Synergy is not a process which is used a lot by minor movie companies creating these short films, reason being it can be an expensive process. Having said this it is possible to promote your film using free sources, this is mainly through social media and YouTube. The synergy processes are rather limited, also because companies usually are not able use cross media convergence to help promote themselves as the a independents with lower financial budgets. I have a link to a Prezi I created myself, trying to showcase some examples of synergy for a short film called "The Phone Call" and discuss a little bit about what we are hoping to do for our product.
Together with our final documentary piece, we will be presenting a post card relating to our product and also a website with information about the film. To better understand what these two thing include I looked at some typical conventions you would find of similar examples. By the way, the title is supposed to be analysis of film festival post cards not conventions.
There are many conventions that make a documentary what it is. I will explain some of these very common conventions in the following post. A documentary is defined as; a recording of an event , generally based on peoples perspectives and/or genuine facts.
Voice over- Usually in documentaries there will be a narrator, the point of this is to explain specific points to your audience and encourage them into thinking they have some specialist knowledge. It is important to use a clear and understandable voice so audiences can be convinced and are able to acknowledge the information being shown to them.
Real Footage- Documentaries are seen as non-fiction, although some people disagree. However the convention is that real footage is used at least have the audience convinced it is real. When making the documentary a lot of time is spent trying to ensure the audience the footage is real, but this can be hard as editing and voice overs often make it seem unreal.
Interviews- These are a significant part of documentaries, as audiences tend to believe experts within the issue being presented, interview with experts are often conducted. This backs up information in the documentary, makes it seem like a legit issue and provides producers with more detail. Victims and people trying to solve the issue are also often used in order to put real life stories behind the facts being presented.
Text- Facts, opinions and statements are often presented throughout the documentary in text over the screen. When using this it is important to have clear and readable text and have it smoothly edited in.
Sound- It is important to use real sounds, relating to the events again to try and create a sense of realism, same goes for the lighting. Background music and other sounds are also used to try bring out a point, for example in the famous documentary 'Supersize Me' they use very childish music to try and put down McDonald's are a kids restaurant.
We intend to follow many of these conventions in our product. Interviews are going to be a major part of our piece, this includes victims and experts, we want to have both real time and planned interviews. We will also be backing a lot of the things we say in the film up with facts, we are going to use text for this which is very conventional. We want to find someone with a very calm voice to do the voice over as well as this is vital to explanatory documentaries. We want to be a bit unconventional with our sound track as we want to make it a bit more up beat and happy since we feel our audience would enjoy this more.
This documentary is called sugar rush and is by Michael McMullan 2014.
he documentary is about diabetes, how people become
diabetic, how they live with it and treat it in order to reduce the long term
effects. This is very similar to what we wish to produce.
Some of these shots seen in the documentary are:
Close up action shots, of the mans features and face - This shows how the man is feeling about being effected
by diabetes, you can tell his face expression is rather sad
Med and pov shots of his actions - The POV shots and medium shots of his actions helps
the audience understand what struggles has to go through everyday
Medium shot of him sitting being interviewed - This shot is used to
have the interviewee only being showed, it helps the audience understand who the
speaker is
A lot of diabetes equipment is used - Indicates the specifics of diabetes, audience becomes
aware of how these instruments are used
Tracking shots of diabetes facility - Helps set the various locations and highlight specific areas
Cartoon showing the diabetes processes - It is easier for the
audience to understand what the process is by displaying it in a cartoon.
The story is very informative, you start by learning
about the issues the man is going through and how he has gotten the disease.
Many experts and doctors are used to help explain the situation for the
audience, a dominant voice by the main character keeps coming back where he
moves onto the next step in the film. We then go from the problems to seeing
what advances there has been in the technology and treatment, together with
this people affected by the diesease how they live with it and what life changes
they have gone through. A lot of people are displayed in the film, young, old,
male, female and many ethnic groups. This helps the audience understand that
everyone can be effected with the disease. There is a lot of reflection for the
audience, they become aware of the issues and help prevent future implications
There is no continuity editing is this film, it Is very
common in the documentary genre. There
are a lot of direct interviews used, both ones which are rehearsed plus live
ones with unprepared guests. There is a pattern where you see a point being
made then followed up by actual people affected by it explain how they made it
through this process. Transitions are rather obvious when it goes from different
shot to different shot, especially when text is displayed. Some visual effects
are used, especially when the cartoons are displayed early on, these will have
to be created and edited in.
A slow paced background song which is very relaxing
but at some times picks up the pace. No use of sound effects and except from
the background track all the sound is diegetic. The slow music helps the audience be interested by not
get distracted. It doesn’t play a major part in the film but is still important
to keep the audience attracted and not bored.
The documentary has a lot of features from expository documentaries,
examples are the interviews. These types of documentaries mainly attempt to expose
either a person or topic, in this case it is living with diabetes.
A brief summary of the documentary would be: Introduction to the health effects and signs of
diabetes
How are people living with these disruptions in their
life and how do they personally cope with the various problems
What does the future hold for diabetes and what
research is going into trying to cure and treat the disease better
I like how this documentary in only 10 minutes is able
to cover all the aspects of diabetes, you learn a lot of about what it is like
to live with diabetes. After every problem they are able to relate it back to
an actual person who explain how they coped with this problem. After all the
negatives I like the introduction to the diabetes organization and the run, I
like this because in the following videos and interviews you see all the types
of people who are affected by diabetes it helps you understand that everyone is
under threat and I felt this was a really strong message. There possibly was a
bit of bias present, since the main story was also the director but I don’t think
this was very view able.
This documentary is called "What do I desire?" and is a nominated short documentary by Naseh Jrab.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNxDmWNVSNw
The film was nominated for:
Best Picture, Best National Picture, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Sound and Best Poster.
It opens up with a Steve Maraboli quote, “Cemetries are full of unfulfilled dreams… countless echoes of ‘could have’ and ‘should have’… countless books unwritten… countless songs using… I want to live my life in such a way that when my body is laid to rest, it will be a well needed rest from a life well lived, a song well sung, a book well written, opportunities well explored, and a love well expressed” It starts out, typically like many documentaries involving social problems with a quote. The quote is meant to get the audience thinking about a certain issue relating back to the main topic. You leave this up for a bit, really so the audience can start asking questions in their heads. The documentary talks about what you really want to be when you grow up. This is tackling another social issue, they talk a lot about whether you are actually doing what you want to do with your life or if you're doing what you've grown up being told what to do.
The narrating then begins, it is a very dull voice at first speaking rather slowly, combining this with the opening images of a sad boy and the slow music creates a depressed mood. The narrating is very direct, as if they are speaking straight to the audience asking them to do things and visualize certain realities, this again is to try and make the matter appear really important and it easily catches the attention of the audience. Many rhetorical questions are always asked to keep the audience thinking.
Generally there is just dark lighting in the intro combined with close ups of the kid in order for the audience to understand the issue. Mostly the narration fits with the shots, action shots of what is being said are constantly being shown.
For example when the statement about money: "what if money wasn't an object"
The story develops quickly from being about the general to becoming very personal, the narrator talks about his own problems and what he went through. This then again gets related back to the general social issue, this is done so the audience can see that this issue is a common problem and is done by adding a real life situation. The narrator keeps relating to situations you experience everyday, especially as a student and keeps asking questions to whether you are actually doing what you enjoy.
The way this story is developed is to bring the audience through an emotional journey, they are made to understand the size of this issues through a mix of statements relating to their everyday and stories being told about the narrators life. The background music picks itself up through the film, this is also as the mood changes and becomes more inspirational. Statements are made saying what you should do, shots are always more inspirational now giving the audience hope.
Statement reads: "Its better to have a short life that is full of what you love doing, than a long life spent in a miserable way"
This type of documentary attempts to expose either a person or a topic. This is a classic type of documentaries and involves a picture playing with someone narrating over it or explaining the story as it goes along. Main conventions of expository documentaries are to base them on facts and personal opinions, the video will involve rhetorical questions in order to try and persuade the audience. They often refer to a specific historic event or person, the commentator will speak directly to the audience meanwhile interviews or exclusive pictures are shown of the event or person.
Observational Documentary (Taylor)
For this type of documentary the equipment used can be informal, such as the use of handheld cameras. Usually there are no interviews in this type of documentary and also no voice overs. long takes are used in this type. an example of this would be MTV’s teen cribs
Reflexive and participatory Documentary (Abdul)
Participatory-This type of documentary employs interviews as testimonies from documentary subjects
Reflexive-This type considers the quality of the documentary itself by demystifying its process and considering the implications. In these types of documentaries they usually are involved with experiments where the viewer is just as interested about how they constructed the film than the actual content of it.
Poetic Documentary (Maya)
Poetic documentaries are known for having the music develope the tone and mode of the film,music plays a key role in these types of documents as they are usually personal to the people involved as well as the target audience.it emphieses some ascpets of life via music and other things such as camera angles and the editing, this is seen as an artistic way of documenting.
Here is the more specific mindmap towards our planned idea, we have categories called; Solutions/Support which is basically what organisations we will be in touch with and possibly interview. Issues, this should be small clips where we have researched specific elements that diabetes cause and why so many people are getting diabetes here. Filming locations and Film Titles are just some brainstormed ideas of where we could film some of our parts and what we should be calling our final piece.
This year I am grouping up with Abdul, Taylor and Maya. We are going to make a 5 min documentary about a social problem here in Qatar, this is both relating to our coursework but also to enter a film competiton here (THIMUN). We had a brainstorm, under here are our ideas;
Initially we had 3 main ideas, we looked at Diabetes, Differences in Arab upbringing and the treatment of animals. We decided to go on with Diabetes, simply because it is such a huge problem here, type 2 diabetes is so common therefore we know we can find loads of material and won't be running around finding ideas. We already have contact with leading doctors and the diabetes association here, through me being a type 1 diabetic I know many people willing to help spread the message about how much of an issue its becoming here.
