24th March 2011

Today we all decided to sit down and discuss the project as a group. As we lost a member of the group due to unfortunate circumstances we felt we needed to come together and discuss the project. We all agreed that we weren't as far ahead in the task as we'd like to have been, infact we were behind. We sat down and made a list of everything that we still had to do, then made a final plan that showed the order. A check-list was also made to ensure we completed every task as we had been doing random parts of the documentary without really thinking of the order or whether they were definitely good enough to use.

Filming - Interviews

We went into Weybridge High Street for some short interviews with the public. We asked them two questions about CCTV and their views on it. As expected their views were contrasting which is what we had hoped as a one sided argument is not what we wish to produce. The answers were short and we edited them in after the opening. The only problem we had with the footage is the background noise. As expected in a busy high street in the middle of the day there was a lot of traffic and other background noise. We tried to find a way on iMovie to reduce this but unfortunately there isn't one. These interviews may need to be re-done at another date.

Interview at Weybridge News & Wine

Last week we went into Weybridge again to have an interview with a local shopkeeper. He said we couldn't film him but we were able to record his voice. He did agree to the interview and answered all the questions we asked but didn't go into as much detail as we hoped.

We asked questions on their safety, the importance of CCTV in the area and if CCTV has affected their shop in any way.

Improvements To Make - Opening

The feedback we had received was extremely useful. From it we have decided we have a few minor adjustments to make, which are:
- The font of the title
- The volume of the music

It is simple to change how loud the music is in iMovie by simply adjusting it. It is important we are able to hear the narrator's speech clearly as shocking statistics are being presented. Finding a volume that people would be happy with is a simple task, however...
Changing the title font is an issue! Due to the transition we have chosen there is only one font the software allows us to use. Since others and ourselves are not happy with the font it provides we are trying to work around this. From the website http://www.cooltext.com we created the following image:

We plan to put this in the opening after the transition. The font we chose is what we feel most like the text that appears on CCTV cameras which is relevant to our documentary.

Unfortunately after trying this it didn't work as the gap between the transition and the image was a few second black screen which didn't look good. We decided to stick with the transition and leave the image.

The Opening Sequence

Here is the opening sequence completed. Unfortunately, as we didn't include parts from the storyboard and plan, it is shorter than we had originally planned. I feel that as it is shorter it keeps the audience enticed and gets straight to the point. We also replaced parts of the plan that were less obviously linked to CCTV such as including footage from the television show 'Big Brother'.

The Opening Voiceover

After having finished editing the transitions, videos and music of the opening it was time to finish it by adding the voiceov

er. After discussing with the rest of my group we decided that having a presenter could be a possibility when filming later interviews. We therefore decided that keeping the same voice throughout the documentary would keep a sense of continuity and it would seem more professional. We chose to use group member Cissie as the narrator as she is the most well spoken of us all with the most mature voice.

We had never used the school's microph

one before so we decided to make the most of the macbook's applications and tested it in GarageBand. The microphone had a mode specifically for voiceovers as it is a Yeti microphone. After adjusting the volume and a few tests of how close to be to the mic we were happy with the quality of playback.

From previous research we had done on the subject of CCTV we had a script prepared for the opening. We added more than enough facts to this script incase it was the original length we had planned - 30 seconds.

The voiceover was recorded straight onto iMovie and after testing it with different timings and saying different parts of the script with different sections of the opening we found what we thought was best. The final voiceover is on the video of the opening sequence which is in the post above.

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: