Making the opening sequence

We had planned the opening sequence thoroughly including our powerpoint which is posted in a previous post and with a storyboard.

Using pictures we had taken at school and footage we previously filmed in London we began to edit the opening using the mac program iMovie. A large number of the shots were slightly shaky but using the stabilisation tool we were able to sort this out. We placed the clips in iMovie in a random order to add variety - for example; we didn't want two crowd shots next to each other. We sped up, cut, cropped and muted shots until we had a sequence we were happy with. One shot we were particularly happy with was a zoom in to a CCTV camera but unfortunately it was incredibly shaky. We then decided to re-film this shot at Weybridge station a few days later and edited it in. We were much happier with this shot and felt the sequence flowed nicely. Here is a screenshot of speeding up the new CCTV shot:

It was then time to add some transitions. From our previous knowledge of documentaries we had noticed a pattern - beginning with a cross blur. We took advantage of picking this up and added it to the beginning of our sequence so that it blurred into a shot of a crowd walking down oxford street. After testing a few transitions for the ending we found Lens Flare. This transition then leads to the title of our documentary 'Caught On Camera'.

Filming Schedule, Filming & More

As me and asia have jobs we felt it was important to make a filming schedule so that we knew when we were all availbale to film. The filming schedule will ensure we don't rush the filming as it is nicely spread out accross many dates. We also ensured we knew exactly where to film.

We took pictures of CCTV cameras all round our school. These will be useful for just putting in places of the documentary at a later date.

We filmed shots of CCTV in London - Specifically: Abbey Road and Oxford Street.

Inside the station we also filmed a television screen showing CCTV and another CCTV camera.

The shots filmed in London were unfortunately all shakey as we didn't take a tripod. Hopefully we will be able to edit this in iMovie. The shots in Oxford Street of the crowd (inspired by an image we found online) turned out well. We plan to speed up the pace though as the crowd was walking quite slowly. It shows the sheer amount of people in the street and the amount of people who are being caught on CCTV just by walking down a street in London. We planned to film in Abbey Road as we knew from a website online (http://www.camvista.com/england/london/beatles_abbey_road_webcam.php3) that there was CCTV there that was able to be viewed by anyone online. We thought we could use this in the documentary as it is quite a controversial thing to be happening.

There is also a peice of grafitti on a wall in London by the artist Banksy that we plan to use in the documentary that says "One nation under CCTV". It looks like this:

Presenting to the class

We made a powerpoint presentation with our ideas for the opening sequence of the documentary. This included images that looked like the shots we wanted which we found on google images. We then presented it to the class and filmed it. We hadn't informed the class of our idea before and we wanted feedback on it. We presented the powerpoint and then had a few minutes for people to ask questions and for us to answer them. The session was a success and we found it very helpful, especially as people liked and were interested by our idea. Just from this short powerpoint people were shocked by our topic.

Here is the powerpoint presentation that we used:

Powerpointpresentation cctv-101017103309-phpapp02

View more presentations from 4cmackenzie.

Practicing with the camera

Today in our lesson we got to practise interview techniques with a digital camera. Just using my group members we were able to film a few shots. To begin with we wrote down 3 questions - related to our topic of CCTV. We then wrote down shots we wanted to experiment with. These were:
1. Anonymous (where you do not see the person being interviewed's identity)
2. Two person shot (the interviewer and interviewee)
3. Interviewee talking (where you do not hear the question)
4. Just the interviewee (where you hear the question but do not see the interviewer)

We filmed these and made them into a short video which you are able to view below. I found this task very helpful as it showed what shots we wanted to use. For our documentary I feel that the anonymous style is not needed. I do feel that just the interviewee being in the shot is the best option.

ITV Documentaries

Fearne and..
Today I watched a documentary on ITV called 'Fearne and...'. Each episode she meets a different celebrity and does a documentary on them including an interview. She is lucky as she is able to follow the celebrity during a normal day of their life with a camera man. Fearne Cotton is the presenter and she has done documentaries for ITV before including one about online ProAna websites which was very controversial and became a big topic in the news.
The episode I watched was on Perez Hilton. He owns a gossip website which puts up pictures of celebrity sitings and rumours. The structure of the documentary was very good beginning with Fearne explaining Perez Hilton and then his past. It included quotes, pictures and statistics on the screen while she commentated which was a very good technique as it kept the viewers interested.

Final documentary idea - CCTV

We then decided on the final idea - CCTV. We felt it was the most interesting for us and other people, especially in this day and age where it is being spoken about often in the press. We feel as it is such a controversial subject it will be a successful documentary.

Documentary Ideas

It was time to start planning our documentary so, as a group, we all contributed ideas of what the documentary could be about. There were loads which we put into a mind-map, we then discussed which were the best and most interesting as it is important we are interested in the subject. These ideas included:

Plastic Surgery

CCTV

Teenage Pregnancy

Dog Walkers (How dog owners look like their pets)

Wildlife in Weybridge

Rise in University Fees