DOCUMENTARY EXPERIMENTATION
Experimentation is practicing your shots or testing out techniques that you may have no experience in doing or want to see whether it would fit into the project that you are making. By experimenting these you can decide whether you will use it in the final product or whether it doesn't fit and wasn't exactly what you wanted, giving you time to change the shot and to come up with something better. For my documentary I did a few forms of experimentation to decide whether the shots fitted into my documentary style and the overall outcome I wanted to create.
This is a short story that I filmed named Robotics in an experimentation to see if it was possible to provoke emotion to the audience from a first person view and could get a point across without any need to establishing shots. After filming this I decided this format of filming wouldn't work in my own documentary as I want the documentary to get a point across through a cinematic way and to be impactful. Another reason something like this wouldn't work for my documentary is because of my script and poetry over the top as it wouldn't fit with the overall tone of the video. If I did first person view for a documentary I feel like it would have to be consistent throughout the whole documentary to make sense and to keep the audience entertained. It also won't work for my documentary as I am doing the topic of perception, meaning I need shots that people will see from multiple views rather than the one the audience would be given through first person. Although this isn't a technique I will use it will be a good way of me knowing what shots to avoid getting to make the tone of the video more impactful to the audience rather than giving them one view and outlook on the documentary topic.
I also have done some lens whacking in the past which I can see what shots could be used for my documentary or similar shots to them. The Lens Whacking experimentation has helped me become more cinematic in shooting a video and what ways I could present emotions to the audience through lens whacking. These shots are something to keep in mind when filming my documentary as I may be able to apply something similar to my shots to make it provoke an emotion in the audience and to represent the meaning of the video in a powerful way. Lens whacking could be used in my documentary to represent religion which would be a cinematic way of visually representing the topic to the audience whilst strongly getting the point across to the audience. This video is a good reminder for me and is a good example of the experience I have gained in which I could create these shots in a similar style but in a much more cinematic way and another way to provoke emotions in the audience.
I also experimented with some of my shots before filming them like the images shown as I needed to work out the lighting for certain shots. The first image I experimented with as I was going to use it as a shot but also wanted to see what angle of the light I would need for another shot I will be filming similar to it, helping me understand how to film the shot and how to get the correct look that I wanted to apply into my documentary. I tested it in my own bedroom as the walls are a dark blue and my curtains block out all the light, myself doing this late at night, to block out any other forms of light to get the best possible outcome for the shot.
I also tested the drawing scene before filming the video, myself wanting to make sure that it worked well and that I could get good enough shots. I did a shot of it whilst drawing in pencil and one in pen to make sure that the camera could pick up either, pencil working better with the lighting as the pen made it look to sharp and harsh whereas the pencil made it look softer and more imaginative. I also thought about colours but decided that the black and white of the pencil and paper would fit best for the shot I wanted to complete. Although I used these experimentations as actual shots, they also helped me understand the lighting much better before going and filming more shots for my documentary, helping me plan the process and what I needed to gather; what would need lighting.
Overall my experimentation will help make the filming process much more smooth and will help me understand which shots I can use and which to avoid. This will help me keep my poetic documentary well planned out and aesthetically pleasing as these two will keep the video on the tracks throughout the production process. It will helped me keep focused on my documentary and to hone in on what shots I will be using rather than struggling to come up with a detailed shot when put into a storyboard.
