Group Presentation

We each took on one of the learning objectives to give a response to so we all had an input on the group presentation. Before we finalised anything, we all looked over each response and made some adaptations until we were all happy with it.

LO1 - Engagement with relevant researchfrom a range of reliable sources referencing contemporary and historical film and fine art practice in your reflective and creative journal
addressed by Luca

Lift is a short film about 25 minutes long, it's one man in a lift for about 10 hours a day filming residents that live in the building and capturing small interactions with them in a lift. As the documentary plays out you see a relationship form but more importantly we are drip fed information and personalities with different degrees of pace. Some of the contributors were slow to open up and others were very confident in front of the camera. How you view each person gradually shifts and becomes more positive, as the camera observes their quirks, humourous tales and friendly interactions with one another and the cameraman. The camera man manages to bring out the light in a lot of them and seemingly makes the community come together more in the process.

image from the Lift documentary

Our documentary is all about students coming into a community within their student house, and being put into a situation they’ve never been in before. As a group we thought the observational and participatory way of filming, that Lift incorporates, would fit best for how we would go about our documentary. Because Lift captures this informal and friendly persona from each of the contributors that we can hopefully replicate. With this in mind we stayed in the same house recording anything interesting that came our way, we started initially by stationing ourselves in the communal kitchen. We did this to build a sense of normality for our contributors with us filming, so that hopefully they would not feel like our filming was invading the private space of their rooms.

The difference between the lift film and ours in the sense of questions is that the camera man in the lift was asking total random questions which took the edge off it a bit, making it humorous and entertaining to watch. Our documentary, when it comes to questions, was more of a structured welcoming documentary, it was finding out more about the background of the individual and how they are finding their new housemates, positives and negatives of living in the student village but overall how a small community works together after only a few months of knowing each other.

Also, looking at influences such as Louis Theroux helped us to adapt the approach we had to asking the questions to our participants. Looking at the way he integrates himself into the lives of the people he’s interviewing, we noticed that he uses a very conversational style of interviewing, meaning that the participants feel comfortable around him and discussing their personal lives with him in such detail. Although we wanted to ask leading questions to encourage them to open up, we also wanted to try and keep it very conversational so they felt more comfortable, making it seem more natural and less serious and intense. Making sure our participants felt at ease with the interviews was key, which is why filming in their bedrooms was ideal as it’s somewhere that they would feel most comfortable.

LO2 - Records of conceptual development, evaluation, and considered decision-making in relation to the final project outcome
addressed by George

Initially Ben, Danielle and I spitballed ideas with each other during a class, just so that we would explore the limits to what community can be documented - Luca was not part of the group at this point but was added once we had a better idea in mind. We floated around multiple vague areas, such as sports teams as a community, Farnham heritage buildings that unite a community of locals together or even just how well the strangers of Farnham are connected. Though one idea we developed and pondered on the most was how, as students, we are forced to interact and make communities with strangers from all across the country and globe - first this idea started with focussing on a single course and how relations started and developed over the term. Though this idea was quickly tweaked to focus on the community of the student village, in which the first year students are placed into a completely new environments with a completely new housemates - which in itself is a very intricate dynamic for most.

With this idea came a lot of wishful scenarios and messages. We wanted to document how a community can form or potentially fall apart in such an odd scenario such as this - because in a few completely strangers are situated in a house to replicate a family dynamic so that they can settle into university. From the start we knew this wouldn't be smooth and envisioned potential arguments but before all this we had to decide a crucial element that would dictate the structure - Do we focus on multiple houses or one house in-particular. After multiple group discussions we decided to focus on one house and the relationship from the beginning of moving in till near the end of the first term.

Sadly we had to shelve one idea that focused mainly on personal possessions and use of the private space, in attempts to document individual students transitions from home to dormitories. Instead of this being a fully fledged idea we would incorporate this into potential pick up shots to capture the raw personalities and background of each contributor through the contents and appearance of their rooms alone.

Once we had done all our filming and presented a few of the clips to our tutor we then decided on the structure while overlooking all the clips. Upon doing so we crafted a sort of narrative for the flatmates varying rocky starts, to how they distanced apart and now reuniting for secret santa and Christmas dinner; in attempts to end the whole documentary on a lighter tone and positive things to come in the future for their relations.

LO3 - Evidence of core technical and creative skills demonstrated in the video and production pack
addressed by Ben
When filming and editing the documentary, there were certain techniques that were used to make the finished film easy and enjoyable to watch. One of the techniques used was the way in which we went about filming the housemates. We began by filming them in communal locations such as the hallways and the kitchen so that they could become familiarised with having a camera around the house constantly. We felt as though this approach was a lot more helpful as it meant that when we asked to film the housemates in their rooms then they wouldn’t feel alienated and would hopefully feel a bit more at ease which thankfully they did.

In the editing process of this film, there were a lot different tricks and techniques used to make the tempo of the film stay at a certain pace throughout. There were lots of rapid, quick cuts used at the start of the film; this was to give the viewer a quick introduction to each flatmate and as the film goes on, the shots are longer, giving a better insight to each person.

A technical method that was used whilst editing was overlaying audio tracks. When there was ‘dead air’ in a clip, I would start the audio of the next clip which was then shortly followed by the actual visuals. I did this so that the viewer didn’t have to experience any awkward silences and the viewing experience would be a lot smoother.

There was also a part in the edit in which Ben and Callum are singing a song together and the clip is recorded on an iPhone so we thought that it would be a good idea to download a filter of an old camcorder so that it looked like an old family video and would give off a more sensitive feel to the clip but unfortunately we were unable to find a downloadable effect, this is something that we will have to bear in mind for the future if we want to go for that certain look again.

screenshot of editing process

The structure that we had in mind was very important when editing; I think we did very well to achieve what we originally set out to do. We made it so that the beginning of the documentary is quite fast paced so that you quickly come to terms with who is who and where everyone is from. We then wanted to slow the pace of the whole film down.

LO4 - Evidence of effective communications with the production team and the community during the film-making process
addressed by Danielle
I'd say our group had particularly effective communication throughout the duration of this project. 
We set up a group chat on Facebook from day one, making sure we could keep in touch at all times. This allowed us to constantly be in discussion about ideas we were having, progression with these ideas and allowed us all to have an input on everything.

screenshot showing our group chat on Facebook

We also had several conversations on Skype when we needed to discuss ideas with each other. This was a major help because we were able to brainstorm with each other and sometimes actually having a discussion about something is easier than trying to type it all down.

screenshot of one of our Skype conversations

The use of technology was definitely helpful for our group keeping in contact daily, making sure we could all have input on everything that was going on. It also helped to keep us organised and in touch with each other if anything was going wrong, if anyone was going to be late or couldn't attend to meet or get to a shoot in time. 

Ben also has a group chat with his house, which were the chosen student house we filmed, therefore he was always in contact with them, asking when they were available and keeping up to date with their whereabouts. 

We also got a copy of all of their timetables so we knew when each housemate would be around to be interviewed. This was helpful as a group because it meant all the pressure didn't fall on Ben to be harassing his housemates to find out where they were or when they were going to be available.

a brief example of the timetables of housemates we were filming

With the use of technology we were able to keep in constant contact with everyone involved in the production. This was definitely helpful for us as it kept us organised and on schedule. We were definitely very organised in this sense.

LO5 - Effective time management through teamwork, punctuality, planning and submission of well-executed work.
addressed by Danielle
As a group, we worked really hard to stay punctual and have effective time management throughout the project. 
We quickly came up with a shoot timetable that we wanted to stick to, however after talking to all the students in the house we had to adapt it to work around their own individual timetables. 

the two schedules we came up with, the second one being the one we stuck to

The fact that we were in constant discussion as a group meant that we really worked well as a team, and the planning and submission of our work was really well thought out and done efficiently. 

There was clear teamwork and dedication to the project from the beginning, as myself, Ben and George were brainstorming before we even knew we could be grouped together. With so many ideas we had quickly found enthusiasm for the documentary we had hoped to make. This meant we wanted to make more time to sit down together and discuss ideas, brainstorm as a team and work towards creating a really professional documentary that we could all be proud of. 
Separating the work load also helped us to stay focused and make sure we could meet deadlines. With our shared google drive we would upload all the documents and refine them as a team, making sure we were all happy with the work before it was submitted.