment when the video saying to support our campaign and sign up a petition, so that to weak up the audience and make them get exciting to take action to the issues. There are tones of Rock music we can choose. In this case, I think one of Pink’s rock song name “I am not dead” may fit in our project as the intro is quite exciting and the first two lyric has mention about cracks which what we against.

description text on the black ground

Thinking we could have some screen that shows some points, description or questions with the black background which presents the information and highlights the points or questions contract to the black background, so that to catch the audience’s attention.

Examples of this can be seen through the “mini-documentary: We are the world”, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmpNflAXyDw and Literacy Empowers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfQEC029caw

The questions and points shows in the Literacy Empower is powerful to shocks the audience as it use yellow color text contact to the black background which catch the audience’s attention and makes the question, information effective remembrance.

Will Neethling interview questions

These were the questions asked to Mr. Neethling -mining structural engineer and safety surveyor- for our interview

- How long have you been in this profession?

- Could you explain to us briefly what coal seam gas mining and its purpose?

- Do you think this mining process should be conducted near densely populated areas/ large water supply facilities?

- If you were to live near a CSG mining site, would you feel concerned about your safety?

-This method has been trialled in the US with disastrous results, what do you think is the main safety issue with CSG and is there any way to make it safer?

- Are the current Australian regulations are tight enough to ensure complete safety? What is your opinion about them?

- How do other branches of the mining industry differ from the dubious practices that arise from the CSG mining field? Are regulations different?

-Why wasn’t the community involved in the decision of approving these CSG mining projects?

-Who is responsible for allowing the current situation to develop to this stage?

- As an expert, what would be your recommendations for the CSG mining industry? Should it be scrapped altogether or are there ways to make the practice safe?

Interview Questions

These are the updated and reviewed questions that were asked during our interview with the residents

- Are you a local resident?

- What do you know about coal seam gas mining?

- Do you know the effects and causes of coal seam mining?

- Do you find it hard to gain knowledge about the issue?

- What do you know about the projects going on just down the road (pointing in the direction of the mining site)?

- What do you think about CSG mining sites near residential areas?

- The government has already approved several projects to go on in your area , how do you feel about it?

- Did you feel involved in the decision of approving these mining projects?

- Are you satisfied with the coverage provided by the media?

- Do you feel the issue has gone quiet? If so, why?

- A vast number of project will be undertaken near the Warrangamba dam which holds 80% of Sydney’s drinking water supply, how do you feel about that?

- Do you want this project to go on?

- Would you support our petition against CSG mining?

How to include the audio interview in the documentary

Since the interview I conducted with Will Neethling consist only of audio, I thought the best way to use it was to overdub some of his answers and statements over the images that would otherwise be accompanied by a narration. This would successfully incorporate his contribution into our documentary

The audio interview

A few days ago I had the pleasure of interviewing Will Neethling, a mining safety surveyor and structural engineer with more than 20 years experience in the field. Although he does not specialize in coal seam gas mining, his contribution was extremely helpful for our project in the sense that he gave us the depth of knowledge that not only we needed, but also helps in bolstering the authority of our documentary and confirm the findings that our research has come to. The interview lasted 27 minutes and was a very pleasant conversation that ranged across all aspects of mining, compared the different industries and regulations and also came to key points such as when Mr. Neethling stated that he would be "very worried" if he happened to live near one of the areas affected by CSG mining. Further on, when I informed him about the fact that several project were to be undertaken near the Warragamba Dam (which holds 80% of Sydney's drinking water) he almost sounded amused by how absurd the situation was, asking "and what about when the rocks fracture and methane gas and chemicals are released into the reservoir? or if the reservoir actually drains, disappearing underneath the rocks?". It was very important for our project to have such an authority to agree with the findings of our research. Unfortunately time constraints will prevent us from using more than a minute or so of his contribution, but it was nonetheless a very interesting interview to conduct

The editing of the questions

While in the process of editing, I noticed that many questions were asked in a manner that could come across as verbose, a bit too indirect. Sometimes the odd stuttering came up as well, and this did not help in terms of time. In fact, many questions that could have been asked in 2-3 seconds sometimes took closer to 10 to formulate. This happened also because of the informal atmosphere we wanted to maintain with the people we interviewed: it allowed them to relax and be more open in their answers. Nonetheless, there was a need to save time to stay within the 10 minutes limit. Therefore, the following editing decision has been made: in the documentary, the questions would be written on a black frame in white text. This way, the viewer can read the question in its clear and direct format, and still get the answer obtained with the informal approach. The question would stay on screen for around 3 seconds, enough time to be red comfortably, and it will be followed by the answer footage, edited and cut were suitable to respect the time limit. In fact, every interview we got was at least 7 minutes long therefore some cutting was imperative!

Why not following the script by the book has proved effective

If one has a chance to see our unedited versions of the interviews, he will soon realize that allowing people to talk freely without making them feel constrained to a set format helps in a major way to build a sort of personal connection that, ultimately, allows us to get a more interesting interview and end up talking about several interesting things that were not previously considered. This technique also helps to avoid the feared 'yes' or 'no' answers. People were actually happy to talk and discuss the things we pointed out to them. Furthermore, the situation was always under control since I knew the fundamental questions that needed to be asked, and would find a suitable moment to throw a couple here and there, which were then edited together according to the script format we decided to follow

The questions

Despite trying to follow the script as we planned, we found that sometimes it can be pretty hard! People end up connecting on a personal level with us, they talk, they ask questions back, they engage in discussion and tell us about personal experiences. As an interviewer it would be rude to interrupt them and steer back the conversation exclusively on the areas we want to cover. Furthermore, it would make the interviewee unhappy and feeling like he is somehow acting a part. Therefore we succeeded at keeping the conversations between some set boundaries, but we had to 'relax' our script a little bit. We asked all the fundamental questions that we needed for the actual final documentary, but did not get too fussed about covering in detail every planned question. Those can be mostly found in the unedited versions of the interviews.

The interviews

We wanted to focus on the people's expressions, reactions and emotions while filming. For this reason we try to frame their face as often as we can, in what can be defined a close-up shot.
Nonetheless, to keep the documentary dynamic we sometimes vary the shots and the cameraman could switch between a close up and a mid shot for example, including the interviewer (me) and some landscape to be framed in the shot. This technique is effective particularly when children are involved, as it highlights the concerns that parents have for their well-being. It also helps the viewer to feel empathy for the people living in the proximity of the mining site, but at the same time it sparks reflection upon the fact that every Sydney resident is involved, this issue is very broad and affects millions of people like the ones we interviewed

The city and the mining site

During the discussion about were to film our project, we opted for St. Peters since this place is very close to the city and people had no idea such a project could be undertaken near a densely populated area. People generally were shocked when made aware of this issue and we wanted to transmit this feeling through our movie. To enhance the need of urgently act to stop these projects, we decided to show the public really how close to the CBD the mining site is. We found a suitable hill in Sydney park and used a long shot of the city, subsequently zooming out and into the mining site on our right. The camera movement is quite limited and the viewer really realizes how close it is.

Filming style

While we were filming we were confronted with situations were we had to film from the car, hence the images being a bit shaky and blurry, sometimes with the odd reflection on the car windows. While I initially considered to get rid of those shots, I realized during the editing process that they add a pleasant "guerrilla style" atmosphere to the movie so I decided to keep some of them to interlace within the all movie

A few cinematography theoretical things to remember

At the heart of film industry, filmmaking is shooting - but cinematography is more than the mere act of photography. It is the process of taking ideas, actions, emotional subtext, tone and all other forms of non-verbal communication and rendering them in visual terms.
(page ix, Brown,2002)

Good composition reinforces the way in which the mind organizes information. In some cases it may deliberately turn counter to how the eye/brain combination works in order to add a new layer of meaning or ironic comment. Compositions selects and emphasizes elements such as size, shape, order, dominance,hierarchy, pattern,resonance and discordance in ways which give meaning to the things being photographed that beyond the simple "here they are".
(page 30, Brown 2002)

Visual balance is an important part of composition. Every element in a visual composition has a visual weight. These may be organized into a balanced or unbalanced composition.
(page 31, Brown 2002)

Brown, B. 2002, "Cinematography:theory and practice: imagemaking for cinematographers...", Elsevier Science,USA

"With old photographs it is often as useful to imagine why the picture is shot and styled in a certain way, as this puts one`s thinking into the mind of the original photographer and you can begin to feel more of the mood of the times. "
(p.11, Wheeler, 2005)

Wheeler, P. 2005,"Practical cinematography", second edition, Focal Press, Burlington MA

St. Peters shots

During footage time, I am as cinematographer took images of nearby locations that also will appeared in the documentary film:

First fence in a way to St Peters suburb, look pretty suspicious.

"Zoom in" for the better understanding of what is going on

 Sign of the protest against of CSG. Close up style.

 Panoramic of the park entrance on the footage this image look more wider and also show both side perspective that out of picture here.

 Nearby residence. CSG located less than 200 near backyards of these houses. On a footage this perspective also portrayed wider.

 Another bunch of signs in a very long shot style with yellow sign in a straight perspective and vivid exposure.

 Park side, CSG perspective that was taken by zooming method.

 Protest signs near park. Zoom in perspective with controlled exposure.

 CSG in action filmed from the fence.

"Guerilla style" of the CSG footage.

 

All pictures was taken bu Daria Shevtsova (Daria-Dafna) as a part of assignment and cinematography approach. 

Documentary style - theoretical brief - relation to our major project

As it was already mentioned in recent posts, we decided to create a documentary style of the film for the major project.

The reason why  we chose particular style lie in our social awareness campaign. The major topic for our campaign is a CSG and mining industry that established water fracking project in Sydney, particularly investigative place is St.Peters.

Generally documentaries are made for facing issues in the media and within government policies. In other words, it is quite powerful tool to operate with, because of that such documentary style exists "to show and tell the truth"(Merin, viewed 27/04/2011)

Moreover,"if there is anything in the real world you're interested in, there is probably a documentary film to show and tell you more about it."(Merin, viewed 27/04/2011) in this case our documentary will be quite innovative, especially because we highlight topic about water fracturing in Sydney.

Another reason as well as advantage of choosing documentary style for the major project is: "audiences find them a more interesting and credible source of information than what's produced by most mainstream media outlets that have cut their long form reportage and concentrate more and more on news fluff rather than on news substance. "(Merin, viewed 27/04/2011)

 As a result, documentary style is not only appropriate and suitable for us as a students but also appeal our target audience which is the most important.

References:

"Documentaries 101. The Basics About Documentary Films", Merin J, http://documentaries.about.com/od/introtodocumentaries/a/docintro.htm , viewed: 27/04/2011

A few thoughts about Cinematography

For the recent assignment as a cinematographer I decide to cover topics which connect with Visual Style and Editing process of it.

In my treatment I will cover relation between all footage that we have and the way how we will construct it.

Moreover, I believe that cinematography approach generally is visual area  as well as tool that clarify and organize images in right order to get the most simple picture of what crew did and for what reason.

In other words, cinematography is a tool to produce all issues on a technical level. As a result, it`s a connection between camera techniques and final product - how these two terms collaborate with each other.

Moreover, cinematography is some kind of checking system before camera work started.

However, for some directors this term means more than just Visual Style.

To look at the major part of the contemporary movies can be the same as looking at pictures (photographs) exhibition.

Cinematography is no longer theory it is already practice.

Basically, every human being prefer to look at visual content instead of listening to much of voice or read from the screen. The reason why is because film industry based on entertainment. All of us prefer watching something on TV after busy day at work, major part of people who are stuck in something prefer to pay attention on something usual for a while and after saving energy get into issues that faced to them again.

Films help us to forget about daily problems for a bit. However, all of them are the symbiont of different aspects such as: voice recording, particularly video content and images. If those three collaborated equally such things pay lots of attention.

On the other hand, the basis for the good of the movie is a high qualified cinematography.

music.country style

In our project, we can use some relax, brisk country music when we driving to investigate the issues around the mining site, because the shots of the tree and grass on both side of the road are giving a view of beautiful, health environment. The relaxed, brisk country music creates a health lively feeling connected to the beautiful environment. It also compare to the sad, tragic music with the polluted distorted environment which interact to the audience’s emotion.

“Valder fields” is an good example that we may use, because this is an Aussie song with country style and it’s creates happy, relax emotion to the audience when they look at the beautiful Aussie environment. It also makes the audiences feel responsibility to protect their beautiful land.

Shot styles and content

As far we close to our filming day as much ideas appeared during discussions.

After, we finalize interview style and all possible results that we can get, we also start to think about other content that will be in our documentary.

First of all, we decide to take a few shots of the St. Peters locations: local residence, playgrounds, panorama of the park, signs against of CSG ( if it will be any of it). However, the most "precious" footage for us is a water fracking process or preparations of it in a progress, but we are not quite sure that it will be anything like that in a St.Peters.

Moreover, as Vieri shared film "GasLand" with us which is, no doubt, the major source of inspiration for us we decide to take a few pieces from it.

On the other hand, if we decide to take it we need to ask for permission from company that produce and distribute "GasLand" , Vieri said that he will resolve this problem, hopefully we will get permission to used.

The reason why we wont to use lie into shocking evidences that this film have and what we want to prevent in the Sydney.

Interviews , shot styles

As I mentioned in previous posts about interviews I came up with a few ideas of how interviewee should located on a screen.

First of all, due to the weather conditions in St.Peters, which is quite windy area, I think, all people whom we will interviewed should be filmed in a Mid Shot (MS) perspective as the most suitable for the people, not to be confused, as the most appropriate for us. The reason why is because our audience expect to see faces of interviewees clearly and without any interferences (for example flying hair or whatever it can be).

However, Vieri, who is our director of the filming crew and pluralistically, interviewer (as we already decided once on the weekly meeting) will ask question : Do you have anything to say to the government?" or something like that ^.^"

 Anyway, in this case our cameraman Eddie will "zoom in" the person (interviewee) face until Medium close-up (MCL) or Close up (CU) style of the shot, but the last one will depend on a weather conditions during filming day.

About ideas

During last week ( Week 8) we came up with a few fresh ideas about what should we record for the ending part. Dora(officially Doralynn) suggest to film all of us saying NO in a different, fast-moving shots. From my cinematographer perspective I think about Medium Close-up shots (MCL) of that ending part. On my opinion, such shots will focus enough on the mouth part which is the area that should be highlighted and show to the watcher what particular person try to express.

Moreover, this method will effectively send a message to the viewer as well as our personal opinion about current situation in a mining industry just through one word NO that simultaneously means that we against of water fracking method and try to put in our social awareness campaign as much personal effort (attitude) as it possible.

Also, I think if we filming and all of us will express different emotions instead just telling NO!!!!! in aggressive or harsh way (for example 0.o) this can bring to the viewer sense of personalization - connection that person on a screen try to develop with the viewer and also will look pretty catchy that increase popularity of our video on a YouTube, at least =**.

All in all, we will discuss it thoroughly later and I will take test shots (images) of all four (at least three :D).

What is more, we may decide to do shots from Medium Close-up through the Big Close-up (BCU) to Extreme Close-up (ECU). However, I will not be satisfied with this, because neither it shows our level of filming but spread viewers` attention on a something that should not be mention by ordinary watcher at all. 

As a result it`s better to avoid it.

About sources

For cinematography approach, I will look through the bunch of different sources as for future assignments and for getting "into" cinematography area, particularly. Moreover, I will collect links and references (all kind of it) and try to discuss them as the film creation progresses.

So far, I got first document from our teacher. Toula gave me document about shot sizes from book "Guide to video production". The whole document explains standard terminology of shot sizes  which used on television and, in our case, appropriate for interviews in documentary.

Moreover, for me, this document will help to understand and distinguish between different shots and their meanings as well as what kind of value every shot bring for the viewer. In other words, it will help to predict first impression and construct it in a way we want it.

As for the future research in relation to the cinematography I will try to find information which similar to my first source of information. Otherwise, I want to find something such vivid and simple for understanding.

music style.blue

At the beginning, we could use some soft, blue style music when the video present the polluted environment in New York, because the blue and soft style music presents the feeling of sad and tragic which makes a strong connection to the environmental destruction in New York. The background music use in the Literacy Empowers is an example of a smooth sad song to create a sad, pity feeling in audience’s mind. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfQEC029caw

Blue in the heaven is a song that may suit to use in our project which to genera the sad and pity feeling for the polluted environment in New York.

sounds of the opening and ending sence1

At the beginning or the ending of the project, we could use some heavy, exploding sounds to shocks the audiences. It has the similar feeling as the “Supernatural intro”, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHl_WW6jm7E&feature=related.

As an awareness campaign, I think these kinds of sound are very effective to makes the audience aware the aim of the campaign. In our project, we can use these sounds when the “no” and “know” is appear at the end of the project to imprint the awareness of the issues in audience’s mind.

sounds of the opening and ending sence

I think the audience could be engaging more with the short breaking, effective sound when the pictures appear. For example, the sound of taking pictures is appearing with each picture. At the beginning of the documentary “Life In Prison: A Project Envision Documentary” has provide pictures with effective sound, and it really catching audience’s attention. I think it would be a good example to use in our project. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alcK_QBE7h8

pictures in the project

For the pictures of the polluted New York, and CSG mining, we can use different shots or panning to shows different part of the picture so that to makes it more engaged to the audience. There is an example from the “Gas land” documentary.  

The other thing is that we could turning the pictures from color to black and white which create a serious and heavy mood to makes the audience get shock and catch their attention. It also emphasize that the mining and pollution was happened in New York.

Gangster Types And Tough Guys is a video that use black and white image, we can see how shocked and catch you attention when it change to present some screen of bright color. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RMEL-WCrPI