FILMING PROCESS OF DOCUMENTARY

For the past couple of weeks I have been going out and filming my documentary. I have had to gather voice actors, actors and find locations that would fit in with the topic that I am filming from my documentary and would express emotions to the audience, myself having to choose carefully to find the best aesthetic shots at each location.

Filming voice actors was the most simplest part of recording my documentary as all I had for equipment was a tascam that I used to capture the voice. I managed to find willing voice actors, Alice Deverill, Goncalo Santos Ganga, Sarah Cooke, Harry MoorCroft, Frank and Helen Sloper, who were happy to read my script and allow me to use their voices in the video. I was lucky enough to film in person with five of the voice actors, being able to direct them in their voice acting, telling them if they needed to speak slower or possibly louder to be as clear as possible so the audience could easily understand them. Sarah was reliable and sent me her own audio which she recorded at home as she also studies TV and Film but at a different college, the audio being crisp and easy to hear. I also did some voice acting myself as I wanted myself to start and end the video for the audience to hear a familiar voice. The decision of multiple voices was an important decision and one I made because my topic is about perception so when the audience hears different voices, they will be perceiving what who the voice may belong to and what they look like, the audience not realising what they are doing until further into the video. All of the actors that I got the pleasure to film with in person followed my directions well and executed their parts perfectly for how I wanted them to read it. I wanted the voices to portray different personalities of different people and how they speak about a situation, all of the voice actors with very different voices portraying this in a simplistic way to the audience.

Filming at the lake was the most simple and easy location to film at as there wasn't much to film but what I did film was important, such as people fishing and in boats. Because I hadn't visited this location before a lady came up to me and helped me find the best places to film in the area as her daughter studies photography and she also studied it herself at college and gave me some tips for the area. This was helpful as I could get better shots than those I had originally planned and she also helped me find the path to get down to the river to get close up shots of the events going on that I couldn't get close to originally. I had my parents drive me to the location so I could film the documentary, my mum taking the photo shown of me doing the camera work for some of the shots. My parents were interested in the filming process and were happy to come along to film the documentary.

One of the voice actors, Alice Deverill, was also happy to be recorded for the documentary and met up with me on a weekend to film the video. She followed my directions to the exact point and helped portray the character I wanted for the section about body language. I was originally going to film in a different location with graffiti but Alice mentioned this location, both of us agreeing on this location as it had never crossed my mind when planning and because it was in the natural light rather than in a darker location which may of added grain to my shot. Alice was happy to redo shots and took the shoot seriously, following my directions and when I wasn't descriptive enough she would ask me again to see how she should perform to get it as accurate as possible. We also found a woods on the way that we took the opportunity of filming in as the colours of the leaves were in perfect colour for the time of year the documentary was filmed, the autumn feel being brought to the documentary.

The most difficult part for me whilst filming this documentary was filming out in public as I am naturally un-confident and didn't want to draw attention to myself whilst filming this documentary. This is an issue I need to work on as it made it difficult to get any close up shots of people naturally rather than the actors I used, but this documentary helped me to understand the situation better and to not take as much notice to those that looked at me whilst out filming. Finding the shots I needed out in public was difficult to find but I did manage to find the shots I needed and even some that I didn't plan. A shot I didn't plan was the two police officers on horses speaking to homeless people, myself stumbling onto this occasion and taking the opportunity to film it for my documentary. Some I did manage to find that I planned was the lady sat on the bench by herself and a man pushing a buggy rather than a woman.

Overall, filming the documentary went very smoothly as the actors I had understood the topic that I was focusing and could follow my directions well. I also knew all of the actors very well, knowing their backstories from many years of friendship and knowing where they would fit into the video. The actors I used were suitable for the scenes I gave them and all acted out very well, the children even working to understand what I was recording and performing at their best. The locations were also perfect for the tone that I wanted to put across to the audience, helping them understand the topic as the location provokes one emotion and the character in the location can provoke another.